Ian Maxwell addresses Scottish FA cash drop as Covid impact hits Hampden

Figures for the Association were revealed on Tuesday and show that group turnover was down 26.9 per cent - to £27.7million - when compared to the 2019 accounts.

But chief executive Ian Maxwell is encouraged with the position across the board following the biggest cash crisis ever to hit the Scottish game.

Maxwell said: "We’ve tried to mitigate it. We had staff furloughed, we took advantage of business support schemes and tried to make sure we ran as tight a ship as possible.

"We’ve kept the distributions from a club perspective how we wanted to be because the last thing they need is us saying we’re reducing things.

"It’s not so much from a financial perspective, it’s more from the fact we couldn’t get on pitches, get people on courses and get people playing.

"That’s had as big an impact. There was a worry you might lose people from the game and the habit of playing football.

"The reverse has been true and everyone putting on football now is running out of capacity which is great to see."

Maxwell was speaking after the SFA held their 2021 AGM at Hampden and it was confirmed that Scottish Cup replays would be scrapped for the coming season.

Matches from the fourth round onwards will now be played to a finish in order to free up dates within the congested domestic, European and international schedule.

Maxwell said: "It’s important from a fixture calendar perspective. When you get to the latter end of the season traditionally you’ve always had one or two games off with the weather depending on how that goes.

"If clubs continue to do well in Europe and are in that beyond Christmas that condenses the calendar.

"We’ve got five in Europe and it would be great all five are involved beyond Christmas. It gives the league flexibility in scheduling.

"It might not seem a lot but it’s three midweeks we’d need to keep aside for a reply and it gives them a chance to schedule fixtures. It’s important the game helps each other out."