Gillian Mackay urges Ian Murray to help get Scotland matches on free-to-air TV

Astatine has nothing on Scottish football when it comes to combustibility though. For while most may agree on what the end game should be, the path to getting there is, predictably, a source of fierce debate and no little rancour.

The Scottish FA bristle when criticism is aimed at the governing body over the issue. Rightfully, in this case, as the responsibility for selling rights to the European Championships and World Cup qualifiers lies with UEFA, after the process was centralised in 2014.

That has meant more money filtering through the Scottish game as a result, but in some ways, as the song goes, has also brought mo’ problems. Certainly, at least, for those who would like to see Scotland games on the Beeb or STV.

Currently, the rights for Scotland’s qualifiers are owned by Nordic broadcaster Viaplay, but their brush with insolvency and subsequent withdrawal from the UK marketplace has meant that Scotland matches have now been left in something of a limbo. Or, more recently, on YouTube.

What also gets backs up at the SFA is when politicians use that situation to score a cheap soundbite, without backing up their pleas for these showpiece games to be more accessible to the nation with hard cash, or at least a willingness to help find a solution to the current impasse, where terrestrial broadcasters can’t afford to secure the rights on their own, and governments on both sides of the border seem unwilling to chip in to make up the difference.

One MSP though is determined to change all that, and finally find a way to get Scotland matches on ‘cooncil telly’ once more. And Gillian Mackay, who represents the Central Scotland region at Holyrood, can hardly be accused of any fly-by-night exploitation of the issue for political gain.

The Scottish Greens MSP has long held an active interest in furthering the interests of fans within football, and is known for her engagement with the community clubs within her constituency. On this issue too, she has consistently been at the forefront of efforts to bring the various factions involved together in order to find a way to make it happen. Even if that means collaborating across party lines.

And she thinks she may very well have the answer.

“There’s the prescribed list of sporting fixtures, tournaments and other events that’s decided by Westminster,” Mackay said.

For the uninitiated, the term refers to what OFCOM calls ‘listed events’, such as the Olympics, World Cup, European Championships and the FA and Scottish Cup Finals, that must be shown on free-to-air television. Currently, qualifiers for major tournaments don’t make the cut.

“I know Gavin Newlands, when he was an MP, brought this up with the then Tory government,” Mackay continued.

“There was no appetite to add them from the UK government at that point.

“I’m more hopeful with this current UK government because Ian Murray [Labour MP for Edinburgh South and the Secretary of State for Scotland] has said previously that he was in favour of getting Scotland games on free-to-air telly.

“So, I’m hoping that there might be a wee bit more of an in there to get those games on the prescribed list and then they automatically have to be on free-to-view.

“It has to be funded and that gets around that lack of will in one go, rather than having to negotiate between broadcasters and things to say, ‘well if you put in that much they’ll put in that much’ and all that sort of thing.

“It’s a very quick and neat solution that gets us on that way to having at least some of the games on free-to-air tv. And then once you create that appetite with the fans there’s then that next call of well, why aren’t all of them free-to-air?

“I hope that I can get a conversation with Ian Murray in particular, because I think given his warmth to free-to-air Scotland games, I think he is the current route into the UK government for me.

“We’re going to be reaching out to him in the next week or so to say, ‘can we get a meeting and can we have a chat about how likely it is a Labour government down south putting these on a prescribed list’, and just ending the backwards and forwards to start with.

“We can’t obviously rely on that being the one and only solution, so we’ll certainly be engaging with the Scottish government as well, given where we are with Viaplay, given that STV, BBC and Channel 4 are not against hosting these matches. There is not a fundamental opposition to putting these games on their channels.

“It’s money that’s the big problem, and because of the commercial agreements, we don’t know what Viaplay are asking for from STV and BBC and things as well. So there’s a little bit of opaqueness in there that folks don’t really want politicians poking around in.

“That’s why the cleanest solution is getting them on the prescribed list, but certainly we’ll be poking around in the other side of things as well, whether they like it or not, to see what we can do on that side to garner some movement as well.

“So, I think there are ways forward.”

Finding those ways forward has been an arduous task, with meetings between Mackay and broadcasters in the past and the pressure she has been applying within government channels yielding little progress to date, with no shortage of flak coming her way.

A video she released on social media this week following Scotland’s win over Poland renewing her calls for matches to be brought to free-to-air television prompted some barbed replies, and challenges to explain just how she was planning to achieve it without affecting the revenue coming into the Scottish game.

