Youth Football (PE1319)
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I welcome you all to today’s meeting of the Public Petitions Committee. As always, I ask everyone to switch off their electronic devices, because they interfere with our sound system.
We have received apologies from Jackson Carlaw, who is attending the Health and Sport Committee. Cameron Buchanan is here as his substitute.
Item 1 is a round-table discussion on PE1319, on improving youth football in Scotland. Members have a note from the clerks—paper 1—and a submission from the petitioners. I welcome everyone and thank you all for coming along. We have had apologies from Malcolm McGregor—he is an advocate from Compass Chambers and he has to be in court today.
I ask everyone to introduce themselves. I am a Labour member of the Scottish Parliament for the Highlands and Islands region. I should declare again that I am a trustee of Inverness Caledonian Thistle Football Club. Of course, any comments that I make are purely my own; I cannot speak for my club, or I will be in serious trouble at the next home game.
I am a Scottish National Party MSP for South Scotland.
I am academy director at Heart of Midlothian Football Club.
Welcome. I am an MSP for Glasgow.
I am one half of the RealGrassroots. I am wearing this T-shirt today because I wanted to make the point that I am just a football coach, like tens of thousands of other volunteers across Scotland.
I am the MSP for Falkirk East.
My name is Willie Smith. I am the chairman and founder of Hillwood Boys Club in Glasgow and the co-founder of RealGrassroots.co.uk.
I am a Conservative MSP for Lothian.
I am chief executive of the Scottish Professional Football League, which is the newly merged league that represents all 42 professional football clubs in Scotland.
I am MSP for the Kirkcaldy constituency. I declare an interest: I am a member of the Raith Supporters Trust.
I am the director of football governance and regulation at the Scottish Football Association.
I am an SNP MSP for Central Scotland.
Thank you.
The purpose of this meeting is to enable everyone to discuss the issues that the petitioners, William Smith and Scott Robertson, raised in relation to training, compensation and contracts for young players. We have around an hour for this important discussion, and I thank you all for giving up your valuable time to be here. Your presence will really help us to have a quality debate.
If people could speak through me, that would be helpful. I will start the questions, and if anyone feels that they are best qualified to answer they should indicate to me that they want to respond.
What changes in policy and law have taken place since the petition was brought in 2010? I will behave in a way that is typical of politicians, by answering my own question: I know that the Bernard ruling of the European Court of Justice stated that the transfer fee element must not exceed the cost of training individual players.
We have made changes in a number of areas since the petition was brought, and we have been involved in a number of discussions with Mr Smith and Mr Robertson.
One of the main changes was in relation to the reimbursement of training costs. It is important to note that the issue is set against the backdrop of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association requirement for associations to have in place a system for rewarding clubs for investing in the training and education of players. That is a mandatory requirement for associations.
One issue in the past was that there were two systems of reimbursement for training costs: one was governed by the SFA and the other was governed by the Scottish Premier League. The Scottish Football League, as it was at the time, used the one that we used. Some of the figures in the system were regarded as fairly random and it was unclear as to how they related to what was actually spent, so we undertook an exercise to consider what clubs were spending on the training and development of players.
It became clear to us that there was a clear correlation between what was spent and clubs’ star ratings under the club academy Scotland scheme. Because of that, we set up a new, matrix-type system—basically, the higher up a club is, the more it has spent and the more it expects to get in reimbursement of training costs.
In tandem with that, we brought in two new rules, which make it quite clear that no rights of compensation that a club might have shall prevent a player from moving to a new club. In the past, there was a perception that clubs that were due compensation were stopping players from moving to new clubs. We have put in a rule so that clubs cannot do that.
On the limited occasions on which there have been issues—in the two years since I have been at the SFA I would say that there have been less than a handful of cases—we have been brought in as mediators. We help the club, the player and the parents to look for a compromise, so that the player can be released to the new club.
That is probably the biggest change that we have made, although we have made others, as the RealGrassroots guys are aware. One is in relation to the registration and licensing of team scouts. We brought in new rules on that and put in place a new process so that the senior clubs have to register their team scouts. That has been quite successful.
There was also an issue about players being released from club academy Scotland clubs and appearing to go into the ether, so to speak, and being lost to football. That is not a good thing, so we have set up a process whereby information is passed back to the Scottish Youth Football Association to reunite those players with the clubs that they came from originally, or any other club, in the hope that we do not lose them to football.
Another significant issue was that players in club academy Scotland were not allowed to play for their school teams. The rule has been changed so that they can play for their school teams, although it is still at the discretion of the club academy Scotland club. I have had quite a number of discussions with various people involved in that and I would say that clubs generally provide support in that area. Many players who are club academy Scotland players still play for their school teams.
That gives you a broad overview of a number of areas in which we have made changes in the past couple of years.
I thank Andrew McKinlay for that helpful exposition of the changes that the Scottish Football Association has made. We have also made changes. We have been working closely with the SFA since the merger last summer. Last time I was here, there was concern about allegations that young players were somehow being auctioned and that clubs in whose players interest had been registered by an acquiring club were not passing that information on to the young players.
The rules have been changed from this summer, which means that any club wishing to acquire an amateur young player must register that interest with us—the league—and we pass that interest on to the player and his parents, so that they are in full possession of all the facts about any clubs that are interested in signing the young player and they have a choice about what to do. If that process is followed, there is a prohibition on any inducement to stay or go being offered either by the club wishing to acquire the player or his current club.
