PART-TIME FOOTBALL - NOT A BAD THING
Jeez, there are players in the Premiership who must be tempted at taking on another gig to make ends meet.
There have been games this season where the highest paid man on the pitch has been the referee. Seriously.
The whistlers bag £840 a game in the top flight. There are dozens of players who don’t get that kind of money - and don’t forget the refs do this as their sideline.
Most are lawyers, teachers or whatever. It won’t be long before the men in the middle are the ones dusting down Craig Bellamy’s old gag to rival defenders about asking them to do his garden when speaking to the players.
Scottish football is living in denial.
It wasn’t that long ago we have part-time teams in the top division. In the eighties, the likes of Morton and Hamilton weren’t full-time but no one batted an eyelid.
We need to ditch the snobbery. We need to find new models for our small to medium sized clubs if they are to survive.
In an ideal world they would be embraced by their local authorities and businesses. Train in the morning, work in the afternoon, or work during the day and train at night.
The Scandinavians don’t have this part-time hang-up. They’ve got plenty of sides whose players have jobs or are studying at universities.
A lot of them will train in the morning and then go and work in the afternoons, more often than not in a job related to sport or fitness.
Chance are if you slip under the water at your local swimming baths in Norway your club’s star striker is the guy diving in to haul you out.
In Scotland, there are too many players who want to swan about and describe themselves as full-time pros when they should be using their time more wisely to make a few quid away from the training pitch.
Part-time isn’t really part-time any more either. They could train four nights a week but removing football as the main bread winner could make hungrier players as well as helping clubs manage costs.
We don’t want to see our sides drowning just because of some stubborn insistence of maintaining the illusion of professional status.
Find a sensible, secure model that works for your club, and tell Hyacinth and the rest of nosey neighbours to mind their own beeswax.
Daily Record