Ranked: All 42 Scottish clubs on how they are run - and how they treat fans
Celtic are best-run club - but there are concerns over how many clubs scoor poorly in one vital category.
Celtic are officially the best-run club in Scotland, according to a comprehensive study out today.
Experts from football think tank Fair Game spent months analysing how the 42 league clubs performed in 200 distinct areas.
They have scored clubs on:
financial sustainability
good governance
equality standards
fan and community engagement
The panel then awarded an overall score out of 100.
Overall
Best in each division (* - as of the 2023/24 season) were Celtic, Partick Thistle, Stirling Albion and Clyde.
Worst in each division* were: Livingston, Airdrie, Hamilton and Peterhead.
Celtic were front runners by quite some distance and Rangers came in eighth.
It’s fair to compare clubs with division rivals
The statistics learn in the favour of bigger clubs because criteria related to football governance don’t apply to smaller clubs.
So it is fair to compare clubs with those in their own divisions* at the time Fair Game did the analysis in 2023/24.
Financial sustainability
The score was out of 40 - and Celtic smashed it with 36.5, closely followed by St Mirren with 33.1
Most other Premiership clubs were close behind but Rangers scored only 24.4.
The top performers in the other divisions* were Partick Thistle, Queen of the South and Clyde.
Hamilton were far and away the worst performers in this category, scoring 3.9.
By division, the lowest scores were from: Livingston, Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Hamilton and Stranrear.
Fan and community engagement
A big shoutout for Stenhousemuir, who scored joint top in this category with Hibs - at 8.3 out of 10.
Celtic were way down in 13th, pipped by Rangers, who made it to 11th.
At the other end there were some concerning scores from the likes of Peterhead and Alloa, who each scored 0.3 and Kelty Hearts and Edinburgh City, who each scored 0.7.
Good governance
This category looks at how good clubs are at considering the way their decisions are tested and scrutinised.
For example, do they make decisions based on a set of pre-defined rules that ensure the move is in the club’s long-term interests, with decision makers scrutinised and held accountable?
Celtic scored best in this category with 25.1 out of 30, with Hearts and Rangers not far behind. Ross County scored just 10.9.
Best in each division* were Celtic, Partick Thistle, Stirling Albion and Clyde.
Worst in each division* were Livingston, Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Edinburgh City (who scored just 2.2 out of 30) and Peterhead.
Equality standards
This was perhaps the most worrying category.
It looked at where clubs treat all the groups it works with - staff, coaches, players, fans and partners - equally, regardless of their background.
The score was out of 20 and only one club - Celtic - scored double figures, and even then it was only 13.
Seven clubs scored under 2.
Aberdeen were second with 8.5 and Ross County and Livingston were lagging way behind, scoring just 3.6 and 3.2 respectively.
Best clubs in each division* were Celtic, Partick Thistle, Alloa and Bonnyrigg Rose.
Worst clubs in each division* were Livingston, Aidrie, Kelty Hearts and Clyde.
Conclusion
It’s unfair to judge the smaller clubs too harshly, as most have very few staff and some are run by volunteers
And even if those clubs had legions of staff, it would still be unfair to expect top marks because their level of the game doesn’t demand certain boxes to be ticked.
The same cannot be said for the 12 Premiership clubs, who all receive big money from the league and should be getting things right.
Livingston (albeit now in the Championship) scoring 25.6 out of 100 is frankly baffling - and Ross County didn’t do too much better with 32.7.
It’s maybe a surprise that County were ranked 21st given the praise I rightly gave them a few weeks ago for their low ticket prices.
Being charitable, you might say they can’t be expected to hit the heights of the Old Firm.
It will be a concern for the Ibrox top brass that they scored 21.3 points fewer than their Glasgow rivals and finished behind seven Premiership clubs.
So how could we see improvement?
League boss doesn’t want an independent regulator
Fair Game thinks clubs that score highly in these studies should be rewarded by getting more money from the league so lower scorers buck their ideas up.
However, I highly doubt that will happen anytime soon.
In recent days, SPFL chief Neil Doncaster voiced strong opposition to Scotland getting the kind of independent regulator that English football is getting.
So taking guidance from Fair Game would arguably contradict that, particularly because Fair Game favours an independent regulator for Scotland too.
So what might improve standards?
Well, continued scrutiny (like this post) - and from fans.
Why not contact your club to praise them for doing things right and asking why they got things wrong?
Ask how they are setting things right and maybe hold them to it in future.
For me, it’s crucial there is at least year-on-year improvement so supporters can see clubs are taking it seriously.
Having spoken with the people at Fair Game, this was a commendable, extensive body of work.
We all want watch football clubs doing right by their community and fanbase.
What’s key for me is that, in cases where (particularly smaller) clubs ask for the league’s help in making improvements, they get it.
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