Scottish football has to get its priorities straight

VAR control room

Forget all that - how about simply going back to the drawing board with the role of the compliance officer, to avoid the perils of "re-refereeing" matches on a Monday morning and "trial by TV".

Hang on a minute, wasn’t priority one this summer something else instead? Namely, ensuring that all top-flight football is played on grass, rather than those dreaded artificial surfaces which are causing injuries all over the place. At least there is unanimity of players against that one. Apart from those at Kilmarnock, Livingston and Hamilton Accies, who play on it most regularly but weren’t asked.

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I forgot one. What if, instead of throwing cash at any of this, existing monies should simply be re-distributed to provide more of a parachute payment for clubs who get relegated from the top flight? That way, instead of one poor managerial decision and a couple of flawed transfer windows being enough to alter their business model for good.

I hope you have been watching closely over the last fortnight or so, because all of the above have been floated as panaceas to solve our game’s ills. Not least of these is the top item, which was apparently floated in a summit meeting of the top 12 clubs and the SFA’s top brass as recently as Monday.

It is the first time this idea has done the rounds since late 2010, when the governing body took it into their own hands to ask around the European refereeing associations for some assistance after Scotland’s senior referees went on strike in the wake of Dougie MacDonald overturning a refereeing decision in a Dundee United v Celtic match. It made Alain Hamer, of Luxembourg, an overnight star.

Anyway, the association – who are, of course, the clubs – acted swiftly and did what they usually do in such circumstances – appointed a working group to examine the issue. But the catalogue of slights, misdemeanours and proposed solutions only sums up the problem in Scottish football - consensus always seems to be elusive. And if there is no commonality of purpose about which of these brainwaves is best, how the hell are the SFA meant to implement them?

They might like give off the impression, but Scottish football clubs aren’t shopping in Waitrose, selecting a variety of off-the-shelf solutions to put in their trolley regardless of cost. No, they are pounding the aisles of Poundland, aware that they will have to stump up for whatever solution they choose from their own pockets. For some, morsels like full time referees and VAR are luxuries they can ill afford.

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Just implementing VAR – the one of these developments which is most certainly coming, on a global sense, at least – illustrates the problem. With the cost per season to implement it across top flight grounds estimated at a minimum of £1.5m to £2m which makes it prohibitive for many clubs, the SFA and the working party are currently working out whether it should be implemented across the board, merely in broadcast matches, or whether those clubs which can afford it can simply go ahead and leave the rest behind.

As it will take referees fully a year to train up on how to use it, everybody has a bit of time on their side here. Given the way finances operate in Scotland, there might be merit to the idea of taking the first VAR downpayments out of accounts when the additional cash of the new TV deal kicks in, like a mortgage payment on pay day.

Matching the salaries of our current top-flight refs and making them full time is also out of the question, so the only way full-time refs could work if the SFA created an academy of younger ones at £30,000-£40,000 per annum. Our top-flight whistlers would rightly perceive that as a slight. But not quite as much as it would be to import their English and Welsh cousins.

AND ANOTHER THING . . .
YOU know you are running strongly when you can break two British records in one race. I was privileged to be at the Arena Birmingham on Saturday when Laura Muir took five seconds off Kirsty Wade’s British indoor mile mark – with her split time with 100m to go also good enough for another British record in the 1500m.

Barring any last-minute hitches, Muir appears to be timing her run perfectly for the European Indoor Championships in her home city of Glasgow next weekend, not to mention gathering pace ahead of this year’s World Championships in Doha in September and next year’s Tokyo Olympics.

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By anyone’s standards, this is a remarkable athlete, who has sacrificed many normal things for her trade, all painstakingly compiled and tracked on a series of spreadsheets, goals and targets, by her coach Andy Young.

A total of nine Scots will compete in Glasgow next weekend, but a vibrant sport all starts with the clubs, and events such as Saturday’s Lindsays X Country event at Callendar Park in Falkirk.

Not only is the race for individual places mighty, but Central Athletics Club are going for nine-in-a-row in the team event to match a record set between 1987 and 1994 by Cambuslang Harriers.

While Andy Butchart will prioritise the Euros amongst a start list which is likely to involve the likes of Steph Twell, Freya Ross and Derek Hawkins, his confident predictions of Central AC glory have stoked the mix with Inverclyde AC, Corstorphine, Edinburgh Uni Hare and Hounds, Cambuslang and Shettleston all hoping to deprive them of this place in history.