I have two things to say. First, the Scottish Football Association has been more than helpful and has sat down with us and talked about the issues. Sadly, I cannot say that about the Scottish Professional Football League. It has shown no interest or enthusiasm in speaking to us about anything relating to the serious issues under its control.
As Andrew McKinlay said, we have attended several meetings, some of which were at the invitation of the SFA. We are grateful for that, and we have a good working relationship with the SFA. I cannot say that that exists with the league because we have never been invited.
I wish to take up the point about bartering with a 13 or 14-year-old. As Mr Doncaster said, Mr Sinclair from Rangers Football Club, supported by Mr McCart from Celtic Football Club, told the committee about a young player who was being traded off between two professional football clubs to the highest bidder. I would ask any parent sitting around this table whether they would like their son to be in that situation.
As Mr Doncaster has just outlined, a rule is now in place that parents must be informed. It is four years since Mr Sinclair gave evidence, supported by Mr McCart, and that rule is only just being introduced. That reflects the arrogance of the organisation headed by Mr Doncaster. The clubs in that organisation are interested only in getting whatever money they can out of a young potential player. Some of them do not even have the facilities to justify the claim for that money. We are concerned about that incident in particular.
10:15I know that the committee’s membership has changed since its first meeting on the subject four years ago, in 2010. The meeting at which Mr Sinclair appeared, when he gave evidence, was in 2011. After that meeting, we wrote to Mr Doncaster, asking him to investigate the credibility of Mr Sinclair’s and Mr McCart’s evidence. He refused to do that, stressing that there had been no breach of the rules. He wrote to one of our supporters who helped us with the petition, the former MSP Trish Godman, referring to the Olivier Bernard case and outlining some points in it. However, he did not outline that the European Court of Justice ruling in the Olivier Bernard case said that only the costs should be met. We have profiteering in our game, and that is wrong.
Thank you. We are quite tight for time and have a lot of questions. Politicians are well used to speeches, but I ask witnesses to be a bit shorter in their contributions.
Mr Robertson, do you want to add anything briefly on the points that have been made?
Yes. I will be as brief as I can be, convener.
I am aware of—and glad about—the changes that the SFA has made. I got a copy of the document. I do not quite understand, though, how it is more expensive for Celtic to have 16 kids and a coach or two coaches on a training pitch than it is for Airdrieonians, for example. The system calculates that the compensation level for a six-star-rated club is £15,000 while the level of compensation is lower for a one-star-rated club. I do not get that. Perhaps that could be addressed at some point.
I am glad to hear that a rule has been brought in to stop clubs preventing kids from playing football—I was not aware of that. I am, however, aware of two cases that are running just now. Perhaps I can get an answer on them. A kid has been in touch with us who has not played football since 25 June last year. He is a talented player who was on professional books, but he has not been able to play football because compensation has not been paid. I have a print-out of his player passport in front of me, which states the facts. Another lad has not been registered or played football since 21 November last year because clubs cannot agree on the level of compensation. That seems, unfortunately, to fly in the face of what Andrew McKinlay said; I take issue with that.
Finally, the exit strategy for players leaving the club academy Scotland clubs was mentioned. The SFA now sends an email containing an Excel spreadsheet of that information to the Scottish Youth FA—last week, 19 players were released. The Scottish Youth FA does not know what to do with that list and sits on it, so that information is not sent to clubs such as Musselburgh Windsor and Hillwood Boys Club. The information on those 19 players a week who are being released from professional clubs is sitting in a database and doing nothing because the Scottish Youth FA does not know whether, because of the Data Protection Act 1998, it can send me the information that John Smith lives in Musselburgh and plays at right back, along with his address and telephone number. That is not the full answer.
Regarding the comparison between Airdrieonians and Celtic, Mr Robertson does not understand the criteria around club academy Scotland. Celtic has one of the top academies in Britain and employs full-time scouts and coaches. It employs qualified coaches and various others, such as physiotherapists, which costs money. Airdrieonians does not meet the same criteria. Similarly, a lot more money is paid by Celtic than is paid by Hearts—that is a fact. Celtic and Rangers pay a fortune—a lot more than any other club—for their academies, and the compensation is based on that. Airdrie might have four teams, but Celtic might have six teams plus development squads who move on to the under-20 team. A lot more people are involved in Celtic and Rangers than are involved in most clubs in Scotland and Britain.
I think that the compensation figure that Mr Sinclair gave you in 2011 is wrong. There is no reason for that amount of money to be paid for any player in Scotland. There is a set figure, and I believe that the player went for that figure, not the figure that Mr Sinclair quoted. I was appalled by what Mr Sinclair said at that meeting. I assure you that I would pay not one penny more for any player in Scotland than the training compensation that is required under legislation.
We are not lawyers, but that is my understanding of what the Bernard ruling identifies—it is the cost.
I am conscious that my colleagues have questions, too, so I will move quickly on to my next question, which is straightforward. Why is registration required at all for young players? What is the benefit to a young player of being registered? Our briefing on the petition states:
“The Age of Legal Capacity (Scotland) Act 1991 provides that a person under 16 years of age has no legal capacity (subject to exceptions) and generally, contracts with minors are voidable.”
