BILLY BREMNER MEMORIAL JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN
Date: 2nd August 2024
(Photo:@Homesoffootball)
Next Wednesday afternoon Maree Todd, Scottish Sports Minister, as just a small part of her weighty Health Portfolio, will chair a football meeting that has the potential to start a genuine process of change for the better right across our game and with potential long term positive impacts across communities that need long term positive impacts.
Or maybe it will all be bollocks and just the ‘same old same old’ and just be a one-meeting road to a solution I’ve called called ‘Escondido’.
But I’m an optimist.
This first meeting is historic and could be really seminal.
That depends on the contributors.
It is all a direct outcome and Scottish response to Tracey Crouch’s cross-party, Westminster-supported movement in England which after the recent King’s Speech is well down the tracks to establishing an Independent Football Regulator in a game where the top, in the constant rush for more cash, has forgotten many of the things that made it special in the first place.
The reality is those who run the game south of the wall are not willing partners to any kind of enforced change and have long lobbied hard with any and every weapon they can muster.
The money they have spent on lobbyists alone would fund a huge grass roots regeneration up here.
Scottish football shares the same issues.
Yes, some are writ larger some writ smaller but it’s fair to say there is equal opposition from our well paid governance pyramids in Caledonia to any kind of increased transparency and openness and to be frank, any kind of external scrutiny is totally anathema.
The first wave of protest predictably fed a few months back into our own Holyrood lobbying system and was about extra costs in our already impoverished yet also simultaneously ‘perfect’ football eco system.
Aye right. (Yes, I know, he used to play for Celtic)
The Scottish Football Supporters Association, that’s us, has been aware of Tracey’s move for change in England since long before Covid and when you talk about it, it is amazing to see how a reset could future-proof our game too by strengthening our roots, all our roots.
It’s that simple.
It all got us thinking because although it is a no-brainer, there are historic, well-dug-in hurdles from countless, unpublicised meetings in dark rooms in Park Gardens and then on the 7th floor.
So.
To quote one of my heroes, Lord Rutherford of Nelson, “We didn’t have much money so we had to think”.
The famous Kiwi scientist was trying to split the atom for Britain in a crucial 4 way race against the Russians, Germans and Americans.
That was a big job.
But so is ours collectively.
And without Tracey’s resources down south we bloody well had to think.
So we did the research.
And you know what, lots of people in our game, no lots of people deep in our game cared enough to give of their time and insight free.
Thank you everyone.
We will use you all again, hopefully.
You have been instrumental in opening up the debate right across football and by doing so have allowed us to produce our ‘Review of the Game’ which has been both launched and debated in Holyrood.
I am not dissing it when I say, none of it’s contents is rocket science.
It’s just really a combination of good business practice with an old proverb.
‘If a jobs worth doing it’s worth doing well’.
Last week in Sting I shared the 15 things ‘Review of the Game’, says our game needs to do and the 22 ‘Main Recommendations’ of how to do them.
They are both appendixed again at the bottom.
Reactions in My Post Bag/ Fan Cynicism
I’m going to share some of the replies from a few of you and then explain why ‘Sy and Trummy’ are now firmly front of mind in Sting this week.
Peter, an old pal who I played against in the East of Scotland League, said Andy, “It’s all good but the devil is in the detail. These guys are past masters at fixing the deck in their favour”.
Richard, a long term contributor pointed out “Both the SFA and SPFL will just ignore, sideline, or tell you they are already doing everything fine as it is, so move along”.
Margaret, whose husband was a Board Director of a Premier Club said, “I guarantee Andy they’ll find a way of telling you it’s all happening already”.
Surgeon John said, “If you can achieve one thing that they have to change, then let it be transparency.
Real transparency.
Shine a light Transparency.
And the next thing would be fairness and your weekly plea for ‘common good’.
Then throw in some shared vision”.
Isla said, “ Your only chance Andy is for politicians to threaten to cut off the funding and to get ‘in their faces’ more”
And finally Ronnie from Paisley who is a massive Rangers and Inverness fan, (yes you can be both if you’re of an age),
“Andy the elephant in the room will be the £100M Plus cost to taxpayers plus from the gross mishandling of our 2012 problems and the current SPFL silence about ICT is deafening”.
