We must strike back at this rotting SFA empire
THIS isn’t so much about Gordon Strachan any longer. We are pretty much stuck with him until he accepts that things aren’t working out, which says a lot in itself. It is more about those who continue to back him in the face of all available evidence. More about those letting Scotland continue to trundle quietly downhill as a disillusioned public turn their backs.
Individuals described in recent days by the outgoing SPFL chairman Ralph Topping, himself a former member of the Scottish FA board, as ‘blazers and bowling club committee men’.
That is probably a little unfair to bowling clubs. There will have been more emotion and excitement around them this weekend than there has been around the national football team and that is the hardest thing to take. No one seems to care all that much any more.
Failure to come third in a sixteam group in Euro 2016 qualifying is followed up by a World Cup campaign that has fallen apart after four matches and the manager is allowed to carry on regardless. At a time when decent midfielders are tripping over each other to try to get a game, Scott Brown, a guy who chucked it last year, is invited to pick and choose when he fancies playing.
The fact eight changes were made to the line-up between the last two qualifiers against Slovakia and England — both 3-0 beatings — hinted at a side devoid of identity with a coaching team reduced to flailing around in the dark.
That appalling spectacle against Canada in front of a pitiful crowd at Easter Road on Wednesday was, frankly, soul-destroying. Even Strachan conceded he didn’t feel like being there towards the end of the evening, a comment which, in another time, would be worthy of greater scrutiny.
This is the state we are in, though. Dead-end games that even the manager can’t get excited about. That old acceptance of failure, reduced expectations, the futility of hope.
In truth, it has been a depressing week. That non-event against Canada, leaving the brain as numb as the fingers and toes, was only part of it. To state that failure to defeat Slovenia at Hampden tonight would put the cherry on the cake seems an inappropriate choice of phrase. Maybe more the maggot on the gangrene.
Pre-sold season tickets may ensure a passable crowd, but few will travel with optimism. In many ways, Hampden Park, once bailed out of a scandal by public money and now being written off by more and more observers as unfit for purpose, seems a fitting backdrop for such a torpid kingdom.
From top to bottom, our game is riddled with issues. As thousands of words have tumbled out of the Scotland press conferences to an audience that has pretty much given up listening, it has been the comments of others within the sport that have gained much more traction.
Andy McLaren, the former Dundee United winger, is now the operations manager of a charity aimed at helping young people from deprived areas. His assertion that football has become a middleclass enterprise is not entirely true, but it is easy to see where he is coming from.
Kids generally have to pay to participate. In terms of spectating, the game has been drifting away from its traditional client base for years. Old Firm league games, for example, now cost £50 for away supporters.
The national association, responsible for growing the game, charged £22 a head for that friendly against Canada. They continue to run a diseased revenue stream called the Scotland Supporters’ Club — a money-grabbing mutation of the old Travel Club — which charges fans a whopping £55 simply for the right to apply for international match tickets.
It was McLaren’s views on the SFA’s approach to grassroots, as they call it, that were of greatest interest, though. ‘I’ve been working in these areas for seven, eight years and I think I’ve seen an SFA coach once,’ he said. ‘It’s an absolute disgrace that kids are being priced out of football in this country.
‘It’s meant to be our national sport. It’s meant to be all-inclusive. At the moment, it’s not.’
Project Brave, of course, has other fish to fry. The remit there is to make something of the crumbling mess that is Club Academy Scotland. To focus on the elite. Even then, the decision to fill important new coaching positions from within gives the impression, unfairly or not, of a lack of dynamism even at this early stage.
‘A business like the SFA, with a £35million or £40m turnover, should be run differently,’ said Topping in a deliciously inflammatory interview which, be sure, ruffled feathers. ‘You just have to serve your time and, after three years, you are promoted.’
Topping and McLaren know the inner workings of football. Their words are those of people at the coalface and not pub-bore punters or even mischievous journalists. They are worth heeding.
For all the talk of modernisation, some things have changed little at the SFA. Should Scotland fail to win tonight, let’s hope it gets ugly.
Let’s hope the Tartan Army remember it is good to get angry. Necessary, even. Chief executive Stewart Regan will be there to witness it with his president Alan McRae, reported to be considering another unchallenged two years at the top , and his would-be successor Rod Petrie.
This is the empire they have presided over. Its fall is surely coming.