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Andy’s Sting In The Tale (06/12/24) “The Smartest Move We Can Make?”

Date: 6th December 2024

(Photo:@Homesoffootball)

Finland were never going to be easy on a very cold Helsinki night, and our Scottish Women’s team sadly fell at the final hurdle.
I hate disappointments like that but the reality as per the Men’s Euros in the summer is we got what we deserved.

We can sagely and collectively say that “It was ever thus”, shrug our shoulders and hope that somehow things will change for the better.

Or we demand those who run our game do something about it, and that doesn’t mean change the manager despite what some of our commentators think.
We have to look beyond the tedious, albeit predictable, media-induced knee-jerk overreactions, ask the right questions and commit to change.
(We’ve never been particularly good at that in the past, so don’t hold your breath)

The answers are not rocket science.

Firstly we need a bigger supply of kids coming through into football, boys and girls. (Yes that’s easy said)

We need a coordinated elite pathway, fit for purpose which means not what we currently have.
Whatever we do has to make the best of the talent identified as having the right potential and isn’t just fixated on kid size within year group cohorts.
That’s a huge part of what happens now.

Junior Football Coaching - Fife Sports and Leisure TrustWe need to Prioritise and Invest in Kids

 

BUT

That needs fundamental change, and investment, not just ticking a few boxes

Our conveyor-belt of elite level kids just used to happen organically from a mix of our incredible volunteer, schools network, youth clubs and age-level leagues and juniors up and down the length and breadth of Scotland.
Since the 80’s, before any of our current squads were even born, the stream of talent from Scotland into Scottish football has been dwindled by an interacting series of reasons.

What is a concerning worry is Scottish Football somehow seemed not to notice or maybe care enough to notice.

Why?

How to look interested in a boring meeting - BBC NewsI think it’s because our game is run for clubs by clubs and football, as we know it, gets in the way of long term planning.

There is always another game or tournament on the horizon.
There are leagues to be won, relegation to avoid, bills to pay and managers/coaches to sack.
This means clubs just ‘survive’.
Worse than that, they revert to short-term self-interest in any discussion they see as threatening.
Most have no long term plan or view of pretty much anything outside surviving.
And over time our game has collectively forgotten what we used to have and indeed used to take for granted while the world has kept spinning.

Aberdeen FC's historic European Cup Winners Cup triumph celebrated in BBC Scotland documentary marking 40th anniversary - Media CentreIn today’s era of ‘mostly’ non-Scots as the majority in our top league it’s easy to forget that Celtic, Rangers, and Aberdeen won European trophies with Scottish kids.
Kids produced before we had even heard of ‘Elite’ academies and when clubs were not allowed to sign and over exploit wide eyed hopefuls before dumping them ruthlessly when they got too old.
We’re not in a good place.

Maree Todd’s Round Table

It happened at St Andrew’s House on Wednesday.
The imminent English Independent Football Regulator heading for and already scaring the very top end of English football was the catalyst for bringing interested parties at Holyrood to start to discuss issues and in time agree action plans.
Potentially a Scots, ‘how to avoid externally imposed regulation and the costs that go with it’ exercise.
What does happen in England as it develops will be very interesting and the IR down there will undoubtedly raise some parallel issues and some of them will be good.
And maybe Maree’s Round Table will deliver the best of both worlds.
Time will tell.

English Football Association | eSoccerWhat is certain is that the English IR will have a tough job dealing with the top clubs.
This is simply because they think they are now more important than their erstwhile long-term partners and league structures outside their bubble.
They are ignorant of the interdependency glue that binds our game.
And disturbingly new owners, mostly American or sovereign state funds don’t really seem to care about traditions, just audience levels and media values.

Encouragingly Ms Todd has said nothing is off the table going forward and it could evolve as an innovative group.
Evolution is always a better strategy than revolution.

My personal view is its early days but I’d like to think it could become a very powerful, very Scottish, think-tank ‘for the game by the game’.

My personal starting point to making a long-term difference would be a root and branch review of all things kids.

Andy’s Sting in the Tale

1. Well Done Willie and Scott
2. Empty Words
3. December 11ths Virtual Congress
4. Fifa’s ‘Infantino Infantino’ Cup

 

1. The Kids Need to be Protected


For years clubs have treated kids badly.
They sign too many, they always want what other clubs have.
Poaching from each other is a nasty epidemic and always has been.
Clubs also see any kids who progress as a way of recouping some of the costs too and their complicated formulae for compensation.Youth Football Scotland - An update from Scott Robertson, Willie Smith and the Realgrassroots team can be found below. Everyone at YFS applauds the incredible efforts they have beenScott Robertson and Willie Smith are grass roots stalwarts in Scotland and what they saw and what they know led them to petitioning Holyrood  as The Real Grassroots back in 2010.
Everyone knows what has been happening to kids has been quite outrageous, Scott said,  “Rather than promote competition and grow our game, the ‘football rules’ in place have done untold damage to Scottish Football. Clubs have placed their interest and profit margins before kids”.

