The 2026 Scottish Cup final will be played at the end of May. Both finalists, at the time of going to press, are still in contention; the path to the final has, however, produced one of the closer reads on the state of Scottish football since the 2015–16 season.
Aberdeen are, on form across the last calendar quarter, the team in the most consistent shape outside the Old Firm pair. Their manager has built a side that defends mid-block with conviction and counters with a directness that has caused both Glasgow sides problems on the day. Hibernian and Hearts are both still capable of a cup run in a way they have not been for several seasons, and Hibs in particular have an away-record this calendar year that is the best in the league.
The structural question, regardless of who wins the final itself, is what it says about whether the gap between the Old Firm and the rest of the Premiership has begun, finally and meaningfully, to compress. The Premiership table at the end of April was tighter than its end-of-April equivalent in any of the previous nine seasons. Celtic and Rangers will still finish in the top three; both could finish second. Aberdeen, Hibs and Hearts have all spent at least a month inside the top four at some point in this season's run.
On the broadcast side, the SPFL's new five-year cycle starts at the end of this season. The revenue-distribution headlines are familiar — top-of-the-league heavily weighted, with a slightly steeper drop-off for places 4–6 than under the previous deal. Smaller clubs continue to argue that the distribution shape entrenches the gap rather than narrows it; the league response is that the absolute level of revenue, even at the bottom of the table, has risen.
What is unambiguously true is that Scottish football's national-team trajectory under Steve Clarke and now his successor has, slowly and not entirely without setbacks, raised the floor of where individual club squads sit. There are more genuinely Premiership-quality players spread across the league than there were five years ago. That is, in the long run, the most likely route to a structural change in who reaches finals.
A non-Old Firm winner this year would not, by itself, signal a change. Two of those across three or four seasons would. The 2026 final is one fixture; what matters more is the season after that, and the one after that.
Eilidh Tait is Culture Editor at The Scottish Review.