The Downfall of Scottish Football

You only have to cast your minds back a few years to see how far Scottish football has fallen, and how quickly.
Celtic qualified for the last 16 of the Champions League two seasons in a row. Rangers reached the final of the UEFA Cup, only losing to Zenit St Petersburg. Both sides of the Old Firm had formidable home records. Fortresses, that intimidated even the biggest of European sides. Barcelona, AC Milan, Manchester United and Juventus were among those who had been defeated in Glasgow.
Aberdeen enjoyed an extended run in the UEFA Cup as well, demolishing FC Copenhagen in the group stages, as well as drawing with Lokomotiv Moscow, before giving German giants Bayern Munich a scare, holding them to a draw at Pittodrie, before succumbing to a better side away from home.
Scotland had beaten World Cup finalists France both home and away, and had pushed Italy to the brink in qualification for EURO 2008, only for the world champions to scrape a decisive 2-1 win at Hampden Park. Scotland were 13th in the FIFA world rankings (to date, our highest ever ranking), an incredible feat seeing as we were 88th (our lowest ever ranking) just over two years earlier.

James McFadden scored the wondergoal away in France, the highlight of Scotland's recent successes

Now, though, the outlook of Scottish football is bleak, and gets even more so with every passing week. Accusations of corruption, poor European form and an inconsistent national side has seen Scotland become the laughing stock of European football.
Where Parkhead and Ibrox were once fortresses, they are now perceived as being an 'easy ticket' to the next round, after embarrassing losses to the likes of Hapoel Tel Aviv, Rapid Vienna and Unirea Urziceni.
The national side has slipped to a FIFA ranking of 50, and, while many disregard the FIFA ranking system, it stills shows how far we have fallen in recent years. Embarrassing defeats to Norway (4-0), Macedonia (1-0) and Wales (3-0) made sure of this.
The likes of Aberdeen have also fallen in European and domestic terms. Using the former Champions of Scotland as an example, the same club who gave the mighty Bayern Munich a run for their money, the same club who showed such bravery, passion and heart in pushing the German champions to the edge, were humped just under two years later by Czech minnows Sigma Olomouc, who beat them 8-1 on aggregate, and 5-1 at Pittodrie, and this season, were smashed 9-0 by Celtic in the SPL's biggest ever defeat. This paved the way for Mark McGhee's resignation as Dons boss.

Even worse, the referees are revolting against criticism of their performances and integrity. Celtic have spearheaded the complaints, some fans accusing the SFA of conspiracy and corruption, believing that referees intentionally give decisions against Celtic but to Rangers. The most prominent controversy was the one that kicked the whole referees epsiode off.

The penalty incident involving Hoops' striker Hooper and Arabs' 'keeper Pernis

The picture above shows the moment when, with the scores at 1-1 in the game between Celtic and Dundee Utd at Tannadice on the 17th of October 2010, Celtic striker Gary Hooper was judged by referee Dougie McDonald to have been brought down by Dundee Utd goalkeeper Dusan Pernis. However, McDonald then proceeded to consult linesman Steven Craven and overturned his decision. Celtic officials were furious, however, justice was done when Hooper himself scored an injury-time winner. But it was only when the match had ended that the full story came out.

On October 25th 2010, Steven Craven, the linesman for that game, resigned, and gave an exclusive interview to a Scottish newspaper, where he confessed that both he and [Dougie] McDonald had lied to their supervisor and the Celtic manager Neil Lennon about the decision making process. Craven revealed McDonald said he had changed his mind after consulting Craven, when he had actually changd his mind before consulting Craven. Following this revalation, the SFA issued McDonald an official warning. Celtic continued their fight against the alleged bias in Scottish football, slating decisions made by Willie Collum (at the Old Firm match, when Kirk Broadfoot dived to win a penalty, an incident where Collum had his back turned and still gave the penalty) and Craig Thomson (at the Hearts match at Tynecastle).

The referees had had enough.

On November 21st, it was announced that Scotland's referees had voted to take strike action for the weekend's games, due to criticism of their ability and integrity. Foreign officials were drafted in from Luxembourg, Malta and Poland to take care of the games which had survived. Dougie McDonald, whose lies had began the entire row, resigned the next day.

If that wasn't enough, Celtic fans were given more reason to believe there was a bias against their club, and, as they believe, their genaral religion in the west of Scotland, when it was found that former referee Hugh Dallas, who also refereed at the 1998 and 2002 World Cups, as well as the 1996 Olympics and the 1999 UEFA Cup Final, and was the fourth official in the 2002 WC final, had passed on an offensive message about the Pope during his September visit to Scotland.

This was the picture passed on through an e-mail by Dallas, refering to the child sex scandals in the Catholic church

Dallas was sacked by the SFA soon after this, and referees from Portugal who had been due to officiate the Hibs vs Motherwell math left Scotland almost as soon as they arrived, when the reason for the strke became clear. They claimed they were told it was a pay dispute.

The Scottish game is sliding. But, there have been some bright lights in the seemingly never-ending gloom. Rangers have enjoyed a decent run in Europe, holding Valencia at home and Manchester Unitede away, and have been drawn to face Sporting Lisbon in the Europa League last 32. Scotland pushed World Champions Spain all the way in a 3-2 defeat, after which Spanish midfielder Xabi Alonso told his Twitter followers that the "hampden park atmosphere was fantastic!! And Flower of Scotland really emotional anthem [...] Good luck Scotland...". Scotland had maybe just proven they weren't the 'bunch of over-paid, over-rated haddies' that we all believed they were. And even better, new young players are coming through. The likes of Aston Villa's Barry Bannan and Derby County's Kris Commons are finally getting the international chances that were lacking under stubborn former boss George Burley. And Hearts are pushing the Old Firm for European places this year, just two points behind Celtic, who are second in the table. Maybe, just maybe, Scottish football could return to a few years ago. But the road ahead is long, and there are many more challenges facing the SFA and SPL, including a new league system. But, as recent performances show, Scottish football isn't dead just yet.