League reconstruction: Let's hear your view

[footnotes]

On 16/04/2024 at 16:45, Oldster said:

That's really thorough.  I can't agree with smaller divisions, though.

I'd go for 3 divisions of 14 in the SPFL.  It would be a 40 game season, starting the last July weekend and no winter break.

Teams would play opponents x3 (fixtures to be reversed for the following season).  And every season would begin with an additional round of fixtures,  with 1st v 2nd, 3rd v 4th, 5th v 6th, etc from the previous season, as a showpiece opener.  No advantage would be gained since everyone would be playing opponents at their own level.  And it would give all the Old Firm games without the need for a split. 

Then maybe do what you said for the LL, HL.

If they were having a 40 'match day' season, they might have to reduce the League Cup to a Saturday-Wednesday-Saturday competition, to free up a fixture date or two.

Teams would have 3 games each, but maybe it would be like the new Champions League format with one overall league table, and the 40 teams would be drawn from 4 groups of seeds rather than 5.  So the top 11 from the overall first round table would qualify for the Second Round, to meet the 5 teams who were playing in the European competitions.

 

But if it was acceptable to have a "showpiece" additional, initial round of fixtures for the Premiership, then they could surely be doing that already, with teams then going on to play opponents x3, for 34 games each in total.  No split, and 4 old firm games pretty much guaranteed. 

They could do it for the top 4 divisions of 12 teams per division, all national, and so open up automatic promotion and relegation to/from the Highland and Lowland leagues.  But they'd probably need 2 teams to be automatically relegated from each SPFL division in order to keep it interesting.

Edited April 24 by footnotes

[Newbornbairn]

10 team leagues are shite. Playing teams 4 times a season plus the cups is boring as f**k. 

[Oldster]

On 24/04/2024 at 12:28, footnotes said:

If they were having a 40 'match day' season, they might have to reduce the League Cup to a Saturday-Wednesday-Saturday competition, to free up a fixture date or two.

Teams would have 3 games each, but maybe it would be like the new Champions League format with one overall league table, and the 40 teams would be drawn from 4 groups of seeds rather than 5.  So the top 11 from the overall first round table would qualify for the Second Round, to meet the 5 teams who were playing in the European competitions.

 

But if it was acceptable to have a "showpiece" additional, initial round of fixtures for the Premiership, then they could surely be doing that already, with teams then going on to play opponents x3, for 34 games each in total.  No split, and 4 old firm games pretty much guaranteed. 

They could do it for the top 4 divisions of 12 teams per division, all national, and so open up automatic promotion and relegation to/from the Highland and Lowland leagues.  But they'd probably need 2 teams to be automatically relegated from each SPFL division in order to keep it interesting.

Yeah, maybe they would be doing it already. 

An improvement would be reducing meaningless games by dividing the Premiership after 33 games into 3. 

Top four play one another again for a 36 game season.

5th-8th play each other once more to see who will face 4th in a European play off (5th away to 4th).

Bottom four play again to see who will be relegated and in the relegation play off.  This would align the Premiership with the Championship in terms of 36 games per team, and so the play offs could take on the same format as the other divisions, where it's just 2 pairs of semis and then a final.   

Ideally, though, two would be automatically relegated from the Premiership, with 2nd-5th in promotion play offs in an expanded Championship - but once clubs are in the Premiership they seem to forget how difficult it is to return there if relegated, so it's not likely they vote for this.

 

With the League Cup - I take it you mean that teams would be drawn into 10 groups of 4 for the fixtures, play opponents once, Sat-Wed-Sat, with the results being shown in a great big 40 team league table, and the top 11 qualifying for the second round?  Sounds quite good!

Edited April 25 by Oldster

[footnotes]

Indeed.  

Regarding dividing the Premiership into 3 after 33 games...

1) It would relieve pressure on the fixtures list for those of our teams competing in the expanded European group stages, as there would only be 36 Premiership games each rather than 38.

