THE birth of the Scottish Professional Football League descended into an absurdly painful labour as SPL and SFL clubs bickered for 15 hours before finally delivering the new, single governing body.

What had been expected to be a relatively simple rubber-stamping of decisions taken by the lower-league clubs on June 12 – to end the 123-year-old SFL and get into bed with the SPL for a new start – turned a day of exasperating meetings, briefings, adjournments, conspiratorial conversations in corridors, and club representatives shuttling from one room to another or leaving Hampden altogether only to return hours later.

The problem was the view among Division Two and Three clubs that they were being asked to sign up to a deal without the SPL having provided all the financial information they had been waiting for since May.

They felt the SPL had been deliberately withholding key contractual and financial details which prevented them from performing the due diligence necessary to commit to the SPFL.

The SPL denied withholding any information, but SFL representatives were scathing about being made to wait for hours to get information they could have had weeks ago.

Only when lawyers had satisfied the SFL representatives on all their points of concern could the new body be formally created, after 11pm.

And only then could the SFL clubs resign their memberships and apply to – and be accepted by – the SPL, which will be reconstituted as the SPFL for all 42 clubs.

And only after all of that could nominations be considered for the new nine-man SPFL board.

Just short of midnight, it was confirmed the board were Celtic's Eric Riley, Duncan Fraser of Aberdeen, Dundee United's Stephen Thompson, Les Gray of Hamilton, Alloa's Mike Mulraney and Bill Darroch of Stenhousemuir.

They will be joined by a chairman – tipped to be Ralph Topping, who holds the role with the SPL – one non-executive director and a chief executive, likely to be the SPL's Neil Doncaster.

At more than one point in a fraught day of talks there were suggestions that the 20 clubs in the bottom two divisions may pull the plug on the whole thing, finding it impossible to risk the financial stability of their own clubs without due diligence being performed.

There were counter-threats that the current Division One clubs would react by splitting to join with the top flight for an SPL2. There were suggestions, too, that some of what had been agreed to by the lower-league clubs on June 12 had been subtly altered: until it was changed back, they would not agree. The SPL denied withholding any information.

And so the talks went on and on, inching towards a settlement. The SPL and SFL boards met separately, then informed their member clubs, then the boards met again to seek more information from the SPL lawyers.

All 42 clubs were due to gather again at 7pm, but many of their representatives stood around until being called in just before 10pm. If it was a revolution, it was done at a glacial pace.

What they were all attempting to reach full agreement on, of course, was the delivery of four divisions to be called The Premiership, The Championship, League One and League Two, all under the one governing body called the SPFL. A new financial distribution model and the introduction of play-offs for the top flight were the key selling points.

After 15 years apart the SPL and the SFL were never going to get back into bed together without some raw emotions and tension, of course.

The idea of a single league body had been championed for years. The anxiety, distrust and regret of trying to deliver it was evident all through yesterday, into talks which limped on beyond midnight.