2030 VISION
Forget the empty seats and all the reffing madness inside Hampden, planet football needs hosts like us
NOW that we actually have a ground sorted out to play some games — even though everyone, including one of the guys who ponied up the money to stop us moving to a rugby stadium, admits it’s rubbish — it is time to put all diversions to the side and get down to business.
Time to use the momentum from that glory night against Albania in front of 17,000 satisfied customers — all very happy with ticket pricing policy, thank you very much — to show Planet Football that the naysayers, particularly those inside Hampden, are wrong about Hampden.
Time to prove that Kilmarnock’s manager Steven Clarke is absolutely right in making a very definite point of not using the word ‘amateurish’ to describe the Scottish FA. Time to remind everyone that there can be no stronger commitment to the FIFA cornerstone of Fair Play than by writing to IFAB to very politely ask them to remind our refereeing department what a red card is, exactly.
Time to hammer home the inalienable truth that there is nowhere better placed to host a huge chunk of World Cup 2030 than Glasgow. Here, Sportsmail presents what we understand to be an early draft of the bid document that will form Scotland’s part of the Home Nations’ proposal to host the Greatest Show on Earth... final unencumbered by police and stewards. Where there will always be a cup of Bovril to warm the soul as your £30 seat is battered by the rain and sleet of early June. Where you haven’t a hope in hell of identifying who just scored into the goal at the other end of the park.
This is real football. Raw football. Reconnection with the game’s roots. It’s what the world is waiting for.
THE PARTY
Football is the heartbeat of Glasgow. It colours the landscape, sets the agenda, sparks the kind of heartfelt emotion that makes businessmen pay money out of their own pockets to prevent it from being decanted to the home of rugby, in a posh bit of Edinburgh.
Hampden is only part of the story, though. Glasgow City Council have pledged their wholehearted commitment to putting on Fan Zones with strict checks, naturally, in place to root out Rangers fans attempting to enjoy themselves at one.
The Scottish Government are right behind the World Cup bid too, although the recent repeal of the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act has lessened the chances of visiting supporters leaving with the souvenir of a criminal record. Police Scotland’s video surveillance team will, however, keep on record an exhaustive visual account of everything you did within 100 yards of the stadium.
Hampden Park, of course, has become a renowned concert venue and would be the perfect host for FIFA’s showstopping World Cup opening ceremony. With crowd noise disappearing from the shallow stands faster than Alan Stubbs leaving a coaching job, customers can focus fully on the music and there is no shortage of Scottish pop acts to get the party started.
Amy Macdonald does have a habit of forgetting the words while Charlie Reid’s support of the ‘Rod Petrie Out’ campaign at Hibs a few years back makes The Proclaimers a tricky hire, but SFA president Alan McRae is keen to rekindle his double act with Rod Stewart following the resounding success of the Scottish Cup fifth-round draw at the Excelsior Stadium in January 2017.
Failing that, cabaret legend Christian — one-time director of Motherwell, apparently — is available for bookings outwith the panto season.
THE FANS
Wha’s like us? Wha else would stump up fortunes to join a trumped-up Travel Club that doesn’t even guarantee tickets to watch a national side steeped in 20 years of spectacular failure? Wha else would pay £30 to watch Albania?
Wha else will fork out top-dollar for any old baloney without question — even Kazakhstan v Burundi in an extended 48-team competition? Wha else could fill out a bloated World Cup like us?
SCOTLAND: AT THE FOREFRONT OF FOOTBALL
It’s a game of opinions. And the Scottish FA is showing itself to be a world leader in taking them on board as it revolutionises the concept of refereeing football.
Russia 2018 saw VAR firmly established in international football. The SFA, though, has been busy piloting a far more rational programme of sitting three ex-referees in a room with the protection of complete anonymity to get them to pass judgment on the botch-ups of their friends.
Just like coaching — have we ever mentioned that Jose Mourinho learned his trade in Largs? — the SFA is at the vanguard of refereeing development and forever evolving to react to the feedback from its most prominent member clubs.
‘Why can’t we send referees off when they are so blatantly ruining the game? It’s Mickey Mouse stuff,’ remarked Hibernian manager Neil Lennon last season.
‘It makes me wonder if the officials know the rules,’ stated Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers.
They said it. The SFA listened. IFAB will soon tell us what the rules actually are. We are also about to sit down with Steven Clarke to talk about the sterling work of our new three-man review panel and will invite Dereck McInniss of Aberdeen for a re-education session shortly afterwards.
Clarke has raised issues about Willie Collum being backed by the panel for sending Gary Dicker off against Hearts shortly before his excellent refereeing had Rangers manager Steven Gerrard jumping up and down in excitement during the Glasgow derby.
‘As soon as I heard the news that the referee in question had been appointed to take charge of the first Old Firm match of the season before our hearing had taken place, I knew the decision would go against Kilmarnock,’ said Clarke of the appeal against Dicker’s expulsion.
Some might regard such whiffs of corruption around the association at the time of a World Cup bid as a negative.
Just try telling that to Russia or Qatar. Let’s bring it on!