IT'S not quite the £120million the English Premier League boasts that their play-off final is worth.

 

Indeed, there is surely no greater example of the different levels in terms of cold hard cash we here in Scotland operate under compared to England when you take into account what promotion and relegation is valued on either side of the border.

If Motherwell lose to Rangers in our own play-off, they will receive two parachute payments over two seasons from the SPFL. The first being £500,000, the second £250,000.

Those who believe there is too much money in English football should look away now.

If Norwich City, who Alex Neil led to the Premier League in that final on Monday, are relegated at the end of next season, they are in line to earn somewhere not too distant from £100m over four seasons in parachute payments; that's if they don't make it back out of the Championship over that period.

The figure currently stand sat £24m for a club in its first year outside the Premier League, £19.2m for those in their second and £9.6m for those in their third and fourth. But the new television deal, which kicks in a year from now, will it is estimated 'earn' the team that finishes bottom of the Premier League a payment of £30m right off.

Last year, it was Hamilton Academical, managed of course by man of the moment Neil, who came up via the play-offs thanks to their dramatic win on penalties against Hibernian.

Their turnover increased from £600,000-£800,000 in the Championship to £1.3million-£1.6million. So more less double, and that's with the smallest gate receipts in the Premier League.

Where there is a major change is that a good season in the top tier can earn additional prize money if they end up in a decent league position, as Hamilton did by finishing seventh. An extra couple of hundred grand might be small change for some, but this is money Hamilton, and everyone else, need.

According to the Red flag Alert Football Distress Report, published earlier this year, by Begbies Traynor, the business rescue and recovery specialists, neither Rangers of Hibernian would be threatened with administration if they failed to go up, which is of course what happened to the Edinburgh club.

Certainly, if Dave King does invest, and the Mike Ashley problem doesn't get any worse, then Rangers could easily survive one more year out of the Premier League, even if it would hurt.

"It is bound to be financially damaging for whichever team fails to go up, but from a Rangers point of view, they have at least stabilised themselves," the report said. "Dave King has now bought in, and the previous fans' boycott now seems to have stopped. Would it be a catastrophe if Rangers did not go up?

Would it lead them them back into administration? Probably not."

But with Ashley not about to walk away and the club far from being one of the most financially stable in world football no matter what has been claimed, another year in the Championship is going to hurt, no matter how big the cheque King is going to write.

As for Motherwell, if they do go down then will be grateful it has come this year. Someone close to the club told me yesterday that had Motherwell been in this position 12 months ago and had in fact been relegated, there was a strong chance the administrators would have walked back through the doors of Fir Park some for the first time since those dark days of 2002.

New owner Les Hutchison has agreed to underwrite the club if the worse case scenario happens. Added to that the £500,000 and the Lanarkshire outfit would actually be okay..not that anyone wants to go down.

To properly gauge how losing the play-off would affect a club which doesn't have a rich new owner - which to all intents and purposes Rangers and Motherwell do - would be to look at what would happen to Motherwell without Hutchison if they fell out the league.

The wage bill would be cut by between 30 and 40 per cent. One year contracts would be just about the best they could offer to any player who was willing to take a drop in money and league status.

As it is, if Motherwell were ever going to go down, now is the year to do it. They are lucky.

The stark reality is that in England a club is rewarded richly for failure. In Scotland, people lose their jobs and clubs are forced to make drastic cuts just keep going.