BRINGING the 2030 World Cup to Scotland as part of a joint bid with the other Home Nations will help secure the substantial funding needed to redevelop Hampden, according to SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell.
The SFA announced yesterday they have agreed to buy the Glasgow stadium from current owners Queen’s Park for £5 million when their current lease expires after the Euro 2020 finals.
The governing body needed the offer of £2.5 million from Lord Haughey, the millionaire Scottish businessman, in the past month in order to reach an agreement.
Maxwell, who hailed the decision as “monumental” for the game in this country, admitted the SFA will now look to attract further public and private investment and redevelop the Mount Florida venue.
The SFA will hold talks with their counterparts in England, Northern Ireland and Wales this autumn to discuss the feasibility of bringing the 2030 World Cup to the four countries.
He believes that doing so would enable them to entice the tens of millions and pounds it will need to address supporters concerns – including bringing the East Stand and the West Stand closer to the pitch.
“I don’t think that would be a bad place to start,” said Maxwell. “That’s another conversation with Glasgow City Council and the Scottish government. If we can go and bring a Word Cup here, what does that mean to the country? How can we leverage that? That would be a massive opportunity for us.
“We had a very brief discussion when we were all over in Russia for a FIFA congress and the plan is to meet up in the short term and see exactly where those conversations can lead to. It will be before Christmas.
“It would be great for a football guy to be involved in bidding for a World Cup, that would be fantastic. Having watched the Moroccan bid and dealt with them it was a really interesting process. I think if there was a Home Nations bid then that would be a strong proposition.
Asked if anybody other than Lord Haughey was prepared to invest in Hampden, Maxwell said: “There has been no-one else. It’s up to us to go and try to find them now. There are a lot of people out there that are big Scotland fans, who could be in a position to help, and we need to try to maximise that opportunity.
“That’s up to myself, the board, the commercial team, everybody that we have at our disposal to go and maximise that revenue opportunity.”
“It is a challenge. It is one we need to face into and see where we get to. We should not be scared of it. We have never been in that space where we give it too much consideration. Now it is it gives us the platform to go and have these conversations.
“It’s going to be a chunky number that will be required to get us to that point but that’s not something to be scared of. We need to try and address that, have conversations with as many people as we can.”
Maxwell admitted that stadium sponsorship was another possibility the SFA will explore now they have finally reached agreement with Queen’s Park.
“There are opportunities in that area,” he said. “It is a challenging market. There was someone at the game last night telling me that Tottenham are struggling to find someone to find a naming right sponsor for their stadium. It is obviously a challenge.
“We already have the William Hill South Stand. But in terms of the commercial opportunity we now have we have to look at every other part of the stadium and how we can maximise revenue. We would be daft not to.”
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