Should Scottish football cast its net beyond these shores in a bid to take the game to a wider audience?
The prospect of Dundee meeting Celtic in the USA seemed fanciful a while back but now seems a real possibility, with a possible league match in Philadelphia between the teams.
When the European Cup first started there were those who turned their noses up at it, but recent Scottish Cup winners Hibs saw the potential in the new competition and embraced it in 1955, having previously toured Europe and South America.
Football is a global game at international level, so why should our clubs not adopt that principle.
A fixture abroad may not set the heather on fire but it might equally open the door to a brand new audience for the Scottish game.
Unless we try we won’t find out, so Dundee and Celtic are to be applauded for their innovation.
Our game has often been held back by our small-mindedness and insularity, but in a world where so many top English sides are now owned by foreign investors and even Celtic’s biggest shareholder is from the Republic of Ireland, maybe it’s time to grasp new opportunities and look to new horizons.
It’s not as if the Hoops and the Dees are set to emigrate.
It’s a one-off experiment which just might result in a major publicity boost and possibly fresh investment from the Scots-Irish Diaspora in the States.
If it fails then at least the powers that be at Dens and Celtic Park have shown a bit of initiative, surely better that than meekly accepting that we are managing decline in our national game.
With a recent new TV deal and Celtic attracting a top manager in Brendan Rodgers the Scottish game still has the capacity to generate major interest.
Our biggest fault as a nation is that part of the population who see the glass as half empty and anything new as a threat to the old ways of doing things, the moaners and the groaners who always have questions but no answers.
The Scottish game is in a different ball park from the Premier League giant over the border, but that is no reason to crawl into a corner.
We need to be bold and sell our game with panache and style.
In Celtic we have one of world football’s most iconic football clubs with a narrative few can compete with. Set up to feed the poor and historically open to all regardless of creed or colour, they could be a potential marketing success in the States.
Dundee and Dundee United were also pioneers in taking the game abroad.
Dundee, then league cup holders, toured South Africa in 1953 with the legendary Billy Steel in their ranks, playing 17 games in total, while United under manager Jerry Kerr, played as Dallas Tornado in 1967 in the USA, subsequently adopting the Dallas tangerine as new club colours.
Maybe it’s time once again for our clubs to rediscover the spirit of the early Scots football pioneers and to boldly go where they have already gone before.
