Scottish football has taken, to use Scots slang 'a hiding' both on and off the pitch this year.  Sadly though, its not really a case of just a bad year for the Scottish game either.  Whilst the Scottish national team has not qualified for an International tournament since France 1998 and missed out once again by failing miserably to reach South Africa 2010, the UEFA co-efficient of the national side as a result is dropping by the month and its world FIFA ranking falling year on year.  Missing out on  money spinning tournaments means crucial investment possibilities are missed and reinvest in the game stunted.  Yet, despite this no one seems to be held to account.  In times when 'hire and fire' has become an everyday occurance for people responsible for corporate failure in industry, those in charge of the Scottish game continue to revel in large salaries, benefits packages and first class flights despite a track record of failure.

Domestically the Scottish game is haunted by a totally uncompetitive and dull league  format where teams meet each other four times a season.  Sponsorship is far from high profile and attendances at matches are falling even at the biggest clubs.  As far as Scottish football is concerned, the credit crunch cannot be blamed as the sole reason for fans not turning up. 

Slowly, as possible solutions put forward by the games rulers are righty ridiculed and performances on the field get worse, the Scottish game is dying and things look like getting worse.  By mid October 2010, Scotland found itself watching on as the rest of Europe overtook them and fought it out to reach SA 2o10.  The old excuse of Scotland being only a 'small nation' could no longer be put forward as nations such as Slovakia, Slovenia and Bosnia find themselves either at the premier event or one step away.  In short the Scottish game is in a pathetic state and we took the chance to have a look at a typical week in the life....

pathetic: adjective

1 distressingly inadequate

(Brit, informal) ludicrously or contemptibly uninteresting or worthless

Scottish football takes a pasting at the best of times from the critics. Just this week prominent Scottish journalist and broadcaster Jim Traynor lambasted the state of the game in Scotland. In the article in the Scottish Daily Record everyone from those running the game to the inadequately skilled players who play the game in Scotland came in for an earful. Administrators should resign or be shown the door suggested Traynor and players should find another job or career; all in all it was far from harsh and hurtful because all in all it was all so perceptive, insightful and very true. 

The article though was not the first this year that has tore into Scottish football.  An early spring piece by Traynor spoke of the World Cup qualification Saturday evening capitulation to Holland and the after match International drink-athon headed up by the former national team captain Barry Ferguson that led to his sacking. ' Terrible on the pitch and drunk off it' would have been my headline, as it was the whole sorry situation did not need a firm headline for most football fans in Scotland to see how pathetic things were after the 3-0 capitulation.

On a domestic level the SPL, Scotland's main football Championship, is narrow in scope, dull and uncompetitive on the field of play. Technique is thin on the ground amongst players with the league full of hammer throwers, bosman donkeys and second rate journeyman rejects that no other leagues in Europe want.   Pitches are more often than not unplayable by December; splattered with sand come January by groundsmen just to make goal-mouths playable whilst stadia are one dimensional and from the lego kit school of architectural indulgence. Any form of traditional stadia that Scottish football had was destroyed come the mid 1990's and replaced with passionless, sanitized atmospheric cesspit's called all seater stadia.   The need for these are a necessity as well, rubberstamped with a permanent wax stamp in the SPL statutes.   We are stuck with these unatmospheric morgues that offer very little.   All that is missing are the coffins.  Nearly everyone of these grounds offers come the average Saturday very little to get existed about. No traditional home ends; little passion or half hearted colour generation; empty spaces and fans looking miserable on plastic seats that cost them  on average £22 plus a 50p booking fee for 90 minutes.  And the accusation from administrators that football pricing is in line with other forms of entertainment is also a myth.  A cinema visit costs £7.00; a theatre visit around £16 and a meal for two £20 each.  Football in Scotland does not offer value for money.

