A big story is bubbling up beneath the surface of world swimming. Originally floated last year, the best efforts of world governing body Fina weren’t enough to sink the idea of the world’s top aquatics performers pooling their resources to compete in something called the International Swimming League from this year onwards.

Comparable in some ways to debates over the Champions League in football, the world league in rugby union, the WBSS in boxing, or the Davis Cup in tennis, more waves arrived this week when Adam Peaty was formally announced as the face of the ISL’s soon-to-be formally-named London franchise. As far as anyone can discern, that will be one of 12 teams – six from Europe, six from the USA – who will compete in six money-spinning regular season matches, hoping to book their place in a glitzy semi-finals and finals in Las Vegas in December.

While the only other names formally announced as Peaty’s prospective team-mates so far are his fellow Englishman James Guy, and Australia’s Cameron Chalmers, Emma McKeon and Cate and Bronte Campbell, Scotland’s Duncan Scott is another man who is sure to be in demand. The Scottish swimming superstar – a stand-out individual gold medallist against top class fields at both the Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast and last August’s home European Championships – has made no secret of his backing for a competition which he feels could revolutionise the sport. The only problem is that time is marching on and there is July’s World Championships in South Korea and next summer’s Tokyo Olympics in 2020 to be planned for. While he is sure work is quietly going on in the background, for now all his energies are wisely being channelled in that direction.

“I think all swimmers are intrigued by it, and anyone who has even got a passing interest in the sport is intrigued too, because it is something new, something the sport has never seen before,” said Scott. “It has got a lot of people talking. Change isn’t necessarily always liked by certain people, there is a fear of the unknown there so that is maybe why it didn’t hit off straight away.

“As far as I am aware, there is going to be a competition in London and a final in Vegas as well,” he added. “It is just about the guys at the top communicating back, letting everybody in the swimming sphere know exactly what is going on. Other swimmers are far more involved in it than me, the likes of Peaty, Jimmy [Guy] and Siobhan-Marie O’Connor. So my approach on it has been to step back and wait to see how it pans out to be honest. I’m not sure about a bidding war for my services, perhaps they will be bidding to release me!”

“Right now, my plans for Tokyo aren’t taking this into consideration. I have to be selfish, not make plans a couple of weeks out to race for some team or other. I need to make plans right now for my Olympic preparation and we have. Myself and Steven [Tigg, my coach] have sat down and discussed what camps we will go on, where we are likely to stay for trials, what we want to do. Preparations are well on their way. Firstly, I’ve got to perform well at trials and get myself in that world championships team. After that, we are just a year out.”

Freshly back from warm weather training in Flagstaff, Arizona, and with his foot fully healed after the mishap he suffered late last year, the nex event the 21-year-old can definitely focus on is the Edinburgh International Swim meet at Meadowbank this Friday to Monday. Not only will top Scots such as Scott and Ross Murdoch host the likes of Peaty, there will be Danish and Spanish national teams present and some top individual swimmers from elsewhere on the continent. Perhaps a progress report on the ISL might even be dispensed along the way.

“I don’t feel under any particular pressure to perform well there, “ said Scott. “I didn’t swim great there last year and I seemed to swim all right in the Gold Coast and in the summer. But the standard of the meet is very good and I really like the fact there are international athletes coming over for it as well.”

All the top GB swimmers will be back in Scotland in mid-April, for the British Championships at Tollcross which also serves as the trials for the World Championships in Gwangju. “I’ve not completely finalised what I will be doing at the British Championships,” said Scott. “I have quite a few events at the Edinburgh International so I will see how they go then I will sit down with Steve after that.”