Inside the TV row tearing Scottish football apart: Hot air from politicians is proving a big turn off for fans… writes STEPHEN McGOWAN

Scotland’s national team has been reduced to the status of a video influencer posting lipstick on YouTube. And all the country’s politicians have to offer are soundbites instead of solutions.

Furious at the absence of the match against Croatia from the country’s television screens, the SNP’s Pete Wishart called the situation ‘a disgrace’ and demanded someone do something.

As Neil Lennon and Ally McCoist had a handbag fight on the touchline, Wishart’s henchmen called a Holyrood summit before the Rangers bus drove away from Parkhead.

There are no summits planned to take control of the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. No offer of government funding to secure coverage for the country from Norwegian rights holders Viaplay.

Before the general election, the Scottish Greens promised to include the issue in their election manifesto. Health, social care and social care spokesperson Gillian Mackay could barely pass a microphone without calling on the football world to show the red card to subscription channels.

Now here we are, three months later, and even the subscription channels have put away their wallets.

The only way anyone can watch Billy Gilmour take on Luka Modric in the Nations League is if he or she has a smart TV or a laptop with access to Viaplay’s YouTube channel and a better data plan than Michael Matheson.

All in all, it’s been a sobering week for the armchair marketing gurus who think the broadcasting giants of the world are forming an orderly queue at the steps of Hampden, waiting to knock Sky Sports off their perch.

If Amazon Prime, DAZN and beIN Sports were really itching for a chance to throw their millions at Scottish football, then the chance was there to show their hand this week. In the real world they were nowhere to be seen.

In a broadcast utopia, fans of the Scotland national team would turn on the flat screen in the corner tonight at 5pm and take a trip back to a golden age, when they could watch full live coverage of a match against Croatia on municipal TV with a can of soda. Tennents in one hand and a remote control in the other.

That’s not how things work these days. A quick scan of the Radio Times shows that viewers in Scotland are about to plump.

BBC1 releases an old episode of Garden Rescue with Charlie Dimmock. On BBC2, Paul Martin presents a selection of nasty tats on Flog It. Housewives favorite Ben Shephard presents on ITV1 Tipping Point, a game show based on that old arcade game that used to gobble up 2p coins on children’s holidays to Largs and Millport.

The problem here is that open-air football isn’t *really* free. Someone somewhere always has to dig deep for the rights to bring the big games to the television screen. And even the five major leagues are now seeing signs that the media rights market is shrinking.

The Italian contract was reduced by three percent and the Ligue One in France saw a decrease of 11 percent compared to the contract for the period 2021-2024.

Those big checks for football are getting smaller and smaller. Illegal fire sticks are a big problem now and when the energy bill goes up the first thing to do is shell out that £14.99 a month for Viaplay or Premier Sports.

Viaplay is feeling the pressure so much that they pulled out of Britain last year and sold their football operations back to Premier. The only package they unfortunately didn’t sell was the rights to Scottish internationals.

If terrestrial channels had the will or resources to pick them up, it wouldn’t matter. Despite buying Scotland and Northern Ireland’s Nations League matches last month, ITV’s attempts to repeat the trick failed this time. Strangely enough, they have no qualms about spending whatever it takes to make England lose to Greece.

The BBC has its own problems. The company launched a voluntary redundancy drive in July in the hope of cutting 500 jobs and cutting £200 million from their budget. When it comes to Scotland matches, there is nothing left in the pot.

Premier Sports would be better than nothing. However, while 11 of our 12 clubs were prepared to accept a knockdown price from the Irish broadcaster for 20 Scottish Premier League matches, Viaplay took largely the same approach as Celtic. Thanks, but no thanks.

The SFA doesn’t do everything right. But a decision to sell the rights to Scottish matches to UEFA for ten million pounds a year now looks like the best thing they have ever done.

If they had retained the rights, they would have had to negotiate buttons and rings with BBC Scotland and ITV this week.

And if the public broadcasters are unable or unwilling to pay for Scottish football, the future impact on grassroots football, referees, women’s football, community programs and school football will not only be problematic. It’s potentially catastrophic.

Throw away that hat if you want to get ahead, Paul

Celtic’s new head of recruitment is a man of many hats, according to his old mucker Steve Perryman.

If Paul Tisdale is smart, he’ll leave them at home when he goes out in central Glasgow.

Once dubbed ‘the most stylish man in football’, the 51-year-old made an impression on the Exeter City touchline by wearing 1950s-style pork pie hats, deerstalkers, tweed vests and neckerchiefs.

Tisdale portrayed his fashion statements as a motivational tool for players, explaining: ‘I go out early and stand in that technical area, with my silk scarf, feeling the b******s. When you walk out, you look at me and you know that if I feel it, you will feel the notes too.”

Sorry, but Scottish football is not ready for this yet. Former Dundee boss Simon Stainrod was the last man to turn up to games in a fancy hat and there’s a reason why no one has done so since.

Ollie Watkins proves Tisdale has an eye for a player. But as he begins his new gig, the ground rules must be clear from the start. He needs to stop dressing like that.

Rudderless Rangers are stuck in a cycle of failure

Rangers already have no permanent chairman, no chief executive and no head of academy. With Creag Robertson’s departure also leaving them looking for a head of football operations.

None of this indicates a happy ship. In the short term, interim chairman John Gilligan and his board of directors can probably keep things together. In the long term, the foundations urgently need to be repaired. Former chairman John Bennett spoke of the club being stuck in a cycle of ‘rinse and repeat’.

A manager comes in, rebuilds the team with the limited resources available, loses to Celtic in September, throws away the title in October and leaves the club shortly afterwards. Then the whole process starts again.

A fish rots from the head down. And poor leadership is the root cause of the club’s failure and demise.

They tried the ‘Rangers men’ and it didn’t work. A non-executive chairman who knows how to keep a grip on board factions would help now. An astute, smart CEO with knowledge of how Scottish football works wouldn’t hurt either.

Until Rangers get things right off the pitch, nothing significant will change.