FANS’ FREE-TO-AIR CAMPAIGN

The Scotland fans behind a successful campaign for Scotland’s play-off final win over Serbia to be shown on free-to-air channels want other games to be given the same treatment after Sky Sports announced huge viewing figures. Sky Sports made last Thursday’s night game free to view in recognition of its significance and the fact fans were restricted to watching at home due to Covid-19. As many as 2.6 million watched the nail-biting penalty shootout victory as Scotland qualified for a major finals for the first time since 1998.

An average audience of 1.48m viewers watched the programme from start to finish, making it the most watched Euro 2020 qualification match on Sky Sports. It was the most watched programme in Scotland in that time slot with a 63 per cent audience share.

Now the Hampden Collective, the group who organised the campaign to show the play-off final on free-to-air channels, are determined to use such viewing figures to demand that all Scotland matches are now made free to view. The subsequent defeats by Slovakia and Israel were shown only on Sky Sports Football, a subscriptiononly channel.

Hampden Collective spokesman Barry Kirk said: “There were many who thought we were wasting our time when we started our campaign, we’ve proven them wrong and have shown why it is so important. We want to watch out heroes again and, more importantly, safe in the knowledge everyone has access to it.”