Holyrood, Hampden and revisionism on season 19-20

While much of Europe returned to competitive actions weeks ago, Scottish clubs were today allowed to resume contact training for the first time since football was banned on 13 March.  For the last two weeks, players have been permitted to do socially distanced training only.

The Scottish Premiership, season 2019-29 is already subject of incredible revisionism, suggesting Celtic campaigned for the season to be abandoned and that, just as across Europe, we could have been playing football.

Celtic’s only interest on how the season concluded was that the Null and Void campaigners lost the argument, just as they lost on the field.  We were 13 points clear, a lead that was growing by the week.  Celtic wanted to play and win the title on the field.

It may well have been possible to finish the Premiership campaign, but after the care home and Nike debacles, the Scottish Government decided to err on the side of caution.  They made it clear to the football authorities from early in the crisis that the game would not be allowed a swift return to normal.

England resumed football three weeks after contact training was allowed.  On the same schedule, our game would begin in the middle of July, with all the costs of playing these games without income, and the need for each club to play three or four games a week to complete before the Uefa deadline of 4 August.

Notwithstanding the financial ramifications, if contact training in England was possible over a month ago it was possible here, but look to Holyrood, not Hampden, for that decision.