NEIL Doncaster believes there are grounds for optimism that Scottish football will secure a substantially improved television deal next time around, despite the game in this country having a "difficult" relationship with broadcasters in the past.

The current, £14 million-per-season contract was signed late in 2011 and runs until 2016-17. Herald Sport's State of Scottish Football series has highlighted a number of issues of interest to supporters, clubs and administrators - such as summer football, safe standing at grounds, and the introduction of alcohol sales - but a central complaint is the modest income clubs receive each year from Sky Sports and BT Sport.

But the emergence of BT Sport as a serious player in the pursuit of domestic sports rights has encouraged governing bodies like the SPFL that rights deals will improve if they get into auctions with Sky Sports. SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster said it was impossible to predict how the broadcasting industry would behave around football even in two or three years' time, but England's astonishing £5.1 billion deal for domestic rights had sent shockwaves around all European leagues.

"The history of Scotland's position with television has been a difficult one at times," said Doncaster."One shouldn't underestimate the massive damage that the collapse of Setanta did to Scottish football at that time and since." Setanta went bust in 2009, when it was the SPL's primary broadcaster partner. "The reality was that the clubs effectively went all in with a new entrant to the market and for reasons that are now well understood that new entrant failed in the UK.

"Don't underestimate how many shockwaves have been sent through other European leagues, not just ours, by the new English TV deal. I was at a meeting with the European leagues last week and there is genuine concern in the other countries about the extent to which England is pulling away even from the biggest leagues in Europe. We feel it more, partly because of the shared language and the shared broadcasting market within the UK. They are on our border. We're in a very similar to the other second-tier European leagues but we feel it all the more markedly.

"Thirty years ago there wasn't much between the Scottish and English leagues. Scottish clubs were able to compete with the very best. Since its formation in 1992 the English Premier League has grown exponentially. It is now the number one broadcast product in many, many territories elsewhere in the world, far more than the local domestic league in those countries. That almost colonisation of the world is an absolute phenomenon. But the rich in football are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and we feel it more than most."

Supporters are consistently inconvenienced by kick-off times being moved around to suit the television companies. That is a necessary evil as far as clubs are concerned. "The game needs financing to run," said Doncaster. "That money comes from a variety of sources, one of them is TV. Clearly if you are working with TV companies you need to work with the slots that they want to use. Equally, the financing comes from fans too and you have to be sensitive to what remains affordable relative to other forms of enjoyment. Football is still very affordable and clubs are doing an awful lot of work to make it even more affordable still.

"Money is very important, but money through whatever means will be created through interest, and that interest in football in Scotland remains undimmed. Attendances are still robust, per population they are among the very, very best. But we should always do more to enhance that experience for fans and I think safe standing and piloting the introduction of alcohol sales absolutely have a part to play in that. It remains part of the fabric of Scottish society in a way that doesn't apply in other countries. We have some huge structural advantages and some huge structural disadvantages, and being on the doorstep of England is the biggest of those.

"The fundamentals in Scotland should give us cause for optimism for the game going forward. That's down to the crucial importance of football in Scottish society. It's a complete phenomenon up here. It is unlike anywhere else that I've seen in Europe, and probably the world. The passion we have for the game in Scotland should mean that the game should be optimistic about its future.

"Summer football" is seen as an impractical suggestion because of the length of the Premiership season, to need to avoid a clash with World Cup and European Championship finals every two years, and the desperate shortage of available dates because of Uefa's insistence that top flight domestic games are not held on the same midweek nights as Champions League ties.

"There is no one silver bullet," said Doncaster. "The only one possible silver bullet would be some sort of cross-border competition, that is a potential transformer of the game. Outwith that I think the other areas that you could look at are going to help - safe standing and a pilot scheme on alcohol would help, without a doubt - but are they going to absolutely transform the Scottish game? Of course not. But that's not what it's about. It's about doing what we can to enhance the experience for fans of the Scottish game and encourage more people to come back."