BILLY BREMNER MEMORIAL JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN
Date: 9th August 2024
(Photo:@Homesoffootball)
Maree Todd’s historic football ‘Roundtable’ happened on Wednesday 7th August.
21 people in a room from all areas and shades of Holyrood, from the top of football, from the fans, and also some facilitating civil service professionals.
Importantly our women’s game was well represented.
It was all prompted by the Tracey Crouch movement that we’ve talked about and watched from afar.
England will see an Independent Regulator installed by Westminster across English Football as the only answer to control the overwhelming and growing self-interest at the top.
Up north we, the SFSA undertook research and our report, ‘Review of the Game’ led to a Holyrood launch, a debate last January and now the newly established roundtable action group.
Last week I wrote, ahead of the meeting, that of course there are difficulties but that I am intrinsically an optimist and hoped that this first and quite unique coming together could, should and would be seminal.
I didn’t know where it would start, where it could lead and to be honest I still don’t, and neither does anyone else who was round the table last Wednesday.
No that’s not true.
We all left knowing we are on the road to somewhere but just none of us know exactly where.
But we’re on it and in it together and that is important.
Credit is due, The Minister and Ben Macpherson, MSP, had framed the agenda positively right from the start under an ‘Enhancing Scottish Football’ theme.
Maree, kicking-off the meeting rightly said everyone in the room wanted football to be as good as it could be and that collaboration rather than legislated governance was in her view the best way forward.
That set the tone.
I won’t go into all the detail in today’s Sting although I asked the ‘transparency’ question specifically and this and future meetings will be in the public domain.
So here is just a wee flavour.
Ian Maxwell was first, spoke well, praised the behaviour of the Tartan Army, praised the work this team at the SFA do and set the tone for the meeting beautifully.
‘Openness, doing lots of good things and a need for good/better communication’.
Neil Doncaster talked up last week’s whirlwind start to the SPFL season and the commercial benefits of a new Sky deal and also league sponsor.
For the SFSA Stuart Murphy talked up the good that already exists across our game, about the danger of the current ongoing, and widening disconnect from fans and the very real values independent scrutiny will bring.
Stuart finished saying Football in Scotland is Everyone’s Business, it is our national sport.
Our Henry McLeish focussed on the real health benefits football can deliver and said the major Scottish focus should be kids and that Scottish football needs a real and working youth strategy that works from the bottom up to the elite.
I spoke too, and highlighted that I played football Free as a kid and couldn’t do that today.
I also shared a special Rose Reilly message to the room.
“Be on the right side of history. Smash down all the barriers that this movement will face. Become a team”.
I told the room I felt the weight of the future on my shoulders because our game and everything connected with it depended on the right changes and finished by saying how I wished that this meeting had happened 25 years ago and how our biggest task is that common good has to take precedent over the inherent cancer of self-interest that goes hand in hand with our game.
Elephants in the Room?
Elephants aplenty.
We all knew that at any point the meeting could have descended to a situation dominated by any one or more of Scottish Football’s many elephants.
MSP, and well known Brora fan, Gillian Mackay noted for the record the Men’s game‘s sponsorship links with industries who harm communities but it was more a note for the future than an attack.
What Happens Next?
We now have a shiny, new, recognised, broad-group looking to ‘Enhance Scottish football.
That is a start.
It’s something where no simple or quick solution exists.
And it will take time.
I personally agree with Henry that kids football has to be given root and branch priority but there are 19 other voices to listen to and we need to work together.
Importantly though, we now have politicians, civil servants and stakeholders involved.
And it’s all in the public domain.
The next meeting will be held later this year with an agreed agenda and it reminds me of the very old “How do you eat an elephant joke”?
“In small, cooked pieces a bite at a time.
Again at this moment in time I don’t know the details but after a lifetime in business I do know there are always four ongoing things to do in any/every project/ business/ planning.
Andy’s Four Moving Action Points
1 Where are we now?
(Honest research and appraisal)
2 Where do we want to be/get to?
(Measured and ranked objectives set against investment criteria)
3 How do we get there?
What is the Strategy, then what are the costed Tactics. (And we must remain Rutherfordian in everything we do, i.e.: “We don’t have much money so we have to think”)
4 And finally how do we measure and update/review everything?
Andy’s Sting in the Tale
1. Late Late Shows
2. Kessock Land Grab?
3. Unfair Treatment? Yes, But It’s Complicated
1. All to Play For
We had Olympic style ‘synchronised scoring’ from our three teams in the various Uefa qualifiers this week with no gold medals but all to play for.
Rangers got their equaliser in the 94th minute and have set up a tough home tie but it’s theirs to lose.
Weather forecast for Hampden on Tuesday is 16ish and showery.
Killie should have won but the 92nd minute strike means they head to the north, of the north, of the north, of Norway next week and pundits better than me reckon they have a chance.
It will be circa 20 degrees, bright and light winds.
