Andy's Sting In The Tale (16/10/26) "Does January 16th Define our Game?"
I ask that because sometimes Google throws up incredible, possibly coincidental insights into Scottish Football.
For instance, August 27th, is ‘National Just Because Day’, a day that also sums up Scotland’s collective European position and standings.
I’d never actually heard of this day, but while grubbing around for today’s Sting it popped up just as I was trying to come to terms with how poor our results have been.
Results that show where we’ve succumbed to in the land of Uefa national stakes and rankings.
The day was originally meant to be a fun, an ‘invention’ from the optimistic 1950s USA in the good old pre-Trump days when there was international hope and growing confidence.
Long before Uefa competitions and the ‘giant’ mega-economies/clubs we somehow all take for granted.
Looking back, ‘Just Because Stuff’, i.e. random, unrequired acts of kindness, or silly fun activities, would have made football a better place.
Fan Bank donations fit that bill perfectly and Football still needs all of these more than ever. But before I talk about this day’s particular recent significance to Scottish Football in 2026, and then highlight our ever predictable Response Day, every January 16th, let’s first pause for a second or two, and have a wee smile.
In our increasingly serious and dangerous world, here are some of the daft ‘days’ I’ve discovered today.
Days like :
‘National Shower with a Friend day' every Feb 5th
‘National Walk Around Things Day’, April 4th
‘Work Naked Day’ every May 29th
‘International Talk Like a Pirate Day’ on September 19th when you have to shout “Ahoy Matey”, and other high seas stuff.
I’m smiling out loud in my mind’s eye thinking about how each of these days are celebrated by those who work on the 6th floor at Hampden while paid to look after all things Scottish Football.
Anyway, enough already Andy, what is the link between ‘National Just Because Day’ and Scottish Football.
It celebrates the day this year when Rangers, Hibs and Motherwell graciously gave up their/our positions in the Uefa competitions.
And yes, Celtic and Hearts were lucky to have guaranteed fall backs or our personal carnage might have been even worse.
For the record.
In the Uefa stakes this year, mostly against minnows in the pre-big-guns standings, our collective performance as a nation so far was
Played 32.
Won 10.
Drawn 9
Lost 19
This is not an attack on Celtic or Hearts because of last night’s disappointing results, but on those who run our game now and for the future.
The combined Scottish results are actually a reflection of all things Scottish Football rather than a temporal analysis of the shortcomings of two teams.
The fact that Hearts had 5 Scots and Celtic 4 in the starting lineups is actually encouraging.
But, Houston, we have a problem.
In fact Houston we have more than one problem.
And the first problem Houston, is we don’t seem to know we have a problem!
In the world of business and commerce, where I used to inhabit, and indeed in the real world there should always be 3 constant and interlinked questions about any and every situational analysis and planning.
1 Where are we now?
2 Where do we want to get to?
3 How do we get there?
Business really is that simple but the real world will always try to get in the way.
For sure, Scottish Football Clubs all have too many day to day micro-things to address than the self-induced, gradual, glacial yes, but accelerating macro-decline dragging us all down.
It’s Time For Scottish Football to Banish The January 16th Curse known as the ‘National Nothing Day’.
It’s been the very devil behind our decline because we’ve become world class at it.
If it’s easier to do nothing as a strategy and spent all the monies on wages then that is just what we’ll do.
Another Week in Things Scottish Football
1. Steven Gerrard’s Feeling Cheated
2. Exorcising Craig and the Future Prime Minister
3. Mass Sustainabilty Madness
4. What Did We Learn from Zurich?
5. Gambling Media Mayhem
6. Why Do Some Fans Behave so Badly?
1. And Rightly So, Steve
I feel for him and others.
Man City’s humongous financial doping and the positive outcomes it delivered for the cheating Manchester club had consequences for players, clubs and fans.
Steve, Liverpool and fans were certainly robbed of a winners medal back in 2013-14.
I don’t know where the FA and PL will take the process or what the punishments will or even should be but do know there is no easy or clean solution, no way to make everything OK for everyone.
You can’t blame the players, or the fans who loved the ride.
(I also deep down know Man City were not the only club enhancing their financial capacities).
We had our own equivalent back in the day with Rangers under David Murray’s policy of income enhancements.
Our blue club had to fold and restart as a new company, and we now know fell into the hands of charlatans.
Players and fans of other teams lost out just like Steven Gerrard.
Cheating always delivers winners and losers.
And like in England today, we had no set of rules for punishments or reparations.
Our game was caught with its trousers down.
England might have watched our carnage from south of the wall but football leagues are silos and collectively stupid.
2. Like a Scene from Father Ted
The thought of a 3-car Raith Rovers, Range Rover Convoy including politician Gordon Brown, Raith manager Craig Levein and others speeding to ‘Pastor Joes Church’ in Fife to speak to and try to sign Marvin Andrews while demons were being cast out just made me smile.
