Self-interest is key in league debate, admits Stephen Thompson

It WAS barbecue time at Tannadice yesterday, as Dundee United celebrated the launch of a new home strip. Sausages weren't the only things sizzling in the Tayside sun, however. So, too, was the chairman's head. On more than one occasion Stephen Thompson was heard bemoaning his failure to wear some protective headgear.

But it isn't just one hat which Thompson needs. He is currently required to wear two as he juggles the needs of Dundee United with those of Scottish football. It can be a wretched, tortuous business. Indeed, the chairman spent last Monday afternoon in a considerable state of anguish. He looked on as 250,000 disappeared, before, briefly, seeing the notes stack up in front of his eyes again as Reading mounted an improbable and indeed ultimately unsuccessful comeback against Swansea in the second half of the Championship play-off final at Wembley.

Thompson's rooting for Reading was not down to anything so romantic as family ties, and neither were they the only side he completed in his first Panini sticker album. Rather, his support was born entirely out of self-interest. If Reading had been able to overturn Swansea's first-half three-goal lead, United would have celebrated the bonus of a 250,000 boost to their funds, courtesy of a clause in the deal which took Noel Hunt, whose first goal helped entertain notions of a comeback, to Berkshire in 2006.

Self-interest, too, is why Thompson, along with seven other chairmen, gathered at Tynecastle on Tuesday as they sought to deliver a final blow to a proposed league of ten, a format which they argue threatens to stifle creativity and youth development as well as erode supporter interest. The last worry is perhaps the most significant one as far as they are concerned, and rightly so. "At the meeting on Tuesday someone pointed out that they have been told by 600 season ticket holders that they will not renew if it goes to ten," said Thompson yesterday. "In what other business in the world do you just ignore the customers?"

The United chairman makes no bones about the fact that he is driven by what is best for his club. "My personal responsibility first and foremost as a director of a company is to my company," he said. "I am not a director of the league. So, first of all, I look after Dundee United, and then secondly the league. It's easy for people who are not directors of the club and who do not have responsibility to put aside your own club feelings, because actually that's not what you are meant to do in the eyes of the law."

Yet he is conscious of the shift in viewpoint required when contemplating the forthcoming Scottish Football Association agm, to be held at Hampden Park on Tuesday. Henry McLeish, among others, has called for officials to ignore what is perhaps their first instinct, which is to vote in line with what is likely to be most advantageous to themselves and also their club.Thompson is as aggressive as anybody when standing up for his own football club. However, he believes that those officials who climb the steps of Hampden on Tuesday must do so in a more enlightened state of mind.

"I am 100 per cent behind the change in the SFA," he said. "I have been involved in it for the last two years. The way the committees work is archaic, it's slow and from some of the proposals I have seen we will be voting for change. But a lot of other people won't, perhaps. I think the SPL clubs will all be behind the change. But some will still be voting for self-interest."

He called on chairmen to leave their blazers hanging in their wardrobe. According to him, these officials need to roll up their sleeves, be brave and embrace the call for change. "We have all heard the old blazer scenario," he said. "I have one in the house. But you have to cast that aside and do what's right for Scottish football."

It's fascinating to consider one man being forced to adopt such contrasting stances. But it is also completely understandable. Thompson himself was accused of doing a U-turn earlier this year when, having been an enthusiastic backer of a 14-team league, he appeared to relent on his previous dismissal of the ten-team option. "It's up to everyone being grown-up about it," he said. "You have to respect each other's opinion."

He believes the debate has now reached an "impasse" and that the current 12-team league will survive, with perhaps the addition of an 11th-place play-off with a First Division team.

"I made it clear that I wanted to listen to everyone's arguments," he added. "I have listened to that now for a few months and as far as we are concerned we just don't want a (ten-team league]. We just don't think it's the way forward for the game, and for bringing kids in. Just about every manager agrees - they don't want a ten.

"It puts huge pressure on clubs. The parachute payment is there, but it is only there for four years. As someone said, it's armageddon without the big 'a' - it's a smaller Armageddon. Dunfermline took four years to get up, St Johnstone took seven. Inverness came back in the first year - that was a fantastic achievement, considering the re-structuring you have to do.

"There are a few clubs who bounced back (from the First Division]. We were down there a long, long time ago. I'd dread to think… We worked out it would cost us 1.8 million to be relegated, and that was three or four years ago. To cope with that is just about impossible, I would suggest."