Comments on: A Dutch solution to a Scottish problem (Part I) http://www.insideleft.net/archives/3248 the corinthian {scottish} football blog Thu, 18 Aug 2011 16:02:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Jay Mac http://www.insideleft.net/archives/3248/comment-page-1#comment-832 Jay Mac Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:19:51 +0000 http://www.insideleft.net/?p=3248#comment-832 Where do I start! Excellent piece and some very valid points. I'd love to say I have an answer but... It's a well known fact that per head of population we are one of the best club supporting nations in Europe. I don't know how much the Old Firm attendances skew the average figures but you could find that it pulls it down quite considerably. I guess I have two points: 1) The money side of the game. I actually believe there is enough money in Scottish football for it to function extremely well. I done a bit of research into this and found that over the last 20 years the Old Firm have spent around £321m on transfer fees alone. Of this only around £41m has been spent in Scotland - only £2m a year. It would be interesting to get a figure for the amount of money that has went out of the Scottish game by all teams, including transfers, signing-on fees, agents, etc and compare that with the amount of money invested in youth. Like it or not, the Old Firm are Scottish football (at least in the sense of influence and power) and if Scottish football is broke then its is the Old Firm's own fault. 2) Focus. With all the reviews of our game and the coverage in the media, the one thing that keep's coming up is money. While money is important, I just worry that the focus is on how to make the Scottish game wealthy and not how to improve the quality of Scottish players. Take the English league for example. It is the wealthiest league in the world but are the English players the best in the world? I still think that despite their quality, the English players are still short in technique compared to a lot of other nations. We need to make sure any changes are to improve quality. Where do I start! Excellent piece and some very valid points. I’d love to say I have an answer but… It’s a well known fact that per head of population we are one of the best club supporting nations in Europe. I don’t know how much the Old Firm attendances skew the average figures but you could find that it pulls it down quite considerably.

I guess I have two points:
1) The money side of the game. I actually believe there is enough money in Scottish football for it to function extremely well. I done a bit of research into this and found that over the last 20 years the Old Firm have spent around £321m on transfer fees alone. Of this only around £41m has been spent in Scotland – only £2m a year. It would be interesting to get a figure for the amount of money that has went out of the Scottish game by all teams, including transfers, signing-on fees, agents, etc and compare that with the amount of money invested in youth. Like it or not, the Old Firm are Scottish football (at least in the sense of influence and power) and if Scottish football is broke then its is the Old Firm’s own fault.

2) Focus. With all the reviews of our game and the coverage in the media, the one thing that keep’s coming up is money. While money is important, I just worry that the focus is on how to make the Scottish game wealthy and not how to improve the quality of Scottish players. Take the English league for example. It is the wealthiest league in the world but are the English players the best in the world? I still think that despite their quality, the English players are still short in technique compared to a lot of other nations. We need to make sure any changes are to improve quality.

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