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The problem with our league is that its not a competition of skill, it's a competition of cash which only Rangers and Celtic can win. There's absolutely nothing for the rest of us to get excited about. It's a no brainer really - money is ruining this game as indeed it is slowly starting to do in England. You mention Sunderland V Blackburn; 2 teams who might've won that league 20 years ago now with no chance unless a billionnaire buys them out. How long before their fans wake up and stop wasting their hard earned money?

The league in my opinion needs to be equal financially so only the best teams win, and not those with the most money. Until that changes personally I will continue to not waste my money watching my team being hopelessly out-competed season after season.

First I've heard of colt teams, it seems like a sensible enough idea for the Old Firm, but what on earth would any other teams gain by playing their under 23s in SPL2; at present it doesn't look as though Aberdeen could field ANY team capable of winning the 1st Division what would their reserves bring to a competitive league. Crazy idea.

Jim,

You鈥檝e come up with another good one here.

I do agree that things need freshened up but what you mention hardly qualifies as 鈥淩adical Change鈥� in my opinion.

It is simply reorganisation and we鈥檝e seen it all before.

Like #1鈥檚 comments, fan鈥檚 despondency at the lack of involvement in the decision making processes is exacerbated by all the other general gloom and doom, giving many people the perception that things are worse than they are. If this proposed restructure goes ahead and it helps break us out of this rut, then well and good.

Radical change would be the paying fans involvement that you touch on at the end of your piece.

Radical change would be the scrapping of the SFA Executive board and replacing it with a single senior management team, who鈥檚 members are truly accountable by way of properly defined Delegations of Authority and Responsibilities.

Radical change would be ending the intimidation by the senior clubs, the SPL in particular and establishing a level playing field of representation so that all those involved in Scottish football have a voice.

Radical change would be getting rid of the bird brained numpties in the board rooms of our clubs, that take decisions like the ones made by Dundee FC and goodness knows how many other clubs.

Radical change would be increased success and representation for our top clubs in Europe and similar success for the national side.

Radical change would be ending Old Firm domination.

Radical change would be realising that as an industry, Scottish football has no earthly idea of how to get people through the turnstiles and that a massive effort is required in training and support for all clubs in how to reverse this trend.

As for the regionlised lower league madness 鈥� if anything is designed to drive away paying fans then this is surely it.

After all isn鈥檛 this the whole idea of that proposal 鈥� nothing more than a disguised cull of what the top clubs see as the ones who have to die so that they can survive?

The 成人论坛鈥檚 own web video SPL Skills shows that there is plenty skill around to applaud and be positive about.

It鈥檚 off the park that where the real problems lie.

I'd merge the Scottish and English leagues based on average crowd attendances for the past season or two, with a few seasons of larger relegations until the wheat is sorted from the chaff.

The big two would hold up in the Premier League most likely, with the next level aligning in the Championship, etc. Granted this gives a larger fixture list for a few seasons, but it also prevents the English clubs from complaining that their places have been give to Scottish clubs. They can play those Scottish clubs and if they're as good as they think the Scots will fill up the bottom of the table and be relegated until they find their level.

At the bottom of the food chain you'd find the lower division Scottish clubs falling into the northern sections of the lower leagues which will fit with reducing travelling costs, exactly as the English non-league system handles it currently.

It's a no brainer, only the ridiculous sentiments of people still living in a pre 16th century world want to keep the Scots, English and Welsh separate. Swansea, Wrexham and Cardiff have all found their level in the English leagues, I can't see why Scottish teams shouldn't do the same (along with Northern Irish and other Welsh sides by the way) - its utterly mad and only misplaced pride prevents it - it's called Great Britain for a reason.

I don't believe that restructuring will make any difference, as it will not address any of the fundamental problems eloquently put by Iain Jack.

We require a whole new approach to the professional game in Scotland, and input from the paying customer should be at the core of this. Sadly, the vested interests of the OF will probably scupper any proposals that seek to undermine their privileged position, before they have a chance to make any impact.

In Divisions 2 and 3 aren't most clubs part-time anyway? And would regionalising those divisions really make *that much* difference? Plainly if the clubs don't want it then it shouldn't be foisted on them since the "problems of Scottish football" aren't the problems of Peterhead, Elgin, Alloa, the Angus clubs, Berwick and the rest. They seem to tootle along quite happily as community organisations, providing a focus for the small towns they come from. The actual problem is that very few people (relatively speaking) want to go through the turnstiles to see SPL games at Motherwell, Killie, Inverness, St Mirren, St Johnstone &c - at Aberdeen this season too ...As Psycrow up there says (post 1), it's a money issue - the Old Firm are bigger than these sides by an order of magnitude, and they can easily outspend the likes of Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen and Dundee Utd as well ... For quarter of a century now, fans of SPL clubs outside Glasgow have been effectively told "you have nowhere to go" ... third place and cup run, maybe a place in the Europa League, that's the only ambition they can have ... Meanwhile the "speculate to accumulate" model of the last two decades - trying to compete on the money front - has just led to financial carnage (Dundee and Livingston in trouble twice each, Motherwell in administration, Aberdeen in debt, Hearts in massive debt and so on) ... Generations are drifting away to do something else on a Saturday afternoon ...

