bazil85

Playing well, we really should be out of sight with some of the chances we have had. You really hope it doesn’t come back to bite us in the last 30.

For any non-SMISA members, on Thursday we passed the resolution for St Mirren to request an SPFL member vote on VAR usage. This mandate will now be passed to the St Mirren board at the next meeting of the boards in early August. All going well, the next step will be to seek support from two other SPFL clubs to hold the 42 club vote

Not that I’m predicting it or anything. We now need to lose by five goals tomorrow to go out of the cup. If we lose 4-0, the Pars would win the group & we would go through as one of the best ranked second placed teams, leapfrogging Queens Park on goals scored. Any win at all and we go through placed (would be the top placed team from the group stages) in the next round draw.

Enjoyed that second half, far better from a football perspective. Two great moves/ goals to win the game. England fans going off their nut on social media. Entitled IMO. They had one chance all game and scored. Argentina had a level they could go uo, England did not. If England hadn’t defended, it would have been a cricket score.

Proxy volunteers wanted. For the SMISA vote on Thursday 23rd of July, we have a number of members who can’t attend and have requested to vote via proxy. If you can be at the stadium and are willing to act as a proxy, please let me know here or PM. You don’t need to be a SMISA member to act as someone’s proxy.

SGM meeting and SMISA resolution on the VAR question confirmed. Thursday 23rd June, 6:30pm (SMISA stadium or virtually) Members are being asked to vote on whether SMiSA should ask St Mirren FC to formally request the SPFL to poll member clubs on the following question: “Does the member club support the retention or removal of VAR from the 2026/27 season onwards? ( Voting response – Retain VAR or Remove VAR”)

I fear you might be right but whatever way it goes, I feel it moves the dial forward somewhat. The three outcomes 1. SMISA members democratically say no to a vote. I know they aren’t representative of all St Mirren fans but it would certainly be an indication of support for VAR & something people can refer to if there’s any future frustration from our fans at VAR calls. 2. the vote goes out to clubs & clubs choose to engage their fans on how to vote. This is my overwhelming preference & it would effectively end the keep/ bin debate democratically. 3. enough clubs choose not to engage their fans on how to vote to influence the decision. This would be really unfortunate but it would highlight the clubs who haven’t listened to their main stakeholders (the fans) We’ll see how it goes. Looking forward to the SGM.

Completely agree. For me, it comes down to ‘was football better or worse before VAR.’ For me, it isn’t even close that it was better before. VAR hasn’t sorted the problem & doesn’t add enough regarding correcting decisions to warrant impacting fan experience & the free flowing nature of the game. Is that a majority view across Scottish football fans? I certainly hope we’re given the option to find out but we’ll see.

I try and cover this in the proposal. The VAR vote is aimed at what VAR is today & for next season. If they can introduce something in the future that means we can check everything in 30 seconds & you’d be happy with it, fair. Right now, the tech doesn’t allow for it. For me, I don’t see any reason we should continue with a suboptimal VAR while they make these changes in the background. If they want to come back in the future & vote on a far improved VAR system they can. My caveat to that future though. The World Cup is gold standard, it’s the most cutting edge, technologically advanced VAR system ever used anywhere in the world. They’ve still got multiple calls wrong imo, it lacks consistency, it lacks transparency & it still impacts fans ability to celebrate. It also (again IMO) shows unbelievable and blatant favouritism to bigger nations. Isn’t that supposed to be a selling point for VAR, to stop the bias?

Will be a number of different views, I’m sure. My main issue with this ‘fix’ is it will effectively just move the problem. - that was a wrong call, why didn’t they realise in 30 seconds? - we have to draw offside lines because our VAR is rubbish. If that’s not done in 30 seconds, what happens? - similar to above, our VAR is bargain basement. If you’re checking different aspects, build up, contact, offside… again what happens if the actual check to get the info is more than 30 seconds? My personal view is, anything that impacts the split second capability to celebrate a goal or other big decision in football, is fundamentally not comparable with the beautiful game. That’s largely because of what you said (football is subjective) But as noted to FS, I’m not looking to change minds. I’m only wanting fans across Scottish football to have their say.

Fair. One thing I’ll be covering ahead of the vote is this isn’t me preaching for support of my view on VAR. I think fans of Scottish football have watched enough games with VAR to make up their own mind. The aim is simply to give a choice to fans on retain/ remove, not to influence how they’d vote. Best case scenario is ultimately the prevailing view to ring true. (Be that yay or nay)

Fair enough if you think differently. But I feel there’s been quite a few suspect/ wrong VAR calls at the WC. McGinn penalty, Adams last man red card call, England escaping a penalty, Argentina favouritism…. Even for us, there was maybe a little luck McLean didn’t get a red card against Brazil. And that was just knockout stages. On your incompetence of the officials in Scotland point. I cover that in the proposal. The vote is on VAR usage as it will be for next season, not on a hypothetical future state. Largely the same officials will be managing VAR in Scotland next season. If they’re the reason VAR doesn’t work for people, I don’t see why we should keep it.

I was over at the World Cup so wasn’t really pushing this topic. Been back on it the last week or so since I’ve been home. Delighted to announce that we have now met and verified our target to trigger a Special General Meeting. It’ll take place before the end of July with invites to be sent to SMISA members. Following discussion and questions, we will look to vote on the resolution to oblige the St Mirren board to request a vote on retain/ remove VAR. Thanks to everyone that backed the proposal.

I know the manager appointment is the hot topic and rightfully so. But just in way of an update on the SMISA VAR vote. We have now passed the 90% mark. Seven notes of support from SMISA members left and it will trigger an SGM mandate. Thanks to those that have supported already. Send me a message if you can help get us over the line.

It’s always been the case that we are fan owned, not fan run. Fan run would be near impossible for a professional football club in any meaningful way.