THE coming months are going to tell us whether Sir David Murray was ahead of his time when he worried about Setanta being able to pay up. When the broadcaster first appeared on the Scottish football scene the Rangers chairman made no secret of the fact he was suspicious. He voted against their initial £35 million contract with the SPL in 2004 and openly doubted whether they would attract the number of subscribers they needed to honour their cheques. He told the Sunday Herald at the time that "we're all going to be highly embarrassed if it doesn't reach those figures".

Well, Setanta did reach its targets. It exceeded them. Not only was that original deal a successful one for all concerned, Setanta went on to agree new contracts with the SPL in 2006 (for £54.5m) and 2008 (for £125m). It transformed its reputation for poor broadcasting standards by luring respected presenters, commentators and executive staff away from Sky Sports and the terrestrial channels.

There is no doubt Setanta have been a success story for the SPL. Its money has shored up our major clubs for most of this decade. Celtic and Rangers may carp that their television income is only a 10th of what smaller clubs in the English Premier League take home each year, but the fact remains that it is Setanta who have been willing to pay more than anyone else for SPL rights. Sky Sports hasn't put a penny into the SPL for seven years, not since its offer of £45m was rejected because former SPL chief executive Roger Mitchell was chasing the fool's gold of "SPL TV".

It is the SPL's reliance on Setanta which made last week horribly chilling. While much was made of humdrum, 10-a-penny matters such as Rangers losing to Caledonian Thistle and Craig Levein accusing Hearts players of diving, a grave development at Setanta barely caused a ripple. The story was that it had deferred on a payment of £10m to the FA in England. Media reports south of the border were describing the Irish pay-per-view company as "troubled" and claiming that it wanted to renegotiate its major contracts with sports governing bodies. And, yes, that included the SPL.

This doesn't bear thinking about. It is a horrifying prospect for Scottish football. For most SPL clubs, broadcasting money accounts for between 25-33% of their income. If Setanta's problems worsen they may try to renegotiate with the SPL in order to defer payments, or pay less, or even look at handing back the rights altogether. Perhaps another broadcaster would come to the rescue with money to take over those rights, but Sky Sports have shown no interest for years and the BBC and ITV cannot justify the expensive purchase of rights when they are costcutting and laying off staff.

Across the UK economy everyone is laying off staff, or so it seems. Others are facing reduced earnings one way or another. This makes a pay-per-view channel extremely vulnerable. Setanta costs £12.99 a month via satellite. For many people that's an easy saving.

The worst case scenario? Subscriptions go down and Setanta's income is slashed. That makes it harder for them to bid for rights or meet their existing obligations.

The fewer games they have, the more likely they are to lose subscribers. It is a vicious circle. Six months ago a media writer in The Guardian wrote that if Setanta lost any contracts "analysts reckon the company would lose much of its value and could even collapse". Five months later it was squeezed out by BSkyB in deals to show the English Premier League from 2010 and secured the rights to only 23 matches a season (it currently has 46). Now it is late with a payment and the SPL is on tenterhooks about what happens next. "We confirm that they are fully up to date with all their payments," was the best an SPL spokesman could say last week. That was no reassurance at all. Confidentiality agreements mean that neither the SPL nor Setanta will discuss the true state of affairs but even amateur economists can see that none of this looks good.

The SPL is a hostage to fortune. It can do little beyond desperately hoping Setanta's fortunes turn. The alternative is the collapse of the most lucrative broadcasting contract in Scottish football history, economic devastation, redundancies and potential administration for some of our biggest clubs. Let's hope for silence from Setanta in the months ahead. No news is good news.

Is there an argument for not having a player of the year this season? You'll hear cases being made for Scott Brown, Pedro Mendes or Steven Davis in the coming weeks because these days, it seems, we're all incapable of contemplating anyone other than Celtic and Rangers players getting the big awards. The fact is the aformentioned have been as patchy and inconsistent as the rest. There has not been a consistently outstanding candidate, but if Hamilton's goalkeeper, Tomas Cerny, played for one of the top two everyone would be all over him.

As for manager of the year, what price the man initially written off as an eccentric outsider, Csaba Laszlo?