Scottish football's £78m boom - but SFA need to play different role in grass-roots structure

Historic financial year but Maxwell knows lots of work needs to be done

When Ian Maxwell refers to 2024 as a “very, very good year” for the Scottish Football Association ears are bound to prick up. Some hackles belonging to those in the Tartan Army might stand on end as well.

After all, wasn’t this the year when Scotland were deemed to have been a stain on Euro 2024 and much of the rapport that was established between manager Steve Clarke and the fans the previous year was extinguished?

Maxwell, who as chief executive had just finished addressing members of the SFA at an agm, was referring to the coffers. It had indeed been a very good year for the SFA, despite Scotland finishing with the joint lowest points total (one), most goals conceded (seven) and worst goal difference (minus five) at Euro '24. They were, in short, the worst team at the tournament.

Scotland benefitted from playing at the European Championships last year. | SNS Group

But other figures were good. Indeed, it was a historic year for the SFA if not for the national team, who had been seeking to progress out of a group stage of a major tournament for the first ever time.

Turnover was at an all-time high– £78.72 million, up £21.6m from 2023. The pre-tax profit also increased to £7.41m, compared with £2.05m the previous year.

Maxwell did note that a Nations League payment had massaged such results slightly. “Bizarrely (it) comes in the same year as the Euros (payment) – so next year will look slightly different,” he said.

As it stands, however, this is boom time for the SFA if not for the Scottish Government, whose cuts to local authorities are already having a devastating effect on local sports facilities. It’s not just football that’s been affected, although that is obviously the SFA’s main concern. The association was awarded £8.6m of funding from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to enhance football facilities around the country in March. This supplemented the SFA’s first donation of £5m to its Pitching In campaign, which aims to invest £50m into improving facilities by 2028.

‘Great challenge to have’

“Knowing my president (Mike Mulraney), as soon as I get close to £50m, he's just going to tell me it's now £100m!” said Maxwell. “But that's a great challenge to have, that's a great place to be. The DCMS funding that we've had up to this point, they've given us…£28.4m (in total) I think it is. Through partner funding we've added another £30m to that, so we've got to £60m for 137 projects up and down the country, which means renewing facilities, changing grass pitches to synthetic, adding LED floodlights, upgrading and changing pavilions....The impact of those (things) is huge.”

Maxwell explained the different role the SFA are now having to play at grassroots level. “That's never really been within our remit as a national association (before),” he added. “We've never really been charged with looking after the facility infrastructure, but given the fiscal challenges governments are having, we're having to take more ownership of that.”

Given what occurred at Hampden on Friday night against Iceland, when Scotland were forced to play a 22-year-old rookie in goal, it doesn’t seem too much of a leap to make a connection between a shortage of goalkeepers and worsening facility infrastructure. Goalkeeper development, or at least the lack of it, has been described as a source of national shame. Maxwell agreed that it was a crisis.

Scottish Football Association chief executive Ian Maxwell. | SNS Group / SFA

“We do have a goalkeeping crisis,” he said. “It's a really unusual set of circumstances, because I think we had seven goalies injured before we got to Cieran (Slicker), so that is not normal.

“I don't know when the last time a national team played and their third-choice goalie had to play 85 minutes, that's not a usual set of circumstances. To be fair though, it has highlighted that we need to make sure that development piece is as appropriate as possible and is giving people chances to play.”

Revolutionary system?

The recent announcement of the Co-Operation System, conceived by the SFA in conjunction with the Scottish Professional Football League, is timely therefore. This scheme, where Premiership and Championship clubs can sign agreements with sides lower in the pyramid to exchange players over and above the current loan system, seeks to enhance playing time for those between the ages of 16-21 at appropriate levels. It might turn out to be revolutionary.

It won’t, however, help current national manager Steve Clarke, who has already stated that it is incumbent on Scottish football to solve the ‘keeper crisis for the benefit of "the next Scotland manager, the one after that and the one after that". Some supporters hope the next manager comes along sooner rather than later after the dire display against Iceland.

“I think the footballing world we live in is that something happened yesterday, let's deal with it,” said Maxwell, who cautioned against change for change’s sake. “We've seen three managers be appointed in Scottish football in the last two or three weeks (at Dundee, Kilmarnock and Rangers). None of the three have been met with great happiness from the relevant support, for whatever reason. People are always looking at the negatives, and I've said this for as long as I've been doing this job.”

It seems only right, then, to end on a high note. “Any agm, when you're the chief executive, if you can stand up and talk about record turnover, record profit... it's not a bad place to be,” he said. “It was great to share that news with the members. It's great to give them a bit of an understanding of some of the bigger items we're dealing with in terms of (co-hosting) Euro ‘28, the (women’s) World Cup 2035 bid, all the stuff that's going on a day-to-day basis.

“There's always going to be highs and lows. There's always going to be different things that change across the association's revenue streams, but we've got good foundations. We know what we're doing.”