Would you change our league?

[Jacksgranda]

21 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

I have spent a lot of time researching the early days of Scottish football, and shared a different perspective on the discussion to act as a counterpoint to what had already been stated. Again, your warped single-issue thought process makes you incapable of realising that it doesn't mean I completely disagree with the point being made by the original poster, it just means I think there is another side to the story. This is also true of a lot of what I post on here, it's a mixture of my actual opinion and playing devil's advocate on a topic - I don't think it's healthy or helpful to any argument to just end up with a succession of people agreeing with each other without any genuine thought as to what the alternative argument is. If you're able to consider that alternative argument and prepare a response to it, then it means that the next time you make the case, you can present an even more convincing argument.

The problem is that you are every bit as one-eyed as weirdowilly or whatever he's called, and are entering this and base your opinion on basically every issue on your hatred of the Old Firm. As soon as a nuanced discussion arises, you aren't capable of actually participating in that discussion because you don't actually possess any individual thoughts on the topic. Therefore you just resort to ad hominem attacks like the one above and hope that it will garner enough support from a bunch of other cultists like you. It's basically the exact same thought process that a Celtic or Rangers fan has in their opposition to the other.

 

Don't go near the Politics forum...

[nsr]

14 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

Why haven't Celtic won multiple Champions League trophies?

Because Celtic are typical bullying cowards who lie down and cower in fear the moment they encounter someone bigger.

[Dons_1988]

2 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

Don't go near the Politics forum...

Indeed

[sjc]

As well as having squad number restrictions, I'd like to see a worldwide introduction of maximum term 1year contracts. This would essentially do away with transfer fees. However, I'd want some sort of a development fee tribunal for 1st time transfers though to protect the smaller Clubs.

It would see some of the power move back to the Clubs from the players/agents.

[Dons_1988]

3 minutes ago, sjc said:

As well as having squad number restrictions, I'd like to see a worldwide introduction of maximum term 1year contracts. This would essentially do away with transfer fees. However, I'd want some sort of a development fee tribunal for 1st time transfers though to protect the smaller Clubs.

It would see some of the power move back to the Clubs from the players/agents.

People have a right to seek job security. There's a balance to be struck here. Players living year to year on contracts is not healthy.

ETA it doesn't really help the clubs either, the bigger clubs would just end up cherry picking established talent for free. The vast majority wouldn't be first time transfers so not even a development fee involved.

Edited November 6, 2019 by Dons_1988

[sjc]

3 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

People have a right to seek job security. There's a balance to be struck here. Players living year to year on contracts is not healthy.

ETA it doesn't really help the clubs either, the bigger clubs would just end up cherry picking established talent for free. The vast majority wouldn't be first time transfers so not even a development fee involved.

I know what you mean about the whole job security thing.......that said, I worked freelance with essentially no job security for 20years. Where's the difference?

Your 2nd point is why I said having this alongside a squad size restriction to prevent this (ie 18 or 22 players maximum over 21yo Similar with u21yo players too).

I agree the development fee is a tricky one......but they do currently have something in place for u24yo.

[wastecoatwilly]

17 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

I'm explaining why it's harder for teams like Saints to replace star players than it is for Celtic.

Literally nothing you posted addresses that.

I find it strange that you choose Steve May to make your point when 5 years later he is back at the club.
You said he was replaced with Brian Graham but St Johnstone also signed O'Halloran that season so I don't think it was harder to replace May.
May only had one good season at St Johnstone then wasted the next 5 years of his career in England,another player making bad choices in the graveyard across the border.

Edited November 6, 2019 by wastecoatwilly

[craigkillie]

45 minutes ago, sjc said:

I know what you mean about the whole job security thing.......that said, I worked freelance with essentially no job security for 20years. Where's the difference?

Your 2nd point is why I said having this alongside a squad size restriction to prevent this (ie 18 or 22 players maximum over 21yo Similar with u21yo players too).

I agree the development fee is a tricky one......but they do currently have something in place for u24yo.

It's not a race to the bottom.

[RandomGuy.]

9 minutes ago, wastecoatwilly said:

I find it strange that you choose Steve May to make your point when 5 years later he is back at the club.
You said he was replaced with Brian Graham but St Johnstone also signed O'Halloran that season so I don't think it was harder to replace May.
May only had one good season at St Johnstone then wasted the next 5 years of his career in England,another player making bad choices in the graveyard across the border.

I chose May as he was our last star striker, and so it relates directly to Celtic losing Dembele.

We didnt sign O'Halloran the season May left either.

[wastecoatwilly]

15 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

I chose May as he was our last star striker, and so it relates directly to Celtic losing Dembele.

We didnt sign O'Halloran the season May left either.

Was it January for O'halloran then McLean the next season? 

[RandomGuy.]

Just now, wastecoatwilly said:

Was it January for O'halloran then McLean the next season? 

What? MacLean was 2 seasons before May left, O'Halloran was the season before.

The only attackers we signed the season May left were Brian Graham on loan, and Adam Morgan on loan.

[sjc]

15 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

It's not a race to the bottom.

My situation was hardly a "race to the bottom", I earned a very good living from my chosen career. A higher top line pay rate, albeit without the "perks" that on the books employees got.

It needn't be dissimilar in footballers case.

[topcat(The most tip top)]

On 05/11/2019 at 09:45, JTS98 said:

Again, I don't think anyone is suggesting we have to bin everything and return to the 19th century.

Also, were Renton not kicked out for playing St Bernard's, rather than professionalism?

Despite being at the meeting where the national league was founded St Benard's didn't sign up for the first season and instead joined the "Scottish Alliance League" alongside the likes of Kilmarnock, Partick Thistle, Clyde, Airdrieonians, Hamilton Academicals, and Albion Rovers and a lot of clubs that have long since disappeared. 

Later that season Saints were suspended from the SFA for Professionalism. James Ross,a former Dunfermline player, had played in a Scottish Cup tie for saints against "Adventurers" (from Gorgie). The Adventurers lodged a protest claiming that Ross was being paid on the sly.

Just as in the closing years of Rugby Unions amateur era it was an open secret there was a lot of that going on and it was commonly believed that Dunfermline's annoyance at Ross being tempted to the capital had prompted them to press the issue

on 19th September 1890 the SFA found against St Bernard's and suspended them till the endof October. St Bernards response was to form a brand new club called "Edinburgh Saints" join the East of Scotland FA sell season tickets for buttons to their existing season ticket holders and continue playing fixtures.

It was supposedly "Edinburgh Saints" that Renton were penalised for played against. Except of course the SFA didn't see it that way and suspended both Renton and Saint Bernard's/Edinburgh saints for a year. 

To complicate matters further a third version of Saint Bernard's then arose called "Edinburgh Northern" (no relation to the legendary rugby club which was founded 3 decades later). Northern existed for the duration of the ban but weren't allowed to field any of the players that had played against Renton so they were effectively Saint Bernard's fielding their reserves. 

The SFL accepted Professionalism in 1893 at the same time as St Bernard's and Dundee were accepted into the Scottish Football League.

 

 

 

[Monkey Tennis]

13 hours ago