Hitching a number of the Division 1 clubs to the SPL bandwagon, chucking in a sprinkling of SPL reserve teams, and changing the number of sides in what would become SPL1 and SPL2 doesn't look like radical change if the same number of people fail to come along to games ...

I agree about the dross served up by the likes of Blackburn, Stoke, Wolves and Sunderland. Their first priority is not get relegated and to do that they stop everyone else playing football. Scotland and England are not so different except that Scotland is a couple of years ahead in the decline of the league and has been addressing the issues (very slowly).

5. At 12:07pm on 21 Oct 2010, Spigz wrote:
I'd merge the Scottish and English leagues based on average crowd attendances for the past season or two, with a few seasons of larger relegations until the wheat is sorted from the chaff.

The big two would hold up in the Premier League most likely, with the next level aligning in the Championship, etc. Granted this gives a larger fixture list for a few seasons, but it also prevents the English clubs from complaining that their places have been give to Scottish clubs. They can play those Scottish clubs and if they're as good as they think the Scots will fill up the bottom of the table and be relegated until they find their level.

At the bottom of the food chain you'd find the lower division Scottish clubs falling into the northern sections of the lower leagues which will fit with reducing travelling costs, exactly as the English non-league system handles it currently.

It's a no brainer, only the ridiculous sentiments of people still living in a pre 16th century world want to keep the Scots, English and Welsh separate. Swansea, Wrexham and Cardiff have all found their level in the English leagues, I can't see why Scottish teams shouldn't do the same (along with Northern Irish and other Welsh sides by the way) - its utterly mad and only misplaced pride prevents it - it's called Great Britain for a reason.
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Utter nonsense. As a fan of an English lower league club, i don't want one big British league, and as it is there is nothing wrong with the English lower leagues - several division 2 clubs regularly manage crowds of 6500+.

In fact why on earth would it make financial sense for lower league clubs to have to travel even further when one idea proposed is regionalisation?? Torquay to Inverness?!

Nothing should get passed unless it includes every team in the Scottish League.. and then in doing that any Colt teams should start from the bottom division and be allowed to win promotion until they reach the 2nd tier.. (if they manage this)

I am also sick to death of hearing about the Old Firm and the negative stuff.. they average 50-55,000 at their own games and take large away support to every away game (which lines the coffers of every other team) You see in previous years teams like Hearts winning the Scottish Cup or recently Dundee Utd and the streets lined with over a hundred thousand fans watching a parade.. if these fans were to try and consistently follow their team when money and time allowed you would maybe have the smaller teams being able to compete more financially..

Armachair fans are the scourge of this country and seem to be allowed to have the biggest voice.

You can't start "radically" over hauling football in Scotland to the tune of getting a level playing field so that someone else outside the old firm wins a new look SPL. What about Germany, Spain,Italy, England?? They don't do it. Don't think Man U, City, Chelsea, Barca, Real ect would be too chuffed if the goalposts were moved out of their favour to accomodate other weaker teams to their advantage on winning a title.
How would Rangers, Celtic possibly compete at champions league level or europa for that matter with financial or other constraints placed upon them and expect to compete against the might and financial clout of the above teams???????? They struggle as it is. Scottish football would end up like the Irish or Welsh leagues, we would be in the football wilderness for years.
Yes , i agree there is a need for change but it needs tinkering not anymore than that. There is only so much you can do with this product.
Any MAJOR changes (financial) to top flight Scottish football must be made and implemented by FIFA and intoduced to every league in every country to allow fairness to all, not just to allow Hibs, Hearts, Aberdeen ect to win an SPL title

Where would the Old firm, Aberdeen or the Edinburgh club's reserve sides play their home matches in the lower leagues?

The pitches in this country are bad enough without clubs using them every week with their first XI at home one week and reserve team at home the next week.

Also I appreciate it would be like Spain where the top flight clubs reserve team cannot be promoted to the top division. However- this could still lead to some embarrassing scenarios. The league is viewed as a joke and uncompetitive down south and in Europe as the Old firm finish miles ahead of the rest. How will it look if say Dunfermline were promoted to the SPL but actually finished 3rd in the SPL 2 about 20 points behind the OF's reserve sides.

Finally, alot of the 1st Division players are playing there because it's their level. The highlight of some of their careers would be to win the 1st Division. It'd be unfair if they were denied that because the 1st Divison was won by a Rangers or Celtic reserve side who are still better funded and on wages way above any 1st division club.

If there is a 6/8 split in the SPL 2, and the six 'colt' sides finished in places 1-6, then you'd have reserve sides playing for a promotion that they can never have, while the bottom group would be playing for both promotion and relegation. Only the SPL could come up with a scenario like that.

