BILLY BREMNER MEMORIAL JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN
Date: 1st December 2023
(Photo:@Homesoffootball)
Today’s Sting title sounds like a Channel 4 film from the 80s.
The interpretation of football rules will always lead to discussion, disagreement, and controversy and VAR is just the latest layer and player.
So far at best it’s a mixed blessing, and a big thanks for taking part in our research which I talk about below in Sting and you’ll find in more detail on our web site.
The bottom line, in your opinion on VAR, is that yes we all want the correct decisions on the field but the sheer palaver and unwieldiness is reducing spectator enjoyment.
We all once thought that VAR technology was the future.
Yes it would have confirmed that the Russian linesman called it wrong in 1966, that Diego’s ‘Hand of God’ was simply Diego’s Hand, and that Arthur Montford’s raised voice declaring, “Penalty, Definite Penalty’, would have proved just to be Joe Jordan sinning for Scotland in 1977.
And yes, football will always be complex, but the VAR awarded PSG penalty this week suggested to me either gross incompetence or ulterior and maybe darker motives.
It’s not the technology, it’s just dumb equipment being operated by fallible humans.
What is further wrong is how it is set up to operate, how it is then operated i.e. competence and also whether it helps or hinders the ref.
Right now it seems to be failing on all fronts.
But technology can be too easy a scapegoat.
We all also saw the crucial late, late VAR award last week at Pittodrie and most fans and sportswriters think it was soft and said so and blamed VAR.
But it was the correct award.
We just think it was soft because years of conditioning have moulded us into thinking that way.
The fact is the defender didn’t have to pull his opponents jumper.
The more penalties are awarded for that the sooner it will stop.
Likewise, Pundits, mostly ex pros rather than ex referees, call out continually for spot awards when forwards deliberately run into defenders legs in the box and fall over dramatically and a little more expertly than Mr Cantwell last week in front of the Beach End.
The Dons fans didn’t know whether to laugh or boo.
The divers in football should all be booked for simulation but never are.
You may or may not know that the SFA has skin in the Football Rules game.
Serious skin and influence.
It comes from our historical, gifted in perpetuity, seat on the IFAB (International Football Association Board) and we will host the AGM in Glasgow in early spring 2024.
All 4 Home Nations have a seat each around this august table because of a post war deal when Fifa needed help.
And because of that we are a key part of the group responsible for the rules of football.
https://www.theifab.com/
Ian Maxwell, represents us and current decisions like the Sin-Bin trial in England are part of their ongoing process.
Philipe Clement the Rangers manager thinks ‘Sin-Bins’ will reduce football to a circus but they work well in Rugby and I’m open minded.
I’m less open minded about how well IFAB have done historically.
Have a look at England v Germany in ’66 or Celtic v Inter in ’67.
Great games but really quite different.
A much cleaner and more open game without the jersey pulling, penalty box nonsense and faked indiscretions.
Football is still a simple game and the IFAB have had a long time to get it right but they have not delivered a cleaner and better game than it was 50 years ago.
They have not been good enough.
I know Ian Maxwell reads Sting, so here, Ian, are five things Scottish fans, your stakeholders, think will improve the game and Glasgow’s AGM meeting is as good a time to start as any.
Stop the pulling and pushing in the box.
Stop all simulation, aka diving and fake injuries especially when in trouble.
Stop time wasting.
Simplify the hand ball rules especially in the box.
Simplify offside.
And thanks to all of you who wrote in following last week’s Sting and angry like I am about how football is no longer free for kids.
Many of you were unaware of the slip and shift to where we are and everyone including Henry McLeish who also wrote in thinks football should be free for all kids and schools football should be regenerated to meet whatever we want our game to be, and starting from 2024 and going way beyond.
Well yesterday Henry also chaired an initial meeting with people who run big grass roots clubs and leagues and we talked about the difficulties and challenges.
It is a buggers muddle and a mess right now and we’re letting kids down.
We talked about things like the very fact that Scottish football doesn’t value its grass roots, seems to forget that all our top players start off there and serially underfunds both the boys and the girls game.
Being constantly fixated with ‘finding pearls’ means elite football doesn’t treat kids well.
It’s a race to the mediocre as the number of academy kids who ever make it into our top teams demonstrates.
Look at the number of third rate mercenaries filling our shirts and under-delivering big time in Europe.
And the whole nonsense of the B Teams in the Imagineered ‘Conference League’ or the ‘re-imagineered “New Super Duper Conference League” with B Teams heading our way just confirms that if it is a choice between thinking things through and doing the hard work or “buying some magic beans and hoping for the best” then Football will , like Jack, always take the easy option.
Anyway, vision, proper vision is at hand.
Henry’s meeting at the old Scottish Office was positive and the outcome will initially be fact finding up and down the length and breadth of the country.
Knowledge is power and all that.
I don’t know where it will end up but our kids and future kids need more, and football has to wake up to concentrating more on growing itself bottom up rather than chasing ‘pearls’ or if you prefer “Jack’s magic beans” from football agents who in reality just can’t sell them on anywhere else.
