THE Scottish Football Association’s little plastic problem the other day has got a lot of you hot under the collar.
You will recall that after Dundee United had been drawn against Celtic, one of the wee plastic balls was noticed to be already opened and the piece of paper it contained was flapping about loosely.
SFA president Alan McRae did the right thing by the rules in restarting the draw. But more than a few people have pointed out what might have happened had he just carried on regardless — court cases and a big inquiry, followed by an eventual redraw, was the majority verdict.
As FGH of somewhere “west of the Pecos” wrote: “It was just like the raffle at our Burns Supper the other night. Quite a few of the lads were too steaming to claim their prize so all you heard was ‘redraw, redraw’ and quite right too.”
One anonymous correspondent went as far as to say that the inability of the governing body to conduct a simple thing such as a draw without making a mess was proof positive that they were not fit to run the game in Scotland.
He wrote: “Imagine the first ball out of the bucket had been Rangers or Kilmarnock instead of Dundee United. Think of all those Killie fans who would have been so angry at losing the chance of knocking both halves of the Old Firm out of the cup.”
Oh, the irony. But one other correspondent indulging in the name Soapy McSuitor had a very interesting idea.
He explained: “It is all very well the draw being unpredictable. But what if it was entirely predictable?
“What if, like tennis for example, the top clubs were given an automatic seeding so that when they join the cup, say at the fourth-round stage, every top team would know who they would be playing next if they could beat the wee team they would be playing in that round?
“You could have the Premiership teams plus the top four in the Championship all seeded one to 16, and then as the tournament progressed, presumably the top teams would converge and the top four would meet in the semi-finals, seed No 1 playing seed No 4 while seed No 2 plays seed No 3. Of course that would all depend on the seedings working out, but instead of farcical draws there would be certainty about the prize for victory.
“More often than not, it would also mean the best teams in the country meeting in the latter stages of the cup, which would make for a better spectacle in the semi-finals and final, which would be better for sponsors and television.
“It does not harm tennis at all knowing that Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic will meet in the final and Novak will win, and it would spare the SFA a possibility of embarrassment.”
Interesting thought — but surely the reality is that the wee clubs would never vote for a system that might stop them getting the chance to play the big boys.
If you have any thoughts on this or any other aspect of Scottish football, please email kickersnational@gmail.com.
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