I congratulate Fulton MacGregor on securing this important debate, and I congratulate Albion Rovers and Mark Millar on such an innovative project. In 2017, when I did the pipeathon around all the senior football clubs in Scotland, I was struck by the sense of community in every club, and not just between clubs in certain areas—there was a whole sense of community. The clubs realise that they are all in this together in Scottish football, irrespective of whether they are small or large. The projects that we are debating will be hugely beneficial for Albion Rovers and will safeguard the club’s future as an on-going entity.

I will touch on a couple of brief points. The debate is extremely useful and helpful, and I hope that it will lead to a wider debate in the chamber about the future of Scottish football. It is clear that Covid has had a hugely negative effect on football, as well as on every other aspect of society. I raised a question about football with the First Minister last week. We would all accept that there is no big pot of gold that the Scottish Government is sitting on that can be put into Scottish football clubs—it is just not there. The actions of the Scottish Government, which is putting pressure on the UK Government to establish a fund to try and help clubs, are hugely important.

I want to highlight one of the confusing elements that comes up when we talk about football. Looking at the folk who are in the chamber, we all support smaller teams—I say that advisedly to my colleagues whose teams are in the Scottish premiership. None of us here supports either of the old firm teams or the teams from Edinburgh, or Aberdeen. We understand how important every single pound is for our clubs. When there are deals taking place that may involve a player being purchased for £20 million or £15 million—or even more, depending on the club or the league—many people in society will wonder, “What are these folk talking about?”, because they believe that there is plenty of money in football.