2) It would be better because the teams in 7th and 8th at the split would have meaningful games against 5th and 6th to aim for that final European place (or play off with 4th, if need be).  Bit of a travesty this season with Hibs and Motherwell, vibrant teams, being cut off from a battle with St.Mirren and Dundee for Europe, and now with little to play for.

3) The post-split games could be complete within an exciting week (Sat-Wed-Sun), so although a double split may look unusual it would be a quick finale to the table (with the last Old Firm derby always scheduled for the first post-split game, which is equivalent to this season's third-last matchday).

4) There wouldn't need to be a second automatic relegation place from the Premiership bottom 4.  If the Championship went to 12 teams, too, with the same split at 33 matchdays, then the middle 4 (i.e. 5th-8th at the split) could be aiming for a play-off quarter final away to 4th, the winner of which would play away to Premiership 11th in a semi-final, with the winners meeting the winners of the 3rd v 2nd semi final, for a place in the following season's Premiership.  It would favour the Premiership team slightly less than at the moment, but still pretty fair.

I would use your system to extend the 4 SPFL divisions to 12 teams each, using the double split after 33 matchdays across the divisions, with play offs as described above, or relegating 2 automatically from each division, once the everyone reached 36 games.  Hopefully it would enable automatic promotion from the Lowland League and Highland League, too.

But, please, no colt teams (except Cumbernauld).

 

Edited April 30 by footnotes

[Oldster]

2 hours ago, footnotes said:

 

2 hours ago, footnotes said:

 

 

I still prefer 3 divisions of 14 and a 40 game season.  It's just whether the possibility of divisions without splits and more variety of fixtures (and a bit more dosh) are incentives enough for clubs to change their slightly self-imposed rules constraining the fixtures dates.

[SecretCEO]

On 30/04/2024 at 15:12, Oldster said:

I still prefer 3 divisions of 14 and a 40 game season.  It's just whether the possibility of divisions without splits and more variety of fixtures (and a bit more dosh) are incentives enough for clubs to change their slightly self-imposed rules constraining the fixtures dates.

There is also the issue of the additional fixtures imbalances when teams play one another three times. 

What say you?

[Oldster]

Well, I'll try to explain.  But one thing it does avoid is playing teams 3 times at home or 3 times away from home in a league campaign, which is quite a significant imbalance.

Anyway, if you imagine that a division of 14 playing opponents x3 breaks down into 3 round-robins of 13 games per team.

The last two round-robins should be scrupulously fair as everyone needs to know exactly what they have to do to achieve their goals of Europe, avoiding relegation, etc.  So the final 26 matchdays are just everyone playing everyone else once at home and once away from home.

Where I think there's room for a bit imbalance, but still being fair, is with the first round-robin of 13 matchdays / 13 games per team.  For these, I would use the previous season's finishing positions as a guide as to who would have the slight advantages. 

So if it was a season with 39 games each, in the first round-robin of 13 matchdays I would have the previous season's winners at home to the runners-up, runners up would be at home to 3rd when they meet, 3rd at home to 4th, and so on.

But because we must have 4 old firm games, I would start the season with the additional matchday of the previous season's 1st v 2nd, 3rd v 4th, 5th v 6th, etc.  Those fixtures would then be reversed within the first round-robin.  

To be as fair as possible, it would then be 1st at home to 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc and away to 4th, 6th, 8th, etc whenever they were scheduled to meet.

2nd from the previous season would be at home to 4th, 6th, 8th... but away to 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc.

And so on, and on, for the rest of the teams.

Ultimately, though, it's only a mitigation of the unfairnesses.  Overall it's a tradeoff between them and having a split-free division with more variety of fixtures.

Edited May 6 by Oldster

[Stag Nation]

21 minutes ago, Oldster said:

Well, I'll try to explain.  But one thing it does avoid is playing teams 3 times at home or 3 times away from home in a league campaign, which is quite a significant imbalance.

Anyway, if you imagine that a division of 14 playing opponents x3 breaks down into 3 round-robins of 13 games per team.

