Andy’s Sting In The Tale (15/05/26) "Stop Press Intro"

Andy Smith
May 15
10 min read

Here’s a truism or 12.

Without football referees there would be no football.

Referees get treated outrageously by certain fans who find it easier to blame someone else for shortcomings at their club.

Referees are humans with families and deserve respect for having the balls to put up with the nastyish, mostly abusive things in football.

Fans don’t always know the rules as well as they think they do.

Refs have split seconds to bring conflicting happenings together and make instant judgements.

Players don’t respect referees and play to the crowd in what is usually a futile attempt for personal gain. Players cheat.

Conspiracy fan theories are fun but usually total bollocks.

Most refs supported someone as a kid and should still have the right to do so today. Doesn’t make them corrupt.

Football rules are complex, complicated and often contradictory. Blame Ifab.

Everybody on this planet makes mistakes. That’s life. We witnessed in my opinion a mistake but I might be wrong.

Whoever wherever wants Mr Beaton and team in trouble for simply doing their job as well as they can is a lowlife and deserved to be put into the stocks.

Football in Scotland needs Strict Liability.

Rant over except for a sign off.

Get Over It.

Now the original sting Headline.

On Balance Probably an Incorrect Decision

Above my paygrade but that was the ‘Post-VAR, in the light of day’ summary from Keith Hacket the well-respected ex-ref who also summed up his reasons why.

(Keith has no skin in any tribalism).

“It was the incorrect decision. The penalty was said to have been awarded for ‘hand ball’. This judgement was based on the unnatural position of the defenders arm. However there is no conclusive evidence that the ball has connected. Look at the position of the defender’s arm. Football is a contact sport and this decision is incorrect”.

Graham Scott, another ex-Premier League Ref also added his Tuppence worth after Gary Lineker had chipped in and pointedly said, “The worst VAR decision ever”.

“There is no evidence of a deliberate act. There was sufficient mitigation for the ref to play on and the VAR team to have left well alone”.

(It also now seems the clear photograph of hand to ball we’ve all seen since was an AI job).

On Radio Scotland Bobby Madden and Steve Conroy agreed and thought the call was wrong too.

“The buck stops with the SFA.

Andrew Dallas on VAR did not have clear evidence to overturn the on field decision where nothing happened.

No Clear and Obvious Error”.

Not a murmur from the crowd.

Not a raised arm from the players.

And a strong header away that a hand ball would have muffled.

It all happened too in a split moment of the extra, extra minute or two that somehow refs seem to add, but just in the second halves.

I, Andy, think there are also some particular factors at play here too.

The first is the rules are not simple or clear or sensible enough.

IFAB need a right good kick up the backside on not just penalties but also all things grappling in the box.

(Clear and simple), and all that.

Someone from each of the home FA’s sits on the IFAB board so the problem is partly of our own making.

Secondly we have two officials combining on this incident who are, as my Celtic supporting pals would say, from the other side but being over-kind to the hooped team.

Why?

Their collective actions were, I would surmise, a joint public statement of ‘independent mindedness and extreme fairness’, that is unless you’re a Jambo or a neutral.

Great box office ahead of Saturday but makes us look keystone coppish.

VAR will be part of football for ever but what we have needs to evolve.

And it’s not the ref’s faults VAR is so clunky, they are victims in this trial that should have started with less ambition and built up.

Goal lines and boundaries and offsides would have been the right baby steps.

As of now we don’t have the “Minimum interference for maximum benefit we were promised”.

VAR is becoming a problem child and may go down in history as the reason one of our clubs failed to win the league.

That is not a positive legacy for anyone concerned.

Two wee smiles before Sting.

Does a ‘WATP mentality’ now shout “We are Third Place”?

Fan thoughts on Clyde V Hamilton

“So the first leg is Clyde’s current home which is actually Hamilton’s real home.

And then the second leg is at Hamilton’s current home which was Clyde’s home”?

This Week’s Sting

1. Consumer Power

2. Brora Empties

3. Watching With Interest

4. Player Welfare Doesn’t Get in the Way of Broadcast Revenues

5. Virtue Signalling?

6. At Least 26 back in 1978

1. Market Dynamics Biting Back

You know when you’ve made it to the Scottish A list when you get quoted in The Sunday Post.

