Scotland v Ukraine debate: It is their flawed reasoning that is, in itself, offensive and disrespectful - Andrew Smith

It can’t be easy to contest a World Cup qualifier when your country has been ravaged by air strikes responsible for appalling death and destruction, and an intolerable humanitarian crisis.

Yemen, though, not only succeeded in doing so. In June of last year they faced up to the primary source of untold chaos inflicted on their fractured land by sharing a pitch with Saudi Arabia. No less than the main perpetrator in a Gulf state coalition responsible for carpet bombing and blockades to prevent aid supplies that, over a seven-year campaign, the UN adjudges has been the cause of more than 270,000 civilian deaths in Yemen. Over 10,000 of these children. Compartmentalising real-world geopolitics and jousting on a football field hardly begins and ends with Ukraine’s quest to overcome Scotland in Wednesday’s World Cup play-off semi-final, then. Even if that might be suggested by the wild outrage and florid angst of certain media commentators over the circumstances surrounding the Hampden tie.

This faction have despaired at the, apparent, moral bankruptcy of Scotland followers, owing to their desperation for Steve Clarke’s men to vanquish their eastern European rivals as devastation is being wrought on them by Russia’s nihilistic occupation. It is a line of argument frankly devoid of logic. Those who promote it have sought to present the situation as being offensive, of betraying a lack of respect for a terrorised and troubled people. Instead, it is their flawed reasoning that is, in itself, offensive and disrespectful.

Ukraine, even with the totalling of their country at the behest of a despicable despot in Russian president Vladimir Putin, have chosen to play a football game. A football game, not a war game. It is not insensitive to separate the two; it is imperative. Scotland owe it to the Ukraine national football team to treat them as they would any opponent, and not patronise them in excruciating fashion. And, make no mistake, some of the leaps taken over this play-off by journalists who should know better have been utterly excruciating.

Scotland supporters are not guilty of disrespecting their World Cup play-off opponents Ukraine by being desperate to beat the war-torn nation by any which means. (Photo SNS Group/Alan Harvey).

Ukraine would surely expect no less than Scotland, urged on by their followers, to do everything in their power to eliminate them from World Cup finals contention. In agreeing to play the game – a football game – that is precisely what they signed up for. Of course, the Ukrainian players and their staff possess motivations beyond mere qualification for a football tournament, and will crave giving their beleaguered countryfolk a fillip in these horrific times. But what happens on a grass field in Mount Florida ultimately won’t alter one jot the struggle for their autonomy; their very lives. To conflate the two in order to somehow appear morally superior is where any queasiness over this football game – a football game – is to be found, in truth. The two teams in Glasgow’s south side on Wednesday evening are bidding to earn a place in a finals in Qatar, for God’s sake. A nation where the rights of women and the LGBTQ community are strained to the point of barely existing.

I have yet to meet a Scotland supporter that does not have the most heartfelt sympathies for the Ukrainian people in their current plight. Such feelings aren’t lesser, or even somehow corrupted, by those same fans also not having cause to care whether it is the dodgiest, most unjust, penalty that takes Clarke’s men through to Sunday’s play-off final in Wales. That’s how it is with a football game. A football game.

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