And that’s Why We Need a Campaign Song
And one based on the old adage “If a job’s worth doing it’s worth doing well” is just what we all need.
T’aint what you do it’s the way that you do it, that’s what gets results.
The genius of James ‘Trummy’ Young and Sy Oliver gave us much more than a Fun Boy Three and Bananarama post punk reworking.
Trummy and Sy were essentially pre-warning our Round Table on Wednesday 7th August .
Ticking self-designed, self-interest boxes and marking your own homework is simply not good enough now and into the future.
Football is Everyone’s Business
Doing the right things for the future of Scottish Football needs more,.
S
o back to the song because Sy and Trummy have it all covered.
T’aint what you do
– it’s the way that you do it
– it’s the time that you do it
– It’s the way that you bring it
– It’s the way that you swing it
– It’s the way that you sing it…
… That’s what gets results
So let’s judge the outcome of Wednesday on the
Whats?
Whens?
Hows?
Communication?
Community Involvement?
There should be serious press and media interest but the Olympics are on and football is really only ever dominated by gossip and the ins and outs, rather than thinking through the real stuff.
It’s easier to get 4 page ecstatic coverage about an 18 year old loan signing from a foreign club happy to get rid of him than real questions designed to give fans the truth.
Whatever happens I’ll update you in next week’s Sting.
Andy’s Sting in the Tale
1. EuroTrash
2. Landing a New Owner?
3. Can Beggars Be Choosers
4. It Won’t Happen Overnight?
1. Doomsday Coefficients
We have Rangers in a very tough tie against Dynamo Kyiv away at Lublin, Poland on Tuesday 6th with the home leg at Hampden a week later.
The substantial prize of a revamped Champions League income stream ups the ante somewhat for both teams.
And in then second league down and an impossibly long list of teams I’ve mostly never heard of we have drawn a couple of Norwegian opponents.
Killie play Tromso on Thursday and St Mirren are home to Brann on the same night.
Both opposing clubs are well into their seasons and match fit and honed.
We’re not.
I personally hate the coefficients that when all is said and done, just means the big guys harvest the most revenues.
But I’ve never heard or read the SFA say anything about that.
2. Did Anyone Say Freeport?
I’ve been a Caley fan since I was very wee, they were my Highland League side, my wee team.
And years later when Ross Tokely scored in a cup match at Tynie I knew ICT were more than that. They were my big club.
I’m now a worried ICT fan.
Let me say, I have no inside track on this, just instinct, but what’s going on up there right now deeply concerns me.
It’s long been a sorry tale.
The facts are the club was being run beyond its means over a long period of time and that is criminal in itself.
As a direct result it is now in a situation where it has to find enough revenue to keep it afloat.
The previous board and management had long failed to right-size the club and after the chairman departed over some nonsense about ‘Battery Storage’ 3 miles away, and a hated Chief Exec and a ‘Kelty training ground wheeze, the club were suddenly up for sale broken and the fans withholding season book money.
A nasty combination.
From a distance.
The club don’t own actually their land but have a nearly 100 year lease from Highland Council and the stadium is on newly designated ‘Freeport’ land.
In fact it is a prime site.
Probably valuable to the right developers.
I don’t know Ketan Makwana.
He is the likely new owner.
He is not rich like Joe Lewis whose yacht I saw in Arran this week.
I don’t think he is even smidgeonly rich like Craig Whyte was in reality, and certainly doesn’t have ‘wealth off the radar’ to use the ironically funny ‘Daily Record’ parlance.
So right now the reality is everyone is waiting to see what happens.
And thanks to Graeme for sending me a couple of scary quotes from Ketan Makwana in today’s Inverness Courier.
“I appreciate that everyone wants to understand exactly what’s been bought, how it is being bought and how much for but at this time we are still in a very delicate period of the negotiations for the deal itself and the structure of it. We also understand the precarious nature of the club’s financial situation and any such delay to concluding the contract could result in the possibility of an insolvency. Both sides are conscious of that.
