BREXIT can be blamed for a lot of things. Perhaps most significantly it ought to be held responsible for the growing trend in people agitating for change but without any real semblance of a thought-out plan to make it happen. Just produce enough noise at the start and then try to blunder your way through it seems to be the acceptable way of doing things these days.

Even Scottish football isn’t immune to this bout of short-sighted sabre-rattling. Last week there were calls for the banning of artificial pitches in the Premiership, and a demand for changes to the Scottish FA’s disciplinary procedures.

Both arguments would likely find favour with many parties. Synthetic surfaces remain hugely unpopular with many players, while there clearly needs to be some kind of intervention at Hampden given the baffling inconsistency of much of the decision-making. Where both these demands fall down, however, is the lack of any cohesive plan on how to make either come to fruition.

PFA Scotland have been the ones leading the call for all top-flight football matches to be played exclusively on grass. In the week that the organisation Global Athlete was established by Scottish cyclist Callum Skinner to ensure sportsmen and women are listened to more often, it was timely that Scottish football players also found their voice.

Among the many stakeholders involved in professional sport, those who participate are often the ones whose opinions aren’t listened to, even on decisions that directly affect their welfare and working conditions.

The PFA were banging the drum last week on behalf of their clients and should do so more often. There is a case to be made that there even ought to be a current or former player on the boards of the SPFL and the SFA to ensure they are fairly represented in the decision-making process.

Last week’s statement on the proposed banning of artificial pitches, however, had the feeling of firing a gun but without a target to aim at.

Synthetic surfaces, despite their generation by generation improvements, remain disliked by professionals who remain unconvinced by their merits. While the rest of us are happy enough dragging our decrepit frames across a plastic pitch, for the elite it has to be grass or nothing.

They are within their rights to take that stance. There remains little evidence that artificial surfaces are responsible for exacerbating injuries but if players don’t like them then, of course, they should make those feelings known.

That took the form last week of a petition signed by players of nine of the Premiership clubs calling for the surfaces to be banned from the top flight. Players from Kilmarnock, Hamilton Accies and Livingston, clubs that all use synthetic pitches, were excused from taking part due to an obvious conflict of interest.

It was an impressive show of unity and strength from the PFA, and again sparked the debate about the suitability or otherwise of Astro pitches. But, beyond that, it is difficult to see just what the purpose of the announcement was.

Was it really to try to bring about change? If so, this seemed a curious way to go about it. The SPFL as a body merely represents the collective views of their clubs. If enough of them wanted to do away with plastic pitches, they have it in their power to do so. And yet, not one club has registered with the league that they want to attempt to push through that proposal.

PFA Scotland, then, ought to be lobbying the clubs if they want to make a change. They will likely have little joy in persuading Kilmarnock, Livingston or Hamilton to go back to grass – all three community clubs are reaping the benefits of sweating their plastic asset – but should at least be chirping in the ear of the chief executives of the other nine Premiership clubs to see if they can wield greater influence around the SPFL boardroom table. A statement confirming most professionals prefer playing on grass isn’t really going to achieve anything.

Similarly, Rangers’ bickering about the Scottish FA and the merits of its disciplinary system is unlikely to affect the changes wanted. While complaining about the decision to give Allan McGregor a two-game ban seemed a strange incident to take a stance over – the goalkeeper fully deserved his suspension – then it is more than reasonable to want to question a system that has become so flawed and inconsistent that it is starting to overshadow what has been a captivating season of entertaining football.

Again, though, Rangers offered no remedies to the problem in their, for once, mercifully brief statement. The most obvious method for improving decision-making by match officials would be to bring VAR into the equation. It wouldn’t fix everything but it would undoubtedly ease an increasingly tense situation that is in danger of boiling over. And yet, Rangers didn’t mention it in their statement. They are not alone on that front. Very few clubs, in fact, tend to refer to VAR when criticising referees and the role of the compliance officer, even though – cost aside – it would seem the most obvious way to greatly reduce the scope for human error.

The right to contest perceived injustices is a vital and undeniable one, in football as in life. But it all seems a bit Brexit without a plan to back it up.