Scottish Football: It's not all bad news north of the border

Scottish Football / Robert Hughes / 03 March 2009 / Leave a Comment

Robert Hughes looks at how the Scottish Premier League's loss of big television deals six years ago forced it to do things differently to the English Premier League and how that may not actually be a bad thing.

Back in the mid to late '90s, Scottish football could boast such world stars as Brian Laudrup, Henrik Larsson and Ronald de Boer. But these days Scottish clubs struggle to attract top players from abroad. Looking back further, many of the English First Division's top players in the '70s and '80s were Scottish, but nowadays those homegrown players who move south of the border generally fail to make much of an impact, with the likes of Barry Ferguson and Kenny Miller having returned home in recent years. So it would seem that the standard of Scottish football has fallen in the last ten years or so - but what are the causes of this decline, and what might the future hold?

As is so often the case in the modern game, one of the main issues is money. In 2002, the Scottish Premier League (which had been formed only four years earlier), suffered a major setback in when the TV deal with Sky collapsed. Several clubs were forced into administration, and the rest found it increasingly difficult to pay the wages of star players, or even to afford to buy them in the first place. This is reflected by the fact that the Scottish record transfer fee is still "only" the £12 million which Rangers paid for Tore Andre Flo back in 2000.

The organisation of the game in Scotland is over-complicated, with three governing bodies - The Scottish F.A., Premier League and Football League - wielding power. This makes it difficult to bring about any major change, although proposals are currently being considered to streamline these organisations, and to develop a 'pyramid' structure, similar to that which exists in England.

The dominance of the Old Firm has long been seen as a weakness of Scottish football. 2008/09 will be the 24th consecutive season where the League title has been won by either Celtic or Rangers. This lack of competition does not help improve standards, and quality players are unlikely to be attracted to any of the other clubs when they have no realistic chance of winning a major trophy. With the two Glasgow giants currently level on points at the top, Celtic can be backed at [1.9] to win their 4th successive title, while Rangers are currently [2.06].

However, the Scottish game is not necessarily in terminal decline. The crisis of 2002 did have one positive consequence - with clubs no longer able to afford either the transfer fees or wages of big-name players, they were forced to blood young homegrown talent, and in the long-term, invest more in their youth development and academies. As a result, both the quantity and quality of young Scottish players coming through has increased significantly in just a few years.

It is easy to assume that the overall standard has fallen with the reduction in the number of foreign players. However, the performance of Scottish clubs in Europe has improved over recent seasons. In UEFA's co-efficient ranking, Scotland are currently 10th - when the SPL was created in 1998, they were ranked 26th. Similarly, after hitting an all-time low under Berti Vogts, the national team has been gradually improving, and has only narrowly missed out on qualification for the last two major championships.

Their world ranking of 88th in 2004 was their lowest ever, but as more young talent has come through, they have recovered and were up as high as 13th towards the end of qualifying for Euro 2008. The national team are currently 2nd in their World Cup qualifying group, behind Holland, and can be backed at [1.41] to qualify for their first tournament since 1998, and [12.5] to win the group.

The SPL will never be able to generate the kind of revenue, nor attract the kind of world stars, seen in the English Premier League. But rather than trying to copy their English counterparts with big TV deals and foreign billionaires, they should try to do things differently. By streamlining the organisation of the game, encouraging greater competition in the top division, and continuing to invest in young talent, they can improve the quality of the League, encourage higher attendances, improve the national team, and ultimately make the SPL a more attractive proposition for top players and coaches.