The ground can be a hotbed of and for Events, Activities, Entertainment and Leisure”.
If I was still a season book holder I’d be supporting the youngsters but paying per match and watching everything very closely.
None of it smells right.
– An out of the frying pan bad dream.
3. Finding the ‘Right’ Sponsors
I’ve been told ‘Gambling addiction suicides’ happen about every few weeks in Scotland mostly to young males.
Yet three of our clubs and our leagues think normalising gambling to their mass audiences is ok.
I salute our women’s League for eschewing dodgy sponsorship linkages.
Dirty money.
4. Start at the Bottom and It Will Boom
I was delighted to see how many women will be at the Roundtable next Wednesday.
Our review was on the Men’s Game but Women’s and Girl’s football needs to be a core part of anything and everything to do with football going forward.
In time our women’s game will generate its own revenues and find its own place and one day we’ll look back at just what it took for Jen Beattie and her team mates to fight for parity for the international team’s status.
If you’ve been on the moon, they were taking the SFA to a tribunal and it was finally agreed not to proceed at the tribunal entrance.
Writing that, I also think back to what my hero Rose Reilly had to go through just to play the game she loved and that drives me to see that we should be focussing harder right across the women’s game.
But most importantly.
The future for all our game starts with the youngest level.
Girls and boys.
That’s where we get new players and fans for life.
That’s it from me again this week.
Enjoy real football in some gambling company’s leagues this week good luck to Rangers, Killie and St Mirren next week.
Feedback and wee stories always welcome.
Andy’s Album of the week
The Road to Escondido : Eric Clapton and JJ Cale
What happens when two giants from two different planets come together as friends and produce an album dedicated to a ‘hidden’ place?
Their together place.
One giant probably the finest guitarist we ever produced from his angrier Yardbirds and John Mayall days through Cream to the present day.
And put him in a studio with the most laid back and shyest guitarist from Oklahoma and we have an album that works on so many levels.
No wonder it won a Grammy for Best Album.
I started it as background muzak today but soon turned it up and I keep stopping and listening.
I hope it is a sign and that our meeting on Wednesday is the first unified steps on the road to somewhere.
El camino a alguna parte
SFSA Fan Led Review Research Conclusions
IN PRINCIPLE, SCOTTISH FOOTBALL NEEDS TO DO 15 THINGS BRING ABOUT SYSTEMIC CHANGE:
01 Improve the product, build the brand, and better market itself in order to attract more income.
02 Increase the level of competition between all clubs, and in particular the Premiership.
03 Produce better quality players by nurturing youth development, with a fully funded Scotland-wide youth and elite strategy.
04 Develop a fairer distribution of resources.
05 Nurture the whole game from grassroots to elite levels for both sexes.
06 Maintain a full pyramid system in which every club can find its level.
07 Be accessible and welcoming to everyone, especially those who can least afford it, with a particular emphasis on tackling inequalities as a barrier to participation.
08 Improve the player and fan experience by improving the game’s infrastructure.
09 Recognise fans as the lifeblood of the game and a key source of revenue.
10 Ensure fans can have an ownership stake and a strong voice in how their clubs are run.
11 Ensure the longer-term vision for the women’s game is seen as a priority.
12 Ensure that fans have a strong input into how the game is structured and governed.
13 Change the game’s culture from short-termism and narrow self-interest to seeing the bigger picture.
14 Achieve a root and branch reform of the governance of the game, with a remodelled SFA and a democratic means of working for the SPFL.
15 Work with Scottish Government and with other sports to create one of the healthiest and fittest nations in the world.
SFSA FAN LED REVIEW RECOMMENDATIONS:
01 A new Independent Regulator for Scottish Football should work with the football authorities in order to effect change.
02 Following the proposed plan in England, it would be wise to liaise and collaborate closely with the regulator there concerning financial sustainability for the professional game. 16
03 The Independent Regulator for Scottish Football should oversee financial regulation in football. There are several options for doing this which our initial research has identified.
