Scotland may be in a dark period while looking for a new manager but the SFA believe there is hope and opportunities ahead. Many clubs are looking towards youth development with shrinking budget to buy new players and the SFA are not far behind in supporting the players of the future. SFA chief executive Gordon Smith was at yesterday's festival to mark the success of the SFA and Bank of Scotland's Soccer One programme, which has created more than 1,000 school football teams.

Smith said: "This is a programme which brings in all the first years at secondary schools but we will also be launching very shortly a Soccer Two programme to bring in second-year pupils. And by this time next year we will also have a Soccer Three programme and that will involve a lot of kids who never got an opportunity to play the game or even get coaching. It's about volunteers as well, young volunteers and students. We give them their coaching course free on the basis that they also volunteer to help run youth football. Going forward the game will be in a healthy state. A lot of people are very critical of it, I think more critical than we deserve. I think it's a lot more positive but we still have to make sure we put the right things in place."