Mike Mulraney has defended Hampden claiming that Scotland’s National Stadium looks bloody brilliant!
The Alloa chief has a place on the gravy train as President of the SFA, on Friday he will be enjoying the finest hospitality at the Allianz Arena in Munich as the European Championships get underway. Earlier this month he enjoyed a jolly to the Champions League at Wembley.
As most football fans know Hampden is far from satisfactory for most fans, with ticket ballots for most matches it is a lottery on three sides of the stadium whether you’ll have much of a view of the far corners.
The first 15 rows behind each goal are virtually a write-off with advertising boards, police and stewards blocking the views of the near goal with the gradient for the far end almost level.
Mulraney has just had his SFA salary doubled to £60,000 a year and has hit back at the critics of Hampden.
He told The Herald:
Now, all those who say Hampden is not very good, it tends to be in the old days when we had 10,000 there and we got beat 1-0.
Tell me, when I have 51,000 folk bouncing and the lights flashing and we have just qualified, who thinks it’s rubbish? Because I don’t. I think it’s bloody brilliant.
I have just been down to Wembley, and the fans are quite far away from the goals, believe it or not
Nobody speaks about it. I go around Europe and see it over and over again. What do Scots do? We kick ourselves. If we could kick ourselves with both feet we would.
Well, guess what? I don’t, I’m proud of our national stadium.
But we will be out there, and I am out there, and we are looking at how we get different income to improve our national stadium.
Of course it needs improved. I’m a property guy, I think most people know that. You can’t sit on your asset, you need to sweat it, invest in it, and improve it.
The basic design of three sides of Hampden hasn’t changed in over 100 years, in 1999 millions were spent on the South Stand to make it fit for elite UEFA matches with bus driveways and warm up facilities.
Next season Alloa will start their third term in the third tier of Scottish football.
It seems that no questions about refereeing were raised at last week’s AGM of the SFA, out of 90 officials at the European Championships none have been selected from the Lanarkshire Referee Association.
He obviously has only ever sat in the Main Stand where the view and the facilities are actually pretty decent. We all understand that Hampden was refurbished on a shoestring budget compared to the mind-boggling amount of money spent rebuilding Wembley from the ground up, which meant the other three “stands” aren’t stands at all but just the old terracing with seats added, with poor sightlines and primitive facilities. To pretend otherwise is idiotic. Having sat in the Meccano-style stand for visiting fans at Alloa’s ground – a temporary structure you’d normally see at an agricultural show – it must be that he’s comparing Hampden to if he thinks it’s “bloody brilliant”. There’s a reason it doesn’t get UEFA finals anymore – it’s too small and the facilities are from the last century.
I’m not a Hampden hater like others – I appreciate the history of the place – but the SFA need to look at improvements because it’s facilities are very primitive and the capacity is too low. This muppet is not helping by declaring it “bloody brilliant”. The atmosphere wouldn’t suffer by improving the spectator experience.
challenge him to sit in the front row behind the goals . another dinosaur so out of touch with reality.
Apparently the money used to develop Hampden was earmarked for use in helping to develope the game in Scotland but instead the SFA chose to waste it on a stadium that the country doesn’t need and that is not fit for purpose. Self interest rules in that organisation.
The Bunnet suggested knocking it down. I agree with The Bunnet.
South and North Stands are ok…Terraces behind the goals are really poor…This gentleman has obviously never sat there…His comments are unacceptable…The Stadium needs BIG upgrade.
Could they not use these optical illusion advertising sheets that are placed at ground level either side of the goal posts in some stadiums the whole way along the bye lines instead…
Or is that to simple for the incompetent C. U. N.ext T.uesday’S…
And invest in seat benches around the perimeters for stewards and police officers to sit on for the last two minutes and for the winning Celtic parades…
Or again – Is that too simple for the simpletons !
The SFA buffoons wasted Scottish football money,
on buying Hampden…
which isn’t even a football stadium,
but an athletics stadium.