SCOTTISH football’s new television deal will be even Old Firm-centric than before which is sure to dismay those who feel the game would be better served by not showing every Celtic and Rangers away game.

Sky Sports may have paid as much as £160million for a five-year contract for exclusive rights to the SPFL Premiership, although the full price has not yet been confirmed, and with so much money involved there was no chance of the two Glasgow giants not being absolutely central to that decision.

This is the informed view of Colin Davidson who more than anyone else has been more deeply involved as to the how Scottish football has been shown in this country over the past 30 years.

Formerly in charge of the coverage of Scotsport, Sky Sports and Setanta, he does not believe his former employers who won out on the bidding will offer more programmes to the public beyond the live matches, something which has been a bugbear of armchair fans for years.

There are supporters of Celtic and Rangers who can at least appreciate that there are weekends when their away fixture is shown when there are more high profile matches ignored. That every ground is only allowed four live games a season is the biggest factor in this.

However, Davidson, today a senior producer with beIN MEDIA in Qatar, believes the Old Firm to be by far the greatest pull for any broadcaster and they will be given even more preference and will continue to dominate the coverage.

He said: “Looking in from the outside, this puts Celtic and Rangers even more at the front of Scottish football on television. This is a major commercial deal. That’s a lot to spend on Scottish football and, I know people won’t like this, the Old Firm rule the way, they are the biggest draw and that’s going to be even more of a case now.

“I get why people want to see say Hearts play Aberdeen at Tynecastle rather than Celtic at Hamilton, but there are 60,000 who go to Parkhead every week, plus those who aren’t able to get to a game, and that is a lot of viewers. We are talking big numbers. Same with Rangers, of course.

“The thing for me is this deal is more concentrated with less live games, not a bad thing if you ask me, but Celtic and Rangers will still dominate. We won’t see any less of their fixtures.”

Davidson is an admirer of how BT Sport breathed fresh air into the game’s coverage but understood why the League ignored public opinion and went with the far less popular Sky Sports.

He said: “You can’t blame the SPFL for taking this offer. For the first time in years they could listen to a number of bids instead of nobody or just one broadcaster interested. They had to take the highest offer for the benefit of their member clubs and Sky paid the highest price.

“They created a bidding war which has got them more money and Sky deserved the contract because they put together by far the best deal. You can’t blame either the league or Sky Sports for this deal going through.

“I would ask where the BT Sport bosses were in all of this. BT had the better broadcasting product. I would say the majority of football supporters in Scotland would have wanted BT to get a deal done.

“By seemed to know what the punter wanted. They got Scottish football for what it is. They did make a better fist of it.

“Ally McCoist on our screens is always a good thing. And love or hate Chris Sutton, he was enthusiastic and had something to say. Whether he actually meant everything which came of his mouth I’m not so sure, but he made you want to watch.”

Davidson won a Scottish Bafta for his work on Scotsport Extra Time and it’s this kind of show, missing from the current schedules.

He does not believe there is going to be a massive change in philosophy come 2020.

Davidson said: “It would alarm people if they knew just how low down the list of priorities Scottish football is to the likes of SKY. Compared to what they think of the Premier League, they are not one the same planet. Take that from me.

“So, for those wanting a show on Sky such as we had with Scotsport extra-time back in the day; sorry, but that is just not going to happen. Same goes for highlights shows and any number of ideas you could come up with.

“Look, I don’t know their plans, obvious, but I would surprise you will get more coverage aside from the games of course. It would be a better product and help to showcase Scottish football but it’s just not going to happen. People need to accept that