Wings Over Scotland

The debate about whether Scotland could survive and flourish outside the Union is uncannily similar to the one that filled the media a year ago about whether Scottish football could live without Rangers. (And which by a strange and almost inexplicable coincidence tends to feature many of the same people on the respective sides.)

As the events of the spring and summer of 2012 unfolded, even the game’s own governing body insisted that separating the rest of the SPL from the Union Jack-loving Ibrox club would reap a disastrous whirlwind of destruction, with businesses (sponsors) fleeing in terror and clubs becoming impoverished without the generous subsidy of thousands of visiting Rangers fans.

In the end, despite the most strenuous efforts of the SFA, SPL and SFL to override the wishes of their customers with a campaign of relentless and increasingly-hysterical fearmongering, the new “Rangers” was denied both entry to the SPL and a “leapfrog” into SFL 1, and joined Scottish football at the lowest professional level.

So how did post-apocalypse life turn out in the people’s game?

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Yesterday saw the release of the latest unemployment figures. They showed Scottish unemployment falling by 11,000 to its lowest level in four years – dropping below the 200,000 barrier for the first time since 2009, after five successive months of falls – with the number of people in work showing its biggest increase for almost 13 years.

The figures came against a backdrop of continuing increases in UK joblessness, leaving the Scottish unemployment rate significantly below that of the rest of the country. The Scottish economy also grew by 0.5% over the most recent measured period, while that of the UK continued to shrink.

We know what you’re thinking – this is GOOD news, right?

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On the rare occasions when we write something about football, and the Old Firm in particular, we always get a few angry comments from people complaining that it’s got nothing to do with politics and therefore has no business on an independence website. We trust this will put a stop to that argument once and for all.

The story is nonsense, of course, and it’s no great surprise that the original Sunday People piece doesn’t name its supposed sources. But the mere fact of the notion being aired in the UK press at all is pretty strong evidence that we’re not the only people who understand the connection between Scottish sport and Scottish politics.

An alert viewer directs us to the Scottish FA’s “Supporter Registration Page”. Click the image below for a bigger picture, but a much smaller sense of self-worth.

We have a vague nagging sensation that something seems to be missing from that list of nationalities, but we just can’t quite put our finger on it. We’re sure it’ll come to us.

Whenever we put up one of our very occasional football-related posts, a few readers grump about their apparent lack of connection to the wider sphere of Scottish politics. So we couldn’t help but notice this comment lurking unassumingly in the middle of a Davie Provan rant in today’s Scottish Sun about the Rangers cheating verdict:

“Despite the £250,000 non-disclosure fine, Nimmo Smith ruled that Rangers had gained ‘no sporting advantage’ through their use of EBTs. If that’s good enough for the man who tried the Lockerbie bomber, it should be good enough for the rest of us.”

We think that’s what they used to call “friendly fire”.

Look, you knew we’d have to do this. Today’s ruling of the commission investigating SFA/SPL rule breaches by Rangers is almost the closing act in the farcical saga that’s enveloped Scottish football for just over a year since the club went into administration on Valentine’s Day 2012, so we’re nearly finished now.

Nevertheless, Lord Nimmo-Smith’s judgement is so extraordinary and bizarre it simply can’t pass without comment. We gave a gut reaction to it this morning, but it’s in the detail that you really see the contortions into which the Commission was obliged to twist itself in order to let the club off scot-free.

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If you’re a banker in a small country and you criminally destroy the entire national economy out of personal and corporate greed, you go to jail.

If you’re a banker in a large country and you criminally destroy the entire national economy out of personal and corporate greed, a laughably small fine is imposed and you get to keep everything your fraudulent actions helped you line your pockets with.

If you’re a small Scottish football club and you field an improperly-registered player once, by accident, you forfeit the match and are disqualified from the tournament.

If you’re a large Scottish football club and you field numerous improperly-registered players, repeatedly and deliberately, to gain an unfair advantage, a laughably small fine (which will never be paid) is imposed on a completely different and bankrupt company, and you get to keep everything the unregistered players in question helped you win.

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Remember when some of us made a bit of a fuss about the epically tasteless plans for the 100th anniversary of the start of World War 1, and were angrily told by various indignant British nationalists that the planned events were a “commemoration, not a celebration”? Turns out you can’t keep the truth down for long.

Astonishingly, the government even wheeled out some unbelievable numbnuts of a defence minister who offered up the following quote to describe this great sporting showpiece in which we will again be encouraged to see the Germans as our enemies:

“A no-brainer in terms of an event that is going to reach part of the community that perhaps might not get terribly entrenched into this”

Yep. He really said “entrenched”. Still, we agree with the first three words.

In case you missed it on Twitter, we reveal the No campaign’s Head Of Graphs:

There, that should cheer up those grumpy The Rangers fans from last night.

We had a conversation on Twitter with a fan of The Rangers this evening (though he was terribly upset at the use of the term for some reason). It was sparked by Charles Green’s latest piece of box-office wizardry, in which he gave an interview – watchable for just 99p on the club’s website – professing his fury at the Ibrox side’s apparent exclusion from league reconstruction talks and vowing to remove Rangers International Football Club PLC from Scottish football at the first available opportunity.

And on the face of it, Green has a legitimate complaint. Rule 19 (above) of the SFL Constitution expressly notes that Associate Members such as TRFC are entitled to “attend and speak at” any meeting of the League, though not to vote, and according to Green his club have in fact been completely ignored in the discussions. But beyond that, it’s extremely hard to actually work out what his beef is.

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The Scottish football media has apparently become suddenly convinced that the SPL’s proposed 12-12-18 league reconstruction plan is going to happen, and very possibly as soon as next year. Today’s papers are full of analysis of the story, but as usual it’s pretty shallow stuff which appears to miss all the main implications in favour of a simplistic “is it confusing for the fans and where would it leave Rangers?” dual angle.

So with the usual apologies to the football-hating politics fans, let’s have a wee delve.

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Okay, so here’s a fun teaser you can try out around the table after your Christmas dinner. What do the following far-flung countries have in common: Canada, Togo, Uzbekistan, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Gabon, Panama, Zambia, Haiti, Libya and the Cape Verde Islands? Give up? Here’s a clue:

Yep – all of them, and 60 other nations too, are now officially better at football than Scotland. Entirely coincidentally, in the same week this dismaying fact was revealed, it was confirmed that former national coach Craig Levein was to sue the SFA for only offering to pay him £35,000 a month for the next year-and-a-half to sit around and scratch his arse in front of the Jeremy Kyle Show.

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