Moira Gordon: Meeting ministerial limits

Published on Saturday 12 September 2009 19:39

SHONA ROBISON insists she does not have a magic wand to right all Scottish football's wrongs but she is adamant that the government is helping tackle the problems.

Sitting in her office at the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish minister for sport admitted that a reputation for glorious failure is not one she or her fellow SNP rulers want the nation to be saddled with. But she added that there was a limit to what they could do.

Having ploughed more than 3million of national lottery and government funding into football over the past year and bolstered that with a further 880,000 from the Cashback for Communities programme, she says the money is there and it's now up to the governing bodies to utilise it correctly.

Critics claim that given the fact that another World Cup failure has cost the country's economy millions, and given the proven positive impact a healthy, fit nation would have on the health budget as well as enhancing learning and helping cut street crime, even more could be invested. But Robison says it is a work in progress and points to the 9m investment in three new regional football facilities in Toryglen, Aberdeen and Ravenscraig (which will open in 2010), and the plans for a more co-ordinated approach to sport in each local authority which will mean sports venues becoming multi-purpose, benefiting football and other sports.

"Sports that are not football will say there is too much focus on football but the fact is football is our national game and it has a special place and it's one of the biggest participation sports for young people, so the 4m investment reflects that. It's a huge investment but we have got to make sure, with the Commonwealth sports for example, that the governing bodies there are getting the right level of investment to deliver on athletics, on swimming and the other performance sports we are going to be judged on. So it's about making sure we spend the money wisely.

"Sportscotland drives a pretty hard bargain with the governing bodies; the sports don't just get money to go off and spend as they want. It is thrashed out in terms of performance improvement and that has not always been the case."

Robison was the minister for public health before adding sport to her portfolio at the beginning of the year. She says that linking the two made sense and she is also working with the education department to address the amount of physical education in schools.

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She is an advocate of the SFA schemes which follow the route of continental Europe in terms of encouraging greater 'physical literacy' in youngsters, furnishing them with the basics in balance, flexibility and co-ordination at an early age, but says patience is required as they come to fruition.

"That is important and we have to make sure that throughout nursery and primary school that children are introduced to basic moves and that we get them interested at an early age. But in terms of improving facilities, that's not going to happen overnight. We are not going to be able to refurbish and have new facilities in every community overnight but we can do it on a strategic basis and identify priorities.

"The money has to be programmed over a period of time and the youth action plan is a classic example. It's a 10-year plan and yes it will deliver cracking state-of-the-art facilities but it will take time to get there."

But the frustrations for those who insist more could be done arise when money is seen to be frittered away on non-sporting schemes and vast overspends. 10m on three football academies is a sizeable spend until put in context. It amounts to just a fifth of the initial estimated cost of the building of the Scottish Parliament, while the 400m eventually spent on Holyrood could have financed football centres in every major town in the country.

So should the Government be considered culpable if Scotland's absence from major championships continues? Partially, is Robison's view.

"We have to take responsibility for the areas we have responsibility over. I think the government's job is to invest in the grass roots and make sure that the money goes into amateur and youth areas of sport so, if you like, the stars of the future will have an opportunity to get involved at a young age and hopefully come through.

"But where the government has some limitations is in respect of the clubs. Professional clubs are businesses and operate that way and make good decisions and bad decisions and I'm not sure governments can be held to account for decisions that clubs make.

"Is there more we could do? Is there more improvements we could make? Yes, there is and I want to get it right, but at the end of the day we can make the investment and need to be guided by others when it comes to where that investment should go at a local level."