The last two round-robins should be scrupulously fair as everyone needs to know exactly what they have to do to achieve their goals of Europe, avoiding relegation, etc.  So the final 26 matchdays are just everyone playing everyone else once at home and once away from home.

Where I think there's room for a bit imbalance, but still being fair, is with the first round-robin of 13 matchdays / 13 games per team.  For these, I would use the previous season's finishing positions as a guide as to who would have the slight advantages. 

So if it was a season with 39 games each, in the first round-robin of 13 matchdays I would have the previous season's winners at home to the runners-up, runners up would be at home to 3rd when they meet, 3rd at home to 4th, and so on.

But because we must have 4 old firm games, I would start the season with the additional matchday of the previous season's 1st v 2nd, 3rd v 4th, 5th v 6th, etc.  Those fixtures would then be reversed within the first round-robin.  

To be as fair as possible, it would then be 1st at home to 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc and away to 4th, 6th, 8th, etc whenever they were scheduled to meet.

2nd from the previous season would be at home to 4th, 6th, 8th... but away to 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc.

And so on, and on, for the rest of the teams.

Ultimately, though, it's only a mitigation of the unfairnesses.  Overall it's a tradeoff between them and having a split-free division with more variety of fixtures.

I like the 14 club idea.

Another refinement is to have one additional round of fixtures, giving 40 games, and balancing home and away games.

These 40th games could be on a seeded basis 1st v 2nd as above, or local derbies (also guaranteeing 4 OF games), or simply drawn randomly. 

[footnotes]

 

 

20 hours ago, Oldster said:

Well, I'll try to explain.  But one thing it does avoid is playing teams 3 times at home or 3 times away from home in a league campaign, which is quite a significant imbalance.

Anyway, if you imagine that a division of 14 playing opponents x3 breaks down into 3 round-robins of 13 games per team.

The last two round-robins should be scrupulously fair as everyone needs to know exactly what they have to do to achieve their goals of Europe, avoiding relegation, etc.  So the final 26 matchdays are just everyone playing everyone else once at home and once away from home.

Where I think there's room for a bit imbalance, but still being fair, is with the first round-robin of 13 matchdays / 13 games per team.  For these, I would use the previous season's finishing positions as a guide as to who would have the slight advantages. 

So if it was a season with 39 games each, in the first round-robin of 13 matchdays I would have the previous season's winners at home to the runners-up, runners up would be at home to 3rd when they meet, 3rd at home to 4th, and so on.

But because we must have 4 old firm games, I would start the season with the additional matchday of the previous season's 1st v 2nd, 3rd v 4th, 5th v 6th, etc.  Those fixtures would then be reversed within the first round-robin.  

To be as fair as possible, it would then be 1st at home to 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc and away to 4th, 6th, 8th, etc whenever they were scheduled to meet.

2nd from the previous season would be at home to 4th, 6th, 8th... but away to 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc.

And so on, and on, for the rest of the teams.

Ultimately, though, it's only a mitigation of the unfairnesses.  Overall it's a tradeoff between them and having a split-free division with more variety of fixtures.

No!  Each league season needs to be a fresh start. 

 

If you want to have 14 teams in a division, playing opponents three times, then you can be fairer than that.

1)  Schedule the fixtures as normal for the first two 'round robins', which is everyone plays everyone else once at home and once away from home, giving 26 games per team.  

2)  The final 'round robin' of 13 matchdays is also scheduled before the beginning of the season, with opponents and dates known in advance BUT with whoever has home advantage unknown until they reach 26 games each.  At this point, home advantage in the head-to-heads during the final 13 games is assigned as per each team's position in the table after 26 games, which is an advantage that they have earned during that season.

So when the team sitting in 1st after 26 matchdays meets 2nd (at some point in the final round robin), 1st has home advantage; whenever 2nd meets 3rd in the final round robin, 2nd has home advantage, etc.