Does Mr McKinlay or Mr Doncaster want to say anything on that?
I will answer the second point, which was about the age of legal capacity. At one of the first meetings that I had with the RealGrassroots gentlemen, they made the point that it would be unlawful for anyone who is under 16 to enter into the agreements, and they said that they had counsel’s opinion to that effect. I asked them to share Mr McGregor’s opinion with me, which they kindly did.
It is unfortunate that Mr McGregor is not with us today, but I assure the committee that his opinion does not say that the approach is unlawful. People of that age can enter into contracts—their parents can enter into them on their behalf. If there is an issue with a parent entering into a contract that is not in the best interests of the child, that issue is between the child and the parent, so the contracts are not per se voidable. That is the legal response, and it is from counsel’s opinion for RealGrassroots.
I will respond to the first part of the question, which was about the point of a registration system. It is a record of exactly where young players are and who they are training with but, primarily, it provides the basis for insurance for the players. We have a system of insurance for the league and all its member clubs, which of course covers the players in those clubs. There are good legal reasons why there should be a system of registration.
I just add that the registration form that our players sign is exactly the same form that the boys club players sign. It is not a contract. The form that my players sign for Hearts is the same form that players sign for Musselburgh Windsor and the boys club. It is exactly the same form, so if we cannot do something why should they? It is exactly the same form, which is registered legally by the SFA and the SPFL. I would like to know what the difference is between their forms and my forms.
I do not know what John Murray knows about boys club football, but it appears to me to be absolutely nothing. The fact is that there are no forms in boys club football that a child signs at 15 years of age for a one-year registration and that the club can continue against the player’s wishes. Under SYFA rules, my club, Hillwood Boys Club, does not have the right to continue the player’s registration against his wishes. That is the bottom line on that, Mr Murray. As far as that is concerned, he is completely wrong.
I ask Mr Doncaster and Mr McKinlay to explain why a 15-year-old child has to sign a registration document at that age when professional footballers are free of that through the Bosman ruling and when the Scottish Junior Football Association has from this year scrapped that. Why do we target 15-year-old children to continue their registration after they complete the period?
I will allow Mr Murray to respond quickly. I know that there are strong feelings on the issue, but I ask that we try to deal with each other with courtesy. That would be useful.
It is the same form that is signed. Bosman applies to players who are 23 and over and not 15-year-olds. Players are free on a Bosman at 23, not under it. I am not aware of European rules on registration forms, but that is a fact—players are free to go at 23 and up, but not under it.
I will bring in Mr Doncaster and Mr McKinlay to respond to the points that Mr Smith has raised.
I am happy to endorse John Murray’s response. The Bosman ruling applies to players who are over 23. The FIFA system of compensation for training has in effect been endorsed by the European Court of Justice in the Bernard case, which makes it clear that compensation for players below the age of 23 is entirely permissible and within European law.
To follow up on my initial question, is that where the Bernard ruling comes in? Basically, the compensation should reflect the costs to the club of the training.
Absolutely. We have put in place a system that aims to do exactly that. Depending on the star rating of the academy from which the player comes—
Not everyone round the table is as expert on football as you gentlemen are, so I want to check that I fully understand the issue. The Bernard ruling states that, if a player leaves, there can be compensation that reflects the star rating of the facility.
As we just heard, Celtic have an expensive set-up, which reflects the size of the club. If a player from Celtic goes to another club, the other club must pay compensation that reflects the costs to Celtic of training that player, but there is no premium above that.
Exactly. The changes that will be made to our rules this summer will prevent the auctioning of young players, about which an allegation was made previously. From this summer, our rules will prevent that from happening, because the player would be alerted by us to any interest in them and the compensation sums are set out clearly in the rules.
On that point, we have received as one of the papers for today’s meeting a copy of a letter from Vincent Lunny of the SFA to Mr Smith. It basically says that, although the SFA and the SPFL have set tariffs, no penalty will be imposed on any club that decides to breach those tariffs. Do the tariffs that have been put in place take on board Mr Murray’s point about the difference between six-star clubs and one-star clubs? How can clubs continue to breach the tariffs that have been put in place without any penalties being applied to them?
I will take that. The letter that you refer to was from my colleague Mr Lunny, who is the association’s compliance officer. The matter was referred to him in general terms. It might be the case that the evidence that Mr Sinclair gave several years ago, in which he said that extra money was being paid, was being referred back to. There is nothing in our rules to say that, if extra money is paid, that is a breach of our rules. I do not understand how extra money can be paid under the new tariff system. In general, we do not put in place rules for things that cannot happen.
We have two sets of rules. I have touched on our rules and I am sure that Mr Doncaster will talk further about the SPFL’s new rules.
The situation is exactly the same. Any young player who goes between two of the 42 clubs in the SPFL is covered by that system, which sets out exactly what the training compensation should be for each size of club.
Let us take the scenario in which a club with big pockets really wants to sign a young player who is aged 15. Will the host club negotiate what the compensation is, based on their costs? Is that how the process works?
No, that is not what happens. The compensation that is payable is set out clearly in the rules. A big club with large pockets that wishes to acquire a player would write to us and we would alert the player and his parents. He would then be able to choose whether to stay with his existing club or whether to go to the new club at the end of that year. In the event that he decides to go to the new club, the compensation that is payable is set out in the rules.
