St Johnstone have been a managerial proving ground in recent seasons. Owen Coyle did a great deal of good work without achieving promotion to the SPL, but his two years there managed to sufficiently impress Burnley that they tempted him south. The people of Burnley were probably as surprised as the rest of us when Own led them to the FA Premier League but five months into the season he jumped ship to Bolton Wanderers.
Coyle kept Bolton up in 2010 and again in 2011 but they slipped from the league last summer. Poor form in the Championship soon turned sentiment against the manger and he was relieved of his duties in October.
Derek McInnes followed Coyle at St Johnstone and brought them into the SPL in his first full season but 15 months ago, after being touted for several jobs in England, he left for Bristol City, who, bottom of the Championship, sacked him today.
Steve Lomas is St Johnstone’s current manager and the latest to impress clubs south of the border offering larger pay-packets. He would be foolish to accept a job from a struggling club who have sacked their manager mid-season. As we have said several times before, managers receive a great deal of credit or blame but the success of a football club is infinitely more dependent on the entire structure of the club.
St Johnstone’s structure is just fine. The same is true of Inverness, where Terry Butcher decided to stay this week, as well as Ross County and Motherwell. The city clubs, Aberdeen, Hibs, Hearts, Dundee United and Dundee all churn through seasons as compulsive underachievers. If they were able to do something about this fact our league would be the envy of most.
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Ten Men Won The League
08:35 on
13 January, 2013
Great to see Lenny invited to a 2 day managers seminar by host Alex Ferguson.Guardiola + Mourinho also in attendance #kudos
…………..
Aunt Sally wants to know the names of those in attendance.
Does anyone know for certain what the odds were for Celtic to beat Inter in 67. I spoke to a guy years ago who told me he got 5/1 on the day of the game. However yesterday I was shown a picture of the betting as it appeared on the wall of John Banks the bookie. Its got Celtic and Inter both at 10/11 to win the cup, with Inter 5/4 and Celtic 6/4 to win in 90 minutes. Banks must have know more than most just how good the Lisbon Lions were, if its real.
hh
Gordon@ 9.59
Laughed at that one!!!
Charles Kickham
Where are you based?
Lazy journalism again at the BBC – ‘Belfast Council has a nationalist majority’.
No it doesn’t – the Alliance Party holds the balance of power – hence they brokered the compromise of flying the ‘fleg’ on designated days.
Most English people wouldn’t know or care how often the UJ is flown but then they’re probably not ‘British’ enough for the loyalists.
Good piece by Andrew Smith in Scotland on Sunday today, presenting Peter Lawwell’s view of League Regionalisation. http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/spl/peter-lawwell-wary-of-crossing-borders-1-2734704
The matter of who drives change is critical. There is a possibility that in letting others make the running, we find that they have run away. For example, Holland and Belgium merging their top leagues, the Scandinavians doing the same, while we find ourselves scratching our bum looking on, isolated, as there is no appetite for something similar in England.That would be an appalling failure.
Smith also quotes our old pal Campbell Ogilvie who says that while the SFA is broadly supportive of the idea and ‘would sanction it’, they wouldn’t want to be party to talks.
Forehead. Of. Astounded.
A Euro Regional League in which the national FAs each hold a share in addition to the participating clubs would provide each FA with a share of the profit from central revenues, providing immediately a mechanism to share the financial benefits of the new set up with those many clubs remaining in national leagues. It’s the one thing that turns the issue from self interest to one of collective betterment.
But SFA “wouldn’t want to be party to talks”.
Please don’t start saying that… or I’ll start believing you
midfield maestro
07:39 on 13 January, 2013
Sorry,mate.
Couldn`t get back.Life intervened.
Oz choices?
South Sydney is where the real midfield maestro lives.
Don`t hesitate to get back in touch if you wish.
TBB
party fears 2..
Quote……
Most experts still think a return to full-scale violence is very unlikely. “The big deal has been done. I shouldn’t underplay how bad the flag thing is, but it is a bagatelle,” says Paul Bew, professor of politics at Queen’s University, Belfast.
“It’s giving great pleasure to Catholics because the Protestants have lived up to cretinous stereotype.”
That about sums it up.
Morning Celts just back from walking the dog along the beach, very calm on the sea with loads of small fishing boats out, sun creeping through the light cloud cover to the south but dark and ominous looking to the north over Cumbria and the lakes.
