Scottish League One clubs 'shafted' in coronavirus cash handout, claims Falkirk chairman

Deans says he welcomes the £10 million handout announced by the Scottish Government earlier this month but is angry and horrified at how it is being divided up.

Half that money is going to the 10 clubs that make up the Championship, headed, five points clear at the top, by Heart of Midlothian, and the other half is mostly being spread more thinly among the 20 clubs in leagues one and two.

That works out at a grant of £150,000 for the likes of Lee Miller and David McCracken’s side, four points clear at the top of League One and hoping to make the move up to the Championship next year, and, according to Deans, that’s just not fair, being less than a third of the £500,000 payouts going to clubs such as their upcoming Scottish Cup second-round rivals Arbroath, just one place above them in the Scottish Professional Football League ladder and, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, attracting crowds only about half the size of those seen at the Falkirk Stadium.

"What’s coming to the Championship, League One and League Two is, in round terms, about £10 million,” said Deans in an interview for Falkirk TV.

"If you’d asked me at the start would I be happy with £150,000, I would have said yes because that’s a fantastic boost for us in these really difficult times as we face the next five months to the end of the season.

"It’s a great shot in the arm for us and it’s great for Scottish football that the government have come forward and put that funding package together.

"My next reaction is horror and anger that 50% of that £10 million goes to the Championship.

"If you look at some of the Championship clubs who have got lower fan-bases, part-time, lower revenue - nothing against them - but why do they deserve more than three times what we’re getting?”

What’s particularly riling Deans is that figures compiled by clubs to show the impact the coronavirus crisis is having on their income appears to have been overlooked in favour of an across-the-board approach.

"This funding was to make sure clubs can survive through the Covid crisis,” said the 56-year-old.

"I come from a business background and if I’m applying for bank funding or loan funding or grant funding, they look at the individual circumstances of the individual businesses or clubs. That’s not been done here, and they’ve taken a blanket and thrown it across the Championship and said £500,000 each and they’ve taken another blanket and they’ve thrown it across us and said £150,000 each, not looking at individual need, so I’m angry at the lack of process around that.

"We were asked by the Scottish Football Association and SPFL to put in individual revenue figures and cost figures a couple of months ago as they were lobbying the Scottish Government to be able to get money in the first place. Most, not every – something like 38 out of 42 clubs – put that detailed information in to the governing authorities. They’ve not used that. The SFA and the SPFL have not used that data to try and allocate that money on a fair and reasonable basis.

"It’s been ignored in the allocation of the funds, and that’s wrong.

"It’s the usual Falkirk kicking against the system, but, again, it’s the usual Falkirk being shafted by the system.”