If the large club says to the parents, “This is what the compensation scheme says should be paid, but we wish to make you another payment,” can that happen?
That is prohibited by our rules and would be a breach of our rules. We would bring a disciplinary case if we had evidence of such a breach.
Good morning. To your knowledge, has there been a breach of the rules? What investigations have you carried out to ensure that the rules are being complied with? I have a suspicion.
I am not aware of any breach of our rules. If anyone has any—
Have you checked?
Well, we have a—
Have you checked the total payments that have been made in the circumstances that have just been described?
I am sorry, Mr Brodie, but I am not sure that I follow what you are suggesting. If we have evidence of any breach of our rules, we will investigate that. We have no such evidence before us. We do not go on fishing expeditions to look for alleged breaches. If people have allegations of wrongdoing or of breaches of our rules, they should bring that evidence to us and we will investigate. We have seen no such evidence.
So you do not enforce compliance or do any auditing. We are talking about young men—and, indeed, young girls—playing a sport that they enjoy. You carry out no fishing expeditions—to use your term—to ensure that the rules are being complied with.
I am sorry, but I do not follow you. If people are alleging that rules have been breached, let us see what the evidence is. I have no such evidence in front of me.
We will move on, because a number of committee members have questions to ask.
Why does the registration process for players aged 15 and over differ from the process for players aged 14 and under? Why is there a barrier at the age of 15? Is that arbitrary?
10:30
It comes from the clubs. We are a members’ organisation, so our rules come from the wishes of the clubs. There was a discussion several years ago about it, and the view is very much that 15 is the crucial age for the development of players. Clubs are happy for those younger than 15 to move on after one year, but they feel that for 15-year-olds they have made a sufficient commitment and therefore should be allowed to keep the player. That is why there is the difference that you described. John Murray might be able to add to that point.
Young players between 13 and 15 are going through puberty and have growing pains, Osgood-Schlatter’s and various illnesses. During that time, players’ form deteriorates for a while. We think that by 15 most players have gone through their growth spurt and that we can then judge better the quality of their ability. Because of our investment in them, we like to ensure that we keep them until they are 16 or 17.
The ability and quality of young players go up and down like yo-yos. For example, we have had players at the club for one year who have been injured because of Osgood-Schlatter’s, so we protect them and keep them for another year as they recover from injury. We think that, when a player is 15, we can better assess their quality and whether to maintain our investment in them a lot longer.
So using the age of 15 is, in effect, arbitrary. It is not a particular rule. It is one that you have imposed or regulated for.
It is based on the situation that John Murray described.
I understand. Thank you.
The comment was made that the Bosman ruling does not apply unless a player is aged 23 or over. We understand that, but what we are suggesting is that the principle should also apply to young players.
Mr Murray is correct that the front-facing registration form is the same, but the rules behind it are different. I will give you a couple of examples. If a player signs a registration form for a boys club when he is 13, should he decide halfway through that for family reasons he wants to leave and move somewhere else—or if he has to leave because the family is moving—he can do so after 28 days by writing to the SYFA. However, young players who have signed the same registration form cannot exit from, for example, Airdrieonians, Hearts, Hibs or Celtic—there is no such get-out clause.
We can move that up to the 15-year-old’s situation. I know that Andrew McKinlay said that that situation is not illegal, but Malcolm McGregor said:
“the current regime is flawed ... it imposes a contractual regime on youth players and clubs in which the former are placed at a clear and distinct disadvantage in which they have no bargaining power and effectively no remedial rights.”
If someone signs a registration form when they are 15 and they complete that commitment for one year, the club can hold them for a second year and the player has no say in that—he has no get-out clause. If at the end of the second year the club wants to keep them for a third year, it has the power and authority to do that—the player and the parents have no say in that.
A number of organisations, such as the SFYA, Malcolm McGregor’s Compass Chambers and Bridge Litigation UK, share FIFPro’s view that
“retaining players after they have expressed they want to leave after a season is not acceptable. This infringes fundamental rights.”
We heard the same from Tam Baillie, Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People, and that view was reflected by the FIFA disciplinary committee when it dealt with FC Barcelona. William Gibbons expressed the same point in a letter, the Scottish Trades Union Congress and the Scottish Child Law Centre have also made that point, and Henry McLeish flagged up that there was a duty of care that was absent.
First, the reason why the players go into a dual age band for 15 and 16-year-olds is because we halve the number of players in each squad. For example, as the 15-year-olds move to being 17, we reduce the number of players in the system—which is what I thought you were after in the first place, Mr Robertson. Therefore, if we have a squad of 15, 16 and 17-year-olds, we basically have 48 or 54 players in our system. By going with the dual age and the three-year registration, we halve the number of those players in the club. We go from, say, 44 players to 22 players. We actually do what you are asking and reduce the number of players.
Plus, we have a duty of care to all our players. To say that the player cannot leave is wrong. I let a player of 14 go this week because his family had moved house. That decision is up to the individual club, but I would be appalled if a club kept a young player who had moved house. I am not saying that that does not happen, though.
On the point about principles, we all have different principles and clubs work with different principles. I certainly would not keep a player who moved house, but I am speaking for my club and I cannot speak for Rangers or Celtic. Some of the points that you are making are completely wrong.
