SPFL TV deal: No fear in setting Scottish ambitions at English levels says SWFL's Fiona McIntyre

The aspirations infusing women’s football in Scotland shone through in SWPL managing director Fiona McIntyre’s reaction to the country’s new Sky Sports deal.

SWPL managing director Fiona McIntyre believes the new Sky Sports TV deal is a milestone moment for the women's game in the country. (Photo by Craig Foy / SNS Group)

The £150million five-year package, which comprises live screening of at least five games from the women’s top flight, sponsorship of the League Cup and an investment believed to be in the region of £600,000, was declared a “milestone” moment from McIntyre. But just as impressive is how she tackles head on the feeling that women’s game in this country could be on course but against the same issues experienced in the male equivalent.

Sky’s backing ensures a “greater visibility and reach into a new audience” in complementing BBC coverage, for McIntyre, as well as ensuring an unprecedented financial injection that will be crucial to enhancing “professionalism and elite” status. Yet, it comes as the English women’s game is experiencing a phenomenal pace of change – the London derby between Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur at the weekend attracting a record 47,000 crowd on the back of the feelgood from England’s Euros triumph. Scotland can only seem minute against this. However, McIntyre puts a bold spin on the parallel.

“We always get compared to England and it is a difficult comparison,” she said. “But I think it is important we are ambitious. We shouldn’t set the bar low for women’s football in Scotland. So having those figures in England, and also in other parts of Europe, for me that sets a level of expectation. And we are here to deliver on that and raise the bar for women’s football. We shouldn’t be afraid of the challenge that has been set. And certainly the SPWL board share that. And this deal is a good example of that.

“A key aspect of the reasoning for the clubs moving over to come under the SPFL was that desire and belief that we could deliver more commercial revenue back to them. And this deal allows us to do that. which is why it is so important. And if three years ago I had said to people we would have the women’s Premier League on Sky Sports probably a lot of people would have thought that was a silly statement. So setting our ambitions high is not something I am afraid to do.”

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