SALVAGE JOBS
SPFL strive to save second-tier season and play Betfred Cup
THE SPFL has started drafting radically revamped and reduced schedules capable of saving both the Betfred Cup tournament and the Championship for season 2020/21.
In the past 72 hours, secretary and director of operations Iain Blair has worked through numerous options of a fixture framework with one favoured consideration being a restart of both events in October.
All roads lead to the Premiership kicking off in early to mid-August to satisfy the demands of the new £125million Sky television contract.
SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell stressed his belief yesterday that it was ‘achievable’ for Scottish football to get underway in August subject to meeting government approval.
Championship clubs, meanwhile, are due to meet tomorrow for a critical discussion on how best to salvage their upcoming campaign.
Several hierarchy believe the game at that level can only survive by pushing back to a time when there is more chance of at least a limited crowd permitted through
the gates to generate matchday revenue. To that end, an 18-game season has been floated to begin after the Premiership has tested the waters.
Blair revealed last night that he has begun ’scenario planning’ multiple ideas to make that work — and retain the income and enjoyment of the Betfred Cup.
SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster warned that with parttime clubs unable to afford to play behind closed doors and no football permitted to be played until at least late summer, the traditional July start was impossible to deliver.
The tournament, worth around £2m through deals with the sponsors and broadcaster Premier Sports, will be deferred to preserve it.
Drafting likely schedules including that knock-out competition form only part of what Blair described as ‘an incredibly challenging and incredibly detailed’ operation to get football back in Scotland.
Shedding light on the minefield planning effort required to cover all bases being discussed by clubs, he said: ‘We’ve been talking about different options and looking at it. There’s more work to be done.
‘I don’t have a schedule which says: You start in October, you finish “then” and everything is fine.
‘There seems to have been a lot of chat about the Championship going to this shortened season, so we will see how that works and I am beginning to do some modelling on that. We’ve only really picked that one up and it’s early stages.
‘If there was an October start to the second tier, that would mean the Betfred wouldn’t start in July but October as well. There’s all sorts of mixing and matching to be done.
‘I haven’t worked it all the way through but we’re talking of that season going through to April.’
One Championship suggestion sure to be raised again at tomorrow’s Zoom call is to mothball the league until January when crowds should be let back in. However, any such kick-off would be at the mercy of deep-winter weather.
Other hierarchy fear that starting too early in August without matchday revenue would see clubs fold within a couple of months.
So October has emerged as a likely starting point in tandem with the Betfred competition.
‘We don’t know what’s going to happen with European and international dates and the knockon effect of that is cup competitions will be difficult,’ admitted Blair.
‘The Betfred is quite a popular competition because it pays out a lot more to the smaller clubs than the old League Cup.
‘The group stage has given them better gate income and we’ve increased the prize money that goes into the earlier stages.
‘I think we’d still have a situation where we have some sort of group stage and the European clubs weren’t involved until later.
‘I cannot guarantee that the Betfred is going to be as it was in 2019/20. In fact, I think it’s very difficult. But we do want to have a competition.
‘And one which is attractive to sponsors, the broadcasters and fans. If we don’t have one, then it’s only because it is impossible to deliver given everything that’s going on.’
Since the group stage was introduced five years ago, the final has taken place in late November or early December.
Blair is now working on a potential semi-finals slate just after Christmas, with the final in March.
Unsurprisingly, with too many pressures on the fixture card, there will be no winter break in 2020/21.
‘We want to do it as early as possible, so there is a degree of separation between the top clubs’ interest in the Betfred and the Scottish Cup,’ he said. ‘It’s the same broadcaster now, so that helps. We can work with Premier on both to ensure the scheduling works.’
Blair conceded the participation of League One or League Two clubs in the Betfred was an unknown.
‘We do want to try and maintain delivery of as many of the league programmes as we can and we are still talking to League One and League Two to see what they are thinking,’ he said. ‘We we will be guided by them.’
Meanwhile, SFA boss Maxwell said it was ‘right’ that his authority should help fund testing around training and matches.
Covid-19 testing costs of between £3,000 and £5,000 per club per week are prohibitive for lower-league clubs but Maxwell stressed there were ‘creative’ solutions and added: ‘We need to be able to step in and support them as much as we can.’