Scotland scrap Switzerland friendly as Euro 2024 draw means battle plans must be kept under wraps

Scotland had planned to face Switzerland but that will no longer be happening after we were drawn together with the Swiss in Group A.

Scotland have been forced to ditch plans for a friendly against Switzerland after drawing them at Euro 2024.

Steve Clarke had planned to take on the Swiss in preparation for the tournament in Germany. But when the countries were selected together in Group A, along with Germany and Hungary - the SFA had to abandon that idea. Clarke will now look for alternative opposition, with two warm-up games in March and another two in June.

Scotland will kick off the tournament in Munich against the hosts on June 14. But SFA chief Ian Maxwell says the work starts now in terms of securing a training base for Clarke’s side - as well as the friendly fixtures. And it’s understood Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Bavaria is a leading contender for the German base. After the draw in Hamburg, he said: “In typical fashion, we had agreed with Switzerland that we would play them but we won’t be doing that now."

“We will work it out in the coming days but we’ll have one home, one away in March - and the same in June. I’m sure the Scotland supporters will turn out to see the team in both of those preparation games.

“It’s vital we get those lined up as much as the manager wants, in terms of the standard of the team and even the days we play. He’s quite keen to play with the same gap we’ll have at the Euros so if we can organise that we will.

“Every bit of preparation is important now. It’s exciting and the tournament will be here before we know it. All our focus now is making sure we’re as prepared as we can be. There is a huge amount of work to do.

“The guys back in the office will be hard at it from Monday to make sure it’s everything that everyone wants it to be. It’s such an important event for us.”

The SFA will bank £8 million just from being at Euro 2024, while every win for Clarke’s team in Germany will pocket them a further £850,000 or £430,000 for a draw. If the Scots can make history and progress to the knock-out phase for the first time ever, it will earn us a cool £1.2 million on top. But Maxwell says they’ll use some of that cash to ensure the Scotland players have the best facilities possible when they get to Germany.

He said: “We get 9.25 million euros as a participation fee from UEFA but there is a huge amount of costs involved. The finances involved are one thing but more important is the engagement and interest this will create across Scotland because everybody will be talking about it.

“Graeme Jones, our head of performance, has been tasked with finding training facilities and a base camp. With the group we’re now in, one or two he eyed up will be achievable depending on different things. But other countries will be thinking the same thing.

“It’s a complicated process because every country has been to Germany ranking training base camps. We’ll have one base for the duration of the tournament and we’ll travel to and from the matches. That’s the plan as we don’t want to do too much travelling around.”