Meanwhile my sons been whingeing about 36c during his breakfast on the gold coast of Aus.
Life in the slow lane CSC
:>)
TBB
Hope all is well with you….
I am writing this from stormy seas mid Atlantic believe it or not !
The regionalisation you speak of, and Peat’s bluster reminds me of the time when a CQN’r came close to being appointed CEO of the SFA……onlt for the aformentioned Peat to have an impact and prefer a former oldco player with no relevant experience or initiative for the role….
Interesting to see regionalisation now firmly on the agenda…although I do recall PL’s view was that a Scandi / Low Countries / Celtic combine was a Frankenstein Monster with limited appeal……
60 million + TV audience might suggest different…but sadly any initiative unlikely to come from SFA, as it would have…..
Re the flag rioters, perhaps we should redesign the flag with just Scotland, Wales and England being the components, let them fly that if they want.
Marrakesh Express @ 10 59.
Just asked my Inter supporting neighbor that question [ a guy who walked 30 km to watch the game on tele ]
He said that in Italy ,Inter were red hot favorites but the odds on Inter winning increased considerably with the news that Jair and Suarez would not be playing.
Top popster the Blantyre Tim
Burnley
I’m sure we’ve talked before about the dangers of mixing good beer with inflatable dinghies. Did the Jinky episode teach you nothing?
Yip, I think we’ll look back on Wiggy’s time at the SFA and realise how bad an appointment it was. From Licensing breaches to backsliding on offensive behaviour, he was a preened anus of a CEO.
Enjoy the rollers meantime.
Sally’s interview in Scotland on Sunday is interesting. He reckons The Rangers in England wouldn’t get straight into the EPL (no whatsit, Sherlock). But here’s what he says:
“Starting at the bottom in England would be the only way we could do it,” said McCoist. “I can’t sit here and moan about sporting integrity and then try to go straight into the Premier League.”
But you wanted your new club to go straight into the SPL. Then tried to join at the first division level, didn’t you?? And jumped the queue when not meeting the criteria to enter the third division?
As well as a failed comedian the man is a hypocrite.
Gordon_J backing Neil Lennon 11:32 on 13 January, 2013
Sally’s interview in Scotland on Sunday is interesting:
“Starting at the bottom in England would be the only way we could do it,” said McCoist. “I can’t sit here and moan about sporting integrity and then try to go straight into the Premier League.”
Very enlightening. He is beginning to get a grasp of what sporting integrity means but clearly does not associate it with SPL/SFA/SFL
Parkheadcumsalford
09:14 on
13 January, 2013
Morning all. Dark and very wet here.
I see the BBC nationally are spinning the “protests” in the north as trouble between the Republicans and Loyalists. This even permeated Radio 4′s Sunday programme. It is all because the Protestant working class are poorer than the Nationalist areas, according to them. That outrageous lie was disproved on CQN during the week. Andrew Marr’s show is going to interview Robinson. Why don’t they simply say: the Protestants’ working class are now experiencing democracy at work and they don’t like it one little bit.
The violence will ultimately result in a fatality.
I wonder just how exactly how many British local authority headquarters like Blelfast City Hall slavishly fly the Union Flag seven days a week, fifty two weeks a year.
To allow the fleg to flay on only 18 occasions or whatever really does seem a bit mean to me. I suggest that, as a gesture of goodwill, this is increased to 180 with the tricolour being flown on remaining days. Seems fair to me. :-)
Headtheball
11:59 on
13 January, 2013
To allow the fleg to flay on only 18 occasions or whatever really does seem a bit mean to me. I suggest that, as a gesture of goodwill, this is increased to 180 with the tricolour being flown on remaining days. Seems fair to me. :-)
Sorry. Situation s potentially too dangerous for facetiousness.
quonno
Lighten up. I’m from the city and have suffered plenty from the troubles over the years. A little humour doesn’t hurt.
TBB
IF Celtic could negotiate a situation ,where they would be able to compete in the CL qualifiers each season,whilst joining at entry level of English football.
Then we have a goer.
Any suggestions on how they would build such a proposition?
A67
Burnley78
What are your views of the Magners/ Celtic deal?
A67
south of tunis
say thanks to your inter supporting neighbour for that info. I knew Suarez was unfit but forgot about Jair.
