SCOTTISH football will find it even harder to attract quality players from other countries unless the Scottish Football Association and Scottish Premier League introduce tougher rules to deal with clubs which don't pay their wages, according to players' union leader Tony Higgins.

"If you can't pay your debts, the whole fabric of the sport crumbles," he said.

The former Hibernian, Partick Thistle and Morton striker, and former chairman of the Scottish Professional Footballers' Association, now has a prominent role with the international footballers' union FIFPro.

He helped compile a report to Uefa on the consequences of widespread late or non-payment of wages by clubs in east and southern Europe, and last night he warned that the practice was spreading to clubs in the west. FIFPro and Uefa have set up a taskforce to monitor the problem.

In Scotland, Rangers' players have all had to accept wage cuts of up to 75% to spare the club from a high number of redundancies, while Hearts have been serial offenders in regard to the late payment of salaries. FIFPro and Higgins' view, increasingly shared by Uefa, is that governing bodies such as the SFA and SPL need to start doing more to protect players from clubs which spend their way into trouble or end up in the control of owners who cannot, or will not, pay them in full or on time.

Neil Doncaster, the SPL chief executive, has welcomed proposed changes to his governing body's rulebook with a view to toughening up its regulation on financial fair play. Currently, the punishment for going into administration amounts to only a 10-point penalty in any season and a transfer embargo, but there is a growing mood to introduce tougher sanctions. The SPL clubs are currently being consulted about possible changes which could be voted in at a meeting later this month or in July. That could mean far higher points deductions, or deductions spread over more than one season.

The SFA has written to all 93 of its member clubs asking them to declare any undisclosed payments to players and may also be open to amending its rules on what constitutes a fit and proper person to be involved in running a football club. Uefa's financial fair play regulations demand that clubs balance their books over the medium term, do not spend more than they earn, and operate within their financial means each year. Uefa's rules are being phased in but, by 2018, clubs will be expected to bring their annual losses below £8.8m, or else they will be denied entry to the Champions or Europa Leagues.

"Players are attracted to Scotland because generally the perception is that you get your salaries in full and on time, we don't want to lose that credibility," said Higgins, who gave a presentation on football governance at the prestigious Birkbeck University in London last night.

"I think what's important is that the SFA and SPL have access [to a club's financial information] to ensure a club has enough money to sustain itself until the end of a season. I think that would be simpler and easier than them investigating any new club owner.

"One of the problems with investigating ownership is that it can be a labyrinth in terms of the structure of ownership at any given club. But due diligence would be uppermost in everybody's mind and the governing bodies might want to do more when somebody applies to become the chairman of a club or the dominant shareholder.

"The SPL and SFA have to have the power of access when required, to ensure that clubs are not involved in a level of financial building that they cannot sustain.

"In France, Germany, or the Netherlands they are very, very tough on legislation, they don't let clubs get to the point where they can't pay their players or can't pay other clubs. My view always has been that football is a co-operative, the clubs need each other. If one club goes down for whatever reason, it can drag others into the same sort of mess because of unpaid transfer fees, television deals that can't be paid, or other issues which tie them together.

"While Uefa recognise that they cannot impose themselves on domestic football, the reality is that if domestic football is losing credibility, and clubs all over Europe are falling into financial trouble, they have to show some leadership from the top. They are now prepared to work with FIFPro to bring some stability to these countries. If you can't pay your debts, the whole fabric of the sport crumbles."

"My view is that we shouldn't be complacent in western Europe. The issues we've seen at clubs in east and southern Europe could really spread to the west. We've seen ownership problems in Scotland and England. For whatever reason, the regulations are not working. The SFA and the SPL have to use this opportunity to enforce fairly tough regulations like they have in France, Germany and the Netherlands.

"The SPL needs the chairmen to stick down fairly serious regulations to try to prevent this. I know we have the imposition of the 10-point deduction but that appears not to be what's required. We're still finding clubs getting into the same type of scenarios that Motherwell did a decade ago."