With things becoming sparse and near passionless in stadiums its league system is headed up by the gruesome twosome from Glasgow.   At Ibrox Stadium there is Rangers and in the east of the city there is Celtic. Rangers fans pride themselves on the quintessentially British nature of the club whilst embracing its Northern Irish/Scottish traditions but they do manage to sqeeze in a  token St.Andrews flag on the back of the home shirt. Celtic on the other hand seeks season after season to be the Champion of Scotland but seek to embrace the Southern Irish heritage of the club even though they do not play in the Eircom League.   Meanwhile, its green clad fans fly Palestine flags, Basque separatist flags and Irish tricolour flags and arrive at Celtic games from every Hick Irish town from Tipperary to Waterford on a weekly basis yet play in the SPL.  It is all really very sad and totally confusing. Even the one Scottish player of true genuine quality Celtic have chooses to play for Ireland even though he was born and bred in Glasgow and is a Scotsman.

With the Scottish league system a financially strewn mess, team merit not rewarded via any sort of pyramid league system and clubs getting by on meagre television and sponsorship deals, crowds at games are falling on a weekly basis. Whilst Rangers failed to sell out Champions League matches, Celtic had 20,000 seats empty at its stadium for a Europa League game against SV Hamburg.  Not to mention that the Scottish National team have not qualified for an International finals tournament for 12 years; from the attendances at games alone you would presume that those in charge of the game at an administrative level would acknowledge that things have gone wrong somewhere along the line. How wrong you are, the six figure salaries the executives in charge of the game pick up has made them blind to the harsh realities of the inadequacy of the product.

According to those in charge at the SPL and the SFA the Scottish public are just 'too negative' towards the Scottish brand of football. Brands are strong, great sponsorship deals are thriving and attendances per head of population are excellent according to Gordon Smith SFA Holdings and co.   Its all really great if you listen to the SPL and all fans have just got to shut up, stop moaning and enjoy it more. Now the English FA, the FIGC, KNVB or the FFF all have enemies and critics in their respective countries. Those at the top and running things whereever seldom get an easy ride and make few friends at grass roots level amongst the ordinary fan. But the SFA and SPL have gradually grown to become the laughing stock of Europe's football family or at least by comparison within these shores.

Things this week got excruciatingly worse via a three pronged disaster straight form the Scottish football school of classical own-goals. At administrative level the SPL and its Chief Executive Neil Doncaster launched its first attempt at driving the Scottish game forward from the depths. In an attempt to improve the 'product' he oversees, Doncaster launched his so called 'SPL Family Champions scheme'.   This 'initiative' will see families recruited by the SPL and encouraged to 'go undercover' at all 12 SPL grounds to assess clubs on how they treat family groups. The ultimate aim is to discover whom at the end of the season can be crowned SPL Family Champions for 2009/10. But, according to Doncaster, it’s not just all about an end of season shiny Public relations award for the family champion club. What the research will do is encourage face painting at games, clowns and stilt walkers to keep families entertained. This, Doncaster suggests will improve standards and help to foster a culture that welcomes families to Scottish league grounds and fill up empty seats.

Now, if it was not for the fact that the idea comes from a marketing man who mentions the word 'brand' in every sentence, this initiative to improve the Scottish game could easily be dismissed as out of touch, flimsy and careless. The fact is it goes further than that, the idea is ignorant and totally at odds with what is actually required to improve things. Its one thing to try and make the SPL more of a family picnic catering event than it already is, but its plain stupid and infuriating to totally ignore that fact that what the game in Scotland needs are real initiative to encourage fanatical match-day support inside stadiums. If coco the clown and the Russian state circus are what the SPL and Doncaster wants to foster as half time entertainment than there truly is no hope for the future of the Scottish 'product'. A brand once was strong and characterized by behaviours such as passion and enjoyment, is now a culture that is dull, dull, dull but built in a family tradition of course.