The fans round the table during Henry’s meeting yesterday could see that and the need for common good.
Even if football, so blinded by years and years of club self-interest can’t.
This Week’s Sting
1. Good News on the Viewing Front
2. Our VAR Survey Results
3. From East End to Villa Park
4. A Plea to Uefa
5. Rights to Play?
1. Euros on Council Telly
The draw will take place in Hamburg tomorrow at 5 and is live on BBC2.
I hope we avoid Italy from pot 4.
I’ve just googled and found out that a year ago it was announced that the actual tournament in 2024 and the next one in 2028 is being shared between ITV and BBC so we’ll see both the group stages and the play-off rounds.
If that is true it’s great news and also includes the next world cup.
Nice to hear good news about Scotland teams being shown on Free to Air especially in a week where the 6 Nations Rugby started leaking its future view that the winter games league might be going behind a paywall.
Idiots.
Idiots who at £150 per brief for next year’s Calcutta Cup don’t understand the market and don’t deserve their fans.
Idiots intent on turning their game into an even more minority sport.
The whole area of National Teams and Free to Air needs political action and that for now means Westminster.
https://www.change.org/p/scotland-games-free-on-tv/c.
2. What You Think of VAR
In a statistically significant academic-led research programme of just over 2,700 verified responses from Scottish Fans:
95% think the length of time it takes to make decisions is an issue.
71% are confused by the handball laws and judgements
86% say VAR has reduced their enjoyment levels
85% think referee performances have actually worsened
66% would rather tolerate more incorrect decisions than the current match disruptions
92% of fans want goal line technology installed
80% don’t like assistant refs keeping their flags down at offsides
70% think match officials are now relying on VAR to make the decisions
56% want VAR to be scrapped immediately
3. A Long Chuck
Last week Raith travelled to East End Park in the Scottish Cup, had a great result on the pitch and were embarrassed off it when a fan threw a 2300 degree burning flare that damaged another fan’s jacket.
Nobody was hurt but that will happen in time.
And on Thursday Villa hosted Legia Warsaw.
The Polish fans have history and were ultra-restricted but still flare wars and other ultra-violence broke out.
Flares are an epidemic heading inexorably towards a pandemic if football doesn’t find a solution.
That starts with dialogue, including with ultras.
But dialogue is something football has never been very good at.
4. Palestine Asks Fifa for Help, Forlornly
In an open letter to Fifa the PFA (Palestine Football Association) have asked for Fifa’s assistance to uphold the 3rd article of its statutes by,
1 Condemning the attacks on hospitals, schools, places of worship and sports facilities.
2 Calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities as per the UN October resolution.
3 Urging Israel to end the blockade and establish humanitarian corridors.
4 Calling on the international community to end what UN experts classify as “apartheid” against Palestinians
The PFA highlighted the role football had in ending apartheid in South Africa and when Russia invaded Ukraine.
Our SFA didn’t comment and there is no mention of it on their web site
5. Playing On
This week there were reports that 2 male English Premier League players are playing on while under investigation for serious sexual offences and one EPL club boss who is accused of raping a 15 year old child some years ago.
In Scotland we have David Goodwillie, our very own convicted by Civil Court and Appeals Court, ex international, playing each week for Glasgow United, ex Shettleston Juniors.
Football is constantly failing women and I’m not surprised that in England the English Women’s FA are well down the road to splitting from the men’s FA.
Amicably enough but still a split.
Football would be in a better place if historically we had had more women in key roles in what was then just a men’s game.
If you haven’t signed for all Scottish games to be free to air please click on the site below.
https://www.change.org/p/scotland-games-free-on-tv/c.
Andy’s Albums of the Week
This week was first a choice between my 6 Pogues albums and then a short list of 2 that I couldn’t split.
RIP Shane McGowan.
I first heard the band as background ‘Muzak’ blaring out in the reception of a trendy London design agency in 1984 and had to ask who it was because I was well and truly ‘Pogued’.
The album back then was ‘Red Roses for Me” and the track blaring out was ‘Transmetropolitan’, not their best track or even the best track on that album but The fusion of Punk and Irish just worked and HMV had a very happy customer later that day.
I regret I never saw them live in their heyday but two of their albums still blow me away.
‘Rum Sodomy & The Lash’ with a title stolen from Churchill, “Don’t talk to me about Naval Tradition. It’s nothing but rum sodomy and the lash”.
And ‘If I Should Fall From Grace From God’ an unlikely title from an Irish influenced group of mayhem makers but a rollicking soundtrack to any blog.
Shane didn’t write ‘The Band Played Waltzing Matilda’.
The anti-war anthem was crafted by Eric Bogle originally from Peebles, but Shane’s version as the close to “Rum Sodomy’ is breath-taking and he made the song his own.
And finally ‘Fairy Tale of New York’ will finally be number one with no Pesky `Pet Shop Boys’ about.
Thanks Shane.
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