Ian Maxwell: An ego writing cheques that his talent just can’t cash.

I said the other day that I was going to focus a little attention on Ian Maxwell, and today feels like the right day to do that. I’m not going to go into every aspect of what he’s been saying in the media recently—because there’s been a lot of it. It’s as if he’s on one of those farewell tours where he covers every subject. If only wishing made it so, huh?

But I do want to focus on what he said yesterday about VAR, which ties in nicely to what he’s already said about goal-line technology being too expensive for clubs.

There’s a general sort of idea out there—and I don’t know where this has come from—but for some people, it’s hardened into a kind of gospel truth: that if we abolished VAR, there would be consequences from UEFA. But that’s not true. UEFA does not mandate that national associations use VAR. It is entirely optional.

Maxwell says we’re “not going backwards”—that VAR is here to stay. But that’s not really his decision to make. That decision belongs to the clubs. And since Scotland could ditch VAR tomorrow with no consequences whatsoever, he needs to be very careful about the road he’s going down here.

There are people in leadership positions who mistake arrogance for strength, and strength for leadership. Maxwell is extremely arrogant. That’s something everyone knows—just as they know Michael Nicholson is extremely arrogant. But neither of those two men project strength. Their arrogance just is arrogance—and misplaced arrogance at that. Because it’s okay to be arrogant if you’re competent. If you’re strong. But it looks ridiculous when most people don’t see you as a serious figure.

In many ways, this is part of the Donald Trump conundrum. Trump is desperate to be taken seriously, desperate to be seen as a serious man. But he’s not. He’s a deeply unserious man—in fact, I’d go so far as to call him a bloated manchild, more prone to temper tantrums than even the most excitable toddler. It’s the power of his office that commands us to take him seriously. Strip that away and nobody would give him the time of day.

That’s how I feel about Ian Maxwell. He’s the president of the SFA. If that didn’t confer some kind of status and responsibility on him, no one would care what he thought about anything.

These people—unserious people—shouldn’t be anywhere near positions of responsibility. The way they talk, the way they act, the way they behave—it puts serious scrutiny on the institutions that elevate them. In Trump’s case, that’s the Republican Party, without whom he’d be nothing. In Maxwell’s case, I have to wonder why our club in particular pushed his ascension to chairman. Maybe it suits somebody to have this empty shirt running Scottish football. But I don’t think it suits us. I don’t think it helps us in any way. And I can’t understand why we play such a prominent role in propping up the pygmies who currently run our game.

He talks about VAR as though he thinks it’s going to be his legacy issue. And here’s the thing—he may be right. Maybe it will be his legacy issue. But it might not be the legacy he wants. It might not be something he boasts about in years to come. It might not be the “innovative, forward-thinking step” he seems to think it is.

Instead, it may be regarded—in the fullness of time—as a complete disaster. As an embarrassment to the game here.

Because I can think of a lot of things to say about VAR. But not amongst them is the claim that it’s working great. Because it’s not. And everyone knows it’s not. VAR has, in some ways, been a positive force in the game here—but in most ways, it’s been little more than a disaster. And it’s a disaster that keeps building on itself.

Part of the problem is the same one we encountered with goal-line technology: the SFA does not want the best for the clubs. It hasn’t presented them with the very best available options. It hasn’t offered to spend some of its own vast revenues on bringing the best to the game.

Instead, we have no goal-line technology in league matches. And our version of VAR is like a cheap, cut-rate indoor market knock-off of the real thing. And I’ve always wondered exactly how it was presented to the clubs when it was first pitched. Is this the version they knew they were getting? Who would have voted for that? Would the larger clubs, with the most at stake, ever have adopted it if they’d known it would turn out to be this tawdry rubbish?

Yes, I’m sure he presented various options to the clubs. I’m sure he told them there were cheaper alternatives to the full-scale system. And I’m sure that was a factor in their consideration. But did he really explain the differences between the full system and the cut-down variant? Did he tell them that at some grounds the system is virtually redundant because the cameras can’t get the right angle? Did he tell them that officials would have to get their Etch A Sketches out and draw the wavy lines themselves?

Did he tell clubs that a lot of this was going to be open to the individual interpretations of referees, rendering the system little more than a high-tech version of what we had before—which we know doesn’t work?

The VAR Review Panel has already lost a club. Dundee United walked away from the table and made it clear they’ve no intention of coming back. And their comments were scathing—not just about the panel, but about VAR itself.

For Maxwell to stand there and say it’s working fine is ridiculous.

If you polled the clubs, how many would believe that? How many would agree with that statement? Clubs aren’t yet ready to walk away from VAR. They’re not ready to start tearing up the contracts en masse and telling the SFA they want the system gone. But they want to hear more from the head of the governing body than a blanket defence of a technology that a lot of them—not just Celtic—have serious doubts about.

“From a getting decisions right perspective, VAR is absolutely working and doing what it should. We’re getting more decisions right than we’ve ever done,” is how he put it. And this is the point where people like him shouldn’t be allowed out after dark.

Because people don’t want to be told that things are better than they’ve ever been. They don’t want to hear that VAR is “absolutely working” and “doing what it should” when all it’s doing is creating negative headlines week after week after week.

It would’ve been a lot better if this guy had shown some appreciation for the public mood. If he’d sat down, been a little humble, and made it clear that we’ve got a long way to go. That the cut-rate version of VAR we have needs a serious upgrade. He should have put clubs on the spot about that. He should’ve been making the case for a better version of VAR, and for the introduction of goal-line technology—instead of standing there telling clubs that it’s going to cost too much money.

We’ve talked a lot about Michael Nicholson’s failure to communicate at all—but by God, how much worse is it when someone does communicate… like this?