It really is time for Scottish football to stop apologising for its existence.
And the process should get a symbolic kick-start at Friday’s SFA hearing into the goings on of the Aberdeen Eight and Celtic’s Boli Bolingoli.
There is a definite need for justice to be done and to be seen to be done. I get that.
But there’s no need for a show trial where players are made an example of in order to satisfy some need for savage retribution.
Punishment should be appropriate to the error of
judgement that has occurred.
It should never be disproportionately severe just to make the ‘optics’ look good.
I’m told the wife of one Dons player has already been upset by the social media assault on her husband.
That can’t be avoided in this day and age but football needs to govern itself and not bow to
public opinion’s wilder excesses.
The Scottish Government has allowed us to have our ball back and we’re grateful and all that.
We’ve also listened politely while the national clinical director Jason Leitch told us football was “non-essential.”
But maybe we should get up off our knees now. What’s non-essential about a game that gives so many fans recreational relief from the
otherwise stressful elements of their post-pandemic lives?
What’s so non-essential about a business that employs hundreds of people outwith the ones who put on the jerseys and the boots?
What’s non-essential about a national team who can attract tens of thousands of fans even when they’re rank rotten?
And who will return in force when the ‘science’ permits.
What’s non-essential about people who buy season tickets to keep their favourite club going even when they can’t go in person to watch them play?
Or who refused to take a refund on last season’s ticket when football had to be abruptly brought to a halt, even when a lot of them could probably have used the money.
Non-essential is inaccurate and insulting.
Football is part of the DNA in this country, as any clinician would doubtless be able to tell you.
Nobody doubts the Aberdeen players, who will return to Pittodrie today for the first time since their unthinking fall from grace, were out of order.
There’ll be no dinner reservations for any of them in town after the game with Livingston, that’s for sure.
But the jury who will sit in judgement of them at Hampden must deliver a sentence that is proportionate and doesn’t pander to any among the political class who are looking for the equivalent of a public flogging.
The governing body of our game needs to govern and not grovel when they explore their options, ranging from two-game bans to a maximum eight-game suspension.
Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes was right to point out that there have been high-profile offenders within public life who have breached Covid-19 protocols – but they did not face the same witch-hunt of the kind that he feels his players have been subjected to.
Safeguarding public health is undeniably crucial and the manager’s players should show a proper level of contrition.
Better than they did when they signed an apology while only using their first names as if it was a birthday card.
Suspension as a consequence of having brought the game into disrepute is unavoidable.
Savage sentencing to suit the need for human sacrifices on the altar of public disapproval is, on the other hand, to be avoided.
