IT HAS long been understood by professional crash investigators, whether looking into the causes of disasters on road, rail, at sea or in the air - that there is very seldom a single cause of a crash. Received wisdom is that lots of seemingly irrelevant small cogs somehow mesh together until the big bang - call it the chaos theory if you like.
Right now, we in Scotland are somehow obsessed by the on-going drama surrounding Rangers,and here I will spare you a re-hash of the many small incidents which have come together to imperil the Scottish football establishment club.
However, might I suggest that Rangers' problems might be but a single component in the lead-up to a bigger potential disaster - the end of Scottish (indeed British) football as we know it.
Celtic-minded he may be, but professional Oirishman Phil Mac Giolla Bhain has been consistently nearer the money on matters surrounding Rangers than most (even if his obvious relish at that club's problems is extreme schadenfreude), the rangerstaxcase website, again overseen by someone with Celtic sympathies, has also been a far-truer source of information than anywhere else. Yesterday PMGB suggested the issues which have surfaced over the past month or so, and in particular the way the SFA's and SPL's (non) governance and control of Rangers' affairs have allowed the crisis to deepen, demand that there be an independent Scottish government inquiry into not merely the Rangers affair, but also, the SFA's whole conduct of football.
That's one strand.
Elsewhere Sir David Richards, one of the top, if not the main man in English football, came up with a wonderfully over-the-top rant at FIFA and UEFA, accusing both bodies of "stealing" football from the English, who, in his view, ought to still be running the game on a global basis. Richards then compounded his folly by exiting, stage left, hurriedly, from a conference in Qatar, falling into an ornamental fountain and having to be led away, dripping and humiliated, by another FA "blazer".
That's a second strand. (Funny how, 65-years after home rule for India and the partition of Pakistan marked the end of the British Empire, some Englishmen still think they ought to rule the world).
A motion has been tabled for the next big FIFA get-together, calling for the four Home Nations to lose their automatic right to nominate one of the FIFA vice presidents.
That's a third strand.
The Westminster government is also looking into the cosy arrangement whereby the English Premiership, (in the person of Richards) has a senior place on the FA governing board - this, seemingly, is a conflict of interest. The same accusation, by the way, could be made about the SFA and the SPL.
That's a fourth strand.
Then there is the continuing case of 'Team GB' playing in the football competition in this year's London Olympiad, and the repercussions thereoff. As I have said before, often and loudly, this single issue, which has been grossly, incompetently, mis-handled by the FA and BOA in particular, but with outstanding assistance from the three "Celtic" associations, the FAW, IFA and SFA, may yet lead to the disbanding of all four and the formation of a new UKFA - which means no more English, Northern Irish, Scottish or Welsh international teams.
That's the fifth strand.
If Sepp Blatter and his minions at FIFA, Michel Platini and his citizens at UEFA, the Westminster and Edinburgh governments all decide, separately, to investigate the FA and the SFA, plus the game's honchos in Belfast and Cardiff - then football as we have known it in these islands is finished.
This might be no bad thing. There are many things wrong with Scottish and British football which need to be put right.
It's just, I don't see FIFA, UEFA or the British political and civil administration classes as being the guys to sort things out properly.
I see a Titanic-style disaster looming on the horizon.
We're awe doomed, doomed ah tell ye.
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