10. At 1:22pm on 21 Oct 2010, Mikey wrote:

Armachair fans are the scourge of this country and seem to be allowed to have the biggest voice.

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If it was just about gate attendances i'd agree with you to some extent. But this is a downward spiral we're in. Like the economy, if we all ignored the cuts and spent we'd be booming again, but who in their right mind is going to do that?

Moreover, winning the league and getting into the Champions league is where a substantial amount of the cash comes from. Something the rest of the clubs don't get a sniff at because they can't compete in the first place.

11. At 1:22pm on 21 Oct 2010, carno1 wrote:
How would Rangers, Celtic possibly compete at champions league level or europa for that matter with financial or other constraints placed upon them and expect to compete against the might and financial clout of the above teams????????
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Rangers currently field an 11-0-0 formation to get anything out of their European games. So they don't compete now for exactly those reasons anyway, surely it can't get any worse on that front? But if the league was more competitive I believe more people would turn up which would bring greater revenues for all and hopefully long term success. It won't be fixed overnight that's for sure.

Btw in a broader point I think the disparity in finance is also ruining other leagues. We're just ahead of the curve.

Jim,

You don鈥檛 need to remind me that those in power don鈥檛 listen 鈥� it鈥檚 a battle I鈥檝e been fighting for years, but it is more than simply not listening.

Those in power are completely disengaged from the ordinary fan and what is more, they seem to be Hell bent in this isolationist policy.

All I have ever wanted is to understand the thinking behind some of the decisions that are made, or reasons why my own ideas or those of others are not considered valid but have drawn a blank on every occasion.

If even you journalists have to sniff out snippets then all I can say is don鈥檛 loose your sense of smell because things stink at the top level.

Why should I or anyone else have to go to the length of petitioning the Scottish Parliament (some latitude here please moderator) simply to get an answer out of the SFA?

Why should others who have followed a similar approach have to take their case to UEFA?

Don鈥檛 those in power understand that things have deteriorated to such a level that basic communication seems beyond the bounds of possibility?

What goes through their heads? Does new guy Stewart Regan pay any attention to all of this? Does he even give a damn?

Scottish football has been on a downward slippery slope for decades but now there is nowhere else to slide and we are starring over the edge into the abyss.

The 鈥榮uck it and see鈥� management philosophy of those in power will have us all sucking on empty air, with Scottish football in freefall as the Lemmings throw themselves over the edge.

The words deckchairs, Titanic and rearrange immediately spring to mind.

One of the first changes I would make would be to amalgamate all the bodies involved in adminstering football - SPL, SFL, SFA, SJFA, Highland League, East of Scotland, right down to the amateurs and U-9s. 1 sport, 1 administrative body seems sensible to me.

This would also greatly ease the introduction of my second change - a full pyramid system. Its too easy for 3rd divsion sides to languish, and too difficult for top Highland/Junior/EoS teams to advance.

Finally, when the leagues are re-structured on this basis all clubs should have absolutely equal status in the decision making process. The Old Firm can no longer simply play the old "if we don't get what we want we're off to England" card, since it was demonstrated absolutely conclusively last season that the majority of English clubs had no desire to admit them. I know in the short-term they need all the money they can get if they are to make any kind of impact in Europe, but a more long-term view surely suggests that the healthier Scottish football is as a whole, the more good players we will produce (the best of whom will still probably end up at the OF at some point anyway), the better the league, the better equipped all our clubs will be to cope in Europe.

Two leagues of 16, playing each other twice a season. This makes up 32 teams and underneath that, either a 10-team division (meaning no team looses league status and no new teams need to be brought in) or regionalise things with the juniors.

The cubs outside the Old Firm don't want to loose the income from playing the old firm twice in a season but I think it would be more benificial to not have to surrender so many points to the top 2 teams every season. Who knows, maybe the league would actually be tighter and that would bring back the crowds.

Also, reduce admission costs. This is simple economics. Cheaper tickets = more punters = more money in the coffers.

There is a lot wrong with Scottish Football as a product and the plans being discussed are not good enough. Complete overhaul is needed.

So a proposed change comes along and we move from the negativity of the lack of any change to the doom and gloom pessimism about changes. Does your blog only attract clinically depressed fans Jim?

Yes to expanding the top tier.

Yes to 'colt' teams.

Yes to the death of the SFL: there can only be one or two but not three.

If fans want a say Jim here's an idea and its not rocket science: host the main proposals on the SFA website and ask people their opinion. That way everyone gets a say. Its not difficult to do, relatively cheap and it facilitates a full consultation.

Finally a big 'No' to all the whingers who will come on here moaning about the OF when their own clubs can't attract punters, except for big occasions when they all suddenly and miraculously spring out of the woodwork. Numerous excuses (all nonsense) are usually made for this: the OF steal 'our' fans; the OF take all the money; and the OF have all the decision making power.

There's an awful lot of different points swirling around here.

