TWO discussion topics raised behind the scenes in Scottish football's corridors of power have leaked into the public domain since it was announced that the Barclays Premier League had secured a quite remarkable £5.136bn deal for its broadcast rights.

There is a feeling that, as almost 10 per cent of UK satellite TV subscribers come from Scotland, those in charge of English football should be forthcoming with some kind of commensurate 'solidarity payment' to their counterparts north of the border. The BBC should give them more, too, by the way.

Chairmen and chief executives, keeping their remarks 'off-the-record', have also started trying to find any kind of remaining life in the concept of certain clubs tunnelling an escape route into alternative competitions whether those be based in England or put together with similarly disgruntled teams from the likes of Holland, Portugal, Belgium and Scandinavia.

It all sounds rather like fiddling while Rome burns.

English football is not in the business of giving hand-outs and conversations staged within the influential European Club Association have, in the words of the Motherwell general manager Alan Burrows, suggested there is "little interest" in cross-border leagues.

Rather than gazing outward at England and its riches and placing faith in plans trapped in a cul-de-sac, then, isn't the most workable solution to be found in looking within, rectifying past errors and finding ways to make Scottish football a more attractive proposition to everyone from broadcast partners, supporters and potential investors to sponsors?

Comparing ourselves to England is pointless. While the Barclays Premier League is a slick, globally-admired money-making machine, Scottish football is a fundamentally damaged brand that has to be strengthened from the base.

We will never recapture our past glory as one of Europe's most-respected leagues. What we must do is establish best practice in the running of our clubs both in a sporting and business sense.

The collapse of Rangers, in the eyes of many, confirmed the suspicion that clubs in this country, no matter their size, were incapable of self-management with the likes of Hearts, Motherwell, Partick Thistle, Dundee, Livingston, Falkirk and Dunfermline Athletic having all suffered their own insolvency events in recent times.

The absence of Old Firm matches, the one thing capable of generating major Box Office receipts at a stroke, has also made the product more awkward to sell.

Even so, the failure to land a league sponsor since the merger of the SPL and SFL into the SPFL in the summer of 2013 is suggestive of poor management from the centre. The failure to engage blue-chip brands is similarly dispiriting. The money available from Scottish football's own television deal, around £14m-a-year until 2017, rates poorly in comparison with the £59m brought in by the Dutch League, the £40m the Belgian League receives, the £34m raised in Norway and Greek League's £30m.

The modern game revolves around television money. Raising additional revenues from that source seems the fastest way for Scottish football to begin treating its ills. Those will have to be earned, though, and that requires a commitment to invention and effort rather than an attitude of entitlement.

Charles Barnett, of the accountancy firm BDO, warns that our national sport may "disappear" should its leaders fail to lobby successfully for substantially more lucrative contracts, but that is easier said than done.

Colin Davidson, a former executive producer with Sky and Setanta and now working with beIN Sports in Qatar, feels Scottish football has missed the boat. "They are at the mercy of BT and Sky," he reported.

This, unless the idea of an in-house pay-per-view channel is brought back to life, is almost certainly true. Ergo, Burrows believes that the only answer is to treat these television companies as stakeholders rather than mere business partners and involve them in the process of revolutionising the game with a view to creating a whole, new broadcast product.

It is a compelling, if slightly controversial, view. Darts is a sport reborn thanks to the decision of the World Darts Council (now the PDC) to split from the British Darts Organisation in 1992 and make Sky TV part of the brickwork, allowing them to go 'Access All Areas' and set the agenda in covering their events. It has brought impressive spin-offs.

Their specially-constructed Premier League competition now sells out large arenas across the nation. Their world championship is so superior to the remaining BDO alternative that, with every passing year, they appear to involve different disciplines altogether. The brand just grows and grows.

Allowing TV companies to go inside the boardroom and the dressing-room, of course, is likely to encounter staunch opposition. The SPFL still refuses to place hard rules on media access into its statutes. If no-one wants to talk about the game, no-one really has to.

It hardly makes Scottish football the marketers' dream. That has to change. It has to sell itself and learn to make the most out of the free publicity that the mainstream media provides while embracing the new, almost limitless, marketing possibilities of the digital world.

