Does anyone know the prize money distributed to each club involved in the Scottish Cup, League Cup, and the Challenge Cup?

Scottish Cup:
1st Rd: £2000
2nd Rd: £4000
3rd Rd: £6000

Not sure thereafter.

Winners get £60,000, runners up £30,000, Semi Finalists £15,000.

I think it's £12k for the quarter finalists.


I'm sure I read after the Alba deal was struck that the Challenge Cup winners get £29,000 this year which is about double what it was before that. Not sure if other rounds went up too but the prize money pre-final wasn't worth much before.

Which would make the Scottish Cup's full prize money likely to be:

1: £2000
2: £4000
3. £6000
4. £8000
5. £10,000
QF. £12,000
SF: £15,000
F: £60,000 or £30,000

The thing about Scottish Cup money is that it accrues (at least early on anyway), so the clubs that play in rounds 1-3 will get £12,000 gross minus fines for lack of fair play.

It continues to accrue. You get that money for playing in each round, not in total.

I could get accurate info for the other rounds very easily. I don't think it's a major secret.

Prize money for all SFL competitions used to be published in the League Review. Not now sadly ...

League Review? What League Review?

Sad day when they pulled the plug on it. Shameful that it was easier to find out about Scottish football players in 1981 than it is in 2008.

Just found this http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn41...s_/ai_n12578632
but it's quite old.

Seems there is no info around about the prize money for the Challenge Cup. Quite ridiculous...

Chairman Jim Ballantyne insists the competition is a vital source of income to SFL clubs.

He said: “Getting to the final is worth at least £30,000 and if there were a full house for the game, then the winning team would be chasing around £75,000.

“These are substantial figures for clubs at our level and shows that the Challenge Cup is a hugely important competition.

“Having the game live on TV gives much more exposure and ALBA’s sponsorship of the competition means the overall prize fund is much higher.”

I think that's a little exaggerated. The winners get almost £30k. I don't know what the runner up gets but it's probably about half that.

We certainly didn't make anything like £75k from the one we won (though granted the prize money is double now what it was then and our crowd wasn't massive as Brechin's support was very small). Realistically you are looking at 10k maximum crowd in a neutral venue paying an average of maybe £10 a head or therebouts. Maybe a little lower. That means £100k gate receipts needing de-vatted and then the host stadium gets 20% of what's left. At best the winners are looking at maybe £35k gate receipts and £29k prize money. Amd since they'll undoubtedly pay a win bonus to their squad if they do win it then it's probably really only worth about £50k maximum (plus maybe a boost in merchandise sales).

Still, not to be sniffed at and whilst the figures are exaggerated a little I'd agree with him overall. The problem with the Challenge Cup has never been that the winners don't make money, it's that if you don't make the final you probably don't. In the Scottish and CIS Cups the rewards for taking part are still decent. In the ALba cup they aren't so worthwhile.

Ι totally agree with you, and I think you (QOS) made some decent money when reaching the Cup final that helped you build a strong 22-23 players' squad for this year.

Anyway, if you get any official data about the prizes, give a shout!

Those figures are exactly correct for last season. I finally got around to checking. I have no idea if they will be the same this year.

As far as I heard, it is (certainly the round we played in).

League Cup figures, the money's paid when the team's put out.

First round losers: £10,500
Second round losers: £14,750
Third Round losers: £24,500
Quarter-Final losers: £38,000
Semi-Final losers: £47,500
Runner up: £82,000
Winner: £110,000

Also, the money from the BBC is:

Televised matches except the final: £95,125 for each club.
Final: £108,750 each.
All clubs receive £6,500, for highlights I presume.

Live matches on the radio get £3,500 each.

So it's an important competition for all clubs outside the Old Firm, considering that getting to the final makes you almost £250,000 in total. Don't let Hearts fans tell you it's a diddy cup ever again.

If you're correct about those figures, the money absolutely dwarfs the Scottish Cup!

Those sound about right certainly. I wouldn't know about the tv money (and find it hard to believe the BBC pay more per game than Sky does for Scottish Cup coverage) but the prize money fits. Bear in mind for the League Cup it's not cumulative, it's a one off payment on elimination. The Scottish Cup payments per round are cumulative. A Quarter finalist in the league cup gets £38k. A quarter finalist in the Scottish Cup gets £30k if they came in at the 4th round (as most probably do) and £36k if they came in at the 3rd round.

The League Cup prize money has always been bigger than the Scottish Cup money. It's because the sponsorship fundamentally is split over less teams. It doesn't "dwarf" it though.

I'm 100% certain that those are the correct figures.

Ok here's a direct comparison.

Scottish Cup

1: £2000 (R1)
2: £4000 (R2) or £6000 (R1)
3. £6000 (R3), £10,000 (R2) or £12,000 (R1)
4. £8000 (R4), £14,000 (R3), £18,000 (R2) or £20,000 (R1)
5. £18,000 (R4), £26,000 (R3), £28,000 (R2) or £30,000 (R1)
QF. £30,000 (R4), £38,000 (R3), £40,000 (R2) or £42,000 (R1)
SF: £45,000 (R4), £53,000 (R3), £55,000 (R2) or £57,000 (R1)
Winners: £105,000 (R4), £113,000 (R3), £115,000 (R2), £117,000 (R1)
or £30,000
Runners Up: £75,000 (R4), £83,000 (R3), £85,000 (R2), £87,000 (R1)

League Cup

First round losers: £10,500
Second round losers: £14,750
Third Round losers: £24,500
Quarter-Final losers: £38,000
Semi-Final losers: £47,500
Runner up: £82,000
Winner: £110,000

What the figures show is that to make more money from the Scottish Cup a run to the latter stages is needed.

An SPL side losing in R2 or R3 of the League Cup (after 1 or 2 games) will pocket roughly between £15,000 and £25,000.
An SPL side losing in R4 or R5 of the Scottish Cup (after 1 or 2 games) will pocket roughly between £8000 and £18,000.

OK maybe not dwarfing but there are sizable differences.

...which demonstrates nicely why many 'middle-sized' and 'small-sized' clubs haven't clamoured for the League Cup to be ditched, despite the derision of the media (and many supporters). For an SFL club that gets a lucky draw, and perhaps makes the Third Round; or goes out in the Second Round away to a large SPL team; the prize money / gate receipts will be the biggest pay-day of the year.

What's prize money situation in the SFL (lump sum + performance based). My figures are out of date.

Gate receipts tend to be better in the Scottish Cup for equivalent fixtures though (mainly because it's a Saturday rather than midweek but possibly in part due to tradition).

Like I say, it's been fairly well know for years that bonuses from the League Cup were better then the Scottish Cup.


You can't really get a "lucky draw" though because it's seeded. You by and large have to earn it.


I don't know the figures, I don't think they are overly transparent with them. I know that you are right about it being predominantly a lump sum. I think there's very little actual difference between what the team in 2nd and the team in 9th gets. There is some reward for position but it's fairly trivial in the scheme of the total payout.

Aye, St. Mirren kicked up a fuss a few years back because they (1st in the First Division) only got £15,000 more than East Stirling(10th in the Third Division, of course). More ammunition at the time for Flynn and his SPL2 bandwagon.

From the rules of the SFL as on their website. The performance-related part is set by a committee: