They are not new words but their reappearance in a feature in the Daily Record previewing Celtic’s trip to play the Dutch team Feyenoord in the Champions League has prodded Scottish Football into another one of its interminable debates.
Last week, my hometown club St Johnstone published the worst trading accounts in the club’s history, a demeaning £1.5m loss and a damaging body blow to a much-valued reputation as Scotland’s best-run club.Rather than show concern for my mental health or even ask what lay beneath the poor financial performance, I was subjected to a barrage of verbal putdowns.
Today it is money much more than community that drives the football market. Yes, towns, cities and countries still matter, but the sheer scale of the football None of us have been in the room when deals are struck and nor can we be certain what the major sticking points are, but there is a deep-seated suspicion within Scottish football that we are led by poor negotiators who seem an easy pushover for the big broadcasters.I cannot prove this supposition and since the curtain of commercial confidentiality is always drawn on contracts, we can only surmise.