Dave Cormack insists Scottish clubs need to find innovative new ways to get bored fans back through the turnstiles.
The Aberdeen chairman believes a wind of change needs to sweep through our game, starting with a merger of the SFA and SPFL.
Scottish football has been shrouded in negativity, with in-fighting over calling the season early and potential league reconstruction while many clubs fear for their future due to the coronavirus crisis.
Now Cormack believes it is time to inject some positivity and creativity to attract new investment in the game.
He said: “Instead of looking to a broadcast deal which, let’s say in 10 years’ time is probably gone, clubs have to go out and look for investment.
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“It’s the responsibility of directors to look for investment and put marketing plans in place.
“The game in Scotland will survive - it absolutely will - but in what shape or form is it going to be in in 10 years’ time?
“The important thing is where we will be in five to 10 years’ time.
“If you ask the 42 clubs in Scotland where you’ll get varying opinions.”
Cormack knows for too long Scottish football has been too complacent with its supporters and now we have to give the fans a better experience to boost ailing attendances.
He believes we should try things like Saturday night football, look at a summer season and even allow colts teams to play in a league set-up.
“The reality is the fans are bored and we ignore them at our peril,” Cormack claimed.
“This is like an ideas factory.
“The chances are that others will be continuing to do what they do, we’ll be ploughing our own furrow and nothing happens centrally.
“I’ve tried to put on a couple of games on a Saturday night, six thirty or seven o’clock kick offs.
“Why should we dictate the format if there is an opportunity to have more crowds?
“It maybe doesn’t work for some clubs, but we certainly think - and Friday night has proved it - we’d have better attendances.
“People have a lot more to do on a Saturday, people play grass roots football for example.
“Summer football is another thing? I haven’t mentioned it at any of the other meetings because you kind of get beaten down.
“The other thing I see is there will be colt teams, absolutely Celtic and Rangers - and I have no problem with it - they have aspirations to grow and that growth will be in Europe, not in Scotland.”
The Atlanta-based businessman has ploughed more than £7 million of his own money into Aberdeen and brought in more than £14 million in investment that has helped to build the club’s new Cormack Park training facility.
He explained: “The investment I’ve made in the club is really to try to put a smile on the people’s faces in Aberdeen.
“This is the best opportunity we’ve had since Aberdeen was founded in 1903 to reset and engage the community.
“The investment from me in Aberdeen isn’t an investment to make money, it’s a social investment.”
The Dons and the Major League Soccer outfit Atlanta have a football partnership and Cormack thinks these sort of ties ups will become more commonplace and some of Europe’s clubs could look to Scotland for potential feeder clubs, as has already been mooted by Chelsea.
Scottish football crisis
Cormack stated: “The collaboration of clubs worldwide, like the Man City model, will take hold - I guarantee it.
“The restrictions on that will be lifted.
“The core of that will be collaboration and player development.
“I can see that being the grounds for investment in clubs in Scotland.
“These people are particular, though, if people turn up to rusty stadiums in the middle of winter and get a cold pie.
“We have to be better than that.”
The Aberdonian also believes there will be radical change in the European game over the next decade. He has predicted there will be European leagues that will run in parallel with the domestic set-up and be based on the finances of teams, with a move away from the Champions and Europa Leagues.
Cormack knows that will be the reality because the days of Aberdeen toppling the likes of Real Madrid again are a distant memory due to the huge financial gulf.
He, speaking on the Are You Not Entertained podcast, predicted: “If I look ten years’ out, there will be closed-door European cross-border leagues, I believe that will take place.
“Why is that? Most European leagues - including Scotland - are dominated by one or two teams.
“What this proves to me is that a monolithic domestic league proves one size does not fit all.
“Here’s how I see it - cross border leagues
“I like a boxing analogy. If you were setting up a fight and want to make £100 million, why would you put a lightweight in with a heavyweight?
“Maybe once in a hundred years the lightweight is going to win.
“What is a fair fight? This is what I think will even itself out in Europe because the days of Dundee United beating Barcelona and Aberdeen beating Real Madrid are gone.
“That doesn’t mean there isn’t an appetite for football, so from my perspective, what I think would be fair is to bracket clubs according to what they spend on their budget.
“Let’s have a Champions League for teams who are 20 million Euros or less, 40 million Euros.
“If we don’t discuss these things and go down the line with that, we’ll never go anywhere.”
