babu Posted August 27, 2016 Share Posted August 27, 2016 Allow a different team into the Champions league every year say for 5 years. Cutting off the supply to celtic (& soon to be Rangers no doubt) ---- Domestic crowds are sure to be decreasing with the corrupt structure of Europe : What is there to play for ? the excitement of getting to a Europa league position for few teams only to be out even before reaching the group stages. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1320Lichtie Posted August 27, 2016 Share Posted August 27, 2016 Allow a different team into the Champions league every year say for 5 years. Cutting off the supply to celtic (& soon to be Rangers no doubt) [emoji848] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stulch Posted August 28, 2016 Share Posted August 28, 2016 Long term I'd like to see all the way down, 16 team leagues with each team playing 30 league games so teams are just playing each other once at home and once away. League cups would then create more guaranteed fixtures with first rounds being played on group basis like the actual League Cup now is. However, a major sticking point seems to be the fifth tier split with the Juniors appearing to want it three way and the SFA two way, I imagine so it's not such a jump going national when teams are promoted, how about they just make League One and League Two regional for now? So tiers three and four would become just tier three and tier five tier four, this could then be split three ways (Highland, Lowland West and Lowland East). Not an ideal solution but it might solve a current problem meaning longer term Scotland could get its preferred league structure. Tier three could be split along similar lines to the current Lowland/Highland leagues but the split would be flexible and you might not move teams every year just to get the split perfect. There's the possibility this could make both parties happier and you could move closer to one integrated structure for the good of Scottish football. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stulch Posted August 28, 2016 Share Posted August 28, 2016 3 minutes ago, stulch said: Tier three could be split along similar lines to the current Lowland/Highland leagues but the split would be flexible and you might not move teams every year just to get the split perfect. They could even create a travelling costs pool for the whole of the new regional tier three which every tier three club contributes equally to but you get more out of it if you have to travel further and less if you travel less. Therefore meaning every club pays the same amount for travel. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunning1874 Posted August 28, 2016 Share Posted August 28, 2016 On 26/08/2016 at 10:17, RabidAl said: Realistically, semi-pro clubs need to compete within their region/across a smaller area right up until the point that they can be promoted to playing against full-time opposition (with higher revenues from larger away supports) to be viable, unless they are subsidised beyond the current levels seen in tiers 3 and 4. Except they're all viable just now playing at a national level, not a regional level. National football is sustainable for the clubs playing in tiers three & four, ergo there's no need to force them into a regional setup. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFTD Posted August 28, 2016 Share Posted August 28, 2016 2 hours ago, stulch said: Long term I'd like to see all the way down, 16 team leagues with each team playing 30 league games so teams are just playing each other once at home and once away. League cups would then create more guaranteed fixtures with first rounds being played on group basis like the actual League Cup now is. You'd need a load of extra cup matches before the clubs would agree to that, I'm afraid. Currently, the Premiership clubs would be down four guaranteed matches, and the rest of us down two, before you get to the clubs outside the SPFL. Even a small drop like that is still serious business to club finances, apparently. Not sure if anyone's brought this up before, and it's probably a shit idea, but would it be possible to fit two league seasons into a single year with just one round of home/away matches? You'd get the same number of games (or more, in the Premiership), and you could open up the promotion/relegation slots to allow greater movement*, which would help with the ennui aspect that everyone currently complains about. It would also help with certain clubs owning the top league title, as the diddies tend to slip away when their lack of squad depth becomes apparent in the second-half of the season**. It's not the ideal solution that having bigger leagues presents, but if (say) the bottom three in each league go down, then possibly nine of the forty-two SPFL clubs would end up playing up to seventeen*** different clubs in the league in the current league window. Or more, if you go up to the Premiership. And that's before you get into relegation from League Two. European qualification from the Premiership could be sorted out via some kind of Charity Shield-style play-off between the league champions of the two seasons, if necessary. Europa League qualification could just be sorted by adding the points from the two seasons together, considering everyone played the same teams at the same grounds the same number of times. You could run the cups as normal, with one competition spanning the two seasons, as I doubt there'd be space in the calendar for two lots of cup games in a year. Like I say, probably a shit idea, but I'm curious to see it torn apart on here * even the regular top drawer clubs seem to realise this isn't a bad idea now, so long as it's not too hard for them to get back in. ** every second season might be a gimme for Celtic or Rangers as a result, but that's still better than now. *** assuming two go down and one stay up via the play-offs (I think). Can't be arsed putting too much thought into the maths. