Why is Scottish football in so much trouble when the nation’s economy is doing relatively well? I call this the Fray Bentos question. Many years ago I visited the plant of medium-sized food company Baxters on Speyside. They are a family company with a distinctive image, probably best known for their up market soups, although when I was there they were producing for other niche markets such as small pots of jam for airlines.
Why is Scottish football in so much trouble when the nation’s economy is doing relatively well? I call this the Fray Bentos question. Many years ago I visited the plant of medium-sized food company Baxters on Speyside. They are a family company with a distinctive image, probably best known for their up market soups, although when I was there they were producing for other niche markets such as small pots of jam for airlines.
Baxters recently acquired the well known pies brand Fray Bentos. Production will shift north of the border. Baxters were rightly described by The Scotsman as an iconic company. But they are not untypical of many small and medium-sized companies, particularly in the food and drinks area. For example, in the supermarket I am instinctively drawn to products branded as ‘Scottish’ because I associate that word with quality (a perception reinforced by interviews I have done with people in the industry north of the border).
Whisky is another example. Many years ago some of the smaller distilleries were in threat of being bought out by large firms that would just use up their stocks and exploit the brand. But now they have undergone a revival. I was in a bar in Aberdeen last week that specialises in whisky and the array of Scottish brands was amazing. There is an excellent export market, albeit undermined by counterfeiting, and the ‘whisky trail’ attracts tourists from all round the world.
Under canny first minister Alex Salmond Scotland is enjoying a new political confidence. Whether it will all end in greater devolution or full independence remains to be seen. However, I was at a conference in Valencia last month on regional autonomy and the view there was that it was now Scotland rather than Catalonia that was seen as the trail blazer for political innovation at the subnational level in Europe, indeed across the world (given setbacks in Quebec).
However, Salmond and his colleagues have found some problems particularly challenging. One is the Edinburgh tram and I don’t propose to go there (nor will anyone else be able to for a while and then they won’t be able to go as far as was planned). The other is the state of Scottsh football on which there have been various reports, much hand wringing, but little effective response. Indeed, as the global slowdown worsens, the challenges are getting more difficult to resolve.
What does need to be emphasised is that this is not a purely Scottish problem, but one to be found in smaller nations across Europe as we emphasised in our recent book on The Transformation of European Football. It reflects forces of globalisation and Europeanisation.
However, the problem is possibly more acute in Scotland because the Premier League is just across the border in a country that speaks a broadly similar language. The Championship is also a strong competition. Hence, if a player has a good season in Scotland, they are often snapped up.
Of course, Scottish players have come to England for a long time. There are clubs that have had a tradition of recruiting from Scotland. But the flow does seem to have increased and it has undermined the quality of the football on offer.
Like Spain, the Scottish Premier League is dominated by a duopoly. It is questionable whether this is sustainable in either country in the long run if one wants the competition to continue to attract fans. It may be that an Atlantic League for smaller European nations offers the best way forward for Scotland, albeit that there are many downsides.