The fixtures for the team in 1st after 26 games (in no particular order) would therefore be: (home) 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 12th, 14th, (away) 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th, 13th. 

The fixtures for the team in 2nd after 26 games (in no particular order) would therefore be: (home) 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th, 13th, (away) 1st, 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 12th, 14th.

And the rest would follow that same pattern.

 

So there's no change to the fixture dates or opponents, which are already completely scheduled before the season begins. 

But whoever is playing home or away in the final 13 matchdays is left unknown, until teams reach the end of the first 2 round robins.

At which point the small imbalances are made as fair as possible, by using their league position after 26 matchdays (i.e. after having played each opponent at home and away) to determine who has home advantage in the subsequent head-to-heads between closest rivals.

 

The unfairness would be that the team sitting in 3rd after 26 games would have an additional home game that the team in 2nd would not, which is why you might choose to try to fit in game 40, somewhere - such as an additional derby, as mentioned above - to balance the fixtures at 20 home games per team. 

Edited May 7 by footnotes

[Oldster]

Good job folks.  I'm looking forward to seeing it in action.

 

(!)

[SecretCEO]

16 hours ago, Oldster said:

Good job folks.  I'm looking forward to seeing it in action.

 

(!)

Don't be too cynical.

The clubs have agreed to plenty of changes over the past 10-11 years, such as the addition of play off places at the top and bottom and the renewed cup competitions.

However - 39/40 games for each team would likely mean that they would have to play league games on July weekends, which they have a commitment not to do.

[Oldster]

Oh sorry old bean.  I don't mind the way things are, but I prefer more automatic promotion.  I know there were only 1 or 2 votes stopping reconstruction in that time.

I don't know their reasons for avoiding July league matches, though surely competitive weekend games would improve midweek European performances.  But that would mean a shorter, midweek league cup group stage for the rest of the teams.  You could even give a wee trophy to the team who win the group stage with the best overall record.

[footnotes]

I believe that there would be some midweek fixtures dates available in spring, but the SPFL try to keep them free for rescheduled matches. 

If they didn't, then the rescheduled games would have to be played the same nights as Uefa competitions - and they may be fined for that.  Although I think there was a free date a couple of midweeks ago: the English Premier seemed to be playing, but we weren't up here. 

Another possibility would be extending the season through May towards the June international date, although I think the top clubs are more likely to vote for any restructuring that gives less games rather than more.

Edited May 13 by footnotes

[Edward]

Option 1 - No cross border league

A top league of 14 clubs playing 26 games after the first round the bottom two are relegated.

Second round clubs the remaining 12 are split into three clubs A,B and C

A group for the title B the winner would play the third placed team in Group A for a European spot. Group C is the relegation group with three teams being relegated,. Hence a total of Five clubs are relegated each season. 

In the First Round a win brings two points and 1 for a draw. 

In the Second round I point for a win and zero for draw as we encourage attacking football. 

 

What does it bring you ask. 

Everything to play for no group is bore.

Increased interest from TV, Sponsors and fans. 

Edited May 14 by Edward
Forgot to add something

[realmadrid]

26 minutes ago, Edward said:

Option 1-A English/Scottish League 

Have a League A and B with 14 clubs each.  Seven British and Seven Scottish in each league Clubs play twice against opponents in there own league and twice against League B. The top 10 of League A and B head for Championship title play offs. The bottom Four of League A and B are relegated to A2 and B2 .

The top four in League A2 are promoted to League A1 and the same with B2 to B1 and carry on down the leagues.

Result 

Massive TV investment

Sponsorship increase.

Battle of Britain each weekend.

English FA CUP and Scottish Cup mid week no replays 

English League and Scottish League Cup Scrapped.

Charity Shield and its Scottish equivalent replaced by England National Team vs Scottish National team.  

Where do i even start with this!

So you want to invite 14 of the Premier league in England and all of our top league and the top two in the Championship into one competition of 28 teams. 

