SUBMISSION FROM GED O'BRIEN Introduction It is clear Scottish Football is in crisis and has been for years. From a viewpoint that is both unique and unusual I would like to offer the Enquiry Into the State of Scottish Football my analysis of how we arrived in this parlous situation. I also hope that I can help offer the beginnings of a way out of this mess. My name is Ged O'Brien. Until February 6th, 2004 I was the Project Director of the Scottish Football Association Museum Trust, known as the Scottish Football Museum (SFM). I had been employed full time on the project to build a national football museum since 1993, but I had been working on the project as a consultant since 1990. As the Project Director I was responsible for finding the money to build the Museum. When the Museum was linked with the project to rebuild the South Stand at Hampden Park, I became involved in the Millennium Fund application for the entire Stand. From 1993 I worked closely with the SFA (then at Park Gardens) and later Queens Park Football Club (QPFC) and the National Stadium plc (TNS). I came to understand much of the workings of Scottish Football. As I have recently requested an enquiry into the running of the SFM from the Officer of the Scottish Charities Regulator, I will limit my comments here to how the SFM linked to the SFA. A copy of my request for an enquiry into the SFM has been deposited with the Scottish Executive. 2 of 23 Historical Overview The Scottish Football Association was founded in 1873. The driving force behind it was Queen's Park FC (founded 1867). QPFC saw the need for a national association for two main reasons: a) to run the international team and b) to organise a national cup competition. They turned down the suggestion from others that they run football in a similar way to which the Marylebone Cricket Club once ran English Cricket. They had no desire to act as the governing body as well as be a constituent member of the SFA. QPFC's motto was 'Ludere Causa Ludendi' (The Game for the Game's Sake). This sentiment was entirely fitting for an amateur club in an amateur era. All Scottish clubs were amateur, which meant that the SFA was founded by organisations who all had the same core philosophy. This maximised harmony in an inherently competitive organisation. In a pragmatic sense harmony also was ensured because QPFC were the mightiest club in the world with a membership of 800+. (150 was a good figure at the time.) It is doubtful if too many other clubs felt they could challenge what QPFC might regard as 'good for the game' in the 1870s and 80s. This situation continued for the first ten years of the SFA's existence. Problems were initially created by the onset of professionalism in England in 1885. As Scotland had invented the modern world passing game the 'Scotch Professors' had been moving to England in their droves to train players and clubs in the new style. The Scottish game became weakened as scouts and club officials flooded into the big towns and cities to entice players south. This situation was exacerbated by the attraction of being paid in England to play football. 3 of 23 At first the SFA tried to hold back reality by 'blacklisting' players who were known to have turned professional in England. This had no effect and did not stem the tide. The posters of the lists of banned players are early testimony to the SFA's futile efforts to ignore a wider reality beyond their control. Matters were made more complicated in 1890 when the Scottish Football League was founded. QPFC refused to join the League, as they viewed it as a precursor to and enabler of professionalism in Scotland. Clubs needed to retain rosters of players who would have to train intensively to meet the challenge of regular games over a season. This could only be done if players gave up ordinary employment and devoted themselves to their club. In turn clubs had to pay the players to ensure their loyalty in the provision of contracts. QPFC were correct in their prediction. Many clubs such as Glasgow Celtic had been paying players covertly. Reality was accepted by the SFA in 1893, when Scotland embraced professionalism. QPFC found that their old friends who joined the League quickly decided it was more important than friendlies and the Spiders' match card diminished. In 1900 they were obliged to join the League, whilst maintaining their amateur principles. With paid players both sides of the Border, the structure of the game moved out of synch with the original principles of club football. Very quickly power moved to the large clubs in urban areas. They could provide the large grounds, attendances and money which would attract the best players. In the 1880s arguably the three best teams in the world came from a small area of Dunbartonshire: Vale of Leven, Dumbarton and Renton (World Club Champions 4 of 23 1888). Each club was in a town of about 6,000. This was insufficient to provide the wealth for a professional football club. Even before overt professionalism, Renton saw their best players tempted away by large clubs such as Aston Villa and Celtic. This trend accelerated after professionalism became official. Small town clubs lost players to city clubs and Scottish clubs lost players to English cities. Renton no longer exist, Vale were reborn in the 20th Century as a Junior Club and Dumbarton have gone from League Champions in 1891 and 1892 to stalwarts of the lower divisions in the 21st Century. In this new era, paranoia and suspicion must have occurred. No longer did a player stay with his club because there was no incentive to move: money became the driving force. The structure of football from 1893 was no longer suitable. However, nothing changed structurally. The SFA was still a body founded by clubs, who delegated Directors to serve on committees. If that was not the case, Directors were delegated to serve on SFA committees through being members of the Scottish Football League or minor associations such as the Junior FA. It is extremely difficult to believe that any club director would dismiss the bias they had had ingrained in them through decades of fighting to keep their club alive, to become disinterested committee members the moment they walked through the doors of Carlton Place or Park Gardens. A good example of the problem lay in the group who chose the international team. A gathering of SFA committee men picked the squad until the late 1950s, when the Manager was given full powers of selection. Until that time players were chosen by the most strong minded and persuasive members of committee. There was a strong degree of horse trading concluded between members e.g. 'I'll vote for your 5 of 23 goalkeeper if you vote for my inside right'. This might explain why the greatest Scottish goalscorer of all time: Jimmy McGrory only won seven caps in the 1920s and 30s. Yet again we see an SFA function being irrelevant to the contemporary situation, yet being maintained decades after its usefulness had gone. By the 1930s, when Celtic and Rangers had attained the dominance they still enjoy, it is extremely hard to perceive how they could determine many links between their business model and that of a lower league team. It is even more difficult to see an empathy with the arguments of a representative of a minor association which still operated within an amateur ethos. That it happened at all would have been down to the personal views of individuals within the game e.g. Sir Robert Kelly of Celtic expressing concern that TV would harm small clubs the most. With the rise of European football as a money spinner and source of stronger competition, it is easy to see how Rangers and Celtic allowed the Glasgow Charity Cup and Glasgow Cup to wither as major tournaments. They might have been important parts of football's cultural life before World War II: they ceased to be priorities for large clubs: particularly the Old Firm. In this sense all SFL clubs would have developed the same attitude to their County Cup competitions: all of which are now minor affairs or defunct. The size and beauty of the trophies are mute testimony to the importance they once held in their localities. Nothing remains forever. The same battle is now being played out in the increasing dominance of European Club competition. This will be to the almost certain detriment of minor domestic leagues and minor domestic cup competitions. The Scottish League Cup will go the same way as the Glasgow Charity Cup and the Inter-City League. 6 of 23 Currently the Old Firm remain as colossi. They have won more than 65% of all domestic competitions. They account for the large majority of fans who attend football on any weekend. As money is attracted to them, other teams are weakened, so providing less competition in a League which Celtic and Rangers already disdain. It is difficult to see how the cycle can be broken under the current structure. This is one of the many crises which Scottish Football faces. Other countries have similar discrepancies of success (Norway, Netherlands, Portugal) but it is at its most stark in Scotland. On the one hand it is known that situations change. Problems occur in football where change is not planned but comes about as a result of short term arguments and self interest.