PLAYING POLITICS
Scottish football chiefs lash out at Sturgeon and Co... l Doncaster: Clubs will go to the wall if fans remain locked out
SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster and Alloa chairman Mike Mulraney have accused First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and her government of using the national game as a political football over their decision to extend the ban on supporters attending matches.
Mulraney, who doubles as the vice president of the Scottish Football Association, claimed that the decision, taken at Holyrood, was ‘political and not clinical’, a statement echoed by Doncaster.
They argue that the Scottish Government’s decision has not been based on the scientific evidence and they hope that the SNP’s Sports Minister, Joe FitzPatrick, will announce a U-turn on that policy when he meets with the SPFL board tomorrow.
Mulraney also highlighted the surreal situation whereby clubs can invite corporate guests to their grounds, where they can enjoy matchday hospitality and watch the action unfolding on television
screens. The game takes place out on the pitch but the fans cannot pull back the curtains in their suites to see it.
‘We must be realistic,’ said Mulraney, speaking on Radio Scotland’s Sportsound programme. ‘People are dying and we need to contextualise everything we ask for.
‘The First Minister and her team are treading an incredibly difficult path to protect the health of our nation.
‘However, we represent football and, as a layman, I listen to the science and I read the science. I listen to the people who advise us and it does seem counterintuitive that fans are coming into stadiums to watch games — but only if they’re in a bar.
‘So they’re allowed to be at the ground and see the game — as long as they’re inside and not in the stand.
‘I think it is driven by science but do you think that sitting one metre away from somebody eating in a restaurant has less risk than sitting two metres away from someone in a stadium with a mask on?
‘This is a political choice, not a clinical one. As vice president of the SFA, I have a responsibility to protect our members’ interests, members who contribute
£1billion to the economy.
‘More than any other league in Europe, our clubs are dependent on fans turning up for games. Our pain is significant, it’s huge.’
Doncaster agreed the lockout is a political choice and he warned that some of the most famous institutions in the Scottish game will go to the wall unless the government at Holyrood agrees to release some of the money they have already received from Westminster for that purpose.
‘We’re not the English Premier League, receiving billions of pounds in overseas TV deals every year,’ he said. ‘That’s why the decision to stop fans attending games in Scotland puts our clubs in real peril.
‘The UK Government has made a number of judgments and one of them is that, below the National League, 300 fans will be allowed into grounds. We don’t have that facility in Scotland.
‘(Westminster) has provided £20m of bail-out money. I think it’s £3.3m per month for the 67 members of the National League. The Rugby Football League also received £16m from them.
‘That gives me a little bit of confidence that, in the absence of fans, there will be financial support coming into Scottish football.
‘Myself and (SFA chief executive) Ian Maxwell are meeting Joe FitzPatrick on Monday following Joe’s meeting with his English counterpart, Nigel Huddleston, and I hope very much to hear some good news about financial support.
‘It is absolutely necessary. The game in this country has survived two world wars and other pandemics but the game in Scotland is facing some genuine existential threats.
‘Without some meaningful support from the government, some of the best-loved clubs across Scotland are in real danger of being lost for ever and we just can’t have that.’
Both men are also puzzled by the fact that successful trials took place on September 12, when 300 home fans were allowed to attend Aberdeen’s 1-0 win over Hamilton and Ross County’s 5-0 defeat by Celtic, and yet they have not been granted permission to repeat that experiment.
‘The feedback has been entirely positive,’ said Doncaster. ‘It was made clear to us that they could have accommodated many more fans in absolute safety while adhering to social distancing and we have some big stadiums in Scotland, so there is no reason why more fans couldn’t attend.’ Professor Jason Leitch, the Scottish Government’s National Clinical Director, denied that the decision to keep supporters out of grounds was political — while also appearing to confirm it.
‘It’s incorrect to say that,’ he claimed. ‘Everyone who isn’t open wants to be open and who can blame them? If I’m a football club or a soft-play centre or a casino or whatever, I would want those things open.
‘You. Can’t. Have. It. All. That’s the public message because then the virus would accelerate out of control. No country is back to normal. So there are choices there, based on clinical risk but also based on decision-making and the decision-makers have to choose — inside a whole environment of clinical advice, economic advice and social advice — what you can and can’t open.’