Hampden needs to hear roar of the big hitters
HAMPDEN or Murrayfield. Whatever the SFA decided, they never stood a chance. Move to Edinburgh and they’re accused of casting Scottish football’s heritage down a manhole.
Stick with Glasgow and they’re choosing a home with lousy views.
Promise to make Hampden better and they’re spouting pie in the sky. They don’t have the money to do it and nothing will change.
Chief executive Ian Maxwell could have shown up at the announcement with a costed spreadsheet, artists’ impressions and a blank cheque for a new Jerusalem and still finished up with rotten eggs running down his suit.
The governing body were damned if they moved. Damned if they stayed.
It’s fair enough for people to have a strong opinion. Or demand to know what the grand plan is now. But two weeks ago, the SFA weren’t sure they were buying the old place at all.
Owners Queen’s Park wanted £6million. And the intervention of the business giants Lord Willie Haughey and Sir Tom Hunter was a game changer. Albeit one which raised a tricky question.
If the SFA needed a £2.5m handout to buy Hampden, where do they hope to get the tens of millions needed for a rebuild?
The key was barely inside the lock when the carping started. Office-bearers were berated for buying their own place at huge cost instead of renting.
FERGUS McCANN once branded the national stadium a liability and it is a common sentiment. The views from behind the goals are hopeless. And it needs more than a pair of binoculars on every seat to fix it.
But those urging the governing body to demolish Hampden and start again have a thin grasp on economic reality.
Bringing the west and east stands closer to the pitch will be costly enough without a complete rebuild.
Some think the SFA board have no chance of raising the £60m they need to do that — and they might be right.
If they are, Hampden will look exactly the same in five to ten years as it does now.
But that kind of talk is based on the assumption the SFA blundered into buying the stadium without bothering to do any sums. In reality, they already know how much it will cost to bring the two stands closer to the pitch because they have had estimates done.
And pledging £5m for a house they thought they couldn’t fix would have made no sense.
The trouble is that if the SFA board do know where the big money is coming from, then they’re not saying.
And neither is the First Minister. The silence from the Scottish government is deafening.
Glasgow City Council leader Susan Aitken said a move to Murrayfield would be ‘devastating’ for Scotland’s largest city.
So, if Hampden really is that important to Glasgow, there’s a case for the city fathers showing
exactly how much they value it. Yet, so long as hospitals and schools need building, it’s iffy for football to go back for more public money. Allocating public cash to an unaccountable private member’s club like the SFA is a hard sell.
Glasgow Council is already embroiled in a gender pay gap row. It’s also funding most of the £66m revamp of the Burrell Collection.
But the new V&A Museum has opened in Dundee at a cost of £80m. And a third of the cash came from taxpayers.
In contrast, the only public backing the nation’s museum of football has right now is a promise of safe standing, a fan zone and jam tomorrow. It’s not enough. A joint World Cup bid for 2030
might fund a rebuild from central government funds.
However, the most intriguing scenario involves the creation of the wealthiest supergroup since the Travelling Wilburys.
Lord Haughey and Sir Tom have already ponied up £1.25m each.
And the SFA want two of Scotland’s wealthiest men to lure the likes of another wealthy businessman, Jim McColl, into a group to examine ways to make Hampden a palace.
It’s pie in the sky to expect them to hand over £50m. Indeed, it might be pie in the sky to expect much at all.
But Sir Tom is Scotland’s first home-grown billionaire. If he calls up Nicola Sturgeon or a captain of industry to discuss the future of Hampden, there’s half a chance they will pick up.
SFA president Alan McRae wouldn’t get past the switchboard.
If men of the pedigree of Lord Willie Haughey and Sir Tom Hunter are serious about seeing this through, the SFA need only to do three things.
Find them an office, stick the kettle on and let the big hitters start banging the phones.