Thank you very much. I want to bring in Mr McKinlay to respond to Mr Robertson’s points.
A number of issues were mentioned. I will try to pick up on them, although I may miss some.
We are throwing around quite a few analogies and examples, but we must be careful when we do that because, as lawyers know, a lot them turn very much on the facts and the circumstances. The Bosman ruling has been thrown around a lot this morning. There is nothing in the ruling that prevents clubs from having one-way options to extend contracts. Bosman is about someone who comes to the end of their contract and has no contract whatsoever.
The Barcelona case has just been mentioned. That case is all about the movement of minors—young boys—from South America to Spain. FIFA has very clear rules on the cross-border movement of minors. I do not think that we should be using that as an example.
John Murray has talked about family reasons. Where there have been issues and clubs have perhaps not had the same principles as the ones John mentioned, we have been asked to mediate a couple of times. Generally, we can find a compromise. We are allowed to cancel a registration if it comes to that. We do not use that mechanism lightly, but in scenarios in which it is obvious that the club is abusing its position we have the authority to do that.
May I come in, convener?
Very briefly, Mr Smith, because we are getting a bit short of time and we still have lots of questions to ask.
I will be very brief. On Mr Brodie’s question to Mr Doncaster, Mr Doncaster said that there was absolutely no evidence of a breach. This is the extract of Jim Sinclair’s previous evidence that Mr Doncaster sat and listened to, in which he described how a child was traded off against two clubs.
Mr Smith, you just held up a copy of the evidence to which you referred. It will be difficult to report that in the Official Report. Is it possible that you could give us a copy of that information?
You have that evidence—I am referring to Jim Sinclair’s previous evidence to this committee. Mr Doncaster was at that meeting and he heard that evidence, but he declared to Mr Brodie that he did not have any evidence to investigate. We wrote to him and again provided him with all the evidence, but he refused to investigate. We passed it on an official complaint form to Vincent Lunny, the compliance chap from the SFA. We asked Mr Lunny to interview Mr Doncaster about Mr Sinclair’s evidence, but he refused to do that. We asked him to interview Jimmy Sinclair from Rangers FC, but he refused to do that, too. That shows the lack of co-operation that we have had on the matter.
Thank you for that. I will bring in Mr Doncaster because he was mentioned.
I find myself at a loss to understand what this campaign is aiming to achieve. If an allegation is made that rules have been breached, let us understand what rule has been breached and let us see some evidence. We are not aware of any evidence of any rule having being breached.
We are concerned about what was put in front of us when we were at the previous committee meeting in relation to the allegations about auctioning young players. As I have explained this morning, we have put in a place a system that ensures that there should be no incentive for that to happen. We will alert any player if there is any interest in him by a club seeking to acquire his registration.
I repeat: if there is an allegation that a rule has been breached in the past, let us see the evidence of that and let us understand what rule we think has been breached.
I want to find out what Rangers or Celtic paid for the player mentioned at the previous meeting. I am aware that the figure that they paid was not the figure that was mentioned at that time. There is no need for anyone to pay more than the figure that was asked for.
Convener, can I answer—
We have quite a lot of other questions to get through and I would rather keep to the broader principles than cover the specifics of individual players. Otherwise, we will miss some of the major points and we will have to move on.
Mr Brodie has a question.
An issue that has always concerned me, particularly given the state of Scottish football, is why we still have two organisations running our sport. How sure are you that you are applying the regulations in the same way?
I think that there may be one country in Europe with a unitary set up in which a league and FA work together. Other than that one country, I am not aware of any other that operates that unitary system—
I am interested in Scotland.
Scotland matches the situation in the majority of countries in Europe where there are one or two leagues and then a governing body. That separation is very much what happens elsewhere in Europe.
Our role as a league is to run a fair competition for the 42 members—the professional clubs—and largely to commercialise that. We work hand in hand with the governing body, which lives down the corridor from us at Hampden. We co-operate on a daily basis; I see Andrew McKinlay and his colleagues every day.
There is a good level of co-operation. In fact, given our separate rule books, we are working together to ensure that, where there is overlap in the rules, we are clear about who takes priority. We have an extremely good working relationship and, when issues arise, we work with the SFA to look at them. There are suggestions that we are not listening and that we do not care, but that could not be further from the truth.
I am not suggesting that you do not listen and you do not care, but you have just said that your processes overlap and that you walk up and down the corridor talking to each other about things. This is a very serious issue as far as I am concerned. Reading the petition is like reading a Dickensian novel. We are looking at how we can foster youngsters for the good of football. Why do we need two bodies to oversee compliance in the registrations?
There is a single system that has been agreed with the 42 clubs and the Scottish FA, and it deals with compensation that is based on the star rating of the academies. There is one system.
Okay. Let me move on. Mr McKinlay, what is the audit process for the public funds that are distributed by the SFA?
That is probably not within my remit, Mr Brodie.
If you cannot answer that now, I am happy for you to write in. It seems as though a fair amount of public funding is going through sportscotland to foster young footballers, but I cannot see any evidence of the audit process, where the money goes, and how we can follow the money.
I have read the evidence given by Mr Doncaster, Mr Regan and Shona Robison to the committee in 2011, when that issue was explored in depth. They talked about the audit process and how sportscotland comes in and audits the money. I do not want to pretend that I am an expert in that area in case I mislead you, but the committee has gone over that and the process was explained.