Firstly, if I could agree with FerryArab - why the hell are there so many different bodies? It used to be thought of as lunacy that there were the SFL and SFA competing against each other, so what happens? We introduce ANOTHER body, the SPL, with their own agenda and interests. Really smart, that.

As for re-organisation, I'm all for it, and if we're still going to have an SPL split then 6/8 with even numbers of home and away games seems good to me. All fine so far.

"Colt" or u23 teams in the lower leagues? Personally I think that's unworkable, but willing to be proved wrong.

The idea of a proper pyramid system and regionalisation is all great in theory, but there's a problem - turkeys don't vote for Christmas. I had two seasons as the secretary of my local junior team, and was deeply disheartened by the attitude of many of the other clubs' officials. Some were so deeply opposed to change of any sort that they expressed a wish to see their clubs FOLD than change the league set-up. So many of the bigger junior clubs prefer to be big fish in a small pond that they will actively resist any attempt to pull them into a pyramid system, while most of the smaller clubs, who have little or no hope of progressing that far but fancy the idea of it will happily vote for it, my own club included.

There are too many dinosaurs in the boardrooms to see truly radical change. There should never be change for the sake of change, but if it can truly improve matters, then go for it.

Here's a thought - to try and get more bodies through the turnstiles, why not reduce the ticket prices? 拢12 to watch an SPL game rather than 拢20+ might make the games more attractive to the armchair supporters....

The fundemental is that there is no money in Scottish football, even the Celtic and Rangers are carrying large debts.

Radical action would be financial equality of income among the teams. How about pooling ALL gate receipts and apportioning 75% equally to each team,and the remaining 25% on league performance.

Re-structure the league to do away with the SPL and league split - a crazy idea as is the potential 8/6 or 6/8 proposal - into two leagues of equal numbers,18, allowing 36 games per season. The bottom 6 Div 3 dropping into junior leagues but compensated by having a promotion possibility through play-offs at the end of each season. Call this SPL1 and SPL 2 or SPL and Div1 or whatever but allow 3 up/down each season.

League management needs re-organising into one coherent body....but where top start on that one!

As a Celtic supporter I have no sympathy for clubs who complain about old firm dominance. Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen are all established clubs in decent sized cities and with a loyal support base. With a little investment, intelligent marketing and some actual belief in themselves they could make a run for it....instead they embrace a sort of fatalism....that Old Firm dominance is destined for ever more and that there is nothing they can do about it.

"What a novel idea it would be to ask the paying customer what they think."

They did...

Any continuation of a split is still pretty laughable Jim.

The problem with this proposal is there for all to see. The OF chairmen will want a top 6 / bottom 8 split for 36 games. Their players have a better chance of being involved in Europe, the latter stages of the cups and Scotland squads. A hell of a lot of football.

The rest of our esteemed chairmen will want a top 8 to give them more revenue even though the OF will then have 40 league games. They will probably ignore the perils of a bottom 6 / 2 down formula in the hope of making a top 8.

An 18 team top tier is the answer. The chairmen must be made to live within their means. Pigs might fly also of course.

The colts idea is attractive from a footballing perspective. However who will part with their hard-earned to watch a league where probably over time the best four sides can never be promoted ?

#20

"If fans want a say Jim here's an idea and its not rocket science: host the main proposals on the SFA website and ask people their opinion. That way everyone gets a say. Its not difficult to do, relatively cheap and it facilitates a full consultation."
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Perfectly simple and sane suggestion Rob04 but I've already been there with the SFA and it was a Dead Duck. What better opportunity than during the Scottish Football Review. Both to inform and involve.

Did they respond in any way? Not in the slightest.

Agree with no 20. Give things a try. Too much pessimism.

Jim

You haven't talked about one obvious change - An equal share of TV money and sponsorship money throughout the SPL.
The reward for finishing 1st should be the Champions League not scooping up money from poorer clubs. A 100,000 pds to Rangers/Celtic is nothing but to Hamilton/Inverness it's one or two extra players.
The punishment for finishing bottom should be relegation not less money than the rest when you need it most.

Scottish Football, as a whole, needs to change. I'm talking about grassroots all the way up to the International setup. Never mind the league setup, Scottish Football needs to do some serious investing in the game across the entire spectrum.

You can re-organise the leagues however way you want, but if the talent isn't there at a youth level then the end product is still going to be utter dross. Serious investment is needed in youth football in order to develop better Scottish players. There is no point in changing the structure of the leagues, only to have the clubs signing average youth players. Long gone are the days when school kids would come home and immediately go out with their mates to kick a ball around or play a game of World Cup in the park. They'd rather sit inside playing their xbox, or hanging out in dark alleys drinking a bottle of buckie.

The attitudes of Society have changed so much over the last 20 years, and that's as much a factor in the decline of Scottish Football as any Old Firm dominance or league setups. Do you think Johnstone and Baxter were coming home at night and just sitting in front of the tv or hanging out with their mates? Did players like Dalglish and Law prefer getting bevvied up with their mates to kicking a ball around?

