ON March 29 this year, I wrote to you regarding an article about the manager of the Scottish national team. You chose not to print it as is your editorial right.

Contained within that letter was the folowing: “Owners, officials, investors and any other individual who comprises the ‘management’ of the SFA, must not, under any circumstances, be connected to a football club in Scotland. The game must be run by business professionals, supported by an elected committee of current and/or ex football players for technical advice.

“I wouldn’t even include referees, because there is enough legislation of the game from FIFA without the input of a minority group of individuals who have also not played the game at the highest level. Referees for the Scottish game MUST be selected from beyond Scotland’s shores.”

Yesterday I read that “Celtic are to escape action after fan talks”, “after holding talks with ultras group The Green Brigade”. Who is running the game in Scotland? The SFA or groups such as The Green Brigade?

Today, I repeat my plea – “I beg those at the SFA to resign, en masse, advertise for applicants to fill their positions and stop driving the game in Scotland into the gutter before it is too late, because that day is fast approaching if they keep on the same path they are currently on” – because those same officials who do nothing to address the problems in Scottish football are the same officials with vested interests in the club responsible for a great many of those problems.

If it doesn’t change at the top of the SFA, nothing will change on the ground.

You will still have the same unresolved problems – poor refereeing standards and officials acting in their own best interests rather than those of the footballing public 20 years from now – only there wont be a anyone interested enough to pay to see the rubbish on offer. You certainly will not see football such as the Barcelona v Manchester United game as was demonstrated on Tuesday night.

The game in Scotland will deteriorate to such a level that we will not be invited to compete with others.

Jim Todd
Cumbernauld

I’M sure we can all sigh a breath of relief to know the problem with sectarianism in Scottish football is all sorted after Celtic had a meeting with their Green Brigade and the SFA will ignore the abuse that Derek McInnes suffered. It’s not hard to see what’s wrong with Scottish football.

Keith Mathieson
Kirriemuir

DEREK Ball, in his letter of April 17, uses the two words racist and Islamophobia in the last sentence. This is becoming a recurring habit on Facebook and in the mainstream media deadwood press.

A racist is a person who believes that certain groups or races are somehow superior to other groups or races. Islamophobia is of course a fear of the aims of the religion of Islam, which should not be dismissed out of hand and wrongly named racism, as there are many phobias out there each as deserving of understanding as the rest.

When these two words are deliberately linked together in this way, the phobia instantly becomes the statutory crime of racism and is intended to quash any further discussion. I would contend that this is not laziness but often used as a “trump card” to silence any dissent for fear of repercussions. We must think before we print!

Roddy Maclean
Annan

MAY I try to answer a letter written by one of your readers who has difficulty understanding how those who press for independence then seem to want to subject themselves to what she sees as another super power in the EU?

My English friends make the same mistake and don’t seem to understand the difference between a country that is entirely autonomous seeking an alliance with another country (or countries) as an EQUAL from one that is regarded as simply a province.

They have a mental block where this is concerned. So I say again: once Scotland obtains its full independence and speaks with renewed authority, the transformation will be for all to see.

The Wee Ginger Dug has written well on British nationalism with many of the points raised dating back to Scotland’s ethnic cleansing after Culloden. When language is changed to that of the colonial power, when culture is forcibly changed etc, the identity and will of the people is driven under a wave of national depression, still in evidence to this day.

What I and other pro-independence people have been striving to do for years is to encourage the wonderful people of Scotland to realise what talent exists among each one.

We are community-builders aided at long last by a Scottish Parliament in the vanguard.

While we still have a long way to go, the grass roots are stirring to the call ... and this time – when the time comes – we will not fail to deliver.

Don’t listen to those who keep saying that we are all British and should put aside any hint of separation. NO. We are Scottish and should celebrate the fact. Vive la difference!!

Janet Cunningham
Stirling