The SFA To Redevelop and Run Hampden - Haud Me Back

FOR ME, the big fitba news of the last week was the announcement that the SFA had agreed in principle to buy Hampden Park from Queen's Park.

 Hampden - would you trust the SFA to rebuild it properly?

I have not deviated from my view, the best answer to our national stadium problem would be a brand new, purpose-built, state-of-the-art stadium, on a greenfield site, with great road and rail links, somewhere in central Scotland. But, this aint gonna happen any time soon, so, for the foreseeable future – we are stuck with Hampden.

I could have lived with Murrayfield, some of my best sporting memories revolve around the Edinburgh rugby ground, but, Hampden is the spiritual home of Scottish football, so, if we can, we ought to stay there.

Of course, the problem with the SFA buying Hampden is – well, it's the SFA. Do you really have faith in the Brains Trust along the sixth-floor corridor at Hampden to purchase the stadium at the right price, then bring it up to date properly – for I certainly don't.

Old Aristotle Armstrong, my friend the Scottish Rugby Philosopher is currently fighting the SRU's plans to introduce what Aristotle calls: “Stupid 6” - a new franchised league in Scottish rugby. This week, he got a reply to one of his blog posts, which included these lines:

“I’m coming more to the position that rugby committee men/directors are little different to their soccer equivalents- leave all business nous and sense at the committee/board room door as soon as their ass hits the committee/board chair.”

Aye, that one rings a bell. There is no way the SFA can pay any more than a token sum for Hampden. Funding the relocation of Queens Park – to either Lesser Hampden, or, for the romantics among us, back to Cathkin, then doing-up the Old Lady to the standard we would all wish, will require government assistance, that's a fact. The negotiations will be interesting.

EQUALLY interesting will be developments at Ibrox. Sure, whether or not Graeme Murty continues as manager is of interest, and, I have to say, his team played some very good football, but also made some basic mistakes against Motherwell on Saturday; I watched the game on BT Sport.

But, of more interest will be the next move of their Supreme Leader, that “Glib and Shameless Liar” David King. Thanks to losing a court case, he now has to find the cash to fund an offer, to purchase all the other shares in the club, at 20p per share.

 Dave King - little wriggle room with the courts

Now, there is some debate as to how much a Rangers share is currently worth, with, according to who you speak to, values these bits of paper at anywhere between 7p and 27p per share. When it comes to Rangers' finances, it is always worth seeing what old “Phil Four Names – the Donegal Blogger” has to say. His tame financial whiz-kid, “Rugger Man” is unimpressed by what he could glean from the unaudited mid-term returns from Rangers.

He also points out, in putting together his offer for the shares he does not own, King will have to abide by a degree of probity which he has, in the past, been accused of not reaching. Wishful thinking and estimates will not do, this is a legal document, the truth is required.

And, with some influential “Real Rangers Men” within the board room and Blue Room at Ibrox apparently less than enamoured with the conduct of the Supreme Leader, these continue to be interesting times for Rangers Watchers.

Let's face it, that club has been a basket case for years, the fun goes on.

THE Commonwealth Games will kick-off on Australia's Gold Coast later this week. What's that got to do with football? I hear you ask.

The answer is, of course – nothing; more's the pity. Now, I am well-aware, cricket is seen as the old British Empire's game. Those sturdy pith helmet wearing soldiers and District Commissioners – Featherstonehaugh, Mainwaring, Carruthers and so on took the game from the playing fields of Eton to places such as the West Indies, the Indian sub-continent, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, and I remember watching a particularly hard-fought game in Vancouver's Stanley Park one afternoon.

Louise Martin CBE - the chief of the Commonwelath Games Federation

Rugby Union took firm root in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, but, while the public school-educated middle classes took their games to all corners of the old Empire, football, the beautiful people's game of the British Isles didn't, at least in Victorian times, travel as well.

Rather, our football men took the game across Europe and South America, strange that. Now, however, with the Empire a Commonwealth, Commonwealth countries are making their name in football – so, why isn't our game inside the Commonwealth Games tent?

Rugby Sevens is there, as it now is in the Olympics. So, why not a football tournament at the Commonwealth Games, perhaps under the same Under-23 rules as at the Olympics?

I put this to Louise Martin CBE, the Scottish President of the Commonwealth Games Federation, during the lead-up to the 2014 Glasgow games, because, if ever there was an occasion to have football in the games, that was surely it. She told me, football had NEVER been a member of the CGF, a strange oversight, but, perhaps symptomatic of fitba's guid conceit o' itsel'.

Image the football final at a future Commonwealth Games – Scotland v England, what's not to like. And, it's not as if, there are not many potentially good sides who could compete.

Of the 71 nations and territories who will be competing in the 23 sports on the Gold Coast, no less than 17 are ranked in FIFA's top 100 countries, these nations, and their current rankings are:

England (16), Wales (20), Northern Ireland (2), Scotland (32), Australia (37), Jamaica (49), Cameroon (51), Nigeria (52), Ghana (54), South Africa (76), Zambia (77), Uganda (78), Trinidad & Tobago (79), Canada (90), Cyprus (92), Sierra Leone (98) and India (99). Surely a good competition could be had from among that lot.