Mcleish says Hampden is a symbol of our national pride

Henry Mcleish has cautioned the Scottish Football Association against giving up their Hampden Park birthright.

The former first minister, who in 2009 was commissioned to write a wide-ranging review into Scottish football, was speaking before appearing at an event to launch his new book, Scottish Football: Requiem or Renaissance?, at the Edinburgh Book Festival today.

Mcleish lamented that in the eight years since his review was published, “in certain areas we have gone backwards” in terms of governance of the game.

The SFA are considering a move away from Hampden Park, owned by Scottish League 2 club Queen’s Park, when their lease expires in 2020. Mcleish, pictured, interpreted this as a further erosion of the status of Scottish football’s governing body. He rejected the idea that the Scottish football team might play at Murrayfield, the home of Scottish rugby.

He claimed this would send out another negative message: do we really care about the national game?

“I have an old fashioned perspective about this,” he said. “Part of it is about patriotism, and Scotland as a country.

“In 1998 I sat in House of Commons for 120 hours and