Yes, there are still kids who want to play football and ignore the many distractions that their peers put in front of them, but how many are lost to those distractions? How many Johnstones or Dalglish's has Scotland lost because of the "Binge Drinking" culture that seems to be so prevalent in today's youth?!

Given the vast sums of money that are available in the modern game, surely this would be incentive enough for the kids to stick at it? You would think so, but maybe they aren't given enough encouragement or direction at a young age to keep them on the right track.

While restructuring the leagues is a must, (for example having Forfar, Montrose, Arbroath and Brechin all plying their trade in the lower leagues and having their own fan base despite being a stones throw from each other, is crazy, particularly when you consider the fan base in that area isn't huge to begin with) it can't be allowed to detract from the other serious issues that have to be dealt with.

I have no problem with letting the OF move to the English set up. The size of the clubs and their fan base is more suited to the EPL than here. Wouldn't this provide the competitive edge that the other clubs fans are looking for? It would remove the "what's the point, we can't win it anyway" argument and lead to higher average gates around the grounds which would replace the income lost from the 4 home OF games. Every team outside the OF in the SPL today, and many in the League would be capable of puting a championship winning team together, isn't that more exciting than another 25 years of OF dominance? If the skill level is right, and we produce more meaningful games, the TV co's will still buy it

Restructure to give every team 36/38 games and let the OF play in the Scottish Cup. I could be persuaded to let the OF reserves play in the second tier but with no promotion.

One of the main aims of any change should be to end the split. It's a nonsense.

The ideal scenario would be a 16 team top flight, but it won't happen because TV wants 4 Old Firm games a season, and the other SPL clubs, who supposedly don't need the big two, would miss out on a lucrative possible second visit from Celtic or Rangers.

Hello Jim. Why can't we post comments on Chic Young's blog? Another blog, another declaration of his love for all things Old Firm affiliated.

As an Englishmen and as a bit of an outsider could I suggest and alternative to the Old Firm joining the Premier League - or just merging English and Scottish football.

England already has too many football clubs and its own problems with dominance by the big 4 - or is it 6 now?

Lets not forget some clubs in the third tier (League 1) such as Southampton, Charlton and Sheff Weds are getting average crowds of 15,000 - 20,000 a game

And to be honest Strachan's failed Scottish Boro experiment and the complete failure of players like Neil McCann't and Rudi 'useless' Skacel at Southampton suggest even the Old Firm would stuggle in the English Championship at the moment - and with clubs like Villa, Spurs, Arsenal, West Ham, Citeh, Utd, Leed, Chelsea, Liverpool, Everton, etc, around Celtic and Rangers wouldn't even be big fish in the pond if they did make it into the Premier League.

Perhaps the answer is a Celtic or Atlantic League with the top clubs from Ireland (Northern and Republic), Wales and Scotland joining up to form a two division league, 18 teams per division - with national Scottish, Welsh and Irish leagues (with at least 18 teams per divsion) below it in a proper football pyramid.

Swansea and Cardiff would present the Old Firm duopoly with a real title challenge.

Allowing the bigger clubs in Scotland, Wales and Ireland to field colt/U23 teams in their national leagues makes sense as well.

The Scottish Premier League, the 4 Welsh football league teams (Cardiff, Swansea, Wrexham and Merthyr Town) and the top divisons from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland combined into an Atlantic League would surely make for a more competitive league, a bigger audience and thus a better TV deal for all

4 up from division 2 and four down from division 1 each season - with relegation and promotion to and from the national leagues would keep it competitive.

All 3 countries need proper football pyramids so every club can reach for the top.

The Atlantic Leage clubs should still play in the domestic FA cups - but the national league cups should be dropped and replaced by an Atlantic League Cup including the teams from the 3 national leagues as well (except for the colt teams).

And their should be qoutas in every 25 man squad for home nation players (and by that I mean Scottish, Welsh and Irish - not British) so that each club keeps a national identity and hopefully provides players for their national teams.

Maybe go farther and make the English League Cup a British League cup and the Charity Shield a play-off between the Premier League and Atlantic League champions.

We should bring back the home nations Rous Cup as well - make it an U23 cup!