The answer to this might depend on the frame of reference of the solicitors that you discuss this with, but to what extent can the registration be considered a contract between the club and the player or the player’s parents?
Football has two separate things: a registration form and a player contract. The people who we are talking about here do not enter into football player contracts. They sign a registration form. Again, that point was rehearsed at the 2011 meeting. We can get into the legal semantics about what is and what is not a contract, but football’s view is that these are registration forms that are signed by the child and their parent. They do not sign what football views as football contracts. Those are for professional players.
Mr Doncaster, do you want to comment?
There is nothing I can add to that.
To what extent do the obligations that are placed on young players act as a barrier to them moving to other clubs, particularly in situations like the one that we have just heard about of someone who is moving away from the local area? In those circumstances, and given that we are trying to encourage youngsters to enjoy their football, not to be a means of speculation, what barriers are placed on those young people?
Mr Murray touched on the fact that many clubs do not use that as a barrier. If a family moves in the middle of the year, the club lets the player go. It is not in the club’s interests to hold on to a player who does not want to be there. As I said in response to another question, less than a handful of instances have been brought to me in my two years in the association. I think that only one has been brought to me in which a club refused to let a player go. We became involved and managed to get to a situation in which an amicable compromise was reached and the player was released. It is not brought to my attention daily that clubs refuse to let players go all the time. If it was, I would be horrified.
10:45
So you have no evidence.
None has been brought to my attention.
When the parents come in to sign the registration form, the training compensation is explained to them, as is what happens at the end of the season. They are given reviews of their child’s performance during the season. At end of the year, every player can leave and go to a boys club or wherever they want. No player is unhappy unless someone comes for him; 99 per cent of players who sign for clubs are happy until a bigger club comes for them.
We have a lot of players at the end of the year and let go—let us say for argument’s sake—two players per age group. Some of the boys go to another senior club and some go back to a boys club. Very few players leave football and do not play it. They either go to a smaller club in the club academy Scotland scheme or back to a boys club. The idea that the players are lost to the game is nonsense. Those boys find a level to play at every year.
I hear what you say, Mr Murray—that you are all doing the best for the youngsters. I heard earlier that, in some instances, they might not be allowed to play for their schools. We must recognise that, as I read into the situation, we are talking about speculating with young men and young women who want to play the game that they love. It is about nothing other than pure business speculation using young people and limiting their ability to do the thing that they enjoy most. For example, it is a nonsense to say that they cannot play school football.
I will respond to that specific point. What I said earlier was that, in general, clubs release players to play for their school teams. There was a lot of discussion about that when the matter last came before the committee. There are boys who have played perhaps five, six or seven times a week for their club academy Scotland team. John Murray will be able to give more information on that. We do not want to burn out young people either. We must be very careful with that.
I have a question about how someone would challenge the registration process. Mr McKinlay said that he was aware of one challenge in the past two years. Are parents, guardians and young players aware of the procedures for challenging the registration process? How would they go about it and what body would hear the challenge?
If there is an issue under our registration rules—which it is most likely to be—the parents have generally spoken to the member of our staff who heads up the club academy Scotland scheme in the first instance. In many cases, he is able to sort matters out before they get into an argument about our regulations.
If there is evidence, or a belief that there is evidence, to show that the regulations have been breached, it should be sent to me or the chief executive. In either case, we would pass the matter to the compliance officer, who would consider whether there had been a breach of the regulations and, if there had been a breach, would take the appropriate action against the club.
I will enlighten you, Andrew. You said that there had been only a handful of disputes since you started with the SFA. We had a case that almost went to court until the professional football club involved withdrew from holding the player to get compensation and let him go for nothing. We are currently waiting on word from the Scottish Legal Aid Board on whether we will get legal aid to take a club to court on behalf of another player over refusal to release him from his contract. We also have another case pending, so it is obviously more prevalent than you know.
A quick warning: we have to be careful about talking about any on-going legal cases, so I would appreciate it if people did not mention the names of the cases.
I can speak only to cases that are brought to my attention, obviously.
Although I do not want to go into the detail of the individual court cases, it would be useful if Mr Smith could give an indication of why it was felt necessary to go to the expense of going to the courts rather than go through the procedure that Mr McKinlay outlined of going through the compliance officer.
In both instances, the parents exhausted the options with the clubs first. The parents had no knowledge of the next form of approach that was available. In both cases, Sandy Bryson, the registration secretary, was contacted and he said, “That’s the rule. That’s it. He’s registered. They can claim compensation for him.” Those parents have letters to that effect.
I can respond to the point. The difference is that those are probably not cases where there is a breach of rules; they are cases where someone feels that they have to go to court because they believe that our rules are somehow unlawful.
The only way that we will get the issue resolved, other than through Parliament, is by going to court, so that a ruling can be made on a contract for a 15-year-old that means that a club can hold someone against their wishes for two years. That is what is being taken to court.
In the past 18 years at Hearts I have tried to sign players from boys clubs and met a lot of aggravation. Some boys clubs refuse to release the player’s registration so that he can come to Heart of Midlothian Football Club. It is not a one-way street. I have had players who have left boys clubs and I want to sign them. I have gone to register the form and been told, “Oh, he’s still signed by the boys club.” Until recently, boys club registrations continued on for years. I can check a player on the SFA website and find that they signed with a boys club 18 months ago. Hopefully, that has changed now, but I have had situations in Edinburgh where I have had people refuse to release a player to come to Hearts.
