THE Scottish Professional Football League must put the squeeze on television companies and strike a better deal for the game before its paltry revenues make it an impoverished irrelevance.
That is the ultimatum delivered by Charles Barnett, a partner in the Professional Sports Group at the accountancy and business advisory firm BDO, who believes English football's recent broadcasting contracts have highlighted just how poor and unrepresentative the arrangements put in place by the SPFL really are.
Sky and BT Sport have paid a combined £5.136bn for the rights to show the Barclays Premier League over three years while Scottish football receives approximately £15m-a-season.
Barnett points out that just over eight per cent of the population is based in Scotland and believes that, alone, should be a useful starting point in endeavouring to convince the broadcasters to invest in our national sport in a more meaningful way.
"To put the current financial anomaly into perspective, the £20m cost of showing two English Premier League games on Sky is more than all of the broadcast fees that Scottish football receives in a year," said Barnett.
"Simple arithmetic indicates that, if Sky and BT are happy to pay £1.712bn a year for English football, the comparable figure for Scotland should be £142m. To be getting just over one tenth of that at £15m is unfair and unsustainable.
"The hierarchy of Scottish football must start to lobby for more money.
"It is unlikely that they will get £142m from broadcasters, but even another £20m or £30m, which, compared to the investment in the English Premier League, is a drop in the ocean, would make an enormous difference to the game in Scotland.
"Football's administrators need to persuade the broadcasters that we have a product that is widely followed and supported, but may disappear or dissipate if sufficient funds are not put into the game in the near future."
Barnett also suspects the lack of television revenue in Scotland is almost guaranteed to deliver a negative knock-on effect when it comes to our clubs trying to compete for signing targets with clubs from the lower levels of the English game.
"This is a further sign of the growing financial gap between Scottish and English football," said Barnett.
"If Scottish clubs are unable to buy players from the first and second tier of English football, the game will potentially suffer in Scotland in years to come.
"In the future, it is likely that Scottish clubs will be buying from the lowest tier in English football, which will consequently, and positively, force clubs to develop more home-grown talent.
"However, the best of the home grown talent will then be drawn to the third, second and possibly even the first tier of English football, so we could see a revolving door emerging where talent is developed here, but quickly moves to England."
Barnett is at pains to point out, however, that securing more money from television companies should not be regarded as some kind of panacea. Our clubs must continue to work towards delivering greater value for money to supporters.
"Of course, the clubs also have to make the game more attractive to fans as well as TV companies and this will involve greater investment in home grown talent, better facilities, and more affordable ticket prices," said Barnett, in an interview with FC Business magazine
"More money from broadcasting will help make the game more attractive, but clubs need to keep fans going to the grounds and developing a love of the game if it is to last into the next generation."
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