Probably doesn't cost the sameWhat peeves me off is Sky broadcast their matches, surely money would be better spent on showing another league like La Liga.
Viewing figures aren't too bad when they're on - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ttOxa37vTxi28PgdkIoHWbMAHVrdSIP5bNgaFHevNRU/edit#gid=0What peeves me off is Sky broadcast their matches, surely money would be better spent on showing another league like La Liga.
SPL gets £19m a season form Sky and BT combined. Sky were paying £18m for La Liga but refused to continue to pay that much.Probably doesn't cost the same
All those Scots with Sky subscriptions want something for their investment. That said, Sky have been shafting the Scottish game for some time.What peeves me off is Sky broadcast their matches, surely money would be better spent on showing another league like La Liga.
Lack of proper investment in coaching and facilities. Society changed in the 1990s and players did not develop themselves any more. Problem was that the penny didn't drop for Scottish football until the late 2000s. Changes made to youth development in the 2010s will bear fruit in the next few years, but suspect we will still be behind the curve due to a failure to modernise the game and invest properly in facilities and coaching in the way that Iceland and others have done.Legendary players and managers have come and gone, but today the Scots are absolutely rubbish.
Not much better at Rugby either. What's going on up there?
I keep thinking they're going through a bad spell, but it gets worse when that doesn't seem possible.
Ryan Fraser is ripping it up at Bournemouth although he always seems to pick up injuries in international week so hardly plays for them.I don’t know but you’d usually have a scattering of Scottish players in the EPL but I can’t name many other than McTominay and Robertson. They’re starting with Johnny Russell upfront who scored 1 goal in the Championship a couple of seasons ago.
Agree that we are shit at football.Legendary players and managers have come and gone, but today the Scots are absolutely rubbish.
Not much better at Rugby either. What's going on up there?
I keep thinking they're going through a bad spell, but it gets worse when that doesn't seem possible.
From those reasons I can buy the lack of long term planning in youth academies. You guys should follow the good things from our model.My guess is it has something to do with attitudes at club level. There been very little investment in youth, the “bigger” clubs were for a long time buying 3rd rate Spanish players instead of promoting Scottish players. Then, Celtic started buying up all the decent players in the league from all the other clubs. No competition between the best Scottish players means lake of development. One thing wouldn’t be enough to do it, but it appears that it’s the perfect storm of shit management from the top of the league to bottom of the clubs.
Let’s just put it this way, I went to school with a guy who ended up playing professionally and he fecking sucked. I mean I can’t play worth a feck. Even as a kid I had a foot like a 20p peace, and I could play rings round this guy. So god knows what’s been going on with recruitment and youth development over the past 30/40 years.
Like the other home nations they are actually going to massively benefit from the increasingly quality of football development in England. They will get to poach players under the granny rule whilst their best talent like Billy Gilmour can get a superior education at clubs like Chelsea.It's all the fault of the English oppressing them, oh and deep fried mars bars making them fat white text
But seriously it's poor coaching and poor grass roots development. What's more they seem happy to continue as they are...
They should even look at current Luxembourg model. Not joking.From those reasons I can buy the lack of long term planning in youth academies. You guys should follow the good things from our model.
Yes and no. Our NT went on a bad spiral post 66 with some flashes on 84 but Saltillo disrupted a lot the NT. Reason why players like Futre, Rui Barros, Vitor Paneira or even Oceano were chasing shaddows on the pitch.Like Scotland, portuguese football entered a downward spiral in the mid-80's to mid-90's, where we were lacking quality from youth ranks and our NT was getting embarassing results.
The current recovery is related with the upgrades on Seixal and even Porto without playing youth on their lineups already produced on the last seasons Andre Silva, Neves and Dalot. And look out at Fabio Silva from 2002. Regarding Scotland they need to invest heavily on Academies and coaching at youth level.YEs, we always had some top players, but the NT team was very unbalanced and we lacked quality in several positions.
If anything Scotland should do more than Ireland. They should be better than Ireland, Northern Ireland or Wales. After all they have football clubs with strong identity and history. Clearly they stagnated their development since the mid 90's.This sounds so familiar here in Ireland - same problems = Shite team
Youth development has admittedly been shite. You'd be hard-pressed to name a proper world class Scotland player in the last 20-25 years, which is deeply concerning. Most mid-sized European nations tend to produce the occasional one: Wales have had Giggs and Bale, Sweden had Larsson and Zlatan, Slovakia have Hamsik, the Czech Republic have had the likes of Cech and Nedved etc. For us the closest you'd get in recent years would maybe be Fletcher, and possibly Gordon and McGregor when they've been at their best. Which doesn't really compare.If anything Scotland should do more than Ireland. They should be better than Ireland, Northern Ireland or Wales. After all they have football clubs with strong identity and history. Clearly they stagnated their development since the mid 90's.
@Cheesy the main point isn't about the League its more related with youth development. Post Bosman even the French League has declined if we take PSG out of the equation.
The population itself isn't really the issue - England got beaten in a World Cup semi-final a couple of months ago by a country smaller than Scotland. We're always going to be less likely to do well than England but considering the interest in football up here it's fair to expect our national team to make the occasional tournament from time to time.England would be just as shit as Scotland if our population was the same.
Population can't be an excuse. Croatia and Denmark have relatively low population and yet they create talented players consistently.Mostly because they're a small country without much money who were better at a time when tv money, and having a large populace to fund it wasn't a thing. They also had a head start with being one of first countries to play the sport and for it to be ingrained in culture, the impact of which has lessened over time.
They can do better, of course they can, and they could look at what Iceland have done lately or some other countries. Iceland are an outlier though, or everyone would be doing it and it reamins to be seen how long their upturn will last. Lack of money and people means it will always be an uphill battle now, and they may always be crap from now on.
I just mentioned Croatia as example too. The problem is deeper than we probably think. A nation that produced talents like Dalgish, Archibald, etc can't just suddenly stop doing that.I hope there's a return. So many great players and managers then just nothing for quite a while now. When you look at Croatia with a population of 4 million, it's quite embarrassing considering what Scotland used to produce.
Probably a problem symptomatic with these shores. People with the necessary quality end up pursuing other careers. Lack of good English managers is quite a thing.
I guess smaller clubs DoF are probably quite poor at long term planning. Scottish teams usually pick the "easy route" in hiring third tier english players. They are a shortcut for immediate problems, but they lack potential to make the club grow and become a possible source of income.The SPL was bad enough as a two team league, when Rangers went to the wall it became a completely pointless competition. Nobody wants to watch it and as a result the networks don't have much interest in showing it or investing in it, so less people watch it, less money comes in, and so on.
Yup, it’s absolutely crap, totally agree regarding the SFA.Doesn't help when the SFA appoint dinosaurs like McLeish and Malky Mackay who is performance director of the SFA. The game is stuck in the 70's/80's, it's a shite state of affairs to be in.
Nah! Jim Baxter.Fletcher was the last great scot player.
Really doubt it. Sugar daddies usually use football clubs as interface to do other business in the country they buy the club. The UK main business centers are in England.Wouldn't be surprised to see a sugar daddy come in and buy a club in the SPL and turn it into another Ligue 1 where the Champions League is where the focus is. Not that you'd attract too many big names there but if the money is right you'll get mid-table level PL players happy to go north to quadruple wages. The likes of Arnautovic, Callum Wilson, Shaqiri, Bertrand etc would probably be happy to move north if the money was too good to say no to.