Headtheball
12:08 on
13 January, 2013
quonno
Through a long family connection with Belfast I have a passing knowledge of how things work, and have worked there in the past.
I do not know if you are old enough to remember much about the mid 1960s.
Along with the upsurge of the civil rights and the murder of barman Peter Ward, a manufactured row, by I. Paisley, similar to today’s over the flying of a flag (a tricolour in the Divis Street area) contributed to the outbreak of mayhem that afflicted the city for the next thirty odd years.
•-:¦:-•** -:¦:- sparkleghirl :¦:-.•**• -:¦:-•,
Indeed. Like the so called loyalists in Ireland he believes that the rules should be whatever suits his side. It’s that built in superiority thing that means he doesn’t even see the irony.
Sporting Integrity
A football assoc and its members making a decision as to their future and the future of the national game while considering the interests of each member on an equal basis
Sounds fine to me …
According to twitter QPR have tabled an offer for our Aussie Bhoy ……
“QPR have tabled a firm $700,000 offer for in-demand Central Coast Mariners star Tom Rogic in a bid to spirit him away from Celtic.”
V
As the wifes laid low, I’m off to prep Sunday lunch ooooh erm help ma boab!
V
Queens Park Rangers has tabled a firm $700,000 offer for in-demand Central Coast Mariners star Tom Rogic in a bid to spirit him away from Celtic.
A67
I don’t think that it is congruous to have teams playing lower league football and participating in European competition. If Scottish clubs were indeed to drop into the EFL 2 or Conference level, I think we need to acknowledge that European football goes. In such circumstnaces, we are really selling our legacy as one of Europe’s great clubs for a pop at becoming ‘Everton’ in 5 or 10 years time.
There are though other ideas out there. I put my thoughts down on this a while ago. At the risk of annoying those who read the drivel previously, here it is again:
Box Seat or Back Seat? Scottish Football’s Staging Post
Posted on October 12, 2012 by thebatteredbunnet
The SFA’s Professional Game Board met two weeks ago to formalise the process of reorganising Scottish football. This meeting coincided with a number of articles in the press on what they ought to be focussed upon, and what any new structures might look like.
My attention was drawn to an article in The Herald by Richard Wilson entitled: “Scottish football needs refreshing, revitalising and radical reform“
Wilson states as critical the issues of “how income is distributed among clubs, how supporters can gain a more influential voice, how to draw fans back to their clubs, and how to improve the general level of technical ability of Scotland’s young footballers.”
Absolutely! I thought. The game in Scotland needs all of these things, and I was keen to read some new ideas. What I read though was somewhat underwhelming, with a rehash of an earlier idea that resurfaced over the summer involving 2 leagues of 12, splitting into 3 leagues of 8 after two cycles of matches. A regionalised structure accommodating a ‘pyramid’ sat below.
Wilson’s piece followed shortly after a similar column by James Traynor in the Daily Record, where Traynor argued that a structure comprising 3 senior leagues of 14 teams was what we needed, again with a regional structure below. Traynor explains that this structure, or something like it, will: “.. allow the game to develop and strengthen. A model which is robust and takes into account the needs of the fans.”
Neither Wilson nor Traynor explains how or why their suggestions might enhance the game, address fan engagement, or improve youth development. In the rush to promote revised league structures that serve to reduce the number of divisions in the senior game, they fail to explain the advantages or the benefits that will follow.
On balance, these two proposals (and others like them) represent little more than rearranging the deckchairs when we need to change the direction of the ship. Principally: if we are going to refloat the game in Scotland we don’t need to redistribute revenue, we need more of it. Greatly more.
The problems that Scottish Football face in this regard are bound up in two key strands: firstly, the limitations caused by the relatively small size of the Scottish population and consequently its media market; and secondly, the diffident, parochial approach to managing the business of football in Scotland.
The Youth Development Challenge
Youth development is a topic sufficiently complex to deserve an extended discussion in its own right but, contrary to recent reports, Scotland is actually doing some very good things. The standard of player developing in and emerging from the SFA Performance level – so called Pro-youth League – is very encouraging, with such as McCarthy, Forrest and Goodwillie produced in recent years. If you want a look at an encouraging future, get along to Lesser Hampden or St Mirren’s Ralston complex or the University Playing Fields in Stirling or Aberdeen any given Sunday lunchtime. The level of skill and game awareness is streets ahead of the same age group 10 years ago, a generation that produced Champions League level players Darren Fletcher, Scott Brown and Aiden McGeady among others.
