PULL THE PLUG
Mulraney urges clubs to scrap BBC TV deal EXCLUSIVE
SPFL BOARD member Mike Mulraney i s ready to urge Scottish clubs to tear up their broadcasting deal with the BBC.
His clarion call comes just 24 hours after Sportsmail revealed the withering comments of Barbara Slater, the Corporation’s Director of Sport, who told a London conference that Scottish football does not merit a bigger slice of the licence fee.
Slater’s dismissive approach brought a f ur i o us reaction from t he SPFL yesterday and left Mulraney — chairman of Alloa — accusing the BBC of acting l i ke the ‘ English Broadcasting Corporation’.
The BBC spend £68million a year on Match of the Day highlights compared to £1m a year to screen Scottish snippets on Sportscene.
That huge disparity comes when many of our clubs are struggling to make ends meet financially.
‘I was flabbergasted by what I read in the Scottish Daily Mail this morning,’ Mulraney said last night as he insisted that ‘enough was enough’.
‘ This appears t o confirm my long-held suspicion that many within the BBC now consider it to be the
EBC. And if they do view it as the English Broadcasting Corporation and feel we are worthy of nothing more than scant consideration, it would appear to be ti me to consider removing our content from that platform.
‘It seems to be unquestionable now they are openly admitting they are short- changing Scotland and Scottish f ootball. That i s not something that we can — or should — accept.
‘There can be no clearer indication that it’s time for us to say “enough” to this corporation which no longer seems remotely i nterested in Scotland or its sport.’
Mulraney, one of the Championship representatives on the SPFL’s eight-man decision-making body, added: ‘I am speaking here purely as the chairman of Alloa, not with my SPFL hat. But I can confirm that the view I hold is one I will be expressing strongly to my colleagues at the SPFL.’
Slater sparked the war of words on Thursday when she answered a question on media r i ghts disparities from SFA director of communications Darryl Broadfoot at a Daily Telegraph- sponsored Business of Sport conference.
She responded: ‘The sports rights market is intensely competitive and there are all sorts of dynamics that are taken into consideration when you put together what you would bid for rights.
‘We are, to a degree, going to be dictated by the market rate. I know the comparison you’re going to draw between highlights of football in Scotland and highlights that we would pay for the Premier League.
‘The truth is the Premier League is a global brand. It is loved by audiences and we think it is incredibly important that Match of t he Day, as the highlights broadcaster of the Premier League football, is an incredibly important programme for us to invest in.
‘So, yes, there is inequality but, as a broadcaster, as someone investing the licence fee, I’ve got to invest it the way the market dictates.’
That drew a furious response from the SPFL, just days after Sportsmail had revealed that its chief executive Neil Doncaster was preparing plans to pursue a fairer deal from broadcasters.
With a dig at Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker’s salary, SPFL chairman Ralph Topping said Scottish clubs would no longer be satisfied with the ‘crumbs off the table’ that were currently on offer.
‘The days of the BBC selling Scottish football short are drawing to a close,’ he said. ‘ There is an overwhelming argument that the public money spent by the BBC on the UK’s national game should be more evenly split. There is no doubt the English Premier League is one of the most powerful leagues in the world. The BBC is paying £68m per annum over the next three years for its slice of that cake, but Scottish football will no longer be satisfied with the crumbs off the table.
‘Compared to England, Scots contribute a 10th of the licence fee, yet at l ess than £ 1m f or TV highlights, our BBC deal is only 1/60th of what the BBC pays to the English Premier League — and that doesn’t include the money they also pay to the English Football League for highlights.
‘The BBC is damaging the game i n Scotland and these double standards are indefensible for a publicly-funded broadcaster. It’s a sad reflection of the BBC’s approach to its investment in Scottish football that Gary Lineker’s salary is double the amount the BBC pays for TV highlights of more than 250 SPFL games each year.
‘There comes a point where you have to say enough is enough.’
Currently, the SPFL earn around £16m a year from Sky Sports and BT Sport for live coverage of games. The BBC pay an estimated £3m, in total, to Scottish clubs per annum when live radio coverage of matches is taken into account.
It is fair to say also that, at the time the current deal was agreed, there was l i ttle i n the way of criticism from within Hampden’s corridors of power.
Yet Topping added: ‘Fans, clubs, politicians and the Scottish public recognise that, as our national broadcaster, the BBC has a duty to do the right thing.
‘For far too long, the BBC has discriminated against Scottish football and it’s time for them to increase its contribution to the sport in Scotland to properly reflect what our country contributes to the licence fee.
‘There is one more season left on our current deal with the BBC and we’re determined that any new deal far better reflects the importance of the game in Scotland and the hundreds of millions the corporation receives from Scottish licence-fee payers every year.’
In response, a BBC Scotland statement said: ‘When we negotiate, our priority is to get value for money for the licence-fee payer.
‘Negotiation is two way — the SPFL come to the table with their wishes and we decide on how much we can reasonably spend on the rights package on offer.
‘Supporters in Scotland tell us they enjoy watching highlights programmes of both the Scottish Premiership and the English Premier League and we don’t believe that audiences in Scotland are being short-changed.’