Way out of our league

Published on Sunday 15 December 2002 00:00

JACK McConnell sat uneasily inside the battered study of Bute House last Thursday afternoon, his eyes fixed on the television.

McLeish’s fingerprints were all over the television, with its multitude of cable channels, which he had installed during his brief tenure as First Minister and to which McConnell and his sports minister Mike Watson were now glued.

McConnell was feeling lousy enough from a 24-hour bug that had swept through his office. But the news that would filter through from a Geneva hotel overlooking Lac Leman at 1.32pm would leave him feeling much worse. The pain of losing Euro 2008 to Austria and Switzerland, whose video launch featured a giant football made of cheese and chocolate, would prove too much for some Scots to bear. As McConnell and Watson sat in silence the mood among fans who had briefly rediscovered the wildly optimistic spirit of Ally’s Army was quickly changing to fury. Fans wearing official Celtic bid T-shirts with the slogan ‘We Can’ claimed ‘Union Jack’ McConnell had sold them "down the river" while the Tartan Army message board turned the worldwide web blue with a string of expletives .

Their anger hinged on a conspiracy theory, believed even by some allies of the First Minister, that McConnell never wanted to land the championship in the first place. The theory goes that he doubted McLeish’s sums and his somewhat nationalistic ‘gesture politics’ and only linked up with the Irish to ensure someone else could be blamed when everything fell apart.

One adherent of the theory close to the Executive claimed that McConnell had spoken privately earlier in the year about "what a crap and ill thought idea a solo bid was". The source added: "Jack sought to define himself against Henry in a lot of areas and Euro 2008 is one. He did not have the guts to say: ‘I don’t think we should do this.’ He formed the partnership with the Irish so it looked on the face of it that he was supporting the bid when in reality he was drowning it under the water."

Certainly it seems McConnell was sceptical about a joint bid even before Uefa made it clear earlier this year that eight stadiums were required for each bid. But his allies say he had no choice but to switch to a joint entry, months after the solo bid was launched, and that Ireland’s ‘feelgood’ presence had strengthened the bid.

"If his heart was not in it he wouldn’t have gone for it. He was gutted afterwards," said a source close to the First Minister. "He is just naturally cautious and he took his time to decide what to do." Others say McConnell remained sceptical about the adventure even after announcing his support for a joint bid but became a passionate convert in later months.

If critics are right and the plan was to use 500,000 of Scottish taxpayers’ funds secure in the knowledge that Ireland’s unreadiness would scupper our chances, it worked perfectly.

Sources within Uefa’s bids inspection team confirmed that the unresolved question of which stadiums would be used in Dublin was one of the reasons for the failure.

The lack of political unity inside the Irish government over the bid, following a protracted dispute between Ireland’s governing coalition parties, also helped seal its fate, along with concerns about the concentration of too many stadiums in only three cities. As Scotland on Sunday reveals today, a further snag was that UEFA chiefs believed the Tartan Army was too parochial to turn out for non-Scottish games, and therefore questioned the economic benefits of the Celtic bid.

Others figures inside the Scottish Executive, who had already prepared for the worst, fear the bid may have been damaged by friendly fire.

Watson, who initially backed Scotland’s solo effort, was highly agitated last weekend about the possibility of adverse Scottish media coverage. He had urged restraint among journalists, fearing rival countries would seize on anything that suggested a lack of support for the bid in Scotland.

It is understood he succeeded in keeping at least one damaging story out of the press but he could not block news of a BBC Scotland opinion poll which revealed supporters and players would prefer funding for grassroots football over a major championship bid.

These findings were quickly picked up by the Swiss media and brought to the attention of Uefa figures on the eve of the decision.

One informed source said: "Supporters of the Austria-Swiss bid put the poll around, asking why it should go to a country that did not want it when 99% of people in their country did want to host it. My understanding is that Uefa judges were aware of it."

