THE Scottish Premier League’s new TV deal is unlikely to be universally welcomed.... REPORTS the Scotsman
Last week, Falkirk manager Steven Pressley warned SPL chief executive Neil Doncaster that Scottish football will end up on its knees if the leading clubs ignore the wishes of fans in favour of chasing TV revenue.
Pressley has been an outspoken advocate of an expansion of the Premier League, rather than the reduction to ten teams favoured by Doncaster and some SPL clubs.
He said: “If you look at the ten top leagues in Europe, they are all leagues of 16 to 20 teams, and I believe that in a Scottish football poll, 88 per cent of supporters said they wanted a bigger league.
“We have to get it right here.
“Unless Neil Doncaster starts addressing the real issues and not merely the TV revenue, we have a problem.
“We cannot allow TV to dictate to our football any longer. We are in danger of driving supporters away from the game, being reliant on TV money.
“When television decides that a product is not good enough because there are no supporters in the ground, how do you get these supporters back?
“The game will survive without TV but it won’t survive without supporters.”