I will bring in Angus MacDonald here because I think that his question touches on that.
I want to discuss registration. Andrew McKinlay mentioned that parents are closely involved in the registration process. Scott Robertson claimed that there is no get-out clause, which was challenged by John Murray. To pick up on points raised by my colleagues Chic Brodie and John Wilson, what advice are young players and their parents or guardians given at the time that registration is being contemplated? What is done to ensure that the player and their parents or guardians understand the implications involved?
I suspect that it is different from club to club. John Murray will be able to speak for Hearts. From my perspective, there is a form. It is not a long form. It is just over a page long; in fact, I think that you can now get it on one side of A4. There are five clauses in it, each of which is signed by the player, the parent and the club. It is not written in complicated legalistic language. I am not saying that, in the heat of the moment, someone might not say, “Yes, I’ll sign it,” and off they go. I am not trying to pretend that that might not happen. However, the process is intentionally made as simple as possible.
I have just been given the form and it looks fairly straightforward.
We sign a form for the SPFL and the parents sign all the documentation. There is also a club code of conduct and a player-parent code of conduct. It is quite an intense registration process. The players are given the documentation explaining that they are signing for one year, or it says on the registration form that it is a three-year registration. That is explained to all the parents, certainly at my club and, I believe, most clubs. We have a duty to the players and their parents to ensure that they know exactly what they are signing.
So they are presented with the documentation. Do you have a one-to-one with the parents or guardians?
Every player who signs at Hearts will sign with a guardian, carer or parent there. The forms are explained to them. We go through a process with each individual parent. On some occasions, we bring them in as a squad and we fill in the forms. They read all the forms before they sign them.
It was a move in the right direction that the parent had to sign in five different places. It was perhaps an indication of the poor practice that was going on that required a form to be brought in that had to be signed five times. That is not something that you do in youth football.
If I can bring this to boiling point—
That is always a worrying term to hear.
It is not the term that I meant to use.
What do we want? Compensation is allowed by FIFA, but William Smith and I would argue that compensation should be paid to a training club once a player has turned professional, not while they are 12 or 13.
The other thing that we want is to put the child at the centre of all this. Do committee members think that it is fair and reasonable that, at 15, a child can sign a one-year registration and the club then has the power to keep them for a further three years without their having a say in it? Would they allow that to happen to their son or daughter? There is no get-out clause.
Those are the two burning issues for us.
Thank you. I ask Mr McKinlay and Mr Doncaster to give a couple of quick responses to Mr Robertson’s points.
I think that we have covered them, to be honest.
We feel that we have come up with a system of compensation that is much fairer and clearer and that is based on a proper reimbursement of training costs. As I said earlier, FIFA has made it a mandatory requirement for us to put that in place.
In relation to the second point, John Murray explained earlier why 15 is seen as an important age. You are right to say that there is no get-out clause. However, in practice—we have talked about this several times this morning—when players have looked to get out, that has often happened.
I agree with that. We have ended up with a very fair and balanced system that understands and reflects the interests of young players as well as those of the clubs. It is imperative that we retain a real incentive for clubs to continue to spend huge amounts of money on training young players. We should be very cautious about doing anything that would remove that incentive. If we ended up having the freedom that some people are looking for but clubs did not want to train players any more, that would not serve Scottish football or Scotland in any way.
I will take a very quick point from Angus MacDonald.
We have heard the allegation that young players are not playing because clubs cannot agree on compensation. What do you say to that?
There should be nothing to agree. There is a clear matrix that gives the amount of compensation that is due. Whether a club wishes to pay that amount for a player is entirely up to that club.
It seems crazy to have players sitting idle, for want of a better expression.
That is why agreement is often reached with the other club that no compensation or a lower amount will be paid. An amount has been set that is based on the reimbursement of training costs to clubs that have spent a lot of money.
I will take a very quick point from Mr Murray, but we must move on.
I do not know anyone who would not want their sons to achieve something better, and the incentive for a player to go from grass-roots football to senior clubs is that they can improve through better coaching by qualified coaches in a better structure. I do not know any parent who would not want that for any of their children. I assure you that, up to the age of 14, any kid can walk out from the club any time they want. I have not seen any of these statements about certain things.
There are 3,500 players playing, and we have to pick the cream of the crop—that is our job. In grass-roots football, I know of teams in Edinburgh that have three or four teams of the same age group, all of whom are paying money every week to play football, yet every one of the 42 clubs in Scotland does everything free of charge for its players. Everything is done for them regarding their health and nutrition, their football training and everything else.
I will bring in Mr Robertson and Mr Smith later, as we have to get through a couple of other questions.
I think that my question has been answered, but if anybody could add anything, that would be welcome. What are the positive and negative aspects for young players of the new compensation scheme?
We recognise that clubs should be entitled to compensation at some stage, but only when a player signs a professional contract. We forget that some of the greatest players who ever played football for this country did not come through the pro youth system or club academy Scotland. Where are the Sounesses, the Dalgleishes and the rest of them now? Compensation was not in place for those players and was not necessary other than when they officially transferred between professional clubs after they had graduated through the boys club system, which has, in the past, proved to be far superior to the pro youth system in turning out players of the highest quality.
