Today I thought I might ask my boss to double my pay, my wife if she wouldn’t mind that I went away for a month on a golf holiday, my four-year-old if he would eat whatever was put in front of him, and my two-year-old that she stopped sucking her thumb and let me cut her fingernails.
I’d stand more chance of getting a full house than Dundee United had of persuading the SFA to switch their expected Scottish Cup semi-final with Rangers away from Ibrox.
Futile. Utterly futile.
Of course United are correct. This will not be a neutral venue, no matter how many travel from Tayside and however the place is dressed up for the day.
There was no reason for the SFA to put in ink that both last four ties would be played at Rangers’ ground months ago. They could quite easily have given themselves room to manoeuvre.
But they made that call in the knowledge that there was a reasonable chance Rangers would get to that stage, justifying it on commercial grounds, so there was absolutely no possibility of a change of heart when Stephen Thompson’s note found its way to Hampden. This wasn’t something they neglected to factor in.
The time to make a point of principle for “sporting integrity” from football chairmen was back in October when the SFA made their announcement.
It was a waste of somebody’s time at Tannadice drafting the letter, and its only possible consequence could be giving Rangers a slight pyschological filip.
The message United should have sent out is that the venue of the match is an irrelevance.
Ally McCoist has said: “I will play United wherever they want”, and that’s exactly the stance the Tannadice camp should also have adopted.