Jobs For The Boys

I am feeling a bit better after my last rant, so the pills must be working. However, that's not something which can be said about Scottish Football.

The (English) FA is even longer-established than that mob at Hampden, but at least, they acknowledge there are two games of football played in these islands. In England they have "the professional game" and "the community game".

Now there may well be as huge a gulf between Chelsea and Manchester United and whichever team is bottom of their Fourth Division as there is between the Old Firm and the bottom of the SFL's Third Division, but, at least all 92 "league" clubs in England are full-time.

If the SFA was to be split into a professional and a community game (which would be no bad thing), less than half of our "league" clubs would qualify for the entry to the "professional" game.

A "professional" club should be full-time, have if not an all-seater, certainly a clean, safe, covered stadium, proper youth development programmes and players who had a professional attitude to their job.

Even this basic and of necessity broad brush criteria for a professional club would rule out all but a minority of our so-called "league" clubs - but it will not happen. And it will not happen because of the way the SFA is set-up.

I spent a mind-boggling time today trying to make sense of the Byzantine internal politics of this body, it is chilling.

The day-to-day running of the SFA is currently, pending Stuart Regan being given out lbw at Yorkshire CCC, in the hands of George Peat and the Board of Directors, a board which sadly does not meet Tommy Docherty's criteria for the ideal board - three-strong, one dead and two dying.

The SFA "parliament" is the Council, which meets quarterly. This body is 35-strong - if you include those two living fossils, Jack McGinn and John McBeth, the last two presidents, neither of whom has any current affiliation with a club.

Only Aberdeen, Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Motherwell and St Mirren of the 12 SPL clubs are not represented on the SFA Council, while eight of the 30 SFL clubs have a man therein. But, only Rangers' Andrew Dickson, (or should that be Andrew Who?), Dundee United's Stephen Thompson and Kilmarnock's Michael Johnston are actually elected as SPL representatives.

Campbell Ogilvie is first vice president, but owes his position to his Heart of Midlothian affiliation; Celtic's Eric Riley represents the Glasgow FA (members: Celtic, Clyde, Glasgow University??, Partick Thistle, Queen's Park and Rangers); Hibs' Rod Petrie supposedly represents the 26 East of Scotland FA clubs, of whom just three, Hearts, Hibs and Berwick Rangers are "league" clubs; Steven Brown of St Johnstone represents the seven Forfarshire FA clubs and Hamilton Accies' Scott Struthers sits on behalf of the seven West of Scotland FA clubs (Albion Rovers, Ayr United, Hamilton, Kilmarnock, Motherwell, St Mirren and junior side Girvan).

It's much the same as regards the SFL clubs. Airdrie United's Jim Ballantyne, Ewen Cameron of Alloa Athletic and Lachlan Cameron of Ayr United are the three SFL reps, but East Fife's Derrick Brown, sits on behalf of the five Fife FA clubs (Cowdenbeath, Dunfermline, East Fife, Raith Rovers and Burntisland Shipyard??); SFA board member Richard Shaw of Annan Athletic sits on behalf of the 15 Southern Counties FA clubs, just three of which - his own, Queen of the South and Stranraer are "league" clubs; Falkirk's Martin Ritchie represents the six Stirlingshire FA clubs (Alloa, Dumbarton, East Stirlingshire, Falkirk, Stenhousemuir and Stirling Albion).

You have the East of Scotland League, represented by former referee Dr Andrew Waddell of Preston Athletic, Findlay Noble of Fraserburgh sitting on behalf of the Highland League clubs, while David Dowling of Clachnacuddin represents the North of Scotland FA's 13 clubs and Keith's Sandy Stables sits on behalf of the 12 Aberdeen & District FA Clubs (Aberdeen, nine Highland League clubs and two North Junior clubs) and Colin Holden the Threave Rovers chairman represents the dozen or so South of Scotland League clubs.

The Council is completed by the representatives of the affiliated associations: the Juniors, Amateurs, Scottish Welfare FA, Scottish Schools FA, Scottish Youth FA and the Scottish Women's FA, plus four "Regional Representatives", whose function they themselves would be hard-pushed to explain.

At a time when the full United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland government is considering boundary changes to level-out the playing field of constituency sizes, so each MP is representing more or less the same number of constituents, how can the SFA justify a system whereby Eric Riley represents six clubs, Rod Petrie 26 and so on; each senior club has in effect two votes - one through the SPL or SFL representatives, another via their affiliated local FA, while the SJFA and the SAFA, the two organisations which represent respectively over 150 and 1500 community clubs have just two representatives on the SFA Council?

The whole system is slewed towards keeping power in the hand of a very few and democracy at bay. It's about getting as many snouts as possible into the feeding trough and for as long as two clubs' supporters bank-roll every other Scottish "league" club, the system will not change.

By the way, the make-up of the SFA Council disproves the old theory that these two clubs effectively run Scottish football. Ignoring Jack McGinn, Celtic's Riley and Rangers' Andrew Dickson are the only Old Firm men inside the Hampden corridors of power, and with every respect to the two men concerned - within their clubs they are hardly big hitters. They are just as body of the kirk in the SFA, Dickson sitting on the professional football and general purposes committees, Riley on the appeals committee.

I finish with a story told me by a now-retired freelance football writer, who was chuffed to bits to be elected as the Scottish Football Writers Association's representative onto the SFA's international match sub-committee, his remit, to ensure that the needs of the working press were met when it came to covering Scottish internationals.

He emerged from his first sub-committee meeting to announce: "They spent more time arguing about what type of wine to serve at the post-match banquet than about arrangements for the actual game".

I think that tale sums-up Scottish football and guys with that me-first attitude will never make the necessary changes.

It's going to be a long, hard, winter.