Hearts’ CEO Andrew McKinlay has insisted that the strategic and holistic review of the SPFL which was announced earlier this week is not about “redistributing wealth” within the Scottish game but trying to ensure clubs get a better deal from the league’s commercial activities and helps improve standards across the board within the league.
Aberdeen, Dundee, Dundee United, Hibs and Hearts have commissioned Deloitte to identify potential avenues for the league to capitalise on “significant additional revenues” and McKinlay is adamant it’s not just a case of looking to simply rejig who gets what from the existing partnerships with sponsors and broadcasters.
The SPFL review, which will run for six months, will, McKinlay hopes, make Scottish football a “better experience” for fans and improve the “digital experience” as clubs embrace new ways of engaging with their supporters, telling STV: “The commercial side is one of the main drivers of it.”
“Are we getting the best deals from a broadcasting perspective? Are we getting the best deals from a commercial sponsorship?
“But money drives all the other things that we want. We should be able to give the fans a better experience, we should be able to improve our grounds and improve the digital experience from fans.
“We should be able to have a better product on the pitch, which obviously fans want as well.
“Ultimately, certainly from our point of view, it’s not money to give to our shareholders, it’s money to improve the clubs. But it’s money to improve all the clubs.
“There’s no suggestion here about redistributing wealth. It’s about bringing money in and growing the pie so that everyone can get a bigger share of that pie.”
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