Licence criteria

[supersmith]

I am not really into the licence criteria, seems in some cases you just groundshare with a league club and on you go. I hear talk of something in the region of 17 clubs applying for a licence. Now I have been told it will become more difficult for clubs to gain a licence as one thing in particular that they will now require is floodlights. So that raises two questions for me which I hope the experts on here could maybe answer, first one regards licence criteria, if clubs need floodlights in order to obtain this licence, what happens to clubs already licenced that don't have lights, will they have a deadline to upgrade their grounds or will they at some point become unlicenced, and therefore possibly demoted. Second part is the licence gains entry to the Scottish Cup, will the SFA keep expanding the competition or will the clubs play a qualifying competition that doesn't carry any prize money.

[Cyclizine]

You can find the requirements for the SFA licence here.

The licence is not all about the ground, but also involves club administration, policies, finances, etc. There are various levels of licence from entry level to gold. At present, an entry level licence is required for the Lowland and Highland leagues. A licence is not needed for the East and South of Scotland Leagues.

One of the ground criteria is floodlights of a certain standard, which is a new (although not unexpected) addition. As it stands, clubs without floodlights will lose their licence if they are not installed. It is likely that they will be given a deadline for installation. The SFA licencing committee should hopefully announce this shortly.

All licenced clubs are guaranteed entry to the Scottish Cup. It may be in future that an extra round may be required, but I can't see any need for bringing back the Qualifying Cups.

[Burnie_man]

I can’t see the old Qualifying Cups being resurrected.  Everyone who is a full member is guaranteed a place in the competition, although what may happen is that the Preliminary rounds grow along with membership, that said depending on how the SFA do it they may be able to reduce to only one Preliminary round next season despite upto 12-14 new clubs entering.

Prize money is paid in the Preliminary rounds currently, also as a full SFA member club you receive an annual payment, a bit like a profit share. So it would be very beneficial for Scotland to qualify for Euro 2020 which would see an extra £8m-£10m rolling into SFA coffers.

As for floodlights, anyone beginning the application process now would require to have them in place to get a licence, the grey area is the dispensation period (if any) the SFA will give to clubs who are currently members or who started the application process last year. We’ll find out more next Thursday.