Moreover, the SFA’s appointment of Mark Wotte evidences the desire to further improve the process, while the introduction of the 7 Regional Performance Schools will make a welcome contribution to the highly effective Football/School partnerships established a few years ago by Celtic, Dundee Utd and other clubs. Added to Regional Football Centres, Performance Schools, and peer competition for elite players must be added Coach Education, a topic Wotte is expert on. Further improving the Youth Development process for elite youth players will in turn further improve the elite youth players developed, and we can look forward in the coming years to even better results than we’re currently achieving.
Despite the challenges, our problem is not so much in developing elite players – I believe that process is good and improving. Our problem is holding on to the players produced beyond age 21. While it is engaging to watch the progress of young players, it is frustrating to lose them before they have matured, and despite being a widely-heralded business model for our clubs, does little to change their financial fortunes.
When Aberdeen lost Fraser Fyvie to Wigan, their decade-long investment in developing him from age 10 was returned with only 58 first team appearances and a modest transfer fee (thought to be £500,000). Aberdeen simply couldn’t afford to offer him a wage comparable with that on offer from Wigan Athletic. For Aberdeen to have generated meaningful revenue from Fyvie, they had to hold on to him to age 24, trusting that by which time his talents would have matured, and the value they might have demanded may have been 10 times the £500,000 they received. To do so, they had to offer him a 5 year contract at perhaps as much as £6,000 per week.
In losing Fyvie so young, Aberdeen didn’t simply fail to fully valorise their youth development investment, they reduced the talent and potential in their squad. Developing players to age 21 might provide our clubs with a useful income stream, but it does not change the game for them.
In essence, youth development only translates into a substantial business model if the impact of the process is significant on both the performance of the first team and the prospects of the business. Aberdeen’s Fyvie experience, like so many others, served neither purpose.
Who’s next to head south for a song? McKay Steven? Russell? Young Ryan Fraser at Aberdeen? For as long as Scottish clubs develop EPL standard young players, the EPL will take them away as soon as the market rate for their wages exceeds the ability of the developing club to pay. For most SPL clubs, that is £2000 per week, with only Celtic now having the financial strength to stay in the game through to mid-20s. Indeed, Celtic’s business model is now predicated on developing talented players through the crucial period to 24 or 25 years old.
While Scottish Football of course can and will further improve the player development process, what the clubs need far more than that is the wherewithal to keep their hand in the game long enough to hit the meaningful pot.
If fan engagement is correlated with an exciting product on the park, brimming with quality and imagination, then we need to find the money to keep the kids we produce beyond their second season in the first team. We need more cash in the game.
The Cash Conundrum
With only 10% of the population of near neighbour England, Scotland does not represent a critical mass of consumers and thus the country is considered to be something of a marginal market – a sub-segment of the UK market as a whole – to the media companies that have driven the financial growth in English football. The same fate has befallen the countries bordering Germany and elsewhere. Where Sky has predicated its entire business model on capturing the English football audience, paying a breathtaking £2.3 Billion for rights over the coming 3 years, the best deal Sky has ever offered for the broadcasting rights of Scotland’s top tier was their slice of the £18M per season joint offer with ESPN last year. BT has followed in the footsteps of ESPN and Setanta before them, in paying huge sums – £750M! – for a small piece of the EPL action, while even the BBC presents EPL as de facto the National football league of the UK, paying 100 times more for rights to highlights than the equivalent deal for the SPL. 10% of the market is marginal territory, and spend is always concentrated on the core.
The same issue of sub-critical consumer mass is faced by clubs in Holland, Austria, Belgium, Portugal, Switzerland, Slovakia and pretty much every other footballing nation in Europe outside of the so called ‘Big Five’ nations. The relatively vast financial gravity of the top leagues in England, Germany and Italy draws the talent inexorably and is throttling even the best efforts of the smaller nations that surround them. There is no combination of Scottish senior league divisions and club numbers that changes the fundamental problem we face: In the modern TV market, we’re just too damned small to bother much about.
The smaller nations individually cannot compete with overwhelming market force, and therefore a new approach is needed. Either the smaller nations join their larger neighbours, or they collectively create a market of significance that cannot be marginalised by those media companies who want to use football content to drive business growth.