04 Drawing on lessons from the new Independent Regulator for English Football, new owners’ and directors’ tests for clubs should be established by replacing the existing procedures and ensuring that only good “potential custodians” and qualified directors can run these vital assets. It is important to ensure that no cross-border loopholes exist.
05 Scottish football needs a new approach to corporate governance to support a long-term sustainable future for the game, with a truly independent Scottish Football Association released from the conflicts of interest that restrict its current modus operandi. It is imperative that the Independent Regulator acts to develop a board structure which allows the game to attract appropriate external expertise onto the SFA Board.
06 Business moves forward at significant pace, and football is still coming to terms with concept of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) which has been developed in other sectors some 20 years or more. There is a huge opportunity here for Scottish football to embrace the most recent innovations by being one of the first sporting bodies to facilitate the development of a comprehensive Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) strategy. Investors are increasingly applying these non-financial factors as part of their analysis process, in order to identify material risks and growth opportunities. If the Scottish game is looking for a route to attract new investment, this will be the key to securing the right type of sponsorship and commercial opportunities.
07 The Independent Regulator should be charged with the development of an Annual Football Review, gathering information and performance data from all the component parts of the game in its capacity as an oversight authority. This Annual Review will be part of the ESG strategy and will be the starting point for delivering openness and transparency to the game, as well as providing a marketing tool for appropriate sponsors.
08 As uniquely important stakeholders, supporters, players, coaches /managers and referees should be properly consulted by the SFA and SPFL in taking key decisions.
09 There needs to be recruitment of a suitably qualified and experienced board level Marketing Director, charged with increasing audience participation and driving external revenues. We are pleased to see steps have now been taken to implement this.
10 The retention of the football pyramid and fair distribution of resources is vital to the long-term health of Scottish football. The Premiership should guarantee its support to the pyramid and make proportionate contributions to further support football development at all levels.
11 The antiquated and undemocratic process of ‘procession to office’ of the President of the SFA should be removed and replaced with a fair voting structure whereby both clubs and season ticket holders can vote for nominated candidates from both inside and outside football. Continued… 17
12 It is critical that women’s football should be treated with parity and given its own dedicated review.
13 As an urgent matter, the welfare of players exiting the game needs to be better handled – particularly at a young age. There is a need to improve the way children and young people are treated. This is a matter of some concern to the Children’s Commissioner in Scotland at the present time. As an example the signing of players aged nine and releasing them two years later is damaging to the children and to schools and grassroots football too.
14 A Football Futures Fund should be created, to enable a small percentage of revenue from Scottish cup finals and Scotland international matches to be invested in the fund annually, like the much-heralded Norwegian Oil Fund model. This is about the revenue generated by fans, and it will therefore need to be a managed fund (by a reliable investment house) which generates annual returns.
15 The SFSA is keen to work with the Independent Regulator, the SFA, and the SPFL to develop an annual sustainability index of Scottish football clubs.
16 Evaluation of club licensing protocol processes should be reviewed, to see where some of these other appropriate considerations can be woven into their requirements.
17 There should be a Coaching Performance Review, whereby all C License (and above) coaches are monitored and evaluated every two years. Consideration should be given to a traffic light system, so that poor performers can be demoted or held in abeyance until performance improvements are met.
18 An annual review of the financial health of the game, developed from the previous Fraser of Allander Institute reports, should be commissioned and the results shared publicly.
19 A Fans Charter should be developed by the SFSA, working with the SPFL, and it should be ensured that this becomes part of SFA club licensing criteria.
20 There should be a regular review of the club licensing plan, to ensure that it is open, transparent, and aligned to wider football objectives.
21 The SFA should develop an alignment plan with all the other key stakeholders in the game, including the SYFA, the SJFA, the SAFA and the Scottish Schools FA, ensuring that the whole game ties into the new national vision for football.
22 Fans contribute over 50% of the revenue to our game. This should be recognised not just though having input on decision making but through the support for maintaining the national fans association. A small percentage from the money football generates should be attributed to the national football supporters’ association, allowing for the growth of a sustainable democratic fans voice, as has been in operation in England for many years, enabling the independent Football Supporters Association there to be supported by the FA and the Premier League through a fans’ fund.
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