NEIL DONCASTER has refuted claims that rival broadcasters were not given an opportunity to bid for the rights to SPFL matches before the league extended their deal with Sky Sports this week, saying that a full and proper process was followed.
The SPFL announced the completion of a new broadcasting deal with Sky yesterday that will eventually be worth £30m per season by 2028/29, after 41 of the 42 member clubs voted in favour of accepting the proposal. Rangers are believed to be the only club who opposed the new deal.
The SPFL chief executive says though that any suggestion potentially interested parties such as BT Sport, who previously held rights to broadcast SPFL games, were not given the opportunity to put a bid forward is a ‘fallacy’.
“Oh, everyone had a chance, so don’t be misled,” Doncaster said.
“Everyone had a chance to come forward, it was clearly no secret that we were out in the market.
“We were talking to the key players in the market, and ultimately the deal that has come forward is the deal that has been endorsed by clubs.
“There has been a proper process. We sat round this table with the cinch Premiership clubs, all 12 sat here and talked about the process that had been gone through in terms of market testing and talking to the various people who might be interested in Scottish football.
“So, it’s a complete fallacy to suggest there has been no process. There has been a full process whereby we had a very experienced rights advisor who used to work for the Premier League in England leading the discussions, and ultimately this is the deal that emerged.
“It’s a deal that has been put together not by merely myself and Fiona (McIntyre) on behalf of the SWPL, but with the involvement of Ron Gordon who was at the negotiating table with Sky Sports, and also the work that was carried out by Ron, Dave Cormack, Andrew McKinlay and John Nelms in terms of pulling together the review.
“All of that work over the course of just over a year has led to where we are now, this hasn’t just happened overnight.
“It’s the result of a long process, which I believe has led to a really tremendous result for the game.”
