Former United gaffer Brewster would like to see bigger Premiership

FORMER Dundee United boss Craig Brewster reckons calls for a 14-team Premiership will only succeed if the proposal is financially viable for the league’s leading clubs.

Hearts are desperate to push through an expanded top-flight in order to avoid relegation to the Championship, while the proposal would also see Inverness promoted as second-tier runners-up.

The proposal will be discussed by all 42 SPFL clubs at a series of divisional meetings, starting with the Premiership clubs on Monday.

Although Brewster favours the idea of a larger league, the 53-year-old feels it will struggle to pass unless it makes commercial sense for clubs at the top end of the Scottish game.

He said: “I certainly like the idea of having more teams in the Premiership – that would always have been the case. The problem was finances, and trying to get the most money for the big two clubs because they dictated it really.

“At the end of the day it’s the people with the finances that dictate, in terms of what sponsors and the like can give to the governing bodies.

“For me that’s the big crux but, from a football point of view, I think it’s a good thing there would be more teams.”

Should Inverness and Hearts take their place in the Premiership next season it would spell the return of the Highland derby and the preservation of the Edinburgh derby in Scotland’s top-flight.

Brewster, who scored the winning goal for United in the 1994 Scottish Cup Final against Rangers, feels the local rivalries are a key part of the top-flight product.

He added: “The Glasgow derby, the Edinburgh derby, the Dundee derby and Highland derby – that’s what people want to see.”

Former Dundee United boss Craig Brewster.