Hibs chief optimistic that SPFL review can help change the Scottish game for better
Hibs chief executive Ben Kensell believes the review into the SPFL launched by the Easter Road side and four of their top-flight colleagues has a real chance of changing Scottish football for the better.
The Capital club joined forces with Aberdeen, Hearts, Dundee, and Dundee United as well as finance experts Deloitte to explore how best to grow the game in Scotland.
Kensell is optimistic that the outcome will be overwhelmingly beneficial for clubs and the sport as a whole and firmly believes more can be achieved by teams working together.
“I think it's a really collaborative movement, it's certainly not a hostile movement. It's being spearheaded by a lot of the club owners and has full backing from a lot of clubs involved,” he revealed.
"It's a view of what we can do moving forward, and how can we grow the game in general, from a broadcast perspective, and from an exposure perspective.
"Scottish football is a fantastic product and we want to try and grow that and extract the maximum value. That's the movement; it's been backed by a lot of clubs, it's got momentum and, from an SPFL perspective, it's also being supported as well."
The Easter Road chief believes clubs in Scotland have to be “progressive and innovative” in order to advance the game.
"Change is positive. A lot of people see change as a negative but I would say that we've got to move forward, we've got to be progressive, we've got to innovate, ultimately we've got to try and do something a little different,” he added.
"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you always get, and I think there's a group of owners now in Scottish football that don't want to just sit there and do what we've always done. We want to be more progressive.
"If we can actually make improvements from the grassroots side of the game all the way up to the elite side of the game and grow revenue streams, that will only benefit the football that you see on the park.
"As a country, Scotland is probably one of the most supportive nations in terms of its domestic football.
"It’s an unbelievable product. Fantastic game, fantastic product, fantastic atmosphere. So for me, there's a there's a much greater value than we're probably receiving at the moment.”
Kensell is focused on taking the game to the next level and working with fellow Scottish Premiership clubs to try and advance things. He isn’t concerned about the SPFL’s voting structure harming what he sees as a positive movement for change.
"I'm not here to talk around the governance of the game and and how, or why, we haven't moved forward,” he continued.
"We're being progressive, we're being innovative, and we want to move forward. I think there's a more of a collaborative effort amongst clubs to try and change.
"Whether it comes down to a voting structure, or the governance of the game or not; for me, it's actually the belief that we can do more as a collective rather than individual clubs.
"That's the positive for me, and that's where the movement is really progressive.”