Neil Doncaster humiliated by Rangers cinch defeat and SPFL chief can't hold on much longer - Barry Ferguson

In the end, Rangers cinched it. There’s only one winner as far as I can see when it comes to this long-running sponsor rammy between the SPFL and the top brass at Ibrox … and it’s not league chiefs Neil Doncaster and Murdoch MacLennan. From the very start of this whole mess you could see Rangers had a point.

It’s in the rules that the league cannot force one of its members to comply with a sponsorship package if it would threaten that club’s existing agreements with its own backers. Quite why they decided to press on when Rangers had made their opposition to this deal clear on the basis they already had an existing tie-up with the chairman Douglas Park’s car business I’ll never know. They’ve now got the result they wanted all along, which is they will continue to get the prize money share they are due without ever having to iron on a cinch badge to their jerseys or display a picture of Rylan round Ibrox. To me, it looks like a humiliating defeat for the league and Doncaster, even if they’re trying to spin it the other way.

Doncaster has got a patchy record when it comes to his tenure.

This isn’t the first time he’s made a mess of handling these situations. In fairness to him, he’s the man left in the firing line no matter what he does. Whatever decision he takes, there’s always going to be someone who doesn’t like the end result and is happy to have a pop at him. But in this instance, Rangers definitely have a point which Wednesday’s announcement only underlines. And you can bet the board at Ibrox are not going to let up on this.

They’ve been pushing for regime change on Hampden’s sixth floor for years and after this victory, you’d imagine they’ll be out to pick another fight as soon as possible and heap