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Three short weeks today, somewhere nice in St Andrews with good coffee and posh biscuits, the SFA will hold a meeting for and exclusive club. The 42 Scottish current SPFL members of the much larger Scottish Football Family. I’ve been told it’s a closed meeting, invited clubs only. Certainly no riff raff like fan groups of our ilk, and while I welcome the fact that Scottish Football seems once again to be thinking on a macro scale about its own future that alone raises so man

An optimistic prediction but for now, how on earth did we get to where we find ourselves? After what the Fifa beancounters and PR people are still trumpeting as their most financially successful World Cup ever we all viewed our dominant, omnipresent, media-savvy Fifa President relishing the quite amazing soapbox he has created for himself. In his world football is riding high and he, alone, is the main reason why. Sadly in reality football is at a crucial crossroads and what

Last Wednesday, the Scottish Football Union invited some of our members, with a few guests from our friends at ATAC and Supporters Direct Scotland, to meet with Willie Collum, the SFA Head of Refereeing, at Hampden Park. To be more accurate, it was Willie himself who issued the invitation, because, as he said, “We (that is the referees) want to engage with fans more than we have in the past and help them understand what we try to do, week-in, week-out, so they can enjoy t

A disturbing week for football after Martin Ziegler of Murdoch’s Times somehow dug up, then went public on Jahnnie and Donald’s wee plan to re-monetise football’s key asset and further enrich the Trump family et pals. And as normal, in the realm of King Donald, it was all just scheduled to ‘happen’ except it leaked early and caused a stooshie. Fifa blaming the press was cynical, farcical and in reality another smokescreen to the real levels of corruption and financial favouri

All 55 member Associations, including the SFA, have acted decisively. Good. That's Part I of the battle. Now, how do we take this further and stop the desecration of our game by those - and yes we mean you Mr Infantino - who think that fans don't notice that 'hydration breaks' are actually advertising breaks, or that it doesn't matter if ordinary fans can't afford football because others will pay top dollar or that half-time lasts half and hour. Now is the time to ramp up

“This crosses a line that football’s governing institutions should never cross. UEFA takes it extremely seriously. So should every national football association. So should every stakeholder: leagues, clubs, players, supporters, governments and everyone who cares about the future of the game. “The soul and governance of football are not assets to trade — especially with zero transparency as to who gains financially. None of us are the owners of football. It is not FIFA’s to s

This is maybe the simplest and shortest Sting I’ve ever written with only 2 subjects. Things World Cup and this week’s Mark Blackbourne Report. Both are massive and have raised many questions that I know our football authorities don’t want to have to deal with, and indeed I have no confidence they will ever cross this bridge anyway. Infantino’s and King Donald’s ugly World Cup concluded with an ugly, ugly final and even uglier aftermath because of one of the teams. Spain’s wo

The SFU has been working to support the football authorities and help promote the women's game by bringing together women's clubs' fans from across Scotland. To that end, we’ve held a number of meetings with representatives of women’s fans’ groups and have also recorded a unique and inspiring, joint interview with both Celtic and Rangers’ supporters’ groups leaders. More recently, we've added more people - from all over the country - to our women's team and are working to g

I'm delighted to announce a new member of our Disability Team. Tommy Mackay is a striker for the Scottish National Amputee team and is famous for scoring a memorable goal in a half-time challenge at Tannadice, which you can see at this link on YouTube. In fact, this goal was SO memorable that it won the SPFL 'Goal of the Month' and the trophy for this sits proudly on Tommy's side-table in his living room. On the international front, Tommy was the first person to score an i

A lot of people think that England ‘invented’ football. Unless you have entirely cut yourself off from UK media, you may have heard more than one reference to “football’s coming home.’ Spoiler alert, after Thursday it’s not. However, may I admit that it’s a great song (that should get some below the line abuse) but the conceit that England somehow ‘invented’ football is one that needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Or possibly even a quarry full… Now there are so

