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STEPHEN THOMPSON is ready to invest £200,000 to make Dundee United the first top-flight club in Scotland to introduce a safe standing area.

In a wide-ranging interview with MailSport on his return from Australia last week, the Tannadice chairman revealed his frustration with the Scottish football authorities.

But it won’t stop him trying to reshape the game and improve the experience for fans.

He said: “Creating a safe standing area is expensive but it looks great and creates an atmosphere. We’re in a position to spend the money but we’d need to survey the fans first.”

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Thompson has recently invested months of his time pursuing a foothold in football Down Under – first for Dundee United’s interests, latterly for his own.

Now he has backed away from the headaches of dealing with rogue owners and antsy associations.

The 48-year-old’s seen enough of that here to last him a lifetime anyway.

It wasn’t just his air miles account enriched by the experience, though.

After an insight into a burgeoning, community-oriented, family-friendly, forward-thinking fledgling league, he’s returned intent on improving the face of the sport in his own country.

And to get clubs working for the game. Not for themselves.

With a foot in both camps – board member of the SPFL, owner of his club – few know better than Thompson the difficulties of vested interests versus greater good in the fight to return the national sport to its place at the heart of Scotland’s psyche.

But he’s more determined than ever to persuade the movers and shakers that there must be an awakening.

The first thing he admits at the start of a 90-minute interview is there’s a fundamental lack of trust between the clubs who are supposed to be leading from the front.

The need for more cohesive thinking is just one on a list of boxes he wants ticked.

Then there’s bringing the season forward into the summer, taking a winter break when fans are at their most potless after Christmas, safe standing areas, pre-match fan zones, encouraging a more open and trusting relationship with the media, centralising the league’s strategy to improve the brand and image to attract sponsors and better broadcast deals ...

They’re all part of a big picture that Thompson feels has been neglected in the post-reconstruction stampede for a man-mind-thyself existence.

He said: “I’m concerned for the game. I don’t think we work together enough as clubs. We just don’t. There’s a lack of trust between us.

(Image: 2014 Getty Images)

“The clubs have their own strategies. They’re all different which means mixed messages come out and it all seems disjointed.

“It’s never been run from the centre but that’s exactly where your brand value is supposed to come from.

“But without giving away what’s been discussed at board level, there have been things agreed recently to progress more centralised themes.

“It is positive that we’ve found something to agree on.

“A lot happened at the time of merging the leagues and we didn’t give a lot of time to the image of the organisation.”

Despite the ongoing lack of a sponsor and the envy at England’s £5.1billion TV deal, Thompson is still convinced the merger of Scottish football’s league bodies two years ago has been a success, compared to the years of strife preceding it.

But he also believes they have an obligation to get together to make it a damn sight better.

He said: “There’s a lot of negativity. In the past six or seven years we have turned our club round – but suddenly we’re perceived to be lacking ambition because we sell two players.

“Some people would say there’s so much negativity about the game that why would a potential sponsor want to be associated with it – I wouldn’t but others would,

“I also had a director use the word ‘contagion’ in a conversation with me the other day, talking about the Rangers effect. The ripple effect of that situation has seen a lack of trust develop between fans and boards of directors, even at relatively healthy clubs.

“Is it a Scottish thing? You know what we’re like – when things are going well, we tend to look for the down side. But we ALL have a responsibility to the game. Including the media.

“It’s not like we’re not trying to make things happen but I don’t think there’s enough togetherness to sell the product.

“Some of us are not very media friendly as clubs. We all have our own message to get out but need a central element to sell.

(Image: SNS Group)

“We must get the right people around to the table.

“I don’t think it’s chief execs. I think it’s three or four people like myself, key partners in the game like the media, the fans, to sit down and say ‘What can we do to make it better?’

“Work together, listen to each other.”

After taking in half a dozen A-league games and holding talks with Football Federation Australia and other club owners, Thompson’s hopes of owning Newcastle Jets may have foundered – but his admiration for their game’s culture is undiminished.

He said: “Look at Western Sydney Wanderers as an example.

“They’re only three years old but before they were even formed, the FFA held community forums to ask ‘What do you want from your club?’

“Everything from the colour of their kit to their philosophy. And they tried to facilitate as much of it as they could. They’re now thriving. Honestly, their match day experience, their atmosphere – it’s fantastic.

“That’s the thing – loads of clubs do lots of good things here too.

“But you know what clubs don’t do? Shout about it. Shout about the good stuff. Clubs are terrible at it.

“Some are better than others – Motherwell, for example – but there’s a lack of cohesion. Instead we’ve got papers getting banned, TV stations getting banned…

“There’s a club – and I won’t name them – where I can’t take my five-year-old son into a boardroom for a game because they don’t allow it. I despair. If that’s still a prevailing attitude in the game towards kids, what chance do you have?”

With a three-year moratorium on major structural changes after the merger, the SPFL have their hands tied in the short-term.

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But Thompson wants to hear ideas that push the boundaries after that.

Not every step has to be giant, though. And having spent most of February basking in the warmth of Western Australia, taking in his football with a beer in his hand and not a pair of thermals in sight, Thompson believes Scottish punters deserve better.

He’s not in favour of a full summer switch but does want July football and plenty of it, to counteract the insanity of a schedule this season that threw up seven fixtures in January.

He said: “I’d like to see a winter break and us playing games in July because it’d be far nicer watching football in 20 degree heat than it is minus two.

“Just bring the season forward two or three weeks.

“It has to fit in with European and international games but it still helps our clubs in Europe.

“You get your Christmas and New Year games played, because they’re big earners, and then you stop. Folk are skint after that anyway. There’s a three-year moratorium on stuff like that since reconstruction but that’s up in just over a year.

“There are arguments both ways. Do you do it just for the top league?

“Because the part-time clubs are worried about paying salaries for three or four weeks longer.

“There are no easy answers but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look for the difficult ones. And at some point we need to start looking outside the box for them.”