Why are they there? Now First Minister weighs in to Celtic Dubai trip row
We assess financial impact of the latest restrictions...
NEIL LENNON last night broke cover to defend Celtic’s trip to Dubai — after Nicola Sturgeon had publicly questioned its validity. The Parkhead club flew out to the United Arab Emirates on Saturday for the pre-arranged training camp just hours after losing to Rangers to fall 19 points behind in the title race. Despite the fact Scotland was preparing to go back into lockdown, Lennon and his squad were legally entitled to make the trip due to the exemption elite sport continues to enjoy in the middle of the
FOOTBALL JOHN McGARRY
ThE new £25million per season broadcast deal with Sky will offer some comfort but lack of matchday revenue is still hugely significant for Scottish clubs.
Aberdeen alone believe they will lose £5m this season as a consequence of fans being locked out and that pattern will be mirrored up and down the land.
Last month’s Scottish Government funding package offered some relief, with £20m in soft loans available to the top-flight clubs and grants available to those below.
Unfortunately, the worst could still lie in wait. Although the vaccine roll-out has begun, there is no clarity on when this will allow stadiums to be filled. This makes season tickets for next term an extremely hard sell.
The SFA were forced to make redundancies during lockdown and secured a £5m loan to cover a projected shortfall in income, so Scotland’s qualification for Euro 2020 was vital in a financial sense.
The SFA will make around £8m just for qualifying, with more depending on how Steve Clarke’s team fare and whether hampden can host matches.
RUGBY SEAN VINCENT
SCOTTISh rugby continues to teeter on a financial precipice, despite securing a generous holyrood bail- out pledge, and the new lockdown will raise the threat of further turmoil.
The SRU were given a £15m grant and £5m in soft loans to cope with the financial effects of the pandemic.
The Six Nations is next month and is set to be played behind closed doors. That will lead to a brutal loss of income.
Scotland are scheduled to welcome Wales, Ireland and Italy to BT Murrayfield and the SRU will miss out on around £12 min revenue.
Unions are protecting their broadcast deal with the BBC and ITV by ruling out moving the Six Nations to a later date, so providing fixtures are not disrupted, that revenue should be safeguarded.
Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh have both suffered, with their best players being cherry-picked by clubs down south. They are losing marquee players and replacing them with cheaper options, which indicates that the SRU are battening down the hatches to survive.
OLYMPICS DAVID COVERDALE
PROVIDING the Olympics go ahead this summer — as organisers continue to promise — Team GB’s preparations should be unaffected by the new lockdown.
The British Olympic Association, which is f unded entirely by sponsorship deals totalling £62m for the Tokyo cycle, managed to renegotiate their commercial contracts to take them through to this year’s rescheduled Games.
UK Sport, meanwhile, were boosted before Christmas when they were guaranteed £352m to fund the country’s Olympic and Paralympic sports up to 2024.
That cash from the Government and National Lottery has already been divided out between individual governing bodies, who can now plan for the Games regardless of how the l atest l ockdown may affect t heir income, which has never been overly reliant on commercial deals or crowds in any case.
GOLF DEREK LAWRENSON
ThE contrast could hardly be more stark. While lockdown one produced panic in the boardroom at the European Tour, this one caused barely a ripple of concern.
Last April, tour CEO Keith Pelley was taking calls almost daily from tournament sponsors wishing to cancel. It led to tens of millions of pounds of lost prize money and a considerable wave of redundancies.
This time, there’s a tournament
in March in Kenya which is looking a bit doubtful but, right now, that is about it.
Two things are in the Tour’s favour this time. The fact the lockdown is happening in the middle of winter means there’s no concern at present regarding the UK events from May onwards.
The Tour also put together a relatively thin schedule this side of the Masters in April, believing there might still be l i ngering problems.
FORMULA ONE JONATHAN McEVOY
ALARM bells rang after it was decided to postpone the Australian Grand Prix in March. They will ring louder if the Chinese race the following month, which is in doubt due to ongoing travel restrictions, joins the casualty list.
But, generally, t i me i s on Formula One’s side: the first race, now due to be in Bahrain, is not until March 28.
For now all the teams are building their cars. There’s no furlough, unlike last year. And they have the comforting budget cap of some £110m.
Formula One was given a £1.15billion injection when Liberty Media, i ts American owners, reshuffled their stock.
This allowed the F1 hierarchy to fund teams and promoters, while last season was being resurrected, and there is still money in the piggy bank.
That may be handy if fans do not return in bulk and promoters consequently ask for a reduction in their hosting fees.
CRICKET RICHARD GIBSON
UNLIKE last summer when english cricket circumnavigated a financial black hole of up to £380m by somehow getting on all 18 of its men’s home international fixtures, there is no immediate threat from another lockdown.
in essence, the timing has been as kind this year as it was cruel last, when it hit in pre-season and wiped four months off the domestic calendar.
ATHLETICS RIATH AL-SAMARRAI
AT the elite level, the sport in this country remains in a holding pattern. The next event of note on a sparse calendar is the British indoor Championships, which has been scheduled for Glasgow on February 20-21. it was already planned on the basis of being behind closed doors after UK Athletics were handed a £394,000 contingency fund by UK Sport last year.
As it stands, the meet will go ahead and will serve as a selection trial for the GB team going to the european indoor Championships in Poland in early March. it is understood that european Athletics’ preparations for those indoor championships remain ongoing.
TENNIS MIKE DICKSON
A SUCCESSFUL roll- out of the Covid vaccine cannot come fast enough for the British game ahead of its crucial early summer period.
Wimbledon — whose annual surplus helps f und the Lawn Tennis Association — is weighing up different crowd scenarios.
How many tickets and hospitality packages can be sold at big events like The Championships, Queen’s and eastbourne will clearly depend on how restrictions l ook l i ke being relaxed by the time their i nfrastructure ‘ build’ begins around late April.
BOXING RIATH AL-SAMARRAI
THe sport was already in a period of huge uncertainty due to the unique and expensive challenges of making boxing Covid compliant. The latest escalation has forced the British Boxing Board of Control to impose a suspension for the entire month of January.
Among others, that has meant Josh Kelly’s european welterweight title fight with Russian David Avanesyan on January 30 has been postponed.
The latest restrictions would also seem to extinguish what chance there was of Anthony Joshua’s showdown with Tyson Fury taking place in the UK. The likelihood was always the Middle east in late May and that now looks even more probable.
RACING RIATH AL-SAMARRAI
THeRe will be no immediate new big ramification from the latest lockdown — just relief it can keep going behind closed doors — but the worry is that racing’s financial reserves will take another beating.
Closure of non- essential retail means betting shops are bolted up again with £3m a month lost in Levy. When racecourses’ lost media rights income is included, the figure rises to over £12m.
For the moment prize money will stay as it is thanks to the Levy Board’s enhanced support.
The £40m UK Government bailout has yet to be given but, with it being a loan, it remains to be seen if racecourses will be wary of burdening themselves with more debt. Scottish racing received a grant of £2m from the Holyrood executive in December.