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted August 28, 2016 Share Posted August 28, 2016 13 minutes ago, BigFatTabbyDave said: Not sure if anyone's brought this up before, and it's probably a shit idea, but would it be possible to fit two league seasons into a single year with just one round of home/away matches? You'd get the same number of games (or more, in the Premiership), and you could open up the promotion/relegation slots to allow greater movement*, which would help with the ennui aspect that everyone currently complains about. It would also help with certain clubs owning the top league title, as the diddies tend to slip away when their lack of squad depth becomes apparent in the second-half of the season**. Old idea. Apertura/Clausura format... You'd have to reduce Premiership to 10 teams (as 44 games is too many). In the levels below that you would just play 2 seasons of 18 matches each instead of the current 36 game season. Problem is the concept is unknown in Europe; you'd have to make some kind of playoff system for CL/EL qualification... or aggregate the 36 matches which rather defies the point; and I doubt clubs would be too hot on the idea of having promotion/relegation every 6 months. It would make it harder to budget and while it would be very intense and exciting, playing just 18 games leaves no room for error. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stulch Posted August 28, 2016 Share Posted August 28, 2016 (edited) 28 minutes ago, BigFatTabbyDave said: You'd need a load of extra cup matches before the clubs would agree to that, I'm afraid. Currently, the Premiership clubs would be down four guaranteed matches, and the rest of us down two, before you get to the clubs outside the SPFL. Even a small drop like that is still serious business to club finances, apparently. To be honest I'd prefer leagues of 18 but I've heard stronger arguments against that and 16 is a compromise on that. If need be the first rounds of the league cups would be Champions League group stage style, each team plays each team home and away. With the home games included in the season ticket and played in the season at weekends. If still further games were needed I'd even have a third cup. Something drastic needs to be done but my main point was my other point, the attempt to get past the seemingly Junior/SFA impasse. But of course, another alternative, as has been said before, the SFA could just grow a pair... Edited August 28, 2016 by stulch 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted August 28, 2016 Share Posted August 28, 2016 (edited) Premiership clubs currently get 38 league games and 4 sectional cup-ties (or matches in CL/EL) = 42. In the league they play 3 or 4 times against the other 11 best clubs in the country who broadly-speaking have the biggest supports and draw the biggest gates. It's a smaller division, with a split, meaning few "meaningless mid-table" games. We know that sectional cup-ties draw considerably smaller attendances than league games. Reducing that to 30 + 6 = 36 is a drop of 6 (achieved by removing 8 league games / adding 2 sectional cup-ties). Doing so by adding 4 smaller clubs, more "meaningless mid-table" games and playing everyone 2 times is clearly an issue. Edited August 28, 2016 by HibeeJibee 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stulch Posted August 28, 2016 Share Posted August 28, 2016 There's issues, as we all know, whatever way you go. The comparisons I was making were against before the League Cup went back to an initial group stage. Recently Premiership 38 league games, at least one League Cup game (previously) and at least one Scottish Cup game - total at least 40. 16 team league 30 league games, at least six League Cup games and at least one Scottish Cup game - total of at least 37 (so a drop of only three games, but as you say less quality, however, at least more variety). Recently In terms of home games 18-20 league games, possibly no home cup games - total of at least 18. 16 team league 15 home league games, three home League Cup games - total of at least 18 (so 0-2 less home games, but as you say less quality, however, at least more variety). To avoid more "meaningless mid-table" games you'd have more relegation/promotion places and promotion play-offs with entries just from the same division. Additionally there are also a lot of countries (and UEFA) who think 20 in a league is too many, because 38 league games are too many, so then you would be looking at a 18 team league playing just 34 league games (17 home league games). Anyway, 16 team leagues is just how I'd go after listening to the discussions over the years... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RabidAl Posted August 30, 2016 Share Posted August 30, 2016 On 28/08/2016 at 13:45, Dunning1874 said: Except they're all viable just now playing at a national level, not a regional level. National football is sustainable for the clubs playing in tiers three & four, ergo there's no need to force them into a regional setup. Well, they are subsidised by League prize money to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds, so I have my doubts whether part-time football being played on a national basis is, in itself, viable; it must be pretty marginal; certainly, the juniors aren't too keen on it and Brora weren't; as ever, I'm just surmising from my impressions; my goal here is only to try to find a unified set-up that fits everyone (hence, the different pyramids sketched out above). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itzdrk Posted August 30, 2016 Share Posted August 30, 2016 7 minutes ago, RabidAl said: Well, they are subsidised by League prize money to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds, so I have my doubts whether part-time football being played on a national basis is, in itself, viable; it must be pretty marginal; certainly, the juniors aren't too keen on it and Brora weren't; as ever, I'm just surmising from my impressions; my goal here is only to try to find a unified set-up that fits everyone (hence, the different pyramids sketched out above). Calling prize money a subsidy is very strange to me in that it has to be earned. By that nature every professional club in the world is subsidised by one or a combination of their league body, national association, UEFA & FIFA. What was a subsidy however was the £2m annual settlement payment the SPL made to the SFL every year. