Chairmen plot revolt on Project Brave plan

THE SFA face a revolt from a group of Premiership clubs angered by the costs of implementing Project Brave.

Sportsmail understands a stormy meeting hosted by SFA chief executive Stewart Regan and performance director Malky Mackay at Hampden on Thursday ended with some clubs, including Partick Thistle, Motherwell, St Johnstone and Dundee, expressing deep concerns over plans to revamp youth football. A working party chaired by consultant Alistair Gray has drawn up a list of criteria clubs will have to meet in order to bid to be part of a streamlined system where the number of professional club academies would be cut from the current number of 29 to around 16. Smaller Premiership clubs are understood to harbour grave concerns, however, over the requirement to employ two full-time academy coaches at a projected cost of around £60,000 a year. The SFA argue that standards in Scotland’s failing youth football set-up can only improve if clubs invest to achieve Measurable Performance Outcomes (MPOs). New performance chief Mackay has spent his early weeks in the job selling the blueprint to coaches. Chairmen, however, remain unconvinced. Concerned the changes have been drawn up by larger, wealthier clubs for their own benefit, teams in the lower half of the Premiership want assurances their young players will still have the chance to play Celtic, Rangers and other top clubs. And some have threatened to withhold their backing from Project Brave unless they obtain guarantees and compromises over the cost of entry.

Sportsmail contacted a number of clubs for comment yesterday with no success. Speaking in January, however, Motherwell chief operating officer Alan Burrows said: ‘I still want some reassurance that if Motherwell are in the elite programme that we will still get a chance to play against Rangers, Celtic, Hearts, Aberdeen and all those clubs. ‘Because that is the clubs our players want to be playing against. That is the model I want to sell to our parents. ‘Stewart (Regan) can’t answer that because he says he doesn’t know which teams will bid.’ The board of the SFA will reach the final decision on what form Project Brave will take.