Based on the current table there is no place for the likes of Everton or Nottingham Forrest but Livingston and Raith Rovers get an invite?

Then going by your fixtures you want to play 54 regular season games and then have play offs, which involve 20 of the 28 teams!

There is already massive TV investment in the game down south , the clubs who would be excluded due to geography will never vote for this and will watching Livingston v Fulham draw in extra TV revenue

The same for sponsorship

If there is a battle of Britain every weekend (bar the behavior of the old firm fans) it will not be special in any way , in the same way a London derby happens just about every weekend so is not a big deal.

If you move the cups to midweeks you devalue them and you want to kill the league cup which is 1/2 of what most teams can win in any season

We dont even have a Charity shield in Scotland to replace.

[Stag Nation]

Are the schools on holiday again?

[realmadrid]

7 minutes ago, Edward said:

Option 2 - No cross border league

A top league of 14 clubs playing 26 games after the first round the bottom two are relegated.

Second round clubs the remaining 12 are split into three clubs A,B and C

A group for the title B the winner would play the third placed team in Group A for a European spot. Group C is the relegation group with three teams being relegated,. Hence a total of Five clubs are relegated each season. 

In the First Round a win brings two points and 1 for a draw. 

In the Second round I point for a win and zero for draw as we encourage attacking football. 

 

What does it bring you ask. 

Everything to play for no group is bore.

Increased interest from TV, Sponsors and fans. 

This would encourage very negative football from the start of the season

where do the 2 teams relegated after 26 games go for the rest of the season or do they just stop playing in February or March . Thats 6 less home games than you get in the Premiership just now and 5 less than the other leagues , How on earth can clubs sell season tickets for 13 games

Then your split idea, the top group works fine, but if we have 2 champions league places 3rd is only getting a play off and 4th nothing but 5th might get Europe? 

the 3rd group has 1 staying up so possible could be decided after 1 game 

Why will sponsors pay more for a board in a ground which now only has 16 home games , maybe only 13. 

There would be less games for TV so the income would be down and you would need gates to be up by 15% (Impossible at 1/4 of the league just now due to stadium size) or have to put the prices up by 15% to cover the loss in clicks through the turnstile . 

 

[Edward]

Option 2

Top of 16 with 30 games each bottom two relegated and 14th in play with the winners of the Championship. 

Championship same as top but two promoted and 3 through 6 play each with the winner playing the 14th of the Premier Division 

League one of 28 clubs splits into 14 clubs each. The winners of each group promoted and the second placed teams in each group face each other for the third spot in the Championship.

Edited May 14 by Edward
need to add something

[realmadrid]

1 hour ago, Edward said:

Option 2

Top of 16 with 30 games each bottom two relegated and 14th in play with the winners of the Championship. 

Championship same as top but two promoted and 3 through 6 play each with the winner playing the 14th of the Premier Division 

League one of 28 clubs splits into 14 clubs each. The winners of each group promoted and the second placed teams in each group face each other for the third spot in the Championship.

Clubs want 18 or 19 home games, its part of the reason Cowdenbeath say they voted for B teams as the Lowland league only had 16 regular members and the SFA wont let them have more.

The above for the top 2 leagues might work with a sectional league cup in groups of 4 or a system that guarantees 3 more home games.

However the league 1 idea adds another 18 clubs to the league members , all of whom will need paid prize money . The existing 42 are never going to allow that to happen, nor as it stands are there 18 teams with Bronze licences 

The issue with the number of games also comes into play. As most of our clubs rely on income through the gate cutting from 18 to 13 home games (over a 1/4 of the games cut) will not work financially for the lower league teams.

 

[BFTD]

14 hours ago, realmadrid said:

Clubs want 18 or 19 home games, its part of the reason Cowdenbeath say they voted for B teams as the Lowland league only had 16 regular members and the SFA wont let them have more.

I wouldn't read too much into that, considering there was a Cowden board member on here hinting that they'd vote for Celtgers reserves in the pyramid long before taking their club down to the Lowland League.