THE coronavirus pandemic has brought to a head a growing crisis in Scottish football that has been so long and so slow that in developing that it has hardly been noticed and never addressed

We now have the opportunity. And the necessity. There are many inter-related issues involved, not all of them immediately evident, and very few coherent solutions offered to problems not always readily seen. There has to be serious alignment of the factors which can change things.

Let us look at some facts. Were Rangers and Celtic to play at home on the same Saturday, their combined attendance would be at least three times that of all the rest of Scottish football combined.

Or even more.

This is not good for Scottish football. It is not actually good for Rangers and Celtic either in the wider sense (but their shareholders aren’t all that concerned). It does mean that these two clubs have Scottish football by the throat. Although Rangers and Celtic have held on to their support and attendances at games, there has been a significant drop all across the rest of Scottish football.

The major UK broadcasting media (BBC and ITV) treat Scottish football disgracefully. It is not afforded the status of a “national” sport on either channel. Can anybody imagine Portuguese guys sitting down on a Saturday night to watch Spanish football, prime time, before they got to watch what Benfica had been up to? That’s what we get.

Some Saturdays we don’t actually get any Scottish football at all, though you can be sure we will get at least two hours of prime-time English contests. And the story is the BBC spends more money on its presenters of English football programmes than it forks out for all of Scottish football. And just to rub salt into the wound, fairly regularly recently enthusiasts have sat down to enjoy the hugely popular River City on BBC only to find themselves watching an live English football match instead. That of course is an oblique attack on Scottish football. Think of the outrage if soap addicts down south sat down to watch EastEnders and got Raith Rovers v Morton.

We are dealing here with a footballing nation that invented “soccer” as we know it, carried all round the world and flirted with global top-10 status for much of the last century.

Why are we where we are now? The first obvious answer is that we are not an independent country and our football does not get the attention from our media that it deserves. Or the revenue.

That is a critical factor. Because, all those years ago, professional players in England and Scotland were operating in the same sort of wage range. Top pros were taking home 20 quid a week (and bonuses) and most of them stayed at home.

When the capped wages were done away with, a process started that means that nowadays a gifted young Scottish player gets as much or more in the English third and fourth divisions than most of them get in Scotland’s top league. It is hard to see a solution to this. What young Scot could be blamed for not taking the offer of a six-figure weekly sum to play down south?

That can only be fixed to any extent by getting more funds to Scottish clubs. In my opinion, a European structure and the associated media benefits could provide access to that, but that’s another story.

What could we do now with what we have? We need a better distribution of the money we actually still generate.

We need more people through the turnstiles. For that we need more interesting competition and more opportunity for more of our clubs to be involved in it. So here’s a question. In the interests of exciting, hugely competitive and well-attended football matches, what is the point of Ayr United being in a different league from Kilmarnock? Or Morton and St Mirren? Or Dundee and Dundee United? Or Airdrie and Albion Rovers?

Another question. What is the point of relegation? When one looks at the once-significant Scottish football teams now struggling in the lower leagues, having not survived relegation, one understands the destruction relegation can do.

So here’s an idea. How about four regional leagues. No relegation. Ten teams to a league (or 12 ... Some of our junior teams have been functioning better for years than the “senior”ones).

In the first part of the season, regional leagues play out, home and away, and the top two then join a super league to establish the season’s champion. The rest get involved in groups to find eight go into the Scottish Cup with the big eight. Or something like that. Lots of options.

A West League. A Central League. An East League. A North League. Think of what it would do for Stirling Albion or Berwick Rangers if they knew Hearts and Hibs were coming. If Albion Rovers knew Celtic were coming? And so on. Morton and Queen of the South knew the Gers were coming. See what I did there? I put Celtic and Rangers into different leagues. Deliberately.

A pound a head from the gate money across the country could go into a big pot to be equally divided up. Perhaps a step too far? But that’s what I’d do. Because anything that improves Scottish football, that makes it more competitive and, by that, better, is good also for Celtic and Rangers and all the clubs.

We have a opportunity at this point to think and talk about lots of options. A different European structure is one. The Scottish diaspora around the world and how we could connect constructively with it. So much we can talk about.

Let’s grab this opportunity.