Fed up with the lukewarm reaction and lack of a real shake up the campaign has enrolled the Scottish Children’s commissioner and now a hotshot lawyer who is accelerating the case to the CMA. (Competition and Markets Authority and it’s a heavy hitter).

The SFA are bit in the firing line on this one and spokesperson said, “We have continued to evolve our policies and procedures in line with Fifa statutes”.
Whatever that means.

2. Empty Words Abused in Football

Oh, the imprecision of the English language we often hide behind in football.
You liked my wee para last week when I said instead of being a meaningful word that Transparency should be replaced with what people really want it to mean.
So ‘Transparency’ means, Trust, Honesty, Integrity, Openness and ‘without fear or favour.
Something we all buy into but don’t always believe happens.
Here’s another couple.
Sectarianism’ is rife in bits of our game. It’s the wrong word to use. It’s a political whitewash for what is in reality ‘anti-Irish racism’ and when spelt out like that becomes totally unacceptable whereas ‘Sectarianism’ is just a wee meaningless inoffensive word you hear on the telly and radio .
And Investment is a classic misused and abused word.
A simple dictionary definition is ‘the act of putting money, effort, time, etc. into something to make a profit.’
That’s different to seeing your money disappear as wages for mercenaries or being converted into worthless shares where there will never be a return.

3. 11 December, More Than ‘National Tango’ or ‘National Have a Bagel’ Day

Saudi Arabia's 2034 World Cup bid facing 11th-hour rival with FOUR nations join forces to avoid another winter tourney | The SunMr Infantino, Infantino, (2 names on his new cup are better than one), has decided to hold his worldwide, virtual, extraordinary, congress to facilitate and hold his, one option only, vote.
This is to shoehorn Saudi Arabia in as World Cup Hosts in 2034.
He had promised he would deliver it and has. And his well-paid Fifa munchkins have also produced a report which says, Saudi is the greatest ever place for a world cup. So now you know.
That is despite knowing that 8 stadia are still in the computers with one even in a city that hasn’t even been built yet.
Why do our representatives put up with this kind of nagumbi?
Why no discord from the ranks?
Why not a planned walkaway?
And why did Belgium come out and support Saudi together?The answer is wee ‘favours’ for support?

4. The Infantino Club World Cup

2025 FIFA Club World Cup Pots Revealed Ahead of DrawThe new competition kicks off next summer.
The numbers being used to attract the invited teams surprised me.
Each gets $50 Millions just for coming.
The winners gets $100 millions.Some clubs like Real Madrid are also said to getting very healthy appearance fees over and above.The last Club World Cup Entity aka The Toyota Cup played Nov/ Dec in Japan and the winners got $5M and the 6th placed $1M.
For perspective Real took $89M for last year’s Champions League.Mr Infantino earlier thought the media package for his wee tourney should be worth $4Billions and rejected a deal with Apple who offered a paltry $1Billion.
But with less than a year to go and no media partner one appeared out of the blue and offered the same as Apple had months ago before Mr Infantino dissed them.
So big announcement, DAZN a London based streaming platform is ‘reportedly’ offering $1Billion- ish.
Part of the deal will be the sale of sub rights to local free to air channels all over the world.

FIFA Club World Cup 2025 to air exclusively on DAZN in '$1bn' deal - Sport Industry GroupDAZN are not huge but here’s a wee coincidence.
I read today that the Saudi PIF fund are set to pay $1Billion for a 10 per cent stake in DAZN and that will go through. (Funny how the totals match)

It seems more than just a coincidence that Mr Infantino maybe spoke to his pals in Saudi (to whom he has delivered a world cup) to get DAZN to bail him out of his media hole.
And the Saudis delivered, big time.

I’ll leave the last nagumbi to Gianni, or maybe the ghost writer at the PR Agency.
“Through this broadcasting agreement billions of soccer fans worldwide can watch what will be the most widely accessible club soccer tournament ever, and for free”.

That’s it for another week.

Feedback and wee stories always welcome.
Andy’s Album of the week

Local Hero (soundtrack) - WikipediaLocal Hero: Mark Knopfler

I watched bits of the Newcastle v Liverpool classic the other night and I love it when Mark Knopfler’s amazing anthem Going Home unites the crowd apart from one wee corner for away fans.
I’ve been there when it happens and it is special.

It’s a wonderful, and wonderfully simple track that just lifts your heart and is a tonic for all the Toon fans and the players.
An amazing entrance.

So that got me into revisiting the album itself  and while it very much film music it brings back wonderful memories of East Coast Pennan by magic linked seamlessly to West Coast Morar, with the motorbike speeding past, the red phone box, the cooked rabbit, Jenny’s webbed feet, and everything else in the sheer invented Highland madness.
A great film and a really nice album.

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