Andy's Sting In The Tale (24/07/26) "Questions Needing Answers"

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 wonderful one-touch football and amazing immunity from intimidation by the blue and white-striped thuggery spoke volumes.

I’ll never know for sure why the ref didn’t nip the start of the nonsense in the bud with a well-deserved, early, straight red?

It seems obvious he had been instructed to keep all the players on the park because it was a world showcase but Slovenian, Slavo Vincic let football down with his quite bewildering passivity towards what was obviously pre-programmed, and well-rehearsed, Argentinian nastiness.

‘Nobody likes us and we don’t care’ running amok and their petition for a replay because the ref was ‘bribed’, is both bewildering and funny.

My other topic is this week’s long awaited Mark Blackbourne Report on the recent thuggery we saw in our own Ibrox back yard, and just how close two weel kent ultras mobs confronting each other on the Ibrox Turf came to fatalities after our polis had lost control for circa 5 minutes. Complex, yes, with so many things that were just plain wrong, societally and on the day.

It’s not an easy or pleasant read but very, very worthwhile.

And it’s certainly not a cover up as it recognises that the causes and effects are dynamic and complex.

Both subjects today show quite a juxtaposition in our small nation with us proudly spawning the Tartan Army, the best, most good-natured, welcoming and inclusive supporter group in the World while we have also this long-term deep, and dark side.

We’ve long been a nursery for quasi-socio-religious factionals to exist but because they happen to deliver enormous commercial benefits to our dominant clubs they have never been addressed by the authorities or the politicians.

That’s bad enough.

To complicate the trouble on the horizon we don’t want or need is a fast-exploding plethora of other youngish ‘gangs’, clever, well organised, schooled and dressed to obscure identities, and in this fan’s view simply kidnapping and hiding behind football to promote their own alienations and particular views of dissent, politics, outrage and even rebellion.

Big enough issues that won’t just go away.

They will recur if not genuinely combatted.

With Mark’s report now a matter of public record and well and truly in the in-trays of the SFA, SPFL and all other names, there is a trail.

And a wee aside before I start.

Thanks Kevin.

You made so much of your talent and were always a good guy.

Fame was deserved and didn’t change you.

I would love it if football had more Kevin Keegans.

Andy’s Sting in the Tale

24/07/26

1. Questions Every Fan Should Know the Answers To

2. Thirty Action Points but Just the Easy Half Done

1. After England’s Sneaky Wee Deal to Back Jahnnie for Re-election Next Year

Yes it’s because they think keeping schtum will maybe deliver them tournaments in the future.

Money.

But as well as righteously Tutt-tutting the English FA.

Ask yourself this.

Do we know what do our SFA thinks?

Then ask.

Why not?

We are the unrecognised stakeholders who eventually fund the whole shebang.

We fund it all and support the SFA.

What does our SFA support on our behalves?

I can say without any fear of contradiction, “Nobody I know actually knows what the SFA thinks about anything Fifa or Uefa or how we vote”.

And in a week when the wonderful Lise Klaveness, Norwegian FA’s head has called on a full investigation into Infantino’s Balogun Red Card Nonsense, following on her questions about the unconstitutional ‘Peace Prize’, there are many, many questions that all Home Nations fans should be asking.

Here’s 3 For Starters

i) Do we know of, and do we approve of the ‘Peace Prize’.

ii) Were fan ticket price levels and processes ever discussed with the SFA present before being the reality?

iii) Did we the SFA approve of Fifa’s new ticket pricing levels which negatively affected so many Scots still in debt?

I could go on with more questions, and will one day, but my point is we want the SFA to fight our corner for us all and I don’t think that FA’s collectively ever do, Norway excluded.

2. A Decent Start But a Limited Report

We now have 30 Recommendations that are in the public domain but the song books will continue..

Here’s the full report from the SFA site

https://www.scottishfa.co.uk/en/news/scottish-fa-publish-mens-scottish-cup-quarter-final-independent-review

The 30 action paras are across 6 sections:-

Part A

Structural/Governance

Part B

Operational

Part C

Legislative and Regulatory

Part D

Physical and Infrastructure

Part E

Culture People and Safe Workplace

Part F

Ticketing

A Couple of Summing Up Thoughts from Andy

I need to read it a few more times but it has left me wishing it had gone further.

Much further.

A lot of the detail is indeed pragmatic sense that there really is no excuse for.

I still applaud where it has started to take us but can see that it has addressed the practicalities rather than the causes (which still remain and are unaddressed).

I get that Football has to deal with the failing logic and rules but in our Celtic/Rangers recurring nonsense, Scotland’s shame is never far away, and there for all to see and hear.

Deeply ingrained nastiness has been long praised as ‘atmosphere’ and normalised for as long as I’ve been a fan because the stark economic fact is the division that fires the chanting is also a huge commercial differentiation enhancing the business ends of the clubs.

So for me Mark’s report makes two glaring omissions.

Firstly the two clubs in the riots freely accept Strict Liability when they play in Europe so why not at home in domestic competition.

And secondly the current song books are unacceptable in any public place.

Yet football does nothing.

Holyrood does nothing.

The police do nothing.

The media does nothing.

Unacceptable fan behaviour in full view.

Imagine if the Billy Boys song words were, “We’re up to our knees in Jewish, or Palestinian, or Black blood, Surrender or you’ll die”.

Or ask yourself why singing about joining the murderers of kids in Omagh or Manchester or wherever is acceptable.

Sadly I feel this Independent Report is mostly another lost opportunity.