It was a comment about the very recent ‘launch’ by Fifa of ‘Collectable World Cup Host City Polyester Jerseys’, a snip at just $375 each.

And only 16000 shirts, so they are rare.

Ballocks.

To achieve their $6M income target Fifa’s advertising bullshit says:

“Be one of the firsts to own one of the limited Fifa World Cup 2026 tm Host Cities.

These collector-exclusives honor the bold cultures that make these cities legendary.

Own a piece of history.

Somebody got paid for writing that hyperbolic crap.

Did I say this was bull of the worst kind?

You bet.

A press opinion, I read later commented, as they do, and said “two problems here, these items are mass produced and not special enough to cut through the sea of World Cup merchandise to compete against .

These don’t get past first base”.

Economically things are going the wrong way across other way corporate profit pans too and it is all because the fans don’t have the bottomless pockets that corporate America and Fifa think we possess.

And coupled with a huge upswell in grass roots anti-Trumpism there is the start of a perfect stormy fight back.

We’re now told hotels are looking at a black hole of empty rooms with fans staying away as well as people like me who will not visit Donald’s land while he is King.

History will show ticket prices were set too high and Fifa have been very slow to refund fans but with 104 matches to sell and restricted local interest coupled with some very

poor competitors with few fans taking part .

And interestingly New Jersey Transports profiteering has been shaved this week by looming fan booking indifference verging on hostility.

What to fans is usually $12.90 for an 18 mile return ticket somehow became $150 but has fallen back to $105.

Still a rip off like so much in Infantino’s new World Cup business model.

And Panini stickers books that will cost between £200 and £1300 to fill.

Or Lego that costs twice as much as ordinary Lego.

The World Cup is not a Fan Fest as it should be, it’s a Fan Feast for Fifa’s corporate partners.

2. The Wee Rangers Head to Meadowbank

I don’t know how many buses it will take to ferry the 1300 inhabitants to the sub-standard cathedral to football that is Meadowbank Stadium.

After last week’s one all draw City are favourites but the reality is it could go any way.

Whoever wins, their fans will rejoice and collectively think ‘that’s it, plan achieved’.

And that’s fine for an hour or two.

But football doesn’t ever stop.

And league football is increasingly remorseless in its demands and ruthlessnesses.

To get there is tough enough.

But it’s not and never will be an end result.

It’s just the innocuous start of a tougher and more demanding road.

To stay there and even move upwards is relentless and is all about right sizing to the economy that fits the community.

Tough questions will need to be asked and answered.

Like, Can a population of 1300 sustain all aspects of a team in the SPFL 2?

Not easily and not for ever without some major and constant financial transfusionality to augment the constant financial shortcomings.

I love the pyramid and that it is open.

I also love what it has done and wish all at Dudgeon Park and Meadowbank Stadium a fair wind but long-term my business background tells me it’s all about pound notes and numbers must add up.

Football clubs have to be self-sufficient or find a sugar daddy.

If they don’t right-size troubles will find them quick enough.

And I’m very aware that our game doesn’t yet know what to do with the drop outs we have all seen over the while.

Good community clubs with long-time fan bases and all significantly bigger than Brora’s 1300 souls.

3. A Protest with No Tractors in Sight

This week the French Players Union (UNFP), discovered that there is a formal route to challenging Fifa’s greatly expanded calendar.

They have obviously followed advice and have initially created UNFP v France and concentrated on getting national protection on ‘workload and disregard of national collective agreements’.

What underpins their case is Fifa’s international calendar and constantly expanded competitions.

It’s all part of the long term war between Fifa and Uefa and about revenues and the power that brings to Jahnnie and his cabal.

FIFPRO, the global organisation for professional players supports the UNFP move and said, “The new world has minimum standards for working time, rest periods, occupational health and collective bargaining. This complaint has implications well beyond France”.

I agree and think fighting it all under the reaches of the European Social Charter is the right thing to do.

Fifa in its usual style continues to ignore FIFPRO and will not accept that they are a stakeholder.

Good luck to all.

4. Inadequate Heat Protection

Fifa are not listening to FIFPRO when it comes to adopting standards proposed to combat excessive heat.