Historically, UEFA has been antipathetic to competitions that might compete with its own, and Article 49 of UEFA’s statutes gives it “sole jurisdiction to organise or abolish international competitions in Europe in which Members Associations or their clubs participate”.
However the marginalisation of Europe’s smaller nations is becoming ever more evident, and UEFA now recognise the problem as a ‘crisis’. Following the recent merger of the Dutch and Belgian Women’s leagues, Michel Platini is clearly warming to the concept of supra-national ‘domestic’ league football:
“We have to decide whether to allow two leagues to play together. At the moment we don’t allow it but in the future it’s possible that we will. There are many things to be considered. It has an effect on European competitions and it’s really complicated but there are crises in many countries and so there are leagues that fear for their existence. It is something that we need to consider.”
Interestingly though, this is not an issue strictly within UEFA’s remit. It is the National Associations themselves that are authorised, via their FIFA mandate, to “foster the game” in their country. UEFA doesn’t actually have a formal role beyond managing (and moreover, protecting) its own competitions in partnership with its member FAs. If the FAs of the Balkan nations decide the best way to deliver their purpose is to create a supra-national top league with Greece, Bulgaria and Romania, all UEFA could do is bar them from UEFA competitions, which really doesn’t do UEFA (or the game) any good in the long term. Consider though the quality of that league! It would be breathtaking if it meant the top players from each country were less likely to move abroad.
Interestingly, there is already a supra-national competition in Europe: the 16 team Baltic League comprises the top teams from each of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, with teams qualifying based on their national league position. Tellingly, UEFA hasn’t objected despite it being staged outside of UEFA’s jurisdiction. Platini himself suggested the merger of the Balkan leagues 3 years ago, while talks continue with a view to the merger of the Czech and Slovak domestic leagues. News this week from Croatia suggests a pan-Balkan League comprising the top teams from the former Yugoslav nations together with Hungary and Bulgaria may be ready to kick off by 2015 with UEFA’s blessing. Matters are accelerating.
Radical reform
The question now is not whether the regionalisation of European football will occur, but how it will be organised – and how quickly. To this end, there are two main flavours: smaller nations incorporating their top divisions into their near neighbours’; and the agglomeration of the top leagues of smaller nations into a single, multi-national top division.
Over the past 10 years we have seen various flavours of supra-national leagues emerge, from the original ‘Atlantic League’ comprising the top clubs from Scotland, Holland, Belgium and Portugal, to the hoary old chestnut of the ‘Old Firm’ somehow moving to the EPL. Both of these ideas though overlook the essential element of meritocracy that is at the heart of football. Whatever new structures emerge in the coming years, the pathway has to be open for ambitious and well managed clubs to reach the top.
To this end, there are some fairly radical ideas out there. For example, the idea of merging Scotland’s top league with the English Football League structure, let’s call it the BFL. The ‘Championship’ would remain as the top division, with two regional divisions of 24 feeding in: Division 1 North and South. The top 12 Scottish clubs would be elected into the North division in the inaugural year, together with 12 clubs from Northern England split out from the existing League 1 and 2 teams. Thereafter, promotion upwards and relegation back to the SFL and League 2 would be determined by league standing and play-offs.
In due course, successful Scottish clubs might find themselves promoted out of the Championship and into the Premiership. To my mind, Aberdeen would be a terrific EPL club, drawing upon the 450,000 people living in recession proof Aberdeen/shire, and the demand from the vast international Oil & Gas sector in the city for top class sport. The Edinburgh teams, the Glasgow teams, perhaps a reborn Dundee United, all playing against the top sides in the UK, with the promise of the same for those clubs below should they find the means on the park.
Off the park, with access to a true UK wide media market, the clubs can expect a levelling of the financial playing field as media and commercial revenues for the Scottish clubs start to catch up with those in England. It won’t happen overnight, but let’s look 5 years, 10 years ahead.
