BILLY BREMNER MEMORIAL JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN
Date: 7th November 2025
Enhancing Scottish Football Roundtable – Update
Three representatives of SFSA took part earlier this week in a further meeting of a roundtable on ‘Enhancing Scottish Football’ hosted by the Scottish Government. This brings together a number of stakeholders in the game alongside the football authorities and the Minister responsible for sport in Scotland.
This was the sixth and penultimate meeting of the roundtable before the parliamentary elections next year. SFSA played the key role in getting it established. The initiative came from a debate in the Scottish Parliament last year, led off by Ben Macpherson MSP, based on our ground-breaking 2023 report, Rebuilding Scottish Football: A Fan-Led Review.
That review, the first of its kind in Scotland, called for major reforms, including the establishment of an independent regulator for Scottish football, greater fan representation at all levels, and improvements across the game.
The report, based on evidence from fans, clubs, and stakeholders, argued that vested interests undermine investment and that the current system lacks a clear vision and accountability.
The SFSA continues to push for the implementation of the review’s recommendations, such as those that would ensure independent scrutiny, better governance, fans having a far stronger voice, and finances being managed more equitably.
The roundtable is one mechanism for this, but we clearly need to go much further. At the meeting on 3rd November we requested that the meeting next year should explicitly look at models for achieving independent scrutiny of finance, governance and conduct across the game.
It was agreed by the Minister that this will be on the agenda next time, and we are already working on our presentation. We see independent scrutiny as crucial for achieving other urgently needed changes across our game.
Our experienced new representatives at the Roundtable (co-founder and consultant Simon Barrow, new CEO and chartered accountant John MacLean, and board member and Scottish football legend Dave McPherson) heard first hand some of the massive challenges we face.
In particular, our friend Scott Robertson, co-founder of Realgrassroots and chair of the Scottish Youth Football Association (SYFA), set out in no uncertain terms the huge failings within our national and local youth set up and the need for major reform and funding moving forward.
This is one of the areas which clearly demonstrates the need for robust independent scrutiny. Early indicators from our national fans’ survey indicate that you share that view. This is an issue which will not go away, particularly given the pacesetting changes taking place down south, pioneered by our friends in the Football Supporters Association there.
Things look different in Scotland, for sure. But the need for change appropriate to our situation is just as pressing. We will be bringing forward sensible, realistic but also radical proposals to the Roundtable next year.
Our new Advisory Board also pledges to keep you fully informed of what is going on. Indeed, the need for precisely that transparency was one of the motivating factors in the renewal of our board structure.
Simon Barrow
Co-founder and consultant, SFSA 0
Posted in: Latest News, Review of the Game
Tags: fans led review, Manifesto, scottish government, SFA, SPFL, SYFA