GLASGOW City head coach Scott Booth says he believes the Scottish FA will honour their promise to reinvest the windfall from this summer's World Cup in France in women's football.
All 24 nations who qualified for the tournament received $750,000 from Fifa, with further sums being given to pay for teams' preparations in the build up. The Scotland players are understood to have negotiated around $250,000 as their reward for qualifying for their first-ever World Cup.
That leaves $500,000, which Scottish FA chief executive Ian Maxwell pledged would all be reinvested in the women's game ahead of the second group match against Japan in Rennes last month. There has been no further communication on how the money will be spent, but it is understood the matter will be discussed at an SFA board meeting tomorrow.
“I would like to think not,” Booth said, when asked if he feared the windfall might be used for other purposes. “ I would hope that in the background they are working away and looking at where to invest the money, instead of a knee-jerk reaction to how to spend it.”
Booth's side meet closest challengers Hibernian in an SWPL1 game at Petershill Park on Sunday, and he hopes some of the World Cup money might be used to help speed up a semi-professional league in Scotland. Although some sides, including his own, have some players on professional contracts, the top league is amateur.
“It's really important to have an elite product in Scotland,” Booth pointed out. “If you don't have that, and the product is not good enough, you'll have less people trying to get involved – simple as that.
“There is a lot of talk about clubs going professional, and maybe one or two can go semi-professional with financial help from the men's side of the game. But for me that's not enough.
“There are other clubs in Scotland as well. They need help to eventually think about going semi-professional.”
City, with five, and Hibs (two) were the only domestic clubs with players in Shelley Kerr's squad of 23 for the World Cup, and Booth believes that's another reason to invest in the top clubs. Scotland qualified for Euro 2107 before the World Cup and their next target is Euro 2021 in England.
“If this is the kind of money is coming in from getting to the World Cup, we have to keep qualifying for major tournaments,” Booth pointed out. “That's why the elite side of the game has to improve in Scotland as well.”
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