There is from all of Neil Doncaster's mutterings an essence of  an aim to drive grass roots support away from matches and to replace these with happy, smiling family groups who choose to come back, time and again to games.  The overriding deluded endeavour is not to create safe standing areas; not to encourage passion or any theatre of colour inside grounds. Its about diluting any attempts to create and foster this, sanitize and indeed demonize any attempts at creating it as places such as Germany have done via its a successful brand and product the Bundesliga.  Doncaster's aim is  to create a safe but sadly unexciting, dull and unenjoyable place to visit come a Saturday afternoon for a picnic.  The football is a mere side show.

Indeed this puerile social circus of clowns, halfwits and degenerates got into another gear at Europa League game between Celtic and SV Hamburg at Celtic Park this midweek. As half time came around, onto the pitch stepped the completely and utterly talentless 'celebrity' Susan Boyle of 'village idiot personified fame.' All that was missing was the fact that 'Susan Boyle is still a virgin' was not flashed up on the giant Celtic plasma screen behind the goal. As if Scottish football was not bad enough those in charge at clubs want to introduce the X-Factor to our stadiums.  This shameful piece of televisual trash and the cretins who appear on it should not be allowed anywhere our stadiums.

And then, with Celtic beaten and joining the likes of Aberdeen, Rangers and Hearts in being ass kicked in European competition, things got increasingly worse only this time off the field. Its a tradition in Germany for teams, players and coaches to engage with supporters at games. Unsurprislingy this type of engagement is one of the reasons as to why the German Bundesliga is a successful brand and the Scottish one, where such acts are uncommon, is a failure. After winning 1-0, Hamburg coach Bruno Labbadia was left angry when his players were refused permission by Strathclyde Police to greet 2,500 HSV fans had were congregated in celebration after the 1-0 win over Celtic.

With HSV players ready to sit down and rejoice with visiting fans, Strathclyde Police told the players that indulgence in such an act would lead to the club being reported to UEFA. With HSV players clearly eager to remonstrate with such a preposterous directive, visiting club officials argued with police and stewards and his players eventually sat down on the far corner of the pitch but unable to fully engage.

If ever there was an example of the type of over sanitized 'police state' type directives that supporters in Scotland have to deal with on a weekly basis then this was it. It's one thing enforcing such bureaucratic pedantic rules and regulations on home fans on an average Saturday and treating away fans like mass murderers, but to order visitors to Scotland to do the same showed extreme disrespect and the state of our game in a bad light.  Why would the HSV want to come back to Scotland?

Not to be outdone Glasgow Rangers, the reigning Scottish Champions, were this week demolished 4-1 at home by Romanian Champions Unirea. As if comic book caper defending, numerous own goals not too mention empty seats a plenty at the game were shameful enough, one Rangers fan after the game decided to shout racist abuse of some type at Rangers midfielder Maurice Edu. Upon getting home Edu then decides to publish the fact he has been abused on his Twitter account and soon after the world knows.

With respect to Scottish football then there you have it, and all in one week. From the SPL comes a family led re-branding campaign straight out of the Delia Smith cookbook book of footballing non success wrapped in random racism acts, family picnic ideas and brand reaffirmation.   From those that police and make Scottish stadiums 'safe' came an attempt and eventual threat to stop a visiting German team celebrating with its fans at the end of a game.   What next, a goal celebration meaning a breach of the peace charge?

On the pitch there is very little skill or for that matter goals and instead fans get served up a human yak and village idiot at half time who the British population have lauded as a some sort of measure of success. Then, outside the stadium, a fed up and brainless Rangers fan disregards the global anti-racism campaign ongoing in football and decides it would be smart to racially abuse one of his own players who is a black American.

When things are on a downward curve, whatever or whenever this occurs its often said that 'things will get worse, before they get better'. With respect to Scottish football though things are getting worse and its so called 'brand' is becoming lost in a haze of confusion, mismanagement and failure both on and off the field. That, and not the 'negativity' that the games rulers keep accusing us of preaching, is what is slowly killing the Scottish game.