The Scottish game is not only in severe crisis, it has basically died, and I'll explain why:
Firstly, the rise of the EPL has been catastrophic for the Scottish domestic game. The artificially-inflated wages provided by the EPL Satellite Money has seen even Celtic and Rangers' pulling power dwindle - now players will go there only for Champions' League football, and there isn't much of that to satisfy them. Plus failure to qualify for the latter stages reduces their income significanty: Rangers lost a whopping 38% of their income in 2009 by failing to qualify, making 拢39.7 million. The previous season, Manchester City made that figure from Satellite Money ALONE, and they finished 9th in the EPL.
Secondly, the EPL's wealth and high profile is attracting fans globally to feed more money into the game. Consider two of my Scottish friends:
"H" loves football, and was nominally a Hearts fan when he was young. Now, he has no one team he supports - he watches Champions League and EPL, plays EPL fantasy football, and watches the SPL generally only to laugh at the inferior skill and commentary he observes.
"C" meanwhile, was a die-hard Hibee as a kid, but has not really followed them with any interest for the last 10 years - he is a self-described "Man Utd fan", and that team is his passion.
How can Hearts and Hibs (teams from the nations' capital) compete when they not only lose local fans to the Old Firm because of glory-hunting, but now also lose fans to the EPL too?
People in Scotland often used to have "an English team". Now having a "Scottish team" is becoming increasingly optional.
The SPL has been completely eclipsed by the EPL, and it is never going to recover, unless people suddenly stop paying for the most publicised and richest league in Europe. Satellite TV has killed the Scottish game.

Scottish football should change their format. My way of thinkling would go with the system they play down in Argentina. Two championships in one season, they called it apertura and clausura (opening and closing). They played each other once in each season and that way its like a cup match all the time. A short season and just maybe you would get the smaller teams winning more than, as it often happens over there. A nice break in between seasons. The standard could improve,( not saying it needs to) players would be fresher and maybe all this would bring more excitement to fans of each teams, realising they have two chances to win something in one season As for who qualifies for Europe, you have an home and away playoff finals for the two champs and so on for 2,3 and 4 or maybe someone has a better way of handling that idea for the European qualifing.

The biggest downfall in Scottish football is one that football alone cannot fix - society.

1) Kids don't go out into the streets & play football anymore, therefore the potential pool of youths for clubs to pick from has decreased.
Players aren't coming through = Problem.

2) Playing for the joy of the game has almost been eliminated. Now you get Under-11 coaches shouting at boys to "do the number 5" and other such absurd shouts, just so that the team wins & everybody thinks the coach is great.
Wrong attitude = Problem.

3) Young players are getting signed up by senior clubs for a transfer fee at the age of 10 (?!!) and put into Academy teams to play for their future & that of their family.
Too much pressure = Problem.

4) Everyone is obsessed with winning at all costs. Therefore, when a previously successful team (e.g. Hibs) loses a few games, everyone calls for a dramatic change of gaffer.
No continuity = Problem.


I think that one day a bank will run out of patience & close a football club down for being insolvent, which may start a trend as too many clubs are relying on the mercy of their bank to continue trading. Kilmarnock are one such example, Hearts are even worse. Then who will be laughing?

The very clubs some are choosing to mock on here. Arbroath, Forfar et al are very important to their local communities & are in existence to be a sporting outlet for those communities. If a Forfar resident wishes to go and watch Aberdeen, fine. Is that really better? Really?

I've taken to watching Junior football the last few years & have been pleasantly surprised by the quality on display. It also makes a pleasant change to watch 22 players trying 100% and playing the game for the enjoyment of it. Makes a change from the badge-kissing, money grabbing shower!!

I think it is an absolute must for teams to only play each other twice. It makes for a more exciting league & keeps everything fresh.

Scottish league restructuring should include a pyramid structure for ALL sides in Scotland, from the Old Firm all the way down to the most basic amateur side. That way, well run & ambitious clubs could climb as far as they are able to & poorly run clubs can fall just as far. Wheat & the chaff, if you like. Although, this must be implemented along with financial fair play guidelines otherwise we get another Gretna fiasco.



Scottish league structure should be:

SPL - 16 teams, 3 relegated.
1st Division - 16 teams, 2 up + play-offs, 3 relegated.
2nd Division - 16 teams, 2 up + play-offs, 4 relegated.
Northern Conference (regional) - 16 teams, 1 up + play-offs, 3 relegated.
Southern Conference (regional) - 16 teams, 1 up + play-offs, 3 relegated.


This would enable time for a brief winter break (and hopefully bring back the Tennents Sixes!!!) & also allow time for the League Cup & the Challenge Cup to be played at weekends in the same way as the Scottish Cup is. Clubs may take these competitions more seriously & attendances would be higher, bringing in more sponsors.


This format would give everybody a chance to compete & be as good as they can be. After all, you're only as good as your weakest team & only as bad as your best team.

Hi all, intersting debate, as a fan who can goes week supporting my team in the SFL can I add my shillings worth

1. There is still huge interest in Scottish football at home and abroad, Many commenting on the blog have pointed the interest when their local teams do well, i.e. Dundee Utd when they won the cup and the huge crowd they took to Hampden, but also Ross County who had 17,000 at the game (Dingwall population 5026) when I go overseas i.e. USA, Canada, France, Korea, Middle East you can find the SPL being shown on TV in most countries (By the way I am not counting Spain or the med holiday places as they have been turned into little englands with Sky sport running 24/7)

2. Percules made a point about the EPL being the root cause of scottish footballs demise (guessing he is from south of the border) I think he misses the point, its media coverage principally through satellite tv that create the imbalances not the EPL. Through the UK media and I include the 成人论坛 in this the EPL is the dominant force at the moment however will that always be the case? i DONT THINK SO. I am certain that as a consequence of their success that in the fairly near future there will be a European league which will undermine the EPL to the same degree that it currently dominates the domestic leagues in coverage and finance. The big clubs will create this in their drive for greater income and market dominance.