“There was a whole lot of wailing going on”, but manager Craig got his player.
The demons got their revenge.
Within a year Craig had been sacked and Gordon was PM, for a very wee while.
So the lesson is ‘Leave demons alone’!
3. An Insight to a Ubiquitous Problem
An ‘Independent Regulator’, headline in Murdoch’s Times caught my attention this week.
“Majority of Clubs on edge of ‘financial disaster’.
Why?
Spending more than they should, mostly on wages, for a variety of reasons concerned with short term survival.
Here are 4 scary facts and what is scarier is they all have credence in Scottish Football.
94% of top 5 EFL clubs are loss making
17 clubs would be loss making even if their players played for free
66% of clubs could not survive for more than 90 days without new owner funding
68% of clubs have no contingency plan if the owner stops funding
And things are said to be getting progressively worse.
As of now clubs don’t have enough cash reserves, spend too much on wages, have liabilities exceeding their assets, and most fail to meet the required standards of the Football Regulation Act for the May 2030 deadline.
It’s an active financial volcano that will erupt.
The Parallels for Scotland
Our game has all the same issues, writ smaller but football and its ‘winning or losing’ culture for fans and clubs is inherently destabilising.
We’ve already had carnage at many of our clubs and the game has collectively to learn to ‘Right Size’.
It won’t do that on its own.
Apart from the learnings from Rangers spectacular, seemingly overnight collapse in 2012 and our social taxes being up to date we still have too laissez faire an attitude and approach to club finance.
So we can’t smugly ask for whom the financial bell is tolling.
And this is not a problem to be ignored under our ‘normalised National Do Nothing Day’ thinking.
But that is what is happening.
4. Money Will Talk
Fifa Will Not Change from Within.
Infantino is too powerful a man.
So important he has grabbed/negotiated/finagled 2 Fifa salaries, one hidden till this week, assumed some incredible perks like a mansion on a Floridian island, who knows what in Qatar and Morocco, hired an unused office in Trump Towers, delivered a future well-paid role in his stymied for now FIFA Forward Enterprise and more?
Allegedly there were full and frank discussions within Fifa in Zurich yesterday but he is smugly holding out.
This week Infantino announced a significant share-out payment to all nations and if you’re a wee country then that is a source of personal gain and wealth. (Corruption?)
He knows 50 of his member nations have populations less than 1 million so he politically super-bankrolls their FAs. ( Just think, a collective population less than England with 50 times more voting power.
And these 50 votes will be cast on personal interest not world football ethics.
So whatever, wherever, we’re heading to short-term crossroads where Infantino wins.
But the core source of his power is the pooled money raised from Uefa nations, and the revenues from corporations actively targeting the Uefa based leagues.
And the finale will always come down to money.
So, for now, Fifa’ Biggest Cheese is bankrolling himself, its president on Uefa foundations.
Uefa and European nations are fully cognisant of that.
And while there will be skirmishes, he’ll hold on for a while, but this financial reality will decide the outcome.
Long term Uefa actually hold all the cards.
Lawyers will get rich on this one
5. Chaos When Government’s Wake Up to Gambling Self-Harm
In Brazil the government have a recent gambling crackdown launched September 26th preventing fixed odds betting.
Gamblingcos like Entain, Sportingbet, and Bwin, Betano and others provide easy money for now but for CONMEBOL, their equivalent of Uefa, the management of gambling sponsorships is becoming a challenge especially for cross border contracts.
6. Because They Can
Hibs banned their fan group ‘Block Seven’, after nonsense at Dundee Utd and St Johnstone.
They are not alone across Scotland and the whole balaclava wearing at matches nonsense is not good for any part of the game.
Football has always been too easy a target for showy rebellion and Ultra culture has become somewhere to hide.
Clubs don’t know what to do and this affects the big guys and the community clubs.
We live in unhappy times and football reflects the unfairness that people feel.
I’m maybe different.
I feel united by fans supporting other clubs rather than divided by different colours.
Maybe the authorities can start learning from that.
Sting is:
A weekly blog from a lifelong fan who thinks football has forgotten what is really important.
It’s a game.
A game for all.
A game where extreme finance has seeded extreme instability and short term everything.
I’m chair at a group called The Scottish Football Union.
We try to see the bigger and better picture even though our club run and dominated administrators can’t.
They are too busy just surviving to see the big sky that we need.
Andy’s Album of the Week
In Time: R.E.M
Many years ago when I was a self-important marketing man I got a VIP invite to the Brits.
The concert at Hammersmith Odeon was OK in a Top of the Pops-mimey way and I remember a bizarre KLF and Tammy Wynette smoke and fire show, but the real fun was the after concert party.
I somehow got into the extended company of various household names and met a band who I still love.
R.E.M.
This is a snapshot of their stuff and it is still wonderful.
I don’t normally like “Best-ofs’, but this one is good.
‘Man On The Moon’ and ‘Losing My Religion' are the tracks that brought me in.
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