When one thinks of all the things wrong with Scottish football, including the enduring problem of youth development at the top level, it might appear slightly irrational to identify a small plastic stick as a personal bete noire.

The rise of the illegal fire stick might not yet have prompted a crisis summit to be held in a plush St Andrews hotel. But it’s an ever-present scourge of the game, in Scotland as well as England and elsewhere. It’s evidenced in banks of empty seats noticeable at some top-flight games across this country.

I contend fire sticks could be responsible for knocking as many as hundreds off the attendance figures at games. An interesting thread on a Dundee fans' forum concerns the crowd at the Dens Park side’s home game against Kilmarnock in midweek: 4,866. For a side now sitting fourth and playing attractive football under Steven Pressley, the attendance was deemed low.

Set against this is the fact that Scottish football remains out in front in Europe for attendance per capita. While this stat relies heavily on Rangers' and Celtic’s contribution, it is a proud boast. It might be worth pausing before doing anything that risks undermining such a claim to fame.

Which brings us to the recent news, broken by the Sports Business website, that the SPFL are being perhaps surprisingly proactive in potentially ending the traditional Saturday afternoon TV blackout in British football.

They’ve let it be known via a tender document that all matches, including those in the traditional 3pm slot, could be available to broadcast live from the next rights cycle, which begins in 2029. It’s British football’s equivalent of ravens fleeing the Tower of London. Is nothing sacred?

Kowtowing to TV companies and those fans who can’t be bothered going to games might well be interpreted as authorities giving up the ghost. And in a way they are.

If you can’t beat’ em, join ’em seems to be the view currently forming, certainly within the SPFL. It’s an easy one to sympathise with. With televised games now routinely kicking off at 12.30pm or 5.30pm on a Saturday, there’s a sort of mission creep occurring in any case. Does it really matter if a game is televised at – shock, horror – 3pm these days? Would anyone really notice?

Ronnie McDevitt, author of the excellent book Except for Viewers in Scotland, makes the point that supporters of lower league teams are not going to suddenly watch Rangers v Celtic rather than their own team just because they can. “I actually don’t think it would have that much effect on the die-hard fans of the likes of Stenhousemuir and Arbroath fans,” he says.

Would showing games at 3pm really make any material difference? So many people are sitting watching at home via hookey streams in any case with no financial benefit to the Scottish game. At least TV companies would be expected to pony up.

The current restriction – facilitated specifically by Article 48 in Uefa’s statutes, permitting national associations to block out a 2.5-hour window each weekend – seems very anachronistic now. It dates to times when the SFA routinely monitored TV schedules and banned a game set to be broadcast in Scotland if it threatened to impact attendance at a single Scottish fixture.

This led to their reputation for being crushing killjoys and Jim Farry, the chief executive associated with this clampdown (although he simply rigidly maintained it), being dubbed the great dictator. One incident that sticks in the mind is the SFA imposing a blackout when a 1993 Uefa Cup tie between Norwich City v Inter Milan was shown live by the BBC across the Border. Viewers in Scotland, meanwhile, were restricted to watching the then 35-year-old film The Long, Hot Summer. “We had Celtic playing Motherwell and that was the end of the matter,” said Farry.

It’s good to hear the spirit of Farry is still alive and well on the sixth floor at Hampden in one respect at least. The SFA have stepped in to say ‘woooahh, hold your horses, SPFL’. If such a profound and irreversible change as this is to be applied, it should follow a robust investigation into the likely impact. It’s understood the SFA have yet to be persuaded that removing the 3pm blackout is in the interests of the wider Scottish football ecosystem.

With Mike Mulraney, the former Alloa Athletic chairman, at the helm, it would be a dereliction of duty if they didn’t wish to move the discussion swiftly in this direction. The SFA have concerns from a societal, sporting as well as economic perspective. Even a marginal decrease in gate receipts could have a devastating effect for clubs nearer the bottom end of the pyramid. Might the SFA even try to wangle some form of compensation payment from the cash rich sunlit uplands of England if Scotland agrees to step back from the Article 48 agreement?

When dodgy fire sticks are being sold below the counter at the local butchers – I heard a story of someone acquiring one while purchasing his weekly meat order - does any of this really matter? Is it simply grandstanding by the SFA? If someone wants to watch a match from home on a Saturday afternoon at 3pm they can already do so, albeit illegally.

Police have been cracking down a little harder on this counterfeit trade. There were raids across Britain late last year. One Lancashire man was sentenced to over six years in prison for selling so-called modded fire sticks.

Still, ask around, take a poll among friends. How many are watching games on fire sticks rather than going to games, at 3pm on a Saturday or otherwise?

How many have ditched buying season tickets altogether? How many will ever get back into the habit of going to games? Especially in this period of such financial pressure, from the petrol pumps to the shop shelves.

These are crucial times for ensuring the match-going fan is encouraged to keep going to games. It’s unsurprising if football attendances are liable to suffer. Whether more live televised matches is the answer is a debate set to run and run. It could get lively. Fetch the popcorn.