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RabidAl Posted August 31, 2016 Share Posted August 31, 2016 That seems a fair interpretation, although I'm not sure how earned the prize money is when only one team/club can be relegated from the League in a season - i.e. all clubs will be paid regardless of performance. The point I was labouring to make, though, is that you can't really say that part-time football on a national basis is, in itself, financially viable (or 'balances the books', might be a better way of putting it) since the prize money/subsidy is a significant source of income for them. It seems to me that playing in regions would be more cost-effective for semi-pro clubs because travel costs would be lower and gate receipts would, in theory, be higher, given that there would be more matches against local part-timers (so more support that is willing to travel locally) than there would be when competing in national leagues. It would also surely be easier to recruit players since those who have other jobs to go to aren't going to want to travel the length and breadth of the country to play their football in addition to their other commitments. I think the difference for Brora had they been promoted to play in League Two last season was a rise from about 3,900 miles (when playing in the Highland League) to 7,900 miles in distance travelled, so I can see why clubs don't want to play on a national basis for anything other than one-off cup games, regional-national promotion play-offs, or to play full-timers with the extra dosh of their bigger away supports. I don't know how accurate it is, but here's a link to a website that gives an illustration of the travel costs... http://www.roadfares.com/coach-hire-prices It's worth considering that, while the current part-timers playing in the national leagues may not want to participate in regional leagues ('enforced' regionalisation, if that's the rhetoric), the remaining part-timers outwith the national leagues may be just as keen to progress as they are, but don't want to be 'forced' to play in national leagues until they can be sure that it's affordable for them. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RabidAl Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 (edited) On 28/08/2016 at 19:00, stulch said: Additionally there are also a lot of countries (and UEFA) who think 20 in a league is too many, because 38 league games are too many, so then you would be looking at a 18 team league playing just 34 league games (17 home league games). You could have an 18-team league with 35 games and play-offs for European places that would deliver the 4 old firm games needed for television money and keep an interesting mid-table... - match day 1 could be an additional fixture, of teams playing head-to-heads based on the previous season's finishing positions (1st v 2nd, 3rd v 4th...promoted v promoted, etc); - match days 2 to 35 would just be running through the home and away games against each other team as normal. Then play-offs for European places where... - the team finishing 2nd in the league plays away to 1st to decide the title (if they finished within 5% of the points total of 1st) and the Champions' League place; or, - the team finishing 2nd in the league plays away to 1st to decide the Champions' League place (if they finished within 10% of 1st). - 6th plays away to 5th, the winner plays away to 4th, and the winner plays away to 3rd (if there is only one Europa League place remaining, because a team outwith the top 6 has won the Scottish Cup) to decide who takes the final Europa League place; or, - 6th plays away to 5th, and the winner plays away to 4th, with the winner taking the final Europa League place (if 1st, 2nd or 3rd in the league has won the Scottish Cup); or, - if one of 3rd to 6th has won the Scottish Cup, then the remaining teams play off in the same manner (e.g. 6th away to 5th, with the winner playing away to 3rd, if 4th has won the Scottish Cup). In this way, there'd be plenty of meaningful head-to-heads to top and tail the season, 17-18 home league games per club, there'd be the larger league that the vast majority of supporters want, with plenty to play for (still a 'top six'), about one game per week of the biggest clubs playing each other (there would be 30 head-to-heads between Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen, Hearts, Hibernian, and Dundee Utd in the core 34 games of the season, which would help with tv revenues) and 4x old firm games (1 head-to-head on match day 1; 2 during the course of the regular season; 1 end of season play-off) for commercial revenues. The second tier could be 18 teams also, with an integrated SFA non-league (juniors, seniors, amateurs) West, North and East regions below that; the money saved from having 35* rather than 42 League clubs could be re-distributed to the remaining clubs to help make the second tier financially viable, but there would really need to be a proper all-through model (not the lip-service to 'all-through' that we currently have) to make it work. *And it might help the development of players for the national team to have a Scotland Youth (u18s?) team competing in the second tier, where they could have the benefit of living and training full-time (which they don't have when on loan to part-time clubs) at Oriam, where they would be coached by the best that we have to improve their skills/technique and understanding of tactics (developing in the 'Scotland Way') during the week, with matches at a high level of senior football (which they don't have at full-time clubs, at that age) each weekend, playing league and cup away from home every week (which would also give their opponents an additional home match each season). And this could be further extended with regional academy teams participating in the top tier of each regional league, West, North and East, to help with development of the best players in each area every year... Edited September 3, 2016 by RabidAl 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ftk Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 I heard a rumour the spfl is in advanced talks with bt sports to try to bring in again the 12-12-18 league reconstruction with top 2 league's splitting into 3. Start when the new tv deal starts. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 (edited) Not saying you're wrong, but why would BT particularly care? They'd get 2 fewer Premiership rounds than now - 36 not 38 - and the rest is surely fairly trivial. You get the 'excitement' of a Middle 8, but on the other hand you get no Championship title-race or Premiership relegation-race and you get no end-of-season playoffs? Aside from the fact it got a very negative reception from fans last time around, the fundamental issues with the model remain: (1) - once you know you're top 4 in the Championship or bottom 4 in the Premiership, you've got nothing to play for until after the splits (2) - there is no difference finishing 9th or 12th in the Premiership, or 1st or 4th in the Championship, at the splits (3) - the Bottom 8 clubs have nothing to play for over 14 rounds except avoiding relegation to SPFL1 (4) - the Middle 8 clubs have nothing to play for once they're safely in the top or bottom 4 (5) - any games postponed before split (at 22 games i.e. in January) and not caught-up in time could delay the whole split (6) - any postponed games caught-up after the splits could be literally pointless i.e. if either or both clubs are in Middle 8 (7) - issues with meaningless games, large mid-table, and so on in an 18-team, 34-game SPFL1 Edited January 22, 2017 by HibeeJibee 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ftk Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 Not saying you're wrong, but why would BT particularly care? They'd get 2 fewer Premiership rounds than now - 36 not 38 - and the rest is surely fairly trivial. You get the 'excitement' of a Middle 8, but on the other hand you get no Championship title-race or Premiership relegation-race and you get no end-of-season playoffs? Aside from the fact it got a very negative reception from fans last time around, the fundamental issues with the model remain: (1) - once you know you're top 4 in the Championship or bottom 4 in the Premiership, you've got nothing to play for until after the splits (2) - there is no difference finishing 9th or 12th in the Premiership, or 1st or 4th in the Championship, at the splits (3) - the Bottom 8 clubs have nothing to play for over 14 rounds except avoiding relegation to SPFL1 (4) - the Middle 8 clubs have nothing to play for once they're safely in the top or bottom 4 (5) - any games postponed before split (at 22 games i.e. in January) and not caught-up in time could delay the whole split (6) - any postponed games caught-up after the splits could be literally pointless i.e. if either or both clubs are in Middle 8 (7) - issues with meaningless games, large mid-table, and so on in an 18-team, 34-game SPFL1 It's not my idea and not what I would go for. If it was up to me it would be large 18 or 20 team league's like most of the rest of Europe. Or as a compromise 3 league's of 14 play each other 3 times. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 I suppose time will tell. For fifty years Scottish football has been obsessed with the idea that a couple of clubs more or less, a couple of games more or less, a playoff here, or a break or split there will somehow transform the game's fortunes... We've had 10 clubs playing 36 games, 12 playing 44 games, 12 playing 38 games with a 6/6 split after 3 rounds... abortive proposals for 14 playing 36/40 games with a 6/8 split after 2 rounds, 12-12 playing 36 games with an 8-8-8 split after 2 rounds. We've had 2-up-2-down, 1-up-1-down, 1-up-1-down and 9th v 2nd playoff, 1-up-1-down and 11th + 2nd-4th playoff... abortive proposals for 1-up-1-down and 8th-9th + 2nd-3rd playoff. It's the idea a huge TV company cares which surprises. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ftk Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 I suppose time will tell. For fifty years Scottish football has been obsessed with the idea that a couple of clubs more or less, a couple of games more or less, a playoff here, or a break or split there will somehow transform the game's fortunes... We've had 10 clubs playing 36 games, 12 playing 44 games, 12 playing 38 games with a 6/6 split after 3 rounds... abortive proposals for 14 playing 36/40 games with a 6/8 split after 2 rounds, 12-12 playing 36 games with an 8-8-8 split after 2 rounds. We've had 2-up-2-down, 1-up-1-down, 1-up-1-down and 9th v 2nd playoff, 1-up-1-down and 11th + 2nd-4th playoff... abortive proposals for 1-up-1-down and 8th-9th + 2nd-3rd playoff. It's the idea a huge TV company cares which surprises. Very true surprised they havnt pushed for something that gives them 6 or 8 old firm matches 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
effeffsee_the2nd Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 I didn't like this when I first heard it but who knows maybe we could do worse than give it a try, teams who are comfortably top in the middle 8, bottom 8 and those out of the running in the top 8 can start fucking about with their squads? who knows, the group of 18 must surely have automatic relegations to the highland and lowland tho? or it will be even more stagnant with perma-diddys 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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