STV have beaten the BBC to secure highlights of Scotland international fixtures for the next four seasons.
The new £53m arrangement will begin next August with the opening qualifying matches in the 2016 European Championship qualifying ties.
It was expected that UEFA would come up with a central pool for broadcasting deals, similar to the Champions League, but Sky Sports have came in with the highest bid of £60m over four years for live coverage, home and away, of the international side.
SFA Chief Executive Stewart Regan has claimed the credit for negotiating the deal but it appears that negotiations were between ITV in London and UEFA rather than the man that predicted social unrest last summer if Rangers weren’t in one of the top two divisions.
Other than the Champions League coverage from ITV, STV have had little football in recent times with the state broadcaster outbidding the commercial station for highlights of the SPL.
With it’s outlandish staffing levels and seven figure salaries to pundits in England it looks like the BBC are more interested in cosy chat than investing in the national game.
Even for radio broadcasting the BBC carries much more staff than commercial companies with a dozen people involved in Belgrade for the radio commentary of the Croatia v Scotland match while ESPN had two commentators in a studio that looked some distance from the stadium.
Explaining the new broadcast deal Regan said: “This deal is fantastic news for Scottish football.
“The Scottish FA TV deal is a very good one. We have a bigger TV deal than Russia, for example.
“We’ve held the line to get the same value as before and in addition we’ll be selling the Scottish Cup and friendly matches separately, so there’s another opportunity to make additional income.
“We benefit from being part of the UK television market so Sky don’t negotiate Scotland as a separate region, they negotiate the UK and Ireland as well.
“What they’ve done is a deal to take all of the home nations’ games home and away — and ITV have the highlights.
“It means it’s unlikely there will be any Scotland games on the BBC.”
BBC Scotland currently have a deal in place for live coverage of the some Scottish Cup ties and highlights of Scotland home matches.
With one season left on that contract the state broadcaster may be about to lose a big chunk of it’s Scottish football coverage.
Who cares.
I can’t take anything that comes out of Regan’s mouth seriously. He’s just an irritating background buzz.
will they spend this money on bringing HAMIDIN into a place where you can watch footy and go to the toilets in under 12 minuets .outside of the south stand the rest is a bulldozer job. seen it and would not accept a ticket for the world cup final unless it was for the south stand.
Regan is a complete petrol tanker,so is that other clown Ogilvy,time tae get rid o’ these scabby bastoords,and right quick, i widnae cross the street tae watch any premiere league game in scotland ,that includes CELTIC, they ( CELTIC FC ) should have been leading the way vocally to rid our game of these CORRUPT PEOPLE,this widnae happen in ENGLAND or any other country with decent peeple runnin’ the game, Scotland is a piss stinkin’ rathole when it comes tae honesty , integrity,& accountability, as for sevco, pawnco, slumco, dumco,cheatco, they Say they don’t dae walkin’ away,so why don’t they try slitherin’ away or crawlin’ away I am sure they wid be guid at that, UP THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND
JIST BANTER O’ COORSE, SEVCO, and yir fans G. I. R. F. U. Y, YA M. H. Bs. cannie believe that they sevco fans were that thick tae believe GREEN AND HIS LITTLE KHAKI FRIEND, TAE CONTRIBUTE TO THE LAST SHARE ISSUE,are they really that stoopid ,certainly looks like it ,every one of them who gave their money tae GREEN AND HIS LITTLE KHAKI PAL MUST GET UP IN THE MORNIN’ ,LOOK IN THE MIRROR ,AND THERE STARIN’ BACK AT THEM IS SOMEBODY WI’ DONKEES EARS, HEE- HAW HEE- HAW, sad munkeez indeed