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Date: 25th September 2026
Dingied
By Donald C Stewart
Apoplexy at the top.
Corridors filled with screaming agitators demanding action.
People apologising for sending an email that they shouldn’t.
Suggestions they have been “misunderstood”.
People on the outside scoffing at these antics.
Others hoping that the whole thing will be forgotten soon.
A once awkward member of “The Firm” now screaming and shouting from the outside demanding a presence within the inner sanctum or at least to be listened to by somebody…
The unfortunate thing is I’m not talking about Buckingham Palace. Not talking about the inner echelons of the monarchy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Not talking about a centuries-old institution with traditions that go back to the point where medieval laws were put in place, such as the Privy Council, where everybody has to stand for the whole of it, because the King at the time, apparently couldn’t be bothered to sit and listen to their courtiers.
No, we’re talking about the Scottish Football Association. (OK to be fair we have never been an awkward member of The Firm… naebody here owns a blazer… I hope…)
To be honest, writing both columns each week, I did wonder whether I would put this in the funny or the serious one. The idea that the Scottish Football Association are competently in charge of a multi-million-pound organisation, in sport and business, who have decided there is a crisis and they need to improve the whole damn thing, and to do that they need to get people round a table to have a chat, and they then decide that it’s such a good idea that you should have it regularly, everyone thinking, of course they should, but it is not THAT big a crisis that you would risk inviting in the largest fans’ organisation in the country…
I know people who manage your political campaigns and businesses, even a local little cafe who tend to listen to customers on a regular basis. Political parties have focus groups, picking people out to have a chat with them and find out what they are thinking. They listen to people on the streets who are canvassing round the corners and doors, delivering the message to find out how that message is being received. Often fearlessly.
When it comes to the release of a film, preview screenings are held where editors nervously wait for the recuts that have to be done because the laughs didn’t happen or the shocks didn’t occur from the test audience.
There are thousands of examples of successful businesses, organisations or sports taking themselves out into the field of awkwardness and listening to the people who pay through their equivalent of their turnstiles.
Well apart from one.
The debacle, in autumn 2026, when the Scottish Football Association issued an invite to the Scottish Football Supporters Association to attend a congress that would sit and have a chat in the shadow of the crisis summit about youth pathways is palpable. Following the SFSA report, Rebuilding the Game, that the SFSA put together with grassroots opinions, the update on Scottish Football by Henry McLeish, which we promoted, is once again out in the cold.
The invitation was gleefully accepted by this organisation but was withdrawn at the 11th hour, more or less, the evening before the meeting. So, this serious look at Scottish football suddenly turns itself to wonder when else has an 11th hour withdrawal been acceptable?
When you discover that your bridegroom has been cheating with your best mate?
When an athlete is discovered to have failed a drugs test so they pull the rug from under them because they should not be competing against those others who are clean?
Withdrawing the offer of a job at an organisation where your references come back and they don’t tell the story that you did at interview?
The answer to all three is probably yes, but on none of those occasions does the person who has had their invitation withdrawn seek to come to that event to offer their view from years, decades of understanding how football clubs work to a football club forum. If you wonder why Scottish football is in such a mess have a moment to think about that. That’s when a Comedy of Errors turns itself in to a tragedy but as we contemplated, percolated, cogitated and digested the news the one thing we’re not doing is going away.
If we have to agitate from the outside, then the outside will it be. If people who know better think that they can continue to run an organisation by ignoring the very people who are the lifeblood of it, who provide the major contribution financially to its coffers, then hell mend them.
Over time what will happen is the SFA and the SPFL often struggling to find ways to support clubs like the Mortons and the Hamiltons or the Hearts and the Rangers, will find that organisations like the SFSA continue to support grassroots football, grassroots supporters and promote the brand without looking for any kind of reward. It is then you begin to wonder what the price of a blazer really is.
Posted in: Latest News, Review of the Game
Tags: Hampden Park, oor Donald, Scottish fans, Scottish football, SFA, SFSA