Andy's Sting In The Tale (29/05/26) "The Immutable Laws of Scottish Football"

The Immutable Laws of Scottish Football.

(And some other wee stories)

I was glad to hear yesterday that Steve has been given a 4 year contract extension by the 6th floor.

I’m also well aware that we’ve never got out of the group stage and somehow that has become our be-all and end-all goal in the land of King Donald.

People, especially those making a living in the media, seem to collectively forget we actually made the last 16 in 1974 just by qualifying.

And were the only undefeated team in Germany too.

The biggest difference back then was we, as a nation, had an incredible supply of home produced talent.

We don’t have that today and our game has gone backwards as a result.

Frankly my personal view is we’ve somehow forgotten what we used to know and do so well without thinking.

And I find it inherently ironic that Steve will be judged, by those who judge, on how he adapts whatever talent he had no responsibility for developing.

That failure should be judged in the cold light of day, after the euphoria and the tabloid blame games.

Why?

Because an ongoing review of the Scottish talent system, starting at Grass Roots with jumpers for goals needs more than a spring clean.

The reality is it is everything about our talent conveyor belt that should be in focus.

Time and time again.

‘Silk purses an sows ears’ come to mind when assessing how Steve does.

Not enough top-quality kids coming through.

That should be the key judgement of where we are.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that our 3 top current Scottish players are Andy, Scott and John.

We all know Andy as a kid was dumped as too small and not quite good enough by his boyhood club and the system.

Scott might have a saltire heart but in reality he is a product of the Man U machine and a windfall gain from nowhere.

And when it comes to talent spotting one of our dominant Glasgow teams didn’t have the nous to see the incredible potential in young Mr McGinn first at St Mirren then Hibs, the man who became the bargain of the decade to his Birmingham club.

The fact his grandfather had been club chairman of the hoops makes the decision process quite bizarre.

There has been a lack of genuine analysis of how we collectively fail to develop our kids’ talent bank and indeed often end abusing the ‘wannabees who thought they’d already made it’.

That’s sad.

(One excellent book by Graeme McDowall, was ‘The System, When Science and Reason Collide’, published in 2023. Graeme analysed that the ‘talent’ process in our system was more influenced by height and age advantages than genuine long term potential).

Credits: Graeme McDowall / Pitch Publishing

We all know too that without the highly respected safety net of ubiquitous school’s football our talent nursery and conveyor belt has shrivelled.

My criticism, and it’s damning, is nobody who had the power to do anything about it saw it coming or did anything.

Why oh bloody why?

I recently responded to some fairly insightful questions from a Times journalist about the changes that football needs to deal with some of its very real issues.

That conversation has led me through a series of brainworms and some hard earned insights.

I’ve called my Work in Progress”, “The Immutable,(but unwritten) Laws of Scottish Football”.

One day it might even be a book but for now let me say it’s Andy’s developing insights and your input and knowledge is always welcome.

Let me also say that a starting and forever tenet is, like JM Keynes, I can confirm that I am happy to change my stance on anything, if/when I get better information.

So, here in my best Bamber voice is Andy’s inter-related ‘Starter for 10’ or maybe it’s XI.

- Football in Scotland is run by the SFA and SPFL for the clubs, by the clubs and in both organisations the first duty will always be to members especially the powerful ones.

- The principal driving factor behind the engines in all clubs is, and will always be self-interest, (AKA survival).

- There is never enough money in the game and never can or will be.

- All clubs are businesses but not all are well run or what I call right-sized.

- Football is increasingly about immediate returns and results. This means short termism dominates all thinking and decisions. This gets worse every year. There is no future plan beyond next season.

- If it’s easier and cheaper to do nothing then that is what will be done, and also what has always been done.

- Sometimes fan cultural differences become a brand asset and economic benefit to clubs and are encouraged at a cost to the general public.

- Football and society are intricately inter-linked and this simple, forever, truism constantly allows football the very easy fallback of blaming societal issues and the world, rather than addressing the fundamental footballing causes.

- ‘Strict Liability’ may be accepted in what happens in Uefa competitions but somehow responsibilities are not acceptable by the same clubs in Scotland.

Football has no ‘Code of Conduct’ written by fans for fans concerning all aspects of behaviours, by fans and clubs in dealing with fans. Fans are key stakeholders but the game has never acknowledged that simple fact.

- Scottish Football doesn’t know what to do with all aspects of kids.

Most clubs are too remote from the grass roots to value the macro benefits of maximising the football pyramid outside their security-gated estate of 42 SPFL communities.

That’s just a few hundred words on Andy’s weekly blog.

But it sums up why our game lives very much in the today even if it is often reliant on future revenues from fan loyalty.

A kind of internal forever financial abuse.

(And we’ll keep the sins of over-ambition for another Sting, another day).

This Week’s Sting

1. 32-5

2. What SFA AGM?

3. Fifa Held to Task

4. Challenging the Board in the East End

5. Iran Moved to Mexico

6. A Media Bargain, Why No Real Questions?

7. If Every Cheating Episode Got the Same Punishment?

1. Ther Hype is already Deafening

I’m already reacting against the sheer hype and meaningless noise surrounding USA 26.

It’s like we’re being told to ‘enjoy it all, or else’.

People in the media riding the wave of optimism and jumping on and in to get a glow from the ‘pre-tournament mass-feelgood’.

The middle of the night kick-off times will not make it an easy tournament for European fans and our First Minister’s extra Monday holiday to direct employees like the NHS and schools is on reflection as ugly as using SNP funds for non SNP stuff.

If you’ve been on the moon, John declared a holiday then asked the councils and business to join in.