An interview with Gayle Brannigan, CEO of the St Mirren Foundation Part 5: The power of football … and a surprise In the fourth part of our interview Gayle Brannigan, the CEO of the St Mirren Foundation, talked about the cost of hiring facilities and how that impacts on the work they do. This time, I asked her to tell us something surprising about the Foundation and also how they communicate their work to the wider Buddies’ fan-base? “Well, I’m don’t know if it’s a sur

I’m glad that the madness that has been the World Cup is on its last lap and hope Spain win, but whatever, we all know 2026 has been a watershed moment. A central ‘forever’ statement of the new reality from the new boss, (much worse than the old boss). Why? Because of the seismic changes to Fifa-driven monetisation. (AKA Milking the fans). Crude over-monetisation in the land of KD. Profound never-to- be-reversed impacts where ordinary fans and the game become the biggest lose

An interview with Gayle Brannigan, CEO of the St Mirren Foundation Part 4: Making use of the North Stand, and the cost of five-a-sides… In the third part of our interview Gayle Brannigan, the CEO of the St Mirren Foundation, explained about the importance of assessing the impact of their team’s work. Today, she tells us more about two key issues that face the Foundation… “The first is the facilities available to us, or to any equivalent Community Trust at another club.

An interview with Gayle Brannigan, CEO of the St Mirren Foundation Part 3: How does Charlton Athletic help the St Mirren Foundation? In the second part of this interview, Gayle Brannigan, the CEO of the St Mirren Foundation, told us about the five key pillars that form the basis of their work, these being: community connection, health & wellbeing, education & empowerment, mental fitness & resilience and inspiring our youth. She then explained just how vital it is that the

An interview with Gayle Brannigan, CEO of the St Mirren Foundation Part 2: the five pillars… In the first part of the interview, Gayle Brannigan, the CEO of the St Mirren Foundation, talked to us about how they began and grew from a very small starting-point. Our conversation then moved on as she described the five pillars upon which the Foundation is built. These are: Community Connection – Bringing People Together Health & Wellbeing – Movement Is Medicine Education

An interview with Gayle Brannigan, CEO of the St Mirren Foundation Part 1: getting the Foundation up and running… Gayle got into the Third (charity) Sector after an impressive career at a very senior level in the private sector. As a result, she brings a pragmatic, business-orientated approach to the very real challenges that face all football clubs’ Community Foundations/Trusts, tempered with real understanding of the issues that they all face and the ways in which they ca

We were there. But Scotland are now well and truly home. My own Tartan Army adventurers are awaiting nervously their Miami-induced, credit card bills, Ryan Christie was seen playing golf at The Renaissance and we’re all getting on with life again. And, in case you didn’t know senior football starts again tomorrow in what my pal in the pub calls the ‘Amazon Firestick Trophy’. Anyway The hype was manic, and fun while it lasted but the reality is that the collective hangover ha

Let’s talk first about the man. I’ve only met Steve Clarke once, at a photo shoot but he was more than helpful and came across just as I had expected. I immediately liked him and integrity was baked into everything he did. That’s why his loss is problematic and more than tactical. Looking at the other teams in the World Cup you can see how comfortable they all seem to be on the ball. We’re not. It’s simples. We have been left behind by the way we play and need to reinvent our

It’s the ‘Mornings After the Nights Before’ for all who care more about the future of Scottish football rather than who’s maybe on the sub’s bench for our clubs of choice and other vital but peripheral nonsense /football talk. Why? Because Scottish football right now needs some big, simple and determined thinking and then some deep changes. Like many fans I’ve loved being part of the World Cup and especially the way that our Tartan Army have not just captured the moment, they

Thank Goodness Football is about to break out. That is a relief for us all. Maybe the actual balls actually being kicked will start the process of the beautiful game becoming the talking point rather than the excesses. What’s for sure is the vast range and depths of sheer and often nasty ugliness baked-in by Infantino’s version of Fifa into the future, fully supported and exacerbated by his Faustian pact with the alleged leader of the free world. I love the USA, always have,