EXCLUSIVE: Seven Scottish Premiership clubs set for £1.6million UEFA bonus

Seven Scottish Premiership clubs stand to pocket bumper UEFA windfalls of £1.6million by the end of June next year.

But pleas from Championship clubs for the money to trickle down the pyramid to help cash-strapped lower league outfits are set to fall on deaf ears.

The payments are made to soften the blow for Premiership outfits who missed out on European group-stage football in season 2023-24.

Dundee, Hearts, Hibs, Kilmarnock, Livingston, Motherwell, Ross County, St Johnstone and St Mirren will be paid around £650,000 in arrears from Europe’s governing body after Celtic qualified for last season’s Champions League.

However, in a major change to the payment schedule, UEFA have now confirmed plans to bring forward the distribution of solidarity cash for season 2024-25 via two payments in March and June.

With Celtic back in the revamped Champions League and solidarity payments ramped up as part of the new broadcasting cycle, that means Dundee, Hibs, Killie, Motherwell, Ross County, St Johnstone and St Mirren now stand to rake in bumper pay-outs of £1.6m each before the end of the season. Hearts and Livingston will earn around £650,000 while Aberdeen and Dundee United stand to rake in close to £1m.

Dundee United stand to rake in £1m following their return to top flight from Championship

Under the current distribution model, national associations take receipt of the money, with leagues granted the autonomy to decide which clubs receive pay-outs.

Germany passes the payments on to teams in the second tier of the Bundesliga, and chairmen and chief executives of clubs from the Scottish Championship have asked SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell to lobby for a similar arrangement in Scotland.

Currently the subject of debate across Europe, UEFA, the European Club Association and the European Leagues are discussing how best to distribute solidarity payments in future.

UEFA have traditionally favoured sharing the money among teams in top flights in order to bridge the gap between clubs who consistently play European football and those who do so on an occasional basis.

Celtic’s involvement in revamped Champions League will benefit fellow Scottish clubs

Championship clubs have asked SFA chief Ian Maxwell why money can’t trickle down to them

A new directive is expected to recommend that the cash can be shared with lower league clubs if 75 per cent of the teams in a nation’s top flight agree.

Premiership sources have told Mail Sport that any vote organised by the SPFL would be unlikely to result in chairmen agreeing to give up their UEFA windfalls.

With the automatic Champions League place granted to the winners of the Scottish Premiership almost certain to go next season, the amount of solidarity money paid to Scotland will drop from season 2025-26.

Arguing that the cash should trickle down the leagues in any case, Hamilton director of football Gerry Strain previously told Mail Sport: ‘The money should be distributed fairly across Scottish football rather than staying in the Premiership.

‘It should reward teams willing to participate in creating elite academies.

‘The whole idea of that money is to try and generate excellence. We are a club which has competed in the UEFA youth league while playing in the third tier of Scottish football. That is unique in itself.

‘The fact we don’t get the solidarity cash divvied up by the SFA among the Premiership clubs seems unfair.’