Scottish Football

Scottish football needs a wake-up call NOW!

Considering we are not a particularly wealthy or large nation, Scotland has a rich footballing heritage, producing world class players such as Jimmy Johnstone, Archie Gemmil and even in more recent times, English champions Man Utd’s Darren Fletcher. But I am convinced that in the past decade Scottish football has declined in stature. Yes, we have beaten France and Holland, however, even without raising the point that we withstood a bombardment of opposition attacks in doing so, we have failed to qualify for a major tournament since 1998. One may argue that in the past ten years Celtic and Rangers both made it to the Uefa Cup final, but this is no great achievement as the vast majority of the style of football played leading up to this was criticised. Our best teams shouldn’t be aiming as high as competing in the Champions League but surely qualification to the later stages of the champions league and even at that qualifying for the later stages of the inferior Europa league which Celtic have failed to do.

Why Scottish football has become poorer over recent years seems to be the question on most fans’ minds at the moment. Some may argue that the recession is what is causing Scottish Football to fall behind the other nations in terms of stature, but the recession is a worldwide issue which is affecting every nation so this argument   is not valid. I would, however, argue that lack of money being invested in Scottish football has been very detrimental to the quality of talent brought into the country and the class of coaching and facilities that can be offered. Compared to English football, there are ‘pennies’ being spent north of the border. This is highlighted by Manchester United selling highly-rated winger Christiano Ronaldo in a deal worth £70 million, and Manchester City having access to unlimited funds to spend on players and other important areas in the club such as facilities and youth development, whereas...