I don’t know anything about football, except that the best team in Scotland plays in maroon. Also, I’ve not really caught up with the news since I got back from my holidays, so the football-related point I’m about to make might already be old hat.
Having managed your expectations into the ground, I feel I can proceed. I think FIFA might bring about Scottish independence.
Not on purpose, you understand. I’m not anticipating Sepp Blatter clattering over the border swinging some marble-stuffed footie socks, yelling “Freedom!”
No, I mean in an accidental, sequence-of-events type of way. It’s like this. Sepp Blatter has just been re-elected as President of FIFA, with a majority bigger even than Alex Salmond’s. And as far as I can tell, the Scottish and English Football Associations are the only ones who stuck their necks out and suggested that perhaps it wasn’t a brilliant idea for the corruption-accused Blatter to be the only candidate in this election.
I’m glad they did. I think they were right. But in provoking Blatter, they may prompt him to re-consider exactly why there are four international teams emanating from the UK, when we are officially all one country. If Blatter wanted to get his own back, he might just decide to blow the full-time whistle on the odd little arrangement that allows Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England teams to participate in international fixtures.
I’ve often wondered how Scotland would react if this happened. Given Jim Sillars’ bitter remark that we are all ninety-minute patriots, could the loss of the Scotland team be the one event guaranteed to drive Scots to independence? The team might not be much cop, but they unite the nation in a way that few other things do, even if it’s just uniting us in despair.
Is this too far-fetched? Or do you think Alex Salmond might be placing a call to Sepp Blatter sometime soon, to make a wee suggestion?
June 5th, 2011 at 6:57 pm
An interesting thought and one which could very well come about-you never know what Sepp Blatter will do next but money and spite are normally his driving forces.
Would independence improve the England-Scotland situation? It still saddens me that someone wrote on facebook last night that it was a bad day for England becasue a Scotsman won Britain’s Got Talent-as if it is an England v Scotland competition. Will there ever be an end to this?
June 6th, 2011 at 5:43 pm
I think independence might be the thing that puts an end to it. I dunno, I’m not a colours-nailed-to-the-mast nationalist but I tend to think that if England and Scotland were neighbours rather than tetchy and reluctant flatmates, we might get along a bit better.