​With nations such as Iceland, Northern Ireland and Wales flourishing at this year’s European Championships, notwithstanding their modest populations of 323 thousand, 1.8 million and 3.1 million, respectively, it begs the question - what’s going wrong in Scottish football? Surely the age-old excuse of having a small population, estimated 5.4 million, is no longer acceptable for our remarkable underachieving in recent years, having failed to qualify for any major tournament since France ‘98.





This lack of success could be attributed to a lack of investment in the national set up from the SFA on the other hand it could be down to the fact that we are simply not producing the talent needed to compete at the highest level. Although these may contribute to the problem, I believe the reason is that Scotland have fallen victim to their own short-sightedness. Some of the greatest talent produced at youth level in recent years have been overlooked and this has led to them switching allegiances to rival nations.¨





Two of the highest profile cases, who come from relatively similar backgrounds, are Aiden McGeady and James McCarthy. McGeady was a very talented young boy who came through the ranks at Celtic FC, when a rule preventing young Celtic players from representing Scotland at schoolboy level led to his call up to Republic of Ireland’s U 15’s squad. He went on to represent them at U 16’s and 17’s, by which time it was too late for the SFA to change their mind. He has subsequently gone on to gain 85 caps for the Republic representing them at the Euros in 2012 and 2016. McCarthy is a similar case having grown up in Scotland and impressing at local club Hamilton, making his first team break through at the age of 15. But he also found the lure of the Republic of Ireland too much to resist and decided to switch allegiance even after approaches from then Scotland Manager George Burley.





Another young prospect that has gone under the radar a little due to the relative obscurity of the footballing nation to which he moved is Burnley and Canadian midfielder, Scott Arfield. This is a player who in his first season in the Premier League, with Burnley, covered more distance that anyone else, 429.7 km and achieved 40 first team appearances however was still overlooked by Scotland Manager Gordon Strachan. “It would be the pinnacle of my career if I could pull on a Scotland jersey and be an international football player” - passionate words from someone who has subsequently moved his national footballing allegiance to Canada after being consistently frozen out of the Scotland first team after representing at U-19, U-20 and Scotland B level.





These three players have amassed 129 caps between them for their adopted nations. They should never have been allowed to play for any nation other than Scotland, but due to them being overlooked Scotland have missed out on some of the most talented players we have produced in recent years. Moreover, until Scotland start nurturing their young talent and giving them the chance to prove themselves one way or the other on the international stage, they will continue to fall short of qualifying for a major tournament.