Michael Nicholson joins SPFL Task Force

Michael Nicholson has joined an SPFL Task Force aimed at doubling commercial income for the Scottish game. 

Now into his 12th month as Celtic’s CEO virtually nothing is known about Nicholson who hasn’t even went in front of the Celtic TV cameras to outline his ambitions and targets for Celtic. 

In December five east coast clubs commissioned a review by Deloitte that was tasked with increasing all revenue streams with the SPFL lagging behind almost all comparable UEFA nations in terms of broadcasting deals and sponsorship. 

The fractued cinch sponsorship deal isn’t a good look for any organisation, bizarrely, less than halfway throught the current TV deal with Sky Sports there seems to be a rush underway to commit the SPFL to Sky until 2029. 

Picking up on a report from Stephen McGowan in the Daily Mail discussing the impact of the Deloitte Report, The Daily Record reports: 

That independent review was commissioned by Aberdeen, Hearts, Hibernian and Dundee United amid an ongoing push to get the most out of our beautiful game. And it the recommendations will be put to the newly formed innovations and strategy task force which is made up of Celtic ‘s Michael Nicholson, Rangers ‘ Stewart Robertson, Hibs and Aberdeen owners Ron Gordon and Dave Cormack, plus Andrew McKinlay of Hearts. 

Scottish football’s 42 SPFL clubs shared a total of £28.5million between themselves last year but now the aim is to almost double that over the next seven years. And the financial target comes with league chiefs locked in talks with Sky over a fresh long-term deal with Scottish football up to the end of the 20028/29 season. 

Simply for competing in six Champions League matches Celtic will be paid more than £20m directly from UEFA. For winning the 21/22 SPFL Premiership Celtic were paid £5m which was 14% of the SPFL prize pool covering all broadcast and sponsorship deals.