SFA chief Maxwell breaks his silence on Scottish Cup Final controversy

Ian Maxwell has claimed that the Scottish Cup Final would have been diminished if it had kicked off at 3pm.

Rather than stand by tradition the SFA announced that their Hampden showpiece match would kick off at 5,30pm with both competing clubs issuing statements to voice their concerns.

BBC have live rights to both matches, it seems a reasonable assumption that they were the driving force behind the matches being shown back-to-back rather than giving the Celtic v Inverness Caley Thistle its traditional place.

Speaking to Radio Clyde, Maxwell said:

The Scottish FA’s preference was for three o’clock on a Saturday. There are obviously external factors that play a part in any decision about kick-off times and kick-off times have changed. No longer is every game kick-off at three o’clock, there are games played at various times.

It’s the end of our Week of Football, it’s very much a flagship competition for us. It signals the end of the Scottish season. We want to give it as much airtime in its own space as possible.

The English FA Cup final is on at three o’clock, the Women’s Champions League final is at three o’clock. So you have a decision to make: do you go up against them and diminish the competition and reduce the viewership that you could get across the UK or do you move it and try and give it its own breathing space? That’s what we decided to do.

We would have preferred it at three o’clock but in terms of the gravitas and the scale we can showcase the game, we felt moving it gave us the best opportunity to do that.

We engaged with Inverness before the decision was made, they were happier with a later kick-off than an earlier kick-off.

I am delighted they have recently announced their agreement with Scotrail that will see them put on additional transport to make sure everyone can get back home – and that’s been a positive.

Celtic fans have had a fairly mixed reaction to the switch in kick-off time but the reasoning behind it seems to be more of a concern.

Most of the television audience for the Scottish Cup Final will be fans of the competing clubs, it is difficult to imagine many other fans watching the action from Wembley then switching over for part two coming from Hampden.

? “I think you would be foolish to ignore it”.

SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell says it was important to take the English FA Cup final into account when organising the time of the Scottish Cup final between Celtic and Inverness.https://t.co/GPeWFeeuK8

— Clyde 1 Superscoreboard (@ClydeSSB) May 22, 2023