Football Does Things Differently - And In Some Ways Better

ONE of the most-glaring differences between Association Football and Rugby Union Football – leaving aside the shape of the ball used, the fact one ball is mainly kicked, the other mainly handled, and the fact one game is played by 11 players per team, the other by 15, is that in Rugby Union – the violence is kept on the field.

 Unruly fans are not a Rugby problem

Rugby never has had to, and perish the thought it ever will, introduce legal sanctions such as OBFA (the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act), as a means of containing the bad behaviour of spectators. Last week, in their continuing efforts to give the dominant Scottish National Party – the party of Government – a rare bloody nose inside the Holyrood Parliament, the opposition parties combined to have OBFA repealed. We will allow them to repent at leisure.

I have always said, OBFA was bad law, hurriedly-introduced and poorly-drafted, but, given the fact the followers of one of Scotland's leading clubs were described, over 30 years ago as: “A permanent embarrassment and occasional disgrace” by one of Scotland's leading football writers of the time – and that following, including we must presume the sons and grandsons of those blasted back in the 1980s, has continued to go on the occasional rampage ever since, maybe since the club involved is loathe to control its following, and their greatest rivals also has, to an extent, an anti-social element following it, some sort of sanctions are necessary.

But, that argument is for another day. Another huge difference between Scotland's two principal winter games is how the national governing bodies legislate. OK, I accept, Football is more-popular and played more-widely than Rugby. There are far-more clubs and teams, but, for me, the major difference is how Rugby, and the SRU, is far-more centralised than Football and the SFA.

The big Rugby decisions are made inside Murrayfield, the big Football decisions inside Hampden. However, I would argue, and this is probably at least in part due to Football's greater size and scope, I would argue, Football takes its decisions closer to the grass roots.

 Supreme Leader - Ayatollah Dodson

The SRU is administered by (if you like) its “Civil Service”, the paid administration staff inside Murrayfield and commanded by Chief Executive Officer Mark Dodson. Mr Dodson and his staff supposedly take their orders from the elected and appointed members of the 12-strong Board of Directors; Mr Dodson and three of his senior officials are Board members, the other eight directors are either independent appointees, or are elected to the SRU Council, who then appoint them to the Board.

The 17 members of the Council are all elected by the clubs and represent each strata and geographical area of the game, and whether you are Stuart Hogg, British Lion, Scotland full-back and arguably the Number One player in Scotland today, or a six-year-old playing P1 mini-rugby at your local club, for you all roads lead to Murrayfield.

The SFA works differently. Yes, they have a “Civi Service” and an eight-strong main Board, two of whom are independent appointees – but, they also have two subordinate Boards – the ten-strong Professional Game Board, which looks after the interests of the 42 clubs in membership of the four divisions of the Scottish Football Premier League and the Highland and Lowland Leagues; and the ten-strong Non-Professional Game Board.

SFA President Alan Macrae

The NPGB is an interesting body. It is chaired by the overall President of the SFA, currently Alan Macrae, whose home club is Highland League side Cover Rangers, there is one other Hampden “suit” - SFA vice-President Rod Petrie of Hibernian, but the other members represent each of the affiliated associations and leagues within the overall SFA umbrella - John Campbell (Scottish Welfare FA), Fiona McIntyre (Scottish Women's Football), John Gold (Scottish Schools FA), John Greenhorn (East of Scotland Football League), Colin Holden (South of Scotland Football League), Tom Johnston (Scottish Junior FA), Thomas McKeown (Scottish Amateur FA), Tom Anderson (Scottish Youth FA).

You have probably never heard of some of these minor associations, so, I will try to explain what they do:

• Scottish Welfare FA organises mainly Sunday League and Summer football and is particularly strong in the north-east of Scotland.
• Scottish Women's FA does what is says on the tin and looks after women's football.
• Scottish Schools FA, again, it does what it says on the tin.
• East of Scotland League, is a “non-league” group of clubs in the Lothians and, Borders.
• South of Scotland League is a similar body, but based mainly in Dumfries and Galloway.
• Scottish Junior FA looks after the 170-odd “Junior” clubs: non-league, mainly semi-professional clubs right across Scotland.
• Scottish Amateur FA looks after the many play for fun clubs who mainly play on Scotland's public parks. There are 21 separate leagues, mostly with multi divisions within the SAFA.
• Scottish Youth FA looks after all non-professional football for players up to Under-21 age group.

There is also the SFA Congress, which meets quarterly. To quote from the official SFA website: “The ongoing modernisation of the Scottish FA’s governance manifested itself in the creation of a new Congress in 2015: the national game’s first fully-representative group of stakeholders.”

The members of Congress, and who they represent are:

Office Bearers: Alan McRae, Rod PetrieScottish FA Chief Executive;
Scottish Professional Football League: Andrew Dickson, Neil Doncaster, Graham Peterkin, Ken Ferguson, Margaret Lang, Malcom Mackay; Scottish Highland Football League: David Dowling; Scottish Lowland Football League: John McCabe; East of Scotland Football League: Alistair Wilkie; South of Scotland Football League: Richard Shaw MBE; Scottish Amateur FA: Stuart Urquhar; tScottish Junior FA: Tom Johnston; Scottish Schools’ FA: Alex McMenemy; Scottish Welfare FA: Callum Shanks; Scottish Women’s Football: Vivienne MacLaren; Scottish Youth FA: Duncan Mayze; PFA Scotland: Fraser Wishart; Managers and Coaches Association: Walter Macadam; Scottish Senior Football Referees’ Association: Kevin Clancy; sportscotland: Mel Young; Media: Stephen Halliday; Supporters Direct Scotland: Alan Russell.

Pretty-much everyone is in there, even the supporters – the guys who ultimately fund Football, why they even find room for those bastards in the Media, in the excellent person of Stephen Halliday of The Scotsman and the Scottish Football Writers Association.

"Doc" Halliday of The Scotsman - has a place on the SFA Congress

Unlike the SRU, the SFA does not have a small coterie of paid officials inside their HQ deciding, for example, without consulting the members and stakeholders: “The top flight of the club game is not fit for purpose” (“but, in any case we have never said what that purpose is”).

Take someone like Tom Johnston of the SJFA. Unlike his namesake Scott Johnson – everyone knows what Tom does. With the help of a typist and occasional input from SJFA Treasurer Ian McQueen, he looks after his unruly, permanently-squabbling and feuding “family” of 170 clubs. These are organised into three Regional Associations – covering the East, North and West of Scotland. These Regions organised and ran by Regional volunteer committees,who send delegates to the quarterly SJFA meetings.

The SJFA effectively runs the annual Scottish Junior Cup competition and the Junior International team; it has oversight of everything else, but the local leagues and cups and disciplinary issues – other than in the Scottish Cup, are handled at local level. The same management model works for the other affiliated Associations.

In Scottish Football, decisions are made from the grass-roots up, in Scottish Rugby, decisions are made by diktat down – there is a subtle difference.