23 Jan 2013

Fan power to the fore in Scottish football?

Well one thing’s already been achieved by the fans’ draft resolution (see previous blog): it is not being ignored.

The Scottish FA have clearly looked at what is being proposed and are rightly interested by its content.

Responding to it however they wanted to draw some relevant points to the attention of fans and I am more than happy to do so via this blog.

Primarily the SFA are keen everyone should know about and read their mission statement, a plan which addresses some of the territory in the draft I published on Monday. Here’s the link to it.

A number of fans have said they’d not been able to find this on the SFA site – so that should be cleared up now.

The SFA’s position on Rangers and the SPL proposals to shoe-horn the club into a 2-Tier SPL remains that they did not, could not, would not seek to influence this matter.

The SFA insist they are football’s umbrella body in the game but have no jurisdiction over the running of the SPL or any league for that matter:

“The Scottish FA has no jurisdiction over the competition rules of league bodies. Through the Professional Game Board, we can provide a forum for debate on matters such as league reconstruction.”

So they say they exist to provide debate on matters like league reconstruction but cannot interfere directly, they say they have no powers to do so.

The Scottish FA have recently issued the national football survey; the most comprehensive questionnaire ever conducted into Scottish football.

More than 7000 supporters have contributed to this wide-ranging survey, with the results due to be published next month.

We are in regular dialogue with Supporters Direct Scotland and, indeed, will be attending their council meeting at Hampden Park today.

So the SFA are in listening mode they say and have overhauled their internal structures with the aim of improving their hearing – not least of what fans may want.

It is to be hoped that when/if yesterday’s draft resolution becomes something agreed upon, that the game’s governing body will continue to be receptive to new thinking from those who matter most – the fans.

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