It's half time in our game at St Johnstone as I write this and the clock at the top of my screen says 6.50pm. I can do this because I'm sat in front of my TV with my iPad in my hand rather than being up in Perth like I would rather be. I couldn't go to the game because I work office hours in Glasgow and to make it to Perth for a 6pm kick off would be frowned upon by those employed to ensure the law of the road is obeyed. Especially with the ongoing works on the M80 upgrade and the latest fad of putting 40mph limits round miles of cones without workers.

It would be very easy to aim another kick at those that run the game in Scotland, but in this case I find myself on the side of the SPL. I'd rather miss going to the game myself and watch it on the TV along with all the other Celtic fans than actually go knowing that no one at home could see it - at least not without questionable online streams. Let's face it, that's what happened for our recent Scottish Cup Quarter Final match in Inverness when it too fell foul of UEFA's blackout rule.

For those not aware, UEFA have a rule that prevents domestic competition being broadcast live at the same time as the UEFA Champions League if there are teams from your TV country still in the competition. Since Sky & ESPN broadcast to the whole of the UK, the fact that England still have three teams in the Champions League restricts us badly.

But here's where the confusion comes. If our TV deal is the exact same deal as the English teams have, and our domestic competitions suffer the same restrictions even if all our teams are out and it's just the English teams left, why then don't we get the same cut from the Champions League money that the English teams do?

Now, I'm not suggesting that Celtic and Rangers deserve the same money as Man United and Chelsea. The way the money works in the tournament is the further you go and the more wins you get along the way, the more money you'll get. That’s fair enough, I completely agree that the money should be results based. However, there's also a multiplier that is tied to your country's coefficient. The higher rated your country, the more money you get per win.

Or to put that another way, if Celtic beat Arsenal we get less money than Arsenal get if they beat Celtic.

How is that fair on us? It's the same TV audience generating the money. We have to sit and watch the biased English coverage - nothing wrong with that as they're supporting their country's representatives - just as much as everyone else in the UK. If anything, Arsenal's achievement of beating us - a lower ranked team by UEFA's own measures - is less noteworthy than our achievement of beating them, yet their reward is higher.

The problem is perpetual as well. Arsenal can already afford better wages than us and so attract better players. They'll continue to win with the better players and so continue to get the bigger money in as they continue to be among the best in Europe. No one else can compete without outside interference - buyers from Russia, the US or the middle east for instance. And of course those buyers are more interested in the big leagues, so the problem snowballs.

So here we are, Celtic fans, paying money to watch our team on Sky Sports (and ESPN). Sky are using that money to help them buy the Champions League packages that UEFA in turn use to fill the coffers of the English teams - much more than our coffers - that they then reportedly use to offer the stars of Celtic's season like Izaguirre and Kayal wages we can only dream of.

The real issue is the power the big clubs have. The Champions League is in the format it is today because that’s the format the big clubs wanted. If UEFA even suggested changing things to try and balance the money properly, those clubs would threaten a breakaway to form their own European League. They’ve done it before as G14 after all. So maybe the stitch up isn’t UEFA’s fault. Maybe they’re as stuck with this setup as we are. Even if they have less inclination to try and get it changed.

Then there is UEFA's refusal to get involved in domestic matters when the SFA continue to go unchecked in their inability to run the game in Scotland in a transparent and fair manner...

But that's a story for another day.