St Mirren were said to be lucky to get a 90th minute equaliser and now head to Bergen on the south west coast of Norway next week. Weather will be showery and 15 degrees.
Good luck to all three.
2. Watching, But Hoping, Helplessly, from Near and Far?
I wrote about ICT, my own club last week.
After years of mismanagement because of misplaced over-ambition their numbers were in a bad, bad way and indeed had been before.
But no rescuer was/is on the horizon this time.
Even with all the unbudgeted surplus from last year’s cup run the board and management were somehow placing their faith of survival on a couple of unrelated to football ‘deals’ and a relocation to Kelty.
All ‘moonbeams’.
(One day Charlie Bannerman will write a book about it all).
I don’t know the current detail but if I ran a club, any club, it would be ‘right-sized’.
That is the only future for any and every SPFL team.
Anyway.
The old board recently handed back the keys and put a ‘For Sale’ up.
Payroll was/is under threat and administrators poised to move in.
Hey Presto, a gentleman called Ketan Makwana turned up at the 11th hour.
He was/is the frontman for an operation called Seventy 7 and was at first painted by and in the media as a ‘superlative multi-millionaire entrepreneur’.
‘Money off the radar’ and other crap like that but some now don’t think he has two brass razoos to rub together.
Seems he might be a front man for a Monaco based pension fund who can see the land value of the site, a 100 year lease in a newly created Freeport.
Seems the same team with a different frontman tried to buy ‘The Shrimpers’, aka Southend United in late 2022.
Their chairman wouldn’t sell to them.
Thought they were asset strippers.
Our chairman in the Longman has left the building.
Now here is a problem.
There is no cavalry riding from down Raigmore hill or the 6th floor to the rescue.
What the land-flippers plan to do is currently legal because contested takeovers happen, administrations happen, and there are always losers.
And there is no rule that football clubs can hide behind to stop this asset strip and our ‘fit and proper’ tests are not really worth the paper they get printed on.
So, can the fans blame the current shareholders for getting something for whatever would be worthless shares?
No.
Can Highland Council find a way out of allowing the land to be flipped?
Land usage or something like that.
Ensuring it stays as a stadium?
I don’t know.
I hope so though.
Going forward, Is Seventy 7 better than the other likely outcomes, administration or receivership?
From where I sit I think that admin with a pre pack might be the easier options ,albeit horrific.
But at least that way the new club would be again in control its own destiny and could reset.
Maybe a fans ownership project.
And in time the club could pay all their creditors too.
But I don’t know all the facts and am just writing from afar.
As I said last week, it’s an ‘out of the frying pan’ bad dream.
3. I Can Enjoy a Beer at Murrayfield but Not Hampden or McDiarmid
I worked for Youngers back when our sponsorship was damaged by marauding fans at the cup final in 1980.
Rugby got caught up in the blanket ban but spectators can now enjoy a beer watching the games there.
We, the SFSA researched ‘alcohol at matches’ recently and the results might surprise you.
Heres is the question and answers.
Q. What is your opinion on alcohol at Scottish Football matches?
Alcohol should be available at all matches: 27% Yes
Alcohol should be sold at matches that meet specific criteria: 52% Yes
Alcohol should stay banned: 21% Yes
Digging into the figures fans don’t want alcohol at the matches where tensions can explode.
But the Tartan Army should be treated as adults and what’s wrong with having a beer at Lossiemouth v Strathspey Thistle?
This week the new St Johnstone owner is asking for alcohol to be available at matches like in rugby and in England.
Adam Webb, an Atlanta-based lawyer who took over the Perth-based club, last month, said legislation that let fans drink at rugby matches but not at soccer matches was “discriminatory” and should be phased out.
He thinks it is a major issue in what he plans to do with the Perth club, “One of the biggest things we need to work on is the beer sales policy,” Webb said. “There are so many irrationalities, it’s discriminatory and there’s no rationale to it. It’s like living with ghosts from the past and we need to move on.
Scottish football needs to keep and improve its place in the world by bringing in more resources,” he said.
“One way is making alcohol available for those who want to have a beer at the match. It’s part of the day-out experience — we need to make it more enjoyable because that’s what benefits everyone.”
That’s it from me again this week.
Feedback and wee stories always welcome.
Andy’s Album of the week
Solitary Man: Johnny Cash
After a lifetime of avoidance I’ve become a fan especially of his ‘American’ series from the end period of his life.
This particular album was third in that series and is a mix of some tracks from the past, some from quite unexpected sources and with great guest inputs.
I love the production.
It’s all stripped back to let his lifetime, aged and damaged voice, be what it is.
It shows his humanity and the track selection is superb.
Nick Cave’s ‘The Mercy Seat’, Tom Petty’s song and duet in an astounding ‘I won’t back down’, and Neil Diamond’s ‘Solitary Man’, all great stuff but they are all topped by ‘Mary of the Wild Moor’ and finally his rendition of ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ with some under-produced bluegrass fiddle”.
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