3. What can we do? Well create one body to run our game for a start why do we have the SPL, SFA, and the SFL all competing when we need only one to do the same job, oh and yes that must include fan participation !!!

4. Get back to grass roots football through the schools and the kids, I know that most clubs have community coaches etc to spread the word but this still limited, if you are going to invest this is the place to do it both in facilities and people as you are quite literally shaping the fan base and future of the game

5. Get off our backsides and go and support your local team, I was at the Dunfermline v Ross County game last saturday, it was brilliant with both teams going for it. There was good and open football on show with skills worthy of any so called big TV game, it was a credit to both clubs and the opposite of the rubbish I read in various blogs and papers about poor scottish football.

Anyway could go on but wont so more comments please and spency keep rattling cages.

I wasn't mocking Arbroath and Forfar...i was pointing out the problems in diluting further what is already a small fan base by having several small clubs in the same area. At a time when there is very little revenue coming into Scottish Football from outside sources (sponsorship, tv money etc), fans coming through the turnstiles is what provides a club with income. And if a club like Aberdeen can get let's say an extra 2000 fans per home game from fans of former provincial clubs, at what 15 quid a ticket? That's an extra 30,000 in revenue each home game, which over a season could mount up to half a million in extra revenue. I'd say that's going to make a difference, really it is. Though in actual fact fans of Arbroath, Forfar et al would be more likely to make the trip to Dundee rather than Aberdeen i suspect, but the principle is still the same.

Whilst they may be important to their local communities, if Scottish football is to truly drag itself from the doldrums then the needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few. The many in this case being Scottish football as a whole.

If we are serious about fixing our game, and at least we all agree it is a problem, then we need to do what needs to be done, no matter who it upsets.

Feelings are going to get hurt, and there is no room for sentimentality when the job is this big. And make no mistake the job is big.

Using the latest average attendance figures i could find, there are an estimated average of 105,000 fans attending games throughout Scotland on any given Saturday (84k in the SPL, 12k Div 1, 5k Div 2, 3k Div 3). That's across 42 teams or 21 games. The above structure would take away 1 division, but add in an extra 6 teams or 3 games per Saturday. Where are the fans for those new teams going to come from?

We can make a reasonable assumption that of those 21 games played each day, only 1 will be a sell out on a regular basis, whichever half of the Old Firm is at home. So fans aren't being turned away from grounds, they are just not going.

I agree that teams shouldn't be playing one another 4 times a season, but the alternative is not to put more teams into the League structure.

And yes i'm bored at work.

#24 Wrote
"What a novel idea it would be to ask the paying customer what they think."

They did...


------------------------------------------------------------
Jonathan,

They???? .... did.

Do you mind if I ask you just who you were referring to?

I would suggest fewer divisions, with more teams per division, playing each other twice a season. And for God's sake, NO PLAY-OFFS. Automatic promotion/relegation, 2 up/down, 3 up/down.. whatever..

Oh, and support your local team, not just an old firm team based on which branch of christianity you were indoctrinated in from birth!

I like the idea of a 14 team setup but why hasn't anyone suggested a 7/7 split so we all play the same number of matches? I know one team would have a free week but is that a major problem?

The fixtures can be drawn up before the split according to league position to avoid bias and conspiracy theories. Teams in the bottom half wont lose out on revenue and we already play enough games as it is without increasing them to 40 for the top teams.

I think adding promotion/relegation playoffs are a good idea though.

I also like the idea of Old Firm 'B' teams in Div1/SPL2 but only if it's an U19's team. It'd be soul destroying to see the OF dominating the 1st Div as well with decent 22/23 year olds that should be in the senior squad.

A lot more than that is needed to change Scottish football though, I hope this is just for starters..

personally i think discussing the implimentation of another split league in response to a split league is mad. i do see the worry of diluting quality too far and perhaps 18 teams is too dilute, not perhaps because of the top tier but because the tier below would be left with nothing, making a big difference between the leagues. 16 teams would fit for me playing each other twice would fit for me. 30 games seems like it could be too few, but with a winter break which is much needed to improve our ailling pitches it may help. if teams want more fixtures then why cant they arrange more "friendlies" between rivals to fill the schedule. people would always turn up for a grudge match! i would like to see the whole of scottish football opened up into tiers of 16 with the top two tiers being known as the scottish professional league, below that you would have the non league premier which is nation mide and below that it would become north south, then region. two teams promoted/relegated from all tiers rather than closed system, with one auto and one play offs for both. play off schedule would fill schedule too.

its mad that of go on saying if you take the current funding bias away from the top then they can't compete in europe. they can't with it. they're suffocating the scottish league and gaining nothing. even when celtic won the europen cup their players went on to earn more in england. they have never competed for money on a european scale. olf firm cant ever buy players like alan hutton or mcgeady but they can produce them! they need to take a long hard look at what they can do best too! in the past old firm were so bad a grass roots italian clubs were considering establishing youth acadamies in glasgow!

the colt team thing i can't see working as part of the league, but could colt teams relace the under 19's league and clubs could be encouraged to use their under23's in reserve rather than having large senior squads and having reserve leages, which seem a waste of money.

