AS THE various implications of the Bosman ruling continue to reverberate in football's corridors of power, further down the line fears are growing over the effect they may have on the smaller clubs.
While most of the concerns expressed have concentrated on the major teams in Scotland and abroad and the worries over the transfer system as it applies to the major players, little has been written of the very real problems of survival which exist at the other end of the spectrum.
Queen of the South chairman Norman Blount has little doubt that unless football can find a solution to the court decision which abolished transfer fees in the European Community countries, then half the clubs in Scotland will go to the wall.
That is why he has asked the Scottish Football Association and the Scottish Football League to hold a forum which would involve all the senior clubs in Scotland in a bid to find a way around the problem which will turn the lower divisions into football's version of the killing fields.
Blount has made a major investment in the Dumfries club, although he holds only 300 shares. He explained: ``The board at the club has always been a minority holding group and that will remain the way. but I have invested money in the club because I believe that local clubs such as our own do a valuable job for the community.
``We have major coaching initiatives for school boys and girls and we see ourselves as helping to keep these youngsters off the streets and away from anything harmful, such as drugs. It is not only about producing players for the club - though that happens - it is also about putting something into the community.
``But unless something happens to alter the Bosman judgment then clubs such as ourselves could go under. I truly believe that it is crazy to have 40 clubs in a country of five-and-a-half million people.
``If you look at major league baseball or pro-football in the United States, then you do not have that number of clubs in a country which has so many millions of people more to go to the games.
``Most of the clubs are there because they were there when the game began and the structures were set up a hundred years or so ago. It is tradition - but it is not going to be workable tradition for very much longer.
``By the turn of the century I believe that there will be just 20 to 24 senior clubs left in Scotland. The others will have been forced to shut up shop or will have been amalgamated with another team in their locality.
``People might not like it, but it is going to happen because the revenue required to keep clubs going won't be coming from transfer fees any longer. Our own coaching set-up came largely from the #250,000 transfer fee we received when we sold Andy Thomson to Southend. Now, we are being told that kind of deal could be over.''
At present transfer fees within the British Isles continue as before but various spokesmen for the players believe that will only be in the short term.
That is why Blount wants action now. He believes that some form of compensation should be provided for clubs who lose players they have guided through from schools' football to the senior ranks. He would like to see a system introduced whereby this would not be seen as a ``transfer fee'' but as ``reimbursement.''
He pointed out: ``If you sign a youngster while he is still at school and then invest time and money in his development as a player that can cost on average around #10,000 a year. Do that for six years until he is ready for professional football and it has set any club back around #60,000 - under the new system you would get nothing back if the lad walked out and went to a bigger, more glamorous club.
``I would like to see the authorities work out a reimbursement scale which would have the money invested in the player returned to the club and then reinvested in other youngsters. It is the only way football at our level can survive.''
At the moment Queens have at least one young player who is attracting attention from Premiership clubs in England. Chris Doig is in the Scottish Schools Under-16 team and the SFA Under-16 national team and pre-Bosman the Dumfries club would have been looking at a transfer fee of maybe #500,000 if the teenger continues to improve. Now, they stand to get nothing.
Said Blount: ``There must be some form of protection for the small clubs. If we bury our heads in the sand - and that is what seems to be happening - instead of fighting for a decent chance of survival then this whole thing will be ruinous for the game in Scotland.
``Not only will clubs go out of business but schoolkids will stop playing the game. They will be playing ice hockey or whatever and the youth policies which gave our lubs so many marvellous players down through the years will disappear.
``We have to act soon otherwise it will be too late. We won't be just complaining that Scotlnd is no longer a major football nation, we could be mourning the death of the game itself.''
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