‘SFA must get real and splash cash to fix their unfair system’
Former English FA compliance officer Bean says keeping the peace in Scotland is
One of them is you only have a sole compliance officer. I can appreciate the difficulties she faces.
“When I joined the FA back in 1999 I was the only compliance officer. Now the whole compliance department at the FA in London numbers about 30 staff. Consequently, it is a lot more structured and that means they can deal with a lot more incidents in a far more consistent manner.
“There aren’t as many inconsistent decisions. That is quite good because it means everybody is getting a fair crack of the whip. I can understand why players and managers get upset at the lack of consistency because, quite simply, it is an unfair system.
“That comes down to the fact there is a lack of investment from the Scottish FA in developing the department. They could take a leaf out of the English FA’s book. They could go and visit them and see how they have developed their department over a number of years. Nowadays, in fairness to the FA, there is a level of consistency that is acceptable.
“There will always be cases which slip through the net, but the reality of it is the English FA do get the vast majority of the decisions right in terms of the consistency and application of the regulations. With some investment the Scottish FA could make sure it gets to the same level.
“I probably suffered what the SFA compliance officer is suffering. Because there was only one of me I couldn’t review every single incident of every single game. A lot of the time you were having to react to issues rather than being proactive on issues.
“I remember when I was the compliance officer having a meeting with Davie Moyes when he was the manager at Preston North End. The English FA had taken action against one of his players. He had a list of half-a-dozen incidents where we hadn’t taken any action and he questioned me why that was. The reality was we didn’t have the manpower to deal with it.”
Whyte, who succeeded Tony McGlennan as SFA compliance officer back in August, regularly consults with her counterparts at all of the Home Nations associations and the extensive changes which were made to the judicial process last year were heavily influenced by those of the FA. She is also assisted extensively by other members of staff in the disciplinary department in her daily duties.
But Bean added: “The problem comes down to manpower and the fact the compliance officer in Scotland is effectively a one-woman band. If the Scottish FA want to be serious about this they have to invest in it very much like the English FA did by bringing in a more structured system that is consequently a more consistent and fair system for the game as a whole.
“It has been proven that if you invest money in discipline and compliance areas, in the right people and the right training, then you do get consistent results out of it. Clearly that is what the