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But she said: “Those who want to argue all of the technicalities, well, come to it with solutions. Come and speak. And that’s why I made those offers on social media earlier this week.

“If you don’t think this is doable, fine, let me understand your logic. Or if you think there are specific barriers, come and speak to me about that, because I’m quite happy to tell you my ideas and how I think we overcome some of that.

“Because I don’t think some of the challenges that we face are insurmountable, with a little bit of will from various places. And I think it is lack of will that is stopping us at the moment, rather than a lack of anything else.”

Cynics may say it is in fact a lack of funding that is the main issue, and in fairness, Mackay herself recognises that government has to do more in that regard, while imploring the broadcasters and others to also bring more to the party.

“That’s certainly a discussion I’m having with government as to how we can do that,” she said.

“But again, there needs to be that will from the broadcasters to come to the table and discuss that. And I think there would be that will to at least explore it, if we could convene that.

“The thing that fascinates me with the SFA is that this is the pinnacle of their product. The Scotland games are the absolute pinnacle. So why would they not be in favour of more people seeing that product that they put so much effort into?

“It just, it baffles me that they haven’t taken a stance one way or another when actually more of the Scottish population being exposed to Scotland games is actually to the benefit of football in Scotland, and therefore the SFA.

“I just don’t quite understand whether it’s that they’re just so sceptical that there’s a functional way forward, or whether some of them just have an opposition to it, I don’t know. And it’s really difficult to figure out which it is.

“Because as we’ve seen, they’re quite happy to have a wee go on social media rather than just phoning me up and going, ‘Gillian, can we have a chat about this, because we’ve got some concerns?’

“It’s going to need something or someone in the middle to go, ‘you can all come here and no one’s having sloping shoulders in this’, because there is a lot of finger pointing, there is a lot of that from the broadcasters too.

(Image: Jane Barlow – PA)

“They will say, ‘Well if we had money from government we’d be able to do this’, then government comes back with, ‘Well if broadcasters did more we might be able to meet them in the middle’.

“There’s some issues around commercial sensitivities and things as well, which if they can talk directly to government about that, fine. But I think it may need a wee bit of pulling together in the middle, a wee bit of honesty, which often happens behind the scenes, which doesn’t always help take people with us.

“But if that needs done then I think that’s a really important step that we need to take, and I think we need to cover all bases at once. Which is why I’m going to be on Ian Murray’s case as well as on government’s case here [in Scotland], because any port in a storm.”

Could broadcasters even pool their resources, and look to share the rights?

“There’s plenty of instances where companies do share the rights and show games across different channels at different times,” Mackay said.

“The Six Nations has been shown across STV and the BBC before. So, it’s not something that broadcasters are unaware of how to do.

“There just has to be that little bit of give and take on collaboration to say, well, you know what, we’re going to jointly bid for this chunk of Scotland games, and you can have two and we’ll have two and we’ll go into it together if finances really are that barrier to some of them.

“But I think there are other ways that we can look at it as well.”

What is driving all of this for Mackay is not political opportunism then, she insists, but a passionate belief that the kids of today should be afforded the same opportunities she once had to see the Scottish national team. And a cognisance that a little investment from government in football would in turn reap rich rewards down the line, both in terms of the nation’s health, and in the way it views itself.

“I think it’s really important to let kids see their idols live on telly,” she said.

“There’s also an intergenerational thing for me as well. I used to watch Scotland games with my dad and with other family members and stuff, so giving kids that ability to watch it with dad, with grandpa, with mum, with cousins and all that sort of thing and to really making sporting events an event.

“There are so many other things that go on nowadays that time’s quite precious. There’s obviously the financial pressures on families as well in terms of being able to go to games and it being really expensive, and it’s often quite competitive now to get tickets as well.

“If people can financially afford it, people are often time poor as well. Just the length of time it takes to get the kids out the door and into the game and back and wound down for bed and a reasonable time to get back up the next day for school or for whatever else is going on as well.

“So, for me it’s about taking that pride in Scottish football and recognising that the national team are the pinnacle of Scottish football. How do we make sure that is accessible to as many people as possible?

“How do we make it an event and how do we make sure that the kids can see their idols so that they want to continue to be involved in the game, whether that is wanting to go through the ages and stages of clubs and wanting to get to that national level, or whether it’s playing fives well into their 30s, 40s, or whatever else. To give them that lifelong love of the sport, no matter what club – or none – it is that they support.

“The national team is one thing that can galvanise us.”

Whether it can bring together the various factions in Scottish football required to make this happen, though, remains to be seen.