From this season the payments made to clubs who have a Scottish FA Cup game televised will be cut by £50,000 from £82,500 to £32,500. The change was approved by the majority of clubs.
From this season the payments made to clubs who have a Scottish FA Cup game televised will be cut by £50,000 from £82,500 to £32,500. The change was approved by the majority of clubs.
Up to now it has been something of a lottery with lower league clubs getting rewarded for an early round tie while clubs that reach the semi-finals get less. Last year Albion Rovers hit the jackpot with a home tie against Celtic. £82,500 may not seem like a lot of money, but it is if you are a part-time Scottish club.
Celtic are aggrieved by the change, reckoning that they will lose about £250,000 a year. They argue that they generate most of the value as they are the team people want to watch. To me this demonstrates once again the lopsided nature of Scottish football, but there is no easy solution to that.
It is clear that the top clubs will not be admitted to the English competitions which could in doubt Scotland’s anomalous separate international status. That could open a can of worms as the Belgian national football team is one thing that keeps the divided country together, not to mention all the tensions between Catalonia and Spain.
Plans for an ‘Atlantic League’ for top teams from smaller European countries have been discussed, but have never got off the ground. In any case, they would get in the way of their participation in the Europa League and the Champions League.
The broader question here is what clubs who get a facility fee for a televised match are being compensated for? If it is the disruption of having television crews in, then something like £10k should be enough. If it is for losing gate money, which is Celtic’s concern, calculating what is appropriate becomes more difficult. Indeed, one could not readily justify different fees for different clubs.