A Uefa official has confirmed to Scotland on Sunday that the poll would have been considered before the championship was awarded and stressed the importance of goodwill towards the bid within the host country.

Ministers and Scottish and Irish football chiefs were even more worried by internal Uefa politics which they believe went against the Celtic bid.

Watson was ready to oblige with the ‘we wuz robbed’ line. "There was clearly a stop Scotland and Ireland campaign," the minister said. "Austria and Switzerland saw two main competitors and moved behind the scenes to have us excluded. It was no reflection of the quality of our bid which was at least as strong as theirs."

Executive sources say it is likely to be some days before a full picture emerges of how Uefa members behaved. But footballing insiders say the ‘stitch up’, if there was one, came when the body’s National Teams Committee, which visited facilities in each bidding country, gave the Celtic bid a technical score just one point behind the eventual winners - then kept it off the initial shortlist of four. Even Uefa’s president Lennart Johansson is said to have been surprised when he found out.

Scotland’s David Will, a Fifa vice-president and observer on Uefa’s executive committee, said it was this puzzling decision which ‘crucified’ the Celtic bid because it is difficult for the executive committee to ignore what the teams committee has recommended.

In the end the executive committee, in the face of Celtic pressure, agreed to put the Scotland-Ireland bid back on but the damage had already been done.

As one observer close to the talks put it: "The problem is the national teams committee is overloaded with Eastern Europeans and I think they desperately wanted Hungary in the shortlist. That happened at the expense of Scotland and Ireland."

Shifting the goalposts by suggesting the Celtic bid was flawed because Glasgow’s infrastructure might not be able to cope with matches at three stadiums in the city also infuriated members of the Scottish-Irish team.

But other observers say Celtic politicians did themselves no favours. The chaotic nature of the Irish end of the deal had seen Uefa’s national teams committee fail to even visit the decrepit Lansdowne Road, which had been mooted as a suitable venue.

Even Watson admitted Ireland’s shambolic arrangements had not helped. "I don’t deny that’s been an issue," he said, before claiming it had nonetheless been "overplayed" and did not make "the difference between success or failure".

Members of the Tartan Army are also at a loss to understand why McConnell chose this month to launch an assault on sectarianism in football and elsewhere just days ahead of the decision.

And critics have branded complaints of internal politics a stunning act of naivet by ministers who appeared to think they could win by sole virtue of turning up after staging a highly successful Champions League final in Glasgow last season.

But opposition politicians angrily insist that is simply to shirk responsibility. Scottish Tory sports spokesman Brian Monteith said a golden opportunity was simply squandered by "months of dither and delay". If a joint bid was to work, ministers had to have been committed to the idea from the start.

Our other humiliations

1977 A 2-1 win over England, courtesy of Kenny Dalglish and Gordon McQueen, sent Scots spirits soaring, but the crossbar at Wembley went crashing down when the Tartan Army staged an unprecedented pitch invasion.

The FA secretary, Ted Croker, tried to ban Scottish fans whose reputation would take some time to recover.

1978 "Ally’s Army" was forced into a humiliating retreat after arriving in Argentina on a wave of optimism.

McLeod, below, and the Tartan Army hoped to win the World Cup but lost their first game 3 -1 to Peru and could only draw against minnows Iran who scored an own goal. To make matters worse Willie Johnston then failed a dope test overshadowing Archie Gemmill’s wonder goal against the Dutch.

1982 BA Robertson and John Gordon Sinclair’s unfortunate decision to record Scotland’s World Cup anthem ‘I have a dream’ may have been an ironic reference to Scotland’s national psyche but it did not excuse a performance even more cringeworthy than Rod Stewart’s subsequent ‘Purple Heather’.

1990 Scotland 0 Costa Rica 1. Despite high hopes of getting their World Cup campaign off to a great start, the little coffee country left thirsty Scots in need of something stronger.

2002 This time it was the turn of the Faroe Isles to trounce Scotland 2-2 in Toftir.