2023/24 - The Season Scottish Football Comes Home

Writing, an ever more invasive hobby, occupies my thoughts a lot. Rarely does it cross from waking hours into dreams, but last night it did and this morning it made me research.

And in a mere seven years (barring Trumpmageddon), a huge date is coming. 2023 marks the 150th anniversary of the founding of the SFA and also the beginning of the Scottish Cup culminating in the 150th anniversary of the first final in 2024. Just before that, in 2022, we will see the crowning of the 75th League Cup winners and the 125th Scottish League Champions. All of this is, I am sure you’ll agree, well worth celebrating.

While the SPFL will, I’m sure, find their own ways of celebrating domestically, the milestones of the SFA require a bit more pomp and circumstance and, unlike the SPFL’s, happily land in a year without an international tournament.

A cursory look at the history books will tell you that for the centennial, the SFA did next to nothing. That isn’t something that should be allowed this time around.

But what can the SFA do?

The first, and most obvious, thing is that Scotland should host some form of international tournament. It is to Scotland’s immense shame that Northern Ireland has hosted more than Scotland.

To start, in 2023, two large international tournaments are taking place which can be hosted in Scotland - the Women’s World Cup (unlikely due to France having it in 2019) and the FIFA Under 20 World Cup, the world’s premier youth tournament, the latter having form as a trial run for countries looking to get bigger tournaments. As such, Scotland should be bidding for the tournament to take place as it is of a size that is doable without any building taking place (excl the planned works at Tynecastle and New Pittodrie) plus also grants the Scotland youth team access to a top class world tournament that, while it is under appreciated in the UK, has been the launching pad for numerous top class careers.

As a dry run for this, Scotland should also aim to host the 2022 UEFA Under 19 Championships, which would also happily tie in with the 40th anniversary of Scotland’s only win in the tournament (Scotland also hosted the 1970 tournament, won by East Germany on a Coin Toss!) which announced players such as Pat Nevin and Paul McStay to a wider audience. Failing that, the FIFA under 17 World Cup would take place in 2019 or 2021 to also act as a dry run for a larger tournament.

In 2023 also, as a sop to history, Scotland should also aim to host the UEFA Regions Cup, which is UEFA’s premier amateur competition - entering Queen’s Park as Scotland’s representative to add the weight of the world’s most prestigious amateur club taking part to the competition (as opposed to having made up regional sides such as East, West, Central Scotland as we’ve sent before).

From a club perspective, between May 2023 and May 2024, the SFA should aim to host two of the following - UEFA Super Cup, Champions League final, Europa League final or the FIFA Club World Cup.

In terms of international participation, Scotland can choose from one of two potential avenues. The first would be to request an invite to the 2023 Copa America - something that CONMEBOL may well be amenable to given they have allowed non-South American sides to compete before plus 2023 would also mark 130 years since a Scot first set up the AFA. The second option would be to host a truncated version of the Home Nations Tournament as a pre-Euro 2024 friendly competition with each side playing three games - this would also mark 140 years since the first Home Nations Tournament. As for Euro 2024, any decision on that depends on what format it will take after the pan-European Euro 2020.

On a purely domestic front, 150 years of the Scottish Cup should be commemorated with a series of special challenge matches - Queen’s Park vs Wanderers in a meeting of the first winners of the Scottish and English cups, Celtic vs You Know Who in a special one off game as the two winning most sides in the tournament, etc.

These are all obviously just ideas but the central point is simple: that Scottish football has a milestone coming up with which the SFA can do a lot to promote the game in Scotland at all levels. They can do what they’ve done before, and let it pass without much fanfare, or they can make a fuss, get Scottish players on a world stage and actually do something that serves to market our game past Hadrian’s Wall.

And this is something the SFA need to be thinking about now if they are serious about bidding to get tournaments in the nation. It isn’t something that can wait, even if it feels a long way off now. The SFA more than has the money to make the 150th year of organised football go off with a real bang with world class international and club football - something that will increase participation along with exposing our players to a high level of international competition that, to date, they haven’t had since 1998.

If it goes off without any fanfare, then the opportunity to celebrate our footballing history won’t come around until the 200th anniversary - outside of most of our lifetimes reading this in 2016. Should the SFA not bring football home in 2023, then they will not have another opportunity for generations. And that would be a crime.