Andy’s Sting In The Tale (11/10/24) “The ITV Prejudice Against Us is Quite Outrageous”

(Photo:@Homesoffootball)

Our Scotland games v Croatia and Portugal will be on Viaplay YouTube channel.
A week ago it was expected to be on one of the minor ITV channels.
But ITV obviously did not want to spend.
Truth told, they don’t care much about delivering international football to Scottish ITV watchers, certainly not on the same basis they do to their English audience.
Keeping England-supporting ITV watchers happy is obviously more important to the ITV mandarins.

Nothing is ever truly simple but here are a few of the disgraceful issues that have got us to where we are, poor cousins in a UK context.

– There is no agreement that all Scottish football should be free to air like the Olympics and Wimbledon.
There should be.
– Channel 4 and ITV are happy to bid for England matches without giving Scottish viewers a second thought.
We know that because that is what has just happened.
– The SFA hide behind the fact that they have ‘given’ Uefa Central the rights to auction Scottish matches to the highest bidder with no criteria or guidance. i.e. no thought to the 25% of Scots below the poverty line.
They don’t have to do that, its a 6th floor choice.
For some reason they don’t seem to realise that the Scottish team belongs to the nation.
Each and every one of us.
And finally.
– Our politicians should be making merry hell both in Westminster and Holyrood.
But the silence now that Gavin Newlands is no longer at Westminster is almost deafening.

The Scottish team might be in the gloomy darkness of a bad run and many fans like me might be watching Scotland through our fingers.
And indeed playing top teams in the ‘Nations Whatever’ won’t suddenly become easy because Ben Doak thinks we’ll get points.

But to everyone concerned:
We are not ‘Second Rate Brits’ or ‘Non Commercial northern based and maybe biased viewers.
It is a political disgrace.
And the only solution is political.

Scottish fans want to feel as important as their English counterparts when it comes to watching their team.
Please clear up this mess once and for all and think about the fans and the size of the potential market.

Andy’s Sting in the Tale

1. ICT on Slippery Slope
2. Is 57.4% Acceptable?
3. Comfy?
4. Infantino’s African Powerbase ‘Bites the Hand That Feeds it’
5. The Politics of Player Power
6. A Wee Own Goal

1. No Easy Answers, No Foreign Benefactors, No Magic Money Trees?

(aka footballers who developed in a different association than the one they currently play in.

Just 57.4% of game minutes in our league are played by Scots.
I remember when 99% plus was normal, and in those days we won European trophies.
But the overwhelming short-termism inherent everywhere in our game for yonks means decisions about the future have been made for the wrong desired outcomes for too long.

3. Ball Skills We Ain’t Got

I saw some of the Engerland vs Greece on ITV 1 /Scottish! with no money spared in the ITV broadcast and just a few ad breaks to negotiate

England may have had better players in Uefa rankings and on transfer value sites but Greece looked good in many ways.
They were comfortable on the ball even in tight situations.

I can’t remember the last time I thought Scotland were comfortable on the ball.
And Celtic our best side might look comfortable on the ball domestically but Dortmund fans would laugh out loud at the gap.

4.  I Always Wanted to use the Hotdog Analogy

Like a rogue Hotdog, CAF (African Fifa Alliance) is about to bite the very hand that has fed it, Gianni Infantino and his wee personal Fifa ,with sackfulls of favours and money which can be softly accounted for.
If you know what I mean.
‘Inside World Football’ ran a piece on Tuesday.
“These things never get much traction in our media but should because they shine a light into some of footballs darker deals and dealings and Fifa organise world football on all our behalves”.
Last week we were told that Gianni’s foot soldier and placeman, Veron Mosengo-Omba,  was being investigated by Swiss prosecutors for corruption, various.
Alarm bells are now ringing loud across the rest of CAF and like all good family fights it’s hard to know who is  on whose side.
Here is some of the stuff going on.
– An open letter was sent to CAF members questioning CAF and Africa’s right to govern its own eco system in the continent of Africa.
It read “We have been duped by Infantino but don’t be complicit in CAF’s suicide”.
(Under Infantino Fifa are said to have made a catalogue of poor interventions including appointing the now disgraced Ahmad Ahmad as President and the imposition of Fifa’s own Fatma Samoura as a special envoy).

“CAF should not be used as Infantino’s personal war with Uefa over the creation of an African Super League that nobody wants.
We all know Infantino strongly supported the idea of a breakaway Super League in Europe too, although he publicly disclaimed it at t he time. and indeed s

till disclaims his support”.
The CAF /Uefa imposed ‘Super League project is not commercial and a quote from CAF said,
“Infantino avoids risk by not signing or officially approving of anything. The future of African football being managed by Africans is in mortal danger. Members of the CAF executive  committee, Presidents of the federations, free women and men of Africa, react against Fifa before it’s too late”.

5. Footballers for Change?

6. Scotland Needs to Know, – Not

A wee story in the Sun tells us that all Scotland Supporters Club fans including kids were emailed a survey.
One of the questions asked for their sexuality with homosexual, bisexual or Identified as Trans as the options.
The survey by Taylor McKenzie Research has embarrassed the SFA and angered fans.
“It’s disgraceful that kids like my 13 year old daughter received this.
“Fans don’t care about sexual preferences or gender of other Scotland fans’.

And one from me.
“If you want to break down the sexual preferences of football fans, and after a lifetime in marketing I genuinely don’t know why you would ever need to know, then extrapolate and overlay the breakdown for Scotland as a whole as an accurate method because supporting Scotland is ubiquitous. And leave the kids alone.
Simples.

Mike Oldfield: Voyager

This album is Mike’s homage to the power of Celtic music that has influenced all other genres since ships started sailing to the New Worlds.
Some new tracks some covers of standards.
It’s a gentle listen and quite unlike his other albums.
Less Oldfield, more music whatever that means.
Anyway this is ‘Celtic meets New Age’ and is like a warm flannel on your neck.
I like ‘The Hero’, originally ‘Hector the hero’, ‘The song of the sun’, ‘Celtic Rain’ and especially Women of Ireland which I first heard by The Chieftains in the Barry Lyndon Film and soundtrack.
It was haunting then and still is.
Mike does it different but just as well.
A lovely album and if you don’t like Tubular Bells then this is nothing like that trio.