So, another week and battle with Rangers by the powers that be. Maybe somebody should remind the men, who hide behind the desks and all expenses paid trips around the world, that we as a country have not qualified for a major tournament since 1998.
Quite what the final cost will be in terms of the monetary value in a phoney war with Rangers is a figure I would not like to even hazard a guess at, what I can say with absolute conviction, however, is that the money will go straight out the game, depriving those who most need it of crucial time, energy and effort. Imagine if the S.F.A put half the level of importance they do on carrying on this charade with us into solving the country’s biggest problem.
Football is our national sport, no other sport even runs it close, yet we continue to price young kids out of the game. Parents are being asked to pay upwards of £25 per month for the privilege of playing organised football. For some families, this is just a cost they can ill afford. Football used to serve as a vehicle for kids to escape from poverty, now only middle-class families upwards can afford it. What is going on ?.
Yes, I’m sure the men in blazers will point to the new pitches and the upgrading of the facilities as progress in grassroots football, but to rent a park for an hour from local council prices start around the £70 mark, a figure that is then passed onto the parents of the youngsters. The coaching is overall substandard and driven by favouritism, managers who pick their sons or sons friends and have no real interest in developing the craft of the youngsters in football.
Some teams at under 12-14 level carry upwards of 30 players, in a game that only 11 can or 7 can play each week, this gives false hope to many young boys and girls all the while charging them for the privilege.
We do not have enough coaches of the required level at every level of the game. That is the fault of the S.F.A and government, pure and simple, spending money on purists of clubs they can’t win or having endless think tank reports, not worth the expensive letter header paper they are written upon. Real action is what is needed.
Twenty years have passed since we last seen Scotland at a major tournament, even the expansion of all the major international competitions has not allowed us to make the party. We have seen smaller nations such as Croatia make the world cup final, Northern Ireland head to the European championship and Iceland, whose climate is harsher, and population is smaller than ours make two tournaments in a row, topping an extremely difficult qualification group for this year’s world cup in Russia, all the while we as a nation sit at home and are forced to watch on T.V.
We are all too aware that the powers that be have an agenda, especially against Rangers as a club, they seem to take pride in working against the biggest club in Scotland as opposed to really solving the real issues that have plagued us for generations now.
In a small country where football is king, ask yourself why is it not free for kids to play, we offer free bus passes and health care but simply ignore the youth as they can’t yet vote, or their voice is not loud enough to be heard. We have introduced a sugar tax on full-fat coke to combat obesity, yet somehow force many kids to sit at home by pricing them out the game they love. Counter-productive to say the least.
It’s is estimated that by 2040 E-games will be bigger than real games. Tick Tick.
It’s about time the S.F.A stopped doing sfa.
