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March 18 – Gordon Smith, the chief executive of the Scottish Football Association (SFA), is to warn the British Government that if they force them to sell their international matches to a free-to-air television channel then it will cost them nearly £30 million in lost revenue.
Smith is planning to forward a submission to Ben Bradshaw, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, strongly urging him to reject a recommendation that Scotland’s World Cup and European Championship qualifiers join the list of “Crown Jewel” events that must be shown on terrestrial channels.
A review panel, headed by former Football Association executive director and BBC reporter David Davies, last November recommended that top international matches should be added to the list of British sports including Wimbledon and the Olympics and not be sold to satellite channels like Sky.
The SFA currently have a £55 million deal with IMG until 2014 that sees Hampden Park internationals screened on Sky Sports.
They believe that finance would drop by at least 50 per cent if the BBC was effectively left with a clear run to obtain the rights
Smith claimed that would the SFA to cut grassroots programmes and youth development schemes.
He said: ”We can understand fully the principle of free-to-air.
“We would like more people to see the games but the big thing is the financial aspect.
“The interesting thing is that David Davies actually made a statement …. saying they didn’t have time to consider the financial implications of making this recommendation.
“We find that astonishing.
“The Scottish FA’s income would be certain to drop substantially.
“Our television rights income would at least be halved.
“That means a lot of the grassroots initiatives we have in place - and those we would look to introduce going forward - would all be hit dramatically.
“We are talking about funding youth and schools football at different levels.
“In order to let more people see the games, we would be hitting the standards of coaching and money in the game.
“You would be talking about fewer youth teams and less football actually being played.
“We’re hoping the work of our Youth Action Plan will show benefits in terms of producing more good Scottish players for clubs and, ultimately, the national team.
“The only way we can maintain and improve these programmes is with the right level of investment.
“If we don’t back that up, then we’ll go back to a situation of saying the game is in decline again.”
Smith has claimed that the Davies panel is biased towards the BBC.
He said: “It would be a positive aspect for the BBC because they would likely be getting the game.
“It has been brought up in meetings we have had with the other FAs [in England, Northern Ireland and Wales].
“They all feel the same.
“Once you go to free-to-air, you look at the fact STV (Independent Scottish Television) haven’t been too heavily involved in sport recently and see it would effectively become a monopoly by the BBC.
“As soon as you have no competition for something, then the price changes totally.
“That is our fear.
“It is politicians that are pushing this.
“If they said they wanted to go free-to-air but would make sure none of the sports would lose out financially, then that could be a way of dealing with it.”