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THE battle has begun to get a fairer price for Scottish football from mega-rich TV bosses.

But a Record Sport investigation into TV revenue across the continent has provided damning proof of why our game remains the poor man of Europe.

With Neil Doncaster already in discussions aimed at thrashing out an improved deal with broadcasters, the figures we release today show how far our top clubs are lagging behind foreign rivals – and highlight why the SPFL chief executive has to bring home the bacon for the sake of our national sport.

In fact, they provide damning proof the Scottish game is receiving a relative pittance for the rights to screen 60 live top-flight games per season on Sky and BT Sport.

(Image: SNS Group)

The current deal – which has three years still to run – sees Scotland anchored to the bottom of a league of 18 countries, below the likes of Poland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark and dwarfed even by Greece.

BT Sport are believed to be keen to strike a new agreement which would see them go it alone from summer 2020.

But while the potential sums involved are thought to be in excess of the £31million a season which failed satellite company Setanta once forked out for Scottish football, even that would fall way short of the kind of cash which is being pumped into the game abroad.

It’s understood the SPFL’s joint crown-jewel deal with Sky and BT Sport is worth slightly less than £19m per season.

This figure rises close to £30m when overseas rights, highlights packages and a separate deal with the BBC are factored in.

The vast majority of that cash is spread between the top 12 clubs at the end of each season, with the leftover money dripping down to the lower leagues.

But the numbers are made to look absolutely paltry when compared with the enormous amount of cash the same two companies are ploughing into the game south of the border after recently agreeing a new three-year deal worth an eye-watering £5.14billion.

In other words, Sky and BT are forking out £1.71bn a season to showcase the Premier League – which works out at 90 times more than the going rate for Scottish football. Or, in other words, our struggling clubs pocket just 1.1 per cent of that annual telly jackpot.

While not even a newspaper as patriotic as this one would argue Scottish football deserves financial parity with the glitz and glamour of the English game, the sheer scale of this imbalance is ridiculous.

Scottish football is not only shivering in England’s financial shadow. Our figures show disparity knows no borders where our game is concerned.

Not surprisingly, Scotland’s TV cash is dwarfed by the other four of the big five – Germany, Italy, Spain and France.

The Bundesliga has just entered into a new four-year deal worth £900m a year. Serie A is raking in £805m per season.

And La Liga is currently tied into a three-year deal worth £753m a year.

In France, the existing deal for Ligue 1 is worth £638m per season. But it’s when you travel outside the most established, wealthy football nations that the paucity of Scotland’s current financial arrangements becomes even more apparent.

Sixth on the list is Turkey which, although it has a complicated system for selling rights to its Super Lig matches, dishes out £385m a year.

In Portugal the process is even more complex and allows clubs to sell their own broadcast rights to TV companies on contracts of up to 10 years at a time.

Benfica and Sporting Lisbon are believed to have negotiated their own deals worth in excess of £350m. But, even so, the total value of the broadcast deals for the entire Primeira Liga is

calculated to come in at around £110m per year.

In Holland, a long-term deal has also been done for the rights to screen Eredivisie games at £70m a year.

Ninth in the table are Belgium who are entering into the final year of their TV contract, which has been worth £60m a year since 2014.

(Image: AFP/Getty Images)

Even in Greece, a country that has been for some time teetering on the edge of economic obliteration, the TV deals dwarf those in place for Scottish football.

They are currently gorging themselves on a contract which runs until 2019 and is worth £50m a season.

In 11th place in our rich league is Denmark which is incredible given that the Danes have a population of 5.6 million people – which is just 300,000 more than our own.

But, even so, the Danish Superliga is worth 54 million euros per season to domestic TV companies – which means the likes of Copenhagen, Brondby and Nordsjaelland get to split a total pot of £46m per year.

And in Norway, where Ronny Deila is currently in charge of Valerenga, it’s a similar story.

In fact, there is a six-year deal in place for the Eliteserien worth a total of £35m a year.

Which is not only enough to keep Deila in spotless underpants but also secures 12th place in our table.

(Image: Valerenga/Twitter)

Surprisingly, the Russians are down in 13th position with TV rights worth £35m a year. A bumper new deal will kick in later this year but even before that money floods in the existing contract still makes them relative oligarchs compared to the Scots.

In Poland the Ekstraklasa may sound more like a chocolate bar to cure constipation but it’s worth a tasty £28m a year.

Even the Swiss league is more interesting according to telly bosses who fork out £25m a year for the rights to a Super League containing Young Boys, Grasshoppers and Basel.

In Sweden the going rate is 25m euros or £21m per year to broadcast games from the

Allsvenskan, with Austria’s top flight close behind on £19m for each campaign.

And only after all of them comes the SPFL and its relative pauper’s contract with Sky and BT which at the last count was valued at £18.75m a season.

No wonder then that Doncaster has already started the process of escaping from this agreement, which will keep the Scottish game in the poorhouse for three more years. The end can’t come soon enough.