11:00
Do Mr Doncaster and Mr McKinlay want to comment?
I am not sure that going back 30 or 40 years is particularly relevant to today’s environment. I think that we have a fair, balanced system in place, and that the interests of young players are properly protected. Any suggestion of wrongdoing or a breach of the rules is taken very seriously. We have a good track record of pursuing breaches by our member clubs.
I think that Mr Smith’s argument is totally irrelevant—I cannot believe that statement. Years ago people thought that the world was square and not round. We used to have coal fires; now we have central heating. Things have changed. Things evolve, and football is evolving. That argument is totally unbelievable, I must say.
I think that this question has already been asked and answered, but the witnesses are getting it again, because I want to drill down further. In what respect does the new scheme offer improvement?
It offers improvement because it is far clearer and is properly tied into the amount that clubs have actually spent. We have an obligation to put in place something that properly reimburses clubs. Every club spends a different amount, but we do not want a system that is different for every club; we want something that is workable. We feel that we have reached a balance, with a system that shows that the higher up a club is, the more it has spent. That is why we feel that it is a fairer system.
To what extent does the compensation scheme support youth development, particularly in smaller clubs?
Smaller clubs are reimbursed for the money that they put in. John Murray can probably say more on that. Clubs find their own levels and are happy to work at their own levels. Some aspire to go up. We carry out an audit every year in relation to our club academy Scotland star ratings, and, as you might expect, we find that some clubs want to go up the star ratings. That option is there for clubs.
I talked about investment of public funds and the speculation that goes on. How do you measure the outcomes and success of the new process, given the current state of Scottish football, in terms of attendance and general success?
I will try not to ramble on too much about this. A couple of years ago, when the chief executive, Stewart Regan, came to the Scottish Football Association, a lot of work was done to put in place a new performance strategy. We have club academy Scotland; we also have performance schools and various other things. The strategy document was called “Scotland United: A 2020 Vision”, for obvious reasons, so we might not know until 2020 whether we have been successful.
However—and this is very current—we are seeing good signs of things happening. For the first time in a long time we won the victory shield at schoolboy level last year. Just last week, we had an under-17 team in the finals in Malta. It was the first time ever that a Scottish team had got to the semi-finals of the European under-17 championship.
I am hopeful that we are seeing things, but I am Scottish, and it is the hope that kills us. [Laughter.] Let us hope that these things come through in time. We will be able to measure things only in hindsight, so that is a difficult one.
I work only on the basis of the club system. I understand the Scottish national team, but my main job is to develop players for Hearts FC. We have loads of players, as do all clubs round Scotland, who are playing in lower league teams such as the lowland league and the first division—there are Hearts players playing in every league in Scotland. We also have players playing for boys clubs. Our aim is to get players into Hearts, so that they develop into good players and move on to a higher level, achieving better standards for Scottish players.
It is a fact that 99.99 per cent of players on the national team come from the top 12 or so teams in Scotland. Those teams invest the money because they want the best players. That is the same anywhere in the world. We are no different from anyone.
So we are measuring the financial benefits and not other benefits.
No, no. I look for players to develop, to go and achieve better things—
You just talked about the money—
No—
That is what this is about.
No, I said that it is the top 12 teams that produce the players. At the moment, we pay money out to develop players. Boys clubs get money in from parents for their grass-roots football—they are self-financed. Clubs pay a lot of money to develop players, which we do for Hearts and for Scotland.
We are in the final minute of this part of the meeting, so I will ask Mr Robertson and Mr Smith to make a final comment. I would be grateful if you could speak for less than a minute.
I will do. When we talked about the 15-year-old who can be held captive for three years, Mr Doncaster said that clubs feel that that is important—that is the right age and clubs want to put that mechanism in. We are not sitting here today to talk about what is best for a football club and for a business. We are here to talk about what is best for a 15-year-old boy. The player has to be at the centre of the decision-making process, not the club.
In relation to my previous comment, and the comments about what is being produced for the money that is being invested—Mr Brodie was going on about that—thank goodness that the Scottish team has between 10 and 12 players in the pool who were born in another country and play in another country. Mr Murray, that tells me that the system is failing the country, because you are not producing the players for it.
There is obviously a wider issue here, but I remind everyone that we are talking about the merits of the petition. The committee’s job is to consider how to take the petition to the nth degree. I want to give the last words to Mr McKinlay and Mr Doncaster.
In answer to your first question, convener, I talked about the steps that we have taken in the past two years. We have made a good number of changes. There will always be some rules that my friends the petitioners do not like. I am sure that they will not be happy until we change them and that they will continue to pursue change. I understand that.
I do not have much to add. I think that Scottish football has made a number of positive changes over recent years. I believe that the system that we have now is a fair system, which looks after and protects the interests of players. Where issues have arisen or concerns have been expressed, we have addressed them proactively, in partnership with the Scottish FA.
I thank all our witnesses for attending. These are difficult issues, and some fierce words have been spoken but, at the end of the day, I think that we are all interested in football and young players. The committee will consider the evidence and look at the next steps for the petition. I thank each and every one of you for coming along. I have appreciated all your comments.
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