This week experts have backed FIFPRO and said current cooling breaks and measures are inadequate.

Of course they are and were the last time USA was host.

We’ll hear a lot more about this as the temps go through the roof in a month’s time.

What’s in place isn’t nearly good enough.

5. Learning from Eurovision?

In a week that Lamine Yamal chose to first ask for it from the crowd and then wave a Palestinian flag at the Barca league winning celebrations, the Spanish Prime Minister was asked for his thoughts and gave a straight answer.

Pedro Sanchez said, “From the first minute, Spain condemned Hamas attacks and then condemned the genocide being perpetrated by the Israeli authorities in the Gaza Strip and the illegal occupation in the West Bank.

It’s time to comply with international law, end the war, and bring about peaceful coexistence between Israel and Palestine who have a right to exist..

This week in Songland the Eurovision contest will go ahead without Iceland, Ireland, The Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain.

It’s about the EBU’s decision to allow one particular country to be part of the annual celebration while their near neighbour is being systematically destroyed.

‘Music washing’.

We also found out earlier this week from some investigative journalism that the huge late surge in votes for last year’s runner- up was aided by a state-sponsored cunning plan so good that Baldrick would have been impressed.

In the first semi, their singer said he was surprised by the level of unhappiness and booing from the crowd.

Meantime in the World of Football the almost destroyed nation has settler teams ensconced and playing league football on its land and Uefa and Fifa know all about it but have avoided any sanctions.

The BBC’s Amy Canavan followed up and linked the stories this week with our women’s team due to play their second ‘behind closed doors’ match in early June.

Here’s what the SFA told the BBC.

“The Scottish FA is acutely aware of the suffering and devastation in Gaza. We are not insulated from the emotional weight of that reality, nor immune to the moral urgency expressed by supporters, campaigners and wider civic society, many of whom have been in touch. At the same time we operate under membership of Fifa and Uefa and are bound by their statutes, Member associations do not have unilateral discretion to choose who they will or will not play against, which is why we are obliged to fulfil our fixtures”.

I understand the craft in their answer and it’s clever, but that doesn’t make any of it the right thing to do.

6. More Crappy Forgettable Songs

What is the point?

First of all let me say BA Robertsons/John Gordon Sinclair’s “We had a dream” in 1982 was and still is great fun.

Bah Humbug, but Scotland does not need a WC song and especially one that is like the others have been, little better than commercial dross.

Of course there are lots to choose from over the years, all sunk without trace.

In 1978 Ally’s Tartan Army was the sales winner but there were at least 25 specific Scotland World Cup singles including Bill Barclays classic. “Hoat Pies for Us Argentina”.

I kid you not

For me this kind of thinking, that we need a ‘World Cup Song’, is totally patronising and out of touch to think ‘fans’ want or need a new song every world cup to sing along.

Sing along songs happen, they just get adopted and happen.

Like ‘500 Miles’ or the Amazing ‘Sunshine on Leith’ by the Auchtermuchty twins.

It can happen by accident too.

Like Scott McKenna and his’ Yes Sir I Can Boogie’ happening years later just because it did.

It’s not about all the tin pan alley wannabees lining up as I type.

It’s about getting to the heart of the greater community and being timeless.

I love “Flower of Scotland’, and remember the first time I heard it at The Empire Theatre in the 70s when Ronnie and Roy used to sell out for a week and were real local heroes.

‘Flower’ is moving.

‘Flower’ is easy to sing.

When verse 2 is belted out without music at Murrayfield or Hampden it’s brilliant.

But it also scores highly on the dirge scale and my Scotland is bigger than fighting tyrannical English Kings.

I’d love a new ‘forever song’ for Football, Rugby, and every other national sport and occasion.

Not another bloody ‘Official World Cup Song’, even if it is cheaper to download as a souvenir than to buy a Fifa World Cup City Limited Edition City Shirt.

Who can forget ‘Big Trip to Mexico’, ‘Ole Ola’, ‘Don’t Come Home too Soon’, “Easy Easy’ and countless other duds?

By the way I love John Gordon’s Tee Shirt Logo with the Lion Rampant’s overhead kick.