And a very telling and very, very hard fact is out of 37 councils only 5 or 13.5% have agreed.

And nobody in the media or in Holyrood has cornered him on the estimated cost of £60M plus and how it could have been better used.

Maybe he doesn’t need the 430 new camper vans that were an alternative to park in a Dunfermline housing estate.

Thinking a little more, goodness knows how many pepper pots or video games that would allow.

If he’d just shared it out we could all have got £12.

And as an aside, why on earth did any elderly man like Mr Murrell need with Video Games?

2. Time to Open Up Stuff Like That Guys

As a season ticket holder, a shareholder, newspaper and football web sites subscriber, and don’t forget Sky and other sports broadcasters you could surmise that I contribute widely across the game as a stakeholder.

But you’d never know that.

I and all other fans have no recognition apart from being asked to read their press releases in the media.

The SFA had their AGM yesterday and I know nothing about the agenda, and nor does Google on my aging Mac.

I can’t tell you who was there, what was said and what the outcomes were.

I do know that 10 new clubs, mostly ex-juniors were elevated to ‘full membership & hence entry to The Scottish Cup’, because some of them have told us on social media and Google told me.

My view is the meeting is important, should be pre publicised and fans should have access to the system.

Football for too long was controlled by men in smoky and dark rooms.

Time for change, 6th floor.

3. Good Luck to New Jersey and New York

Jennifer Davenport, NY Attorney General has subpoenaed Infantino’s Fifa for an investigation into fans being manipulated into paying sky-high prices.

Here’s what she said to the US media.

"Being honest about ticket sales is not complicated," Davenport said in a statement. "But FIFA has turned buying a ticket to the World Cup into a gauntlet of confusion, fake scarcity and impossibly high prices.

"It is an honor to host the World Cup, but the event is not an invitation to exploit our residents and visitors," Davenport added.

FIFA has repeatedly defended their high ticket prices for this summer's tournament, citing the market demand. "We have to look at the market," FIFA president Gianni Infantino said earlier this month. "We are in the market in which entertainment is the most developed in the world, so we have to apply market rates."

When asked recently about tickets going for $1,000 and higher, President Donald Trump told The New York Post, "I wouldn't pay it either, to be honest with you."

I hope the Swiss Italian man gets a bloody nose because his greed backfires and then gets the ‘bum’s rush’.

But that won’t happen.

In the meantime I predict severe ‘purchase dissonance’ from already ripped off fans.

4. Very Challenging Indeed

First well done to Celtic for a quite amazing finishing spurt.

Yes, the league should have been a formality until the most impactful VAR intrusion and referee’s mistake in the history of our game.

And yes the last game may not have ever finished.

But all is not well at Celtic between thee fans and the board.

And one group, The Celtic Supporters Limited CSLK are not just bellyaching fans in the pub.

Messrs Smillie, Low, McGowan and McLaughlin are organised and have produced a deep analysis of ‘stuff’.

Impressive and it’s momentum will become unstoppable.

Have a look at their web site, you don’t have to be a fan to appreciate the way they are going about it.

I like when fans know they can make a difference and then do.

5. Not Safe in the USA?

Iran will play in the USA but stay over the border in Tijuana.

The hosts move was because of USA pressure.

AKA they didn’t want them in USA.

How does this fit with hosting an ‘International’ tournament.

Ask King Donald and his pal Bibi.

6. A Media Bargain, But Why?

‘People who know’, reckon Fox Corporation are getting their World Cup airings and broadcasts for $500 M instead of the real market value which is three times that amount.

Some think it was to stop Fox suing Fifa for previously giving their media rights to Qatar to the gulf state.

I think that is part of what happened but would dig a little deeper.

So fans are being collectively screwed but the right wing broadcaster seems to have won a watch.

7. Capital Punishment for a Relatively Minor Indiscretion

So Southampton sent a junior member to film Middlesborough and got caught.

Slapped wrists guys.

I have no skin in the game on this one and Hull were waiting either way, but the Saints expulsion was and is quite outrageous and makes me wonder what’s really happening.

Something very fishy methinks.

Wouldn’t have happened to Arsenal or Man City and that says it all.

This week Sir Nicholas Mostyn, a famous barrister that he is, wrote about ‘legal arguments’ that render the decision and the appeal decision as unsafe.

And I heard today that David Winnie who has links with Middlesborough was part of the judgement panel and didn’t acknowledge a ‘conflict of interest’.

Andy’s Sting Blog

Opinions are mine and mine alone. If you are not a member of the SFU then why not, your voice deserves to be heard.

Football needs the combined sense of the anchor stakeholder.

https://www.thesfu.co.uk/

Andy.smith@thesfu.co.uk

Andy’s Album of the Week

Migrants: Hayde Bluegrass Orchestra

Scotland head for North Carolina’s Charlotte in the next few days.

So maybe a good time to explore how Scots, and Scots Irish found the nearby Appalachians and made a new life there.

Everyone there outside of First Nations remnants was a recent ‘immigrant’.

More often than not poor, hungry and disenfranchised.

We collectively took in our music traditions which flourished into what we now know as ‘Bluegrass’, a fusion of ours and other welcome cultures.

An inspirational music movement.

And I loved finding the story that ‘Hillbilly’s was the refined folks in the valleys colloquial name for the Scots and Scots Irish settlers and descendants. (Literally the ‘Billies who lived in the hills’).

This a fine album by a Norwegian Bluegrass band.

And why not?

There is no rule you have to be Appalachian to play Bluegrass.

I like melting pots and these guys are melting a lot of pots.

Here’s The Band playing in the USA.

Have a wee listen and if you don’t like it I’ll give you your money back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gFYxSAjO_Q