Anonymous donor gifts £100,000 to women's football

Scottish Women’s Football Championship sides have been given a boost after an anonymous benefactor donated £100,000 to help clubs through the coronavirus crisis.

The money, gifted through the Scottish Football Partnership Trust, is to support the sustainability of clubs in the regional leagues, who started the new competition in March 2020 but saw games postponed because of the pandemic.

The investment will be split equally between the 26 clubs in the Championship, with each receiving £3,846. It follows a recent donation from Edinburgh businessman James Anderson to Scotland’s senior women’s teams.

James Clydesdale, chair of the Scottish Football Partnership Trust, said:

“This is another great boost for women’s football and the new funds will be used to support clubs at Championship level navigate the challenges brought on by the Covid pandemic.

“It is very encouraging that another benefactor is prepared to support SWF at such a time.

“It shows how the status and progress of the women’s game is recognised and acknowledged as an integral part of football in Scotland.”

Vivienne Maclaren, chair of SWF, said: “We are delighted to be bringing yet more positive news to our members and we are pleased that these funds will support the Championship clubs who make up the rest of our Performance pyramid below the SWPL”.

“An incredible amount of work and consultation went into devising the new competition structure which clearly identifies the performance pathway from a competition perspective.

“We were delighted by the response of clubs, who invested in their infrastructure as well as volunteers/staff, and the outcome was 26 motivated and ambitious clubs in the Championship league ready to kick off the new season and new competition structure in March 2020”.

“These Championship clubs now find themselves in the position that having invested in their club programmes, they are without football and importantly have very few mechanisms for generating revenues.

“This donation will help maintain the progress made within the women’s game and we would like to place on record our sincere thanks to the donor.”