Outgoing Scottish Professional Football League Chair Ralph Topping warned the league's member clubs that "it is their responsibility to ensure that all legal obligations are fully adhered to when it comes to the paying of players and staff," according to Stewart Fisher of the HERALD SCOTLAND. SPFL CEO Neil Doncaster and Scottish FA COO Andrew McKinlay have "come under pressure from campaigners and politicians as to the extent of their knowledge about the practice at certain clubs" of handing apprentices £1 ($1.23)-a-week contracts "which fall way beneath" the U.K.'s minimum wage of £3.50 ($4.30) for an apprentice. Compensation payments "insisted upon for the transfer of youth players" -- which campaigners insist is "immoral" and child exploitation -- "is another contested subject." Topping: "Football has always got to worry about the political climate. Although sometimes the political climate is more brouhaha than anything else. I think there are a lot of sensible people in politics and football looking at this issue, and others like the minimum wage and the living wage." He added, "But football can't escape from where it sits in society. Football clubs must catch up, just as all other companies will have to. They might not like it, but it is the law. It is black and white. No longer can football say, 'Oh we are football, we are special.' No you are not, you are part of the Scottish community and you are part of the British community" (HERALD SCOTLAND, 3/4).
