IF there is a way of screwing things up be assured that the Scottish Football Association will find it.
The latest debacle involves the Scotland women’s team who have been forced to stand up for their rights in advance of the European Championships which will shortly take place in the Netherlands.
Just to put things in context, these are the first championships in which the national side of either gender has competed in since the men’s World Cup in France in 1998.
This should be a time for celebration and wholehearted support for the Scotland women by everyone involved in Scottish football – players, administrators, coaches and fans alike. Yet with their unerring ability to make a muddle of things, the SFA have already cast a shadow over Scotland’s participation in the tournament.
What made things so obviously a problem caused by the SFA was the fact that Fraser Wishart of the Professional Footballers Association Scotland had to get involved.
His very presence showed that the SFA and the team were pretty far apart, and if the SFA thought they had a case to put to the public, you could bet that it would have been leaked to a friendly hack by now.
That hasn’t happened so you can take it as read that the SFA is most at fault in this row.
To their great credit, the players have not gone public on their grievances but you can guess that one of them will be lack of respect from the blazers at Hampden Park. No matter what the problems are, they should have been resolved months ago.
Instead there is apparently a crunch meeting later today and surely sense will prevail and there will be a resolution of some sort.
The only hope must be that all of us unpleasantness has not affected the players’ collective mentality which has been excellent throughout the tournament so far.
Coach Anna Signeul has been staying out of the dispute, and that’s also to her great credit, as it has meant that she has been able to concentrate on the playing side of things, and by heavens, haven’t she and the team done well so far?
It is going to be tough enough for the women in Holland, without any distractions from the SFA, and when this is all over, questions must be asked of the officials, elected or unelected, who have been involved in the brouhaha.
There are many reasons why a lot of people think the Association is not fit for purpose, and this latest row appears to have provided evidence that those complainers might well be correct.
So far the team have only refused to do certain media appearances, and that has been a good tactic, but in any industrial dispute there is always a risk of escalation and that must be avoided at all costs to allow all our women to do their very best for the nation.
There must be a solution to the problems today, or else the SFA will be held responsible.
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