BILLY BREMNER MEMORIAL JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN
Date: 19th September 2025
STATEMENT FROM THE SFSA
CHANGE AT SFSA, AND A BIG AGENDA FOR CHANGING THE GAME
The latest major development for the way SFSA (the Scottish Football Supporters Association) operates, as you’ll have noticed, is that we have a new and highly experienced board, with further members to be added – and most importantly, elections forthcoming to enable YOU, our members and fans to have even more of a say. Plus we want to make sure that there is better and more transparent recording of meetings, including our liaison on crucial issues with the football authorities, the Scottish Government, et cetera. See: https://scottishfsa.org/national-fans-organisation-announces-new-advisory-board/
While SFSA has been very active over the past few years, drawing on your views and commitment to changing the game for the better, we reached a situation where prompt reform of our own structures and procedure was urgently needed, in accordance with our vision for Scottish football, which is all about representation, fan engagement, accountability and transparency.
There were some different views among our management team about how to proceed, and indeed about how to handle some of the issues high on our agenda. Our co-founder, Simon Barrow, who is now a consultant to SFSA on policy and other issues, has worked hard since the beginning of July to resolve things to everyone’s satisfaction and to reach sensible compromises on these issues. Such, as ever, is the life of organisations – particularly ones whose volunteers are as passionate as ours about the game and its reform!
Three of our number have subsequently decided to leave SFSA and set up their own group, which . We are sad about that, but the right way to respond is renewal of purpose, vision and organisation. That is exactly what we are doing.
Our own feeling is and will continue to be that fans should come together rather than break into different groups. That is why SFSA was set up, and how it has achieved so much in the past ten years.
We pledge continue to work hard to achieve that unity through partnership and cooperation, including us reaching out with the new Scottish Supporters’ Collective (https://www.facebook.com/FootballFansAgainstFascism/posts/the-scottish-supporters-collective-is-a-new-organisation-thats-trying-to-negotia/1168000282024007/), who want to push robustly for change.
Our thanks go to the outgoing Directors Stuart Murphy, Andy Smith and Alastair Blair for all their past work with SFSA. We hope they will be back in the fold at some point, and in the meantime we have been and are delighted and excited to introduce the members of a new team who will be taking the work of our independent national fans’ organisation forward into a new decade. See: https://scottishfsa.org/about-sfsa/organisation-structure/
There are still many challenges facing Scottish football: real fans’ representation at every level; extending community and collaborative ownership; independent scrutiny of the way the game is governed, financed and run; reform of the youth set-up, and much, much more.
Our agenda continues to be set by our quality research and by our ground-breaking 2023 report Rebuilding Scottish Football. We got this debated in the Scottish Parliament, and as a consequence a roundtable set up, hosted by the Scottish Government to take forward the discussion about serious reform of the game. That remains our priority.
We will always work with others who show and demonstrate their commitment to real change, not just window-dressing. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating: namely, when fans really start to feel that their voice is not just being listened to, but responded to, and when we see real reform at the top of our game.
Onwards, forwards and upwards!
Crawford Boyd (SFSA CIC director)
Paul Goodwin (SFSA CIC director)
Simon Barrow (SFSA consultant)
19 September 2025
Posted in: Latest News, Review of the Game
Tags: Fan Led Review, Football, governance, Scottish fans, Scottish football, SFA, SPFL