We have to level the field
Monday morning and James Smith is back with some radical thinking

I've often wondered just what it would take to level the playing field in Scottish football.  I've read and agreed with a lot of comments from Hibs fans and supporters of many other clubs, the common theme about how to fix the game here is get rid of Rangers and Celtic.  It's not an option though, is it?  I mean, they are not wanted anywhere else, much as they would like to piss off to better and richer pastures, they can't, and they know it.  It's a great shame but deep down, no matter how loudly the rest of us wish for them to just disappear, it just is not going to happen.

So what can be done then?  If we all sit around and do sod all, and from where I am that is exactly what we are likely to do, then things are just going to go from bad to worse.  There is a school of thought that what comes around comes around, and that the Old Firm are already 'coming back' to the field in terms that they no longer can afford to pay the massive transfer fees of old, and that as a result they are slowly coming back to the pack.  Meanwhile the pack are sorting themselves out, and eventually we will all meet at a point we were at perhaps 20-odd years ago.  Like that is going to happen?  And like even if it did, what would that mean exactly - we would be back to where we were 20 years ago?  Is that really supposed to excite me?

Can we lift our game out of the dark? (sns)

Seems that waiting is not an option either, if we wait then like as not we will lose many more thousands from the game, people who once loved football but nowadays are much more discerning, and nowhere near as easily separated from their cash on the basis of blind loyalty to a club who have perhaps not shown them the loyalty they deserved in return.  The grand ideals of the SPL never really worked, it was after all little more than a clever ploy by the rich to get richer, one that might actually have worked had competent people been running the damn thing.

What can be done then?  Sadly, very little.  We have ourselves in a right old mess and no apparent escape route.  Unless of course someone starts doing some radical thinking, someone actually takes a stand.  In doing that now you have to take account of employment laws, so no wage-fixing is possible.  You have to take account of our membership of the European Community, meaning in effect that limiting our playing staff to UK nationals for example is not on either.  I mention these things only to demonstrate just how difficult it would be to be radical, to change things that need changing, to level the Scottish football playing fields.  I thought of the SPL applying a wage-cap system, no-go.  I thought of the SPL using a draft system similar to that employed in American football, but again no-go. 

In terms of our game, both of these moves could be seen as being a radical method of levelling out the conditions in which all clubs operate, and as such creating a competitive league here in Scotland that would still include Rangers and Celtic.  But we can't do them because of wider legal implications that operate in this country.  Sounds like no hope at all then for the game.  Or maybe not?  I wonder if it is possible to apply spending limits not on an individual basis, but on a business basis?  I've no real knowledge of these things, so any corporate-type lawyers reading this, be kind when you tear me apart on the message board.  But would it not be possible, I wonder, for the SPL to set limits on what each club is permitted to spend on playing staff each season?

Now if that limit was set at a sensible level, it would mean Rangers and Celtic having to dramatically drop the wages they pay.  They will scream about that one of course, what about our challenge in Europe they will say, we will be a laughing stock they will say.  Yeh, I did consider that, and came to the conclusion, should we give a toss?  If we as a nation cannot compete on the European stage by living outwith our means, as we have been doing for many years now, why in gods name should we care if we cannot compete within our means?  So let's think about this.  Each club is set a spending limit at the start of each season, the limit being exactly the same level for all clubs, and based perhaps on a 'median' figure taken from the last posted public accounts of the clubs. 

Would such a scheme not help us very quickly towards that level playing field we all seek, and would it not create the conditions where you can no longer use purchasing power (that quite often you don't actually have) to try and buy success?  You would have to use more local talent, and you would have to rely on various skills that are not all that common to our game, financial management skills and man-management skills for example.  We would no longer be 'attractive' right enough to foreign 'stars' seeking a fast buck, would that be such a bad thing?  Of course the bottom line in this wee plan is simple enough.  It would likely not wash with the 'big two', because when all is said and done, do they really care enough about the future of our game here in Scotland to accede to such radical steps to save it?