The clubs in the top flight got a welcome boost to their finances this week as they received their final instalments of fees for last season from the SPL. The payments, totalling £800,000, brought the total issued to clubs participating in last season League programme to £18m - a record amounts since the SPL's inception in 1998. Added to this was the annual support payment of around £1.7million paid to the Scottish Football League last season, with £375,000 in parachute payments made to recently relegated clubs.

All in a all, a reasonably successful season for Scottish fotball. SPL company secretary Iain Blair said: "We achieved record turnover last season and paid record fees to our member clubs. The current climate is challenging but thankfully we are in good shape with turnover likely to increase even further this season."