Touchdown and out with the Glasgow Tartans

It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon in April, and Declan Clay is about to make history. He and his teammates are soon to become the first American football players to play the game professionally in Scotland. There have been a few hiccups along the way, sure, but the moment is almost upon them. The game was moved back a day at the last minute, but he’s just had his helmet fitted and he’s excited to finally play the first match of the inaugural International Arena League (IAL) season. The team is slated to play six home games as part of a 12-game schedule, as well as a number of matches in the United States.

What he doesn’t know is that this would be the first and last match the Glasgow Tartans would ever play at their home, Braehead Arena. In less than three months, the entire European league will have folded, with players owed money, the “international” part of the IAL in tatters, and players like Clay left scratching their heads, wondering what in the world had just happened.

Played indoors on a smaller field, arena football is more compact than its larger and more famous counterpart. The IAL pitches itself as a “fast-paced and high scoring” version of the original game, and launched with ten teams in total. Alongside the American teams were five European ones: the Düsseldorf Warriors, Stuttgart Stallions, England Eruptors (playing out of Nottingham), Glasgow Tartans and Zürich Ibexx. 

Tom Mitchell, the founder and chief operating officer of the IAL, has previously said his principle goal was to create a “stable league that fans can rely on for generations”. Not much is known about him. After briefly working in marketing at the indoor team the Arizona Rattlers in the mid ‘00s, he became president of the Ontario Warriors, a California side who didn’t make it past their first season. 

He was inspired to create the IAL after experiences with other indoor leagues in which he found himself in “disbelief in the way the front offices handled the business aspect which would lead to eventual teams and leagues folding”. But this time, Mitchell argued, things would be different. So how did it all go tits up for the Tartans so quickly?