Of course, a willingness to change the way the game is covered and offer access unparalleled in other leagues must come with a price. Burrows has stated that he believes Scottish football should go the whole hog and begin playing through the summer.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the likes of Sky might well pay more for a summer league in Scotland. It would fill the schedules with competitive football when there is little else of that nature on offer. How much more they would cough up is open to debate, but might it be something worth talking about in more detail?

A number of clubs are unwilling to even consider changing the dates of the season. In addition to clashing with the dates of World Cups and European Championships, they have put forward the length of the SPFL Premiership season as a stumbling block.

That could always be changed, of course. Mark Wotte, the Scottish Football Association's former performance director, advocates a 16-team league with an extended play-off system. All evidence gathered a couple of years ago, before the authorities decided to change nothing whatsoever, certainly pointed to supporters growing tired of the status quo.

Accusations that there is not enough talent in the second tier to justify a larger top division are now redundant with Hearts, Hibernian, Rangers, Falkirk and an improving Queen of the South all pushing for promotion.

A 30-game league would lead to lost revenue through the turnstiles, of course. End-of-season play-offs would, naturally, only be of benefit to certain clubs.

Burrows suggests compensating for that by staging an extended League Cup competition early in the campaign, with initial group stages based on geography that would throw up a host of early-season derbies appealing to both spectators and broadcasters.

It is all rather revolutionary and requires sober thought, but these are new ideas and new ideas are exactly what is needed. Although attendances are falling at more or less all clubs, there remains a clear appetite for football in this country and that is something to hang onto.

In day one of our series, Michael Wood, of Supporters Direct, pointed out that Scottish league football remains one of the best-supported in Europe with just under four per cent of the population attending games. Average crowds at a majority of clubs in the top two divisions are better than they were 30 years ago.

People still want to be part of their club. Events at Hearts, Motherwell, Hibernian and even Rangers have heightened a desire for fan ownership and involvement. Football still dominates media coverage because that is what most sports-minded customers demand.

One positive is that there seems to be an acceptance that the 'Fan Experience' at matches must be improved. We are already discussing the pros and cons of reintroducing alcohol and standing areas into our venues. That should only be the start in attempting to breed new supporters and call out to those who have turned their backs on the game.

St Mirren have made moves to stage alternative events outside Greenfield Road on matchdays, almost like a small-scale NFL-style tailgate party. Other clubs are working on similar projects.

Ticketing issues clearly need to be addressed. Rather than one-off promotions, more work is possibly needed on making season books or longer-term packages, at least, look as attractive as possible. It is worth stating, however, that there are good deals out there for families that maybe just aren't promoted aggressively enough.

There are clear concerns about the product. The Scottish Football Association has carried out encouraging work at youth level and these schemes should lead to an increase in standards in terms of producing players.

If there remains a lack of meaningful money around the sport, though, the best young talent will continue to be lured to England before it has even started to blossom.

Cash, like it or lump it, lies at the heart of all this. We need to find ways to bring more money into the domestic game through sponsorship and broadcasting rights.

It will allow our clubs to buy better players, pay better wages to their own homegrown talents, invest properly in scouting and coaching and academies. FC Porto, for example, have worked the system in such a way that they have been capable of registering £400m in player sales and winning 16 trophies since 2003.

Although Porto's ability to bring in cheap talent from South America without work permit issues and through Third Party agreements contributes to that, there is little question that well-run academies can bring in serious funds if the club in question has that little bit of financial stability needed to resist peppercorn payments for young players.

If generating greater revenues means tearing up the script and infuriating the traditionalists by 'selling out', that may have to happen. If it involves upsetting some of the larger clubs who have their own view of what is best for them, that may have to happen.

All bets are off. Scottish football must repackage and reposition itself in this globalised game to prevent further decline.

Hand-outs from England and non-existent escape routes are nothing to base the future on. No-one is going to help us.

We need to do this ourselves and those in charge of the SPFL really need to show, almost two years on from reorganising the structure of football's governance, that they are ambitious and innovative enough for the challenge.