If the welsh/scottish/irish/english leagues were merged, as some have suested above,would this not mean the end to those international teams as well?

As I understand it, a country has to have a formal league to have an international team.

Good bye England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - hello Team GB!

Change will be slower than most think and expect but hope it comes as a package of measures. The timing is however as usual backward. Options should already have been discussed and some agreements reached or made earlier this year and in line with what the McLeish Report was likely to say. After all when you appoint an external consultant you would have an idea of the general points to emerge from their consultation, otherwise why would you appoint in the first place.

I'd also like to see a winter break. Football in Jan/Feb is not much of a spectacle and the quality over the season might improve both domestically and internationally if there is less relentless pressure on the fitness of players. And a break would also allow the season to start earlier in the summer to help with European ties.

The 'Colt' idea looks problematic but potentially it bloods younger players into the game sooner. From a spectator鈥檚 point of view it might have been worth watching the likes of Fleck and Forrest before they got to their respective first team starts. Raith vs Rangers or Celtic or Hibs second strings would be as good for fans to watch as Raith vs QOS. And it might draw better crowds.

Regionalisation for the rest? It will diminish their status and identity and they won鈥檛 like it (or vote for it) but who cares, and a proper pyramid structure is the only answer and I hope this comes sooner not later. Let ambitious clubs in and give the bottom tier teams an incentive to play for their place. It might do the likes of Dundee FC, if they survive, a favour. And ultimately this might help reduce the number of teams who just tread water in the bottom division. There may be benefits to this but I just can鈥檛 see how a league is attractive when it is only about who wins the championship and promotion. And it potentially allows teams to emerge from towns with bigger populations like Irvine and East Kilbride. No offence but wee town teams will probably always be just that and they can be left in whatever league or level they find themselves.

And yes to one amalgamated Governing body, though can鈥檛 see the wee club blazer chairmen and committee members giving up their power voluntarily without a fight. But an end to the influence of the George Peat鈥檚 of Scottish football would be great and improve the image of the game no end.

Firstly, the other teams need to stop blaming the Old Firm for their troubles. It basically comes down to economics, why should Celtic & Rangers give up much needed revenue to help clubs that can't or won't help themselves. Yes, we need more equality in the voting, but not until the clubs outwith the Old Firm get the chip of their shoulders.

There are too many teams in Scotland as it stands, we need to lose a division completely. Can the city of Dundee sustain 2 teams? Imagine Dundee(combined) v Aberdeen, 2 big cities, neighbours, similar teams, anyone else getting this?

1 governing body

3 divisions, We need 2/3 up and down in each league, no splits, no play offs.

The clubs in the Junior, Highland divisions should be allowed access to the SFL through promotion, as per the Conference in England. What have they to play for otherwise, more people will watch them as a result, more money, more movement of players and talent.

Once we realise, success can't be bought anymore, at least in Scotland, the quicker our homegrown talent will flourish.

anyone else wonder why all this discussion is going on between spl clubs as to what to do with the top tier but no teams outside the spl are having a say. sureley the league is going to have to adapt to any changes the top tier imposes too? why aren't we getting everyone round a table to discuss how best to progress scottish football as a whole. it surely smacks of how bad communication is and the need foor a single governing body and a more united league system as a whole. its isolationist!!

#48

Craig,

Can鈥檛 say if there is any validity in this, only a suspicion, but this leak could well have something to do with Henry McLeish鈥檚 pending reports.

I recently received a letter from the Scottish Government confirming that discussions had taken place with Henry McLeish and that he was due to release 2 more reports, Parts 2 & 3 dealing with governance and structure.

I suspect the leak is an attempt by the SPL to upstage the SFA and be one up on the SFL.

By the way, there has also been a board meeting of the SFL reported in the media. So yes they are discussing it but probably in response and not in conjunction with, as you suggest.

Have a look at how they run sport in the USA. There's true competition in all sports because noone is allowed to dominate. There's a salary cap which means no team can just buy up all the stars and the draft system gives the previous season's bottom team the first choice to sign new players. The NHL, MLB, NFL and NBA are all wide open each season and there's fierce competition all the way. They've realised that letting money decide everything leads to one or two teams dominating and have stopped that.

I must admit I've lost all interest in the SPL since there are only 2 teams in it and I don't like either. This season was over after 4 matches. England is getting equally predictable, as are Spain and Italy. Can't football see what's happening?