All 42 SPFL clubs handed £50,000 Covid-19 crisis grants

Every club in the Scottish Professional Football League has successfully applied for a crisis grant as a result of the £3m donation from benefactor James Anderson.

Three clubs – Aberdeen, Celtic and Kilmarnock – will donate their grant to their partner charities.

All 42 clubs will receive £50,000 each with money already being transferred to help them through the Coronavirus shutdown of the game.

The grants were issued by the SPFL Trust, the league’s charitable arm, on the basis that clubs could prove the money would have a wider benefit to the community.

The trust said the money will go towards opening up stadia to re-start community work and help clubs gets back to training, the purchase of Covid-19 testing kit, purchase of personal protective equipment and paying for deep cleaning of facilities.

Some lower league sides will use the cash to set up broadcasting capabilities so that fans can follow their team’s fortunes from home when matches resume behind closed doors.

Aberdeen’s grant will be made directly to the AFC Community Trust to support the re-opening of community and training facilities. Celtic’s cash will go to the Celtic FC Foundation to support its ‘Football for Good’ fund. Kilmarnock’s £50,000 is being sent directly to the Kilmarnock Community Sports Trust to support projects dealing with social isolation and health and wellbeing in East Ayrshire.

Nicky Reid, SPFL Trust chief executive, said she was pleased to have processed the grant applications within a week.

She said: “I’m really heartened by the way clubs have embraced this process. All have thought carefully about how they would use their grant, to help get operations back up and running, get stadiums bio-secure and therefore open for community engagement, again.

“As part of the commitment to transparency, all clubs will evidence to us how they use their grant, and we’ll make sure we share some of those stories of impact.”