Looking at the alternative model, the agglomeration of the top divisions from multiple nations, a ‘Super League’ of 20 clubs, involving the top 3 or 4 clubs from Scotland, Holland and Belgium, with 2 or 3 from each of Denmark, Sweden and Norway makes sense at both a sporting level, and a macro-economic one. A weekend fixture list comprising such as Ajax versus Hibernian and Anderlecht versus Aberdeen is mouth watering, while competing clubs can retain their UEFA qualification status as now. At the end of the season the bottom placed teams from each country in the Super League will play off for places for the following season with the Champion club from the domestic league, or similar meritocratic approach. Thus with promotion from and relegation back to the top national divisions, the pathway is open for all clubs to aspire towards and reach the very top level, while interest in domestic football can be sustained by retaining the national Cup competitions. Provided enhanced broadcasting revenues are distributed downwards with the purpose to support and grow domestic competition, this model offers both compelling sport and compelling numbers.
The Numbers Game
Such a competition would present media companies with a consumer market of 52.6 million people and a GDP of €2.2 trillion. (GDP is used here as an indicator of consumer spending power).
This compares to England with 53 million population and €1.55 trillion GDP; Spain with 47 million population and €1.1 tn GDP; Italy 60 million population and €1.7 tn GDP; and France with 65 million and €2.15 tn.
In terms of consumers, only Germany with 81 million and €2.77 tn GDP would represent a larger, more lucrative media market than this suggested North Western European Super League.
Taking a media market critical mass of 40 million population and €1 trillion GDP, we can see that a Central European League along similar lines involving Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia gives a market of 42 million consumers with a GDP of €1.16 tn, bigger than Spain.
The issue of geography is often used to diminish such proposals, but we should be careful to note that the furthest distance travelled in our North Western League idea is the 680 air miles between Glasgow and Stockholm, comparable with Udine to Palermo, and less than half the distance from Barcelona to Gran Canaria, a regular fixture in Spanish football. Indeed, were Portugal to be brought into the Super League, the distance travelled from Glasgow to Lisbon would still be less than the Spanish teams trip to the Canaries.
Emerging Media
One of the fascinating aspects of this topic is the discomfort Sky and other established subscription broadcasters are feeling as new media and new channels emerge. In the UK, for example, the advent of the Freeview platform has provided national coverage for niche programming at highly accessible costs, and the opportunity to utilise it for Pay per View football has been closely considered by SPL as recently as this year. Moreover, as high speed broadband becomes ubiquitous, so the opportunity to utilise high definition broadcasting over the internet gets ever closer. Just as Satellite TV transformed broadcasting in the 1990s, so high speed fixed-line and mobile broadband is likely to do in the coming 5 years. Major League Baseball in the US already offers high definition MLBTV via internet subscription, described recently as “..one of the best mobile platforms of any entertainment network.”
Sky might be the big boy in European sports broadcasting today, but with a little less than £2 billion of total shareholders funds, it is somewhat dwarfed by Google with £38 billion and Apple with £68 billion. Sky can compete effectively with contemporaries BT, ESPN, Canal+ and Al Jazeera, but Apple and Google can buy and sell Sky before breakfast time. Apple have already dabbled with internet TV, while Google’s purchase of YouTube was not a mere whim. Delivering high definition, high demand content via the internet is absolutely on the Whiteboard of both companies, and the launch of Sky Go, providing Sky channels on demand via the internet for their satellite customers, indicates where Rupert Murdoch sees the market heading.
Leadership
The regionalisation of European Football will happen, indeed is happening. In that sense, it is largely down to national FAs in each European region to develop their own solutions, and perhaps this is where the real problems lie. We are by no means well endowed with Football Administrators that are able to take the long view. Indeed, the impression is that for many at Hampden Park, the most important issue is their own fiefdom, their own sphere of influence, and their own career.
The Administration that, charged with implementing Club Licensing, overlooked the financial disintegration of Rangers under David Murray and Craig Whyte is clearly ill-equipped to shape a radical future for the Game. From 3-points-for-a-win to goal line technology, the administration of the game in Scotland has preferred to sit on the fence, moving only after the rest of the world has jumped. If radical change is to happen, I suspect it will be driven by the clubs, not the SFA, irrespective of what Stewart Regan might say publicly. How will the SFA react to their top clubs coming under the jurisdiction of a British Football League or a European Regional structure? Poorly, I fear. Managing the self interests of half a dozen national FAs may be the greatest challenge of all.
We are at a seminal moment in Scottish and European football, where decisions taken now will shape the game for the next decade and beyond. The confluence of the recognised crisis in League football across Europe’s peripheral nations, UEFA’s openness to radical reorganisation, and the developing ubiquity of high speed broadband presents a truly unique chance to create a new structure for football in Europe, one that can seed the re-emergence of the great clubs of Europe’s football history, and provide a bulwark to the dominance of the ‘Big 5’. This last aspect is likely to interest UEFA as much as the others.
Richard Wilson in The Herald states that Regional European football “is unlikely in the short term”, and suggests a reorganisation of the domestic league structures instead. James Traynor in the Daily Record presented a variation on the same theme. While each of these suggested formats might have some merit in their own right, they don’t change the game, they don’t address our fundamental issues. Our singular challenge is to see what’s coming and to make damned sure we’re ready for it. Indeed, as one of the founding nations of football, the country that invented the modern Game, and which changed the European Football landscape in the 1960s and early 70s, it is surely incumbent upon us to lead the way.
Which brings us back to the SFA’s Professional Game Board. Will they choose the Box Seat and drive change in the game, or the Back Seat and watch on as the game in Europe changes without us? Gentlemen?
Post Script Jan 2012
It looks inevitable now that the 12-12-18 proposal will be adopted for the start of next season. Consider the deckchairs rearranged. The widely quoted benefit of “redistributing wealth” in the Game is, without a corollary substantial increase in gross revenue, essentially just redistributing poverty.
Meanwhile, Campbell Ogilvie is quoted by Andrew Smith today as saying that while the SFA would sanction the participation of Scottish clubs in a Regionalised League, the SFA “wouldn’t want to be a party to talks”.
That’ll be the Back Seat then…
ASonOfDan
12:24 on 13 January, 2013
‘Arry & QPR will be going about the transfer window with their usual scatter gun approach. Lots of bids, lots of nods & winks to the press, culminating with ‘Arry hanging out his car window on the 31st listing the mercenaries who are coming to save them. He is just on SSN just now saying he’s signing Livermore on loan from Spurs and was watching M’Vila last night at Rennes.
Celtic should not be pressured into making snap decisions on Rogic.
Neil Lennon did it with Bangura .
He needs to learn from his mistakes.
That being said ,the lad may be looking like the next Morten Weighorst in our training sessions.(:-)
TT
Tom English lets us know what Ogilvie has been doing at the SFA.
Green either does not know or has chosen
not to mention one salient point about the ECA’s invitation to Qatar and the point is this – the invitation was only extended to Rangers after the ECA contacted the SFA looking for guidance on their status. Last
August, Michele Centenaro of the ECA contacted the SFA and asked for an appraisal of the Rangers situation and whether they could be deemed the same Rangers as
before or a new company unworthy of acknowledgment from the ECA. The SFA’s response was unambiguous. Different corporate entity but same Rangers, same
history, same honours accrued over 140 years. Without the SFA’s support, you’d have to believe that Rangers would be nowhere near Qatar. Not that Green has acknowledged that fact. It doesn’t fit with the agenda. He’d much rather create the myth of Rangers being persecuted than admit the
SFA had backed them.
quonno
Yes, I was there through all of that and the horror which followed. The best thing I did was to get out in the early nineties. I’m now in a position where I can go back if I want but, honestly, it’s the last place I’d want to live.
Even though it’s been relatively peaceful these last few years, the wounds will take generations to heal. sad to say.
ASonOfDan @ 12:33
The SFA’s response was unambiguous. Different corporate entity but same Rangers, same history, same honours accrued over 140 years.
Read this this morning and was about to post. Sickening if true. Surely this cannot be right – become a new club but keep all the history / honours ???
Paul67, if you read this, this is surely the next campaign, or else it is a precedent to go bust, screw the creditors and the tax man, and come back in a year or two as ‘good’ as new???
If so, that’s me finished with Scottish football. All other punishments or consequences were temporary (lower leagues, transfer embargoes, fines) but end of a history is permanent. And the SFA are supportive and complicit … enough said !!
The Battered Bunnet
12:30 on
13 January, 2013
your drivel as you put it is a masterful tour de force of forward thinking.
if only someone is authority could be so smart.
excellent reading, and thought provoking.
I think Coisty should be allowed to start in the EPL. He would soon work his way down to the lower levels. Within 5 yrs they could be boasting about world record crowds for the Conference League.
love him or loath him, if i was romanov and reading that Rangers are the same club, i would liquidate the hertz before the end of the season, start again at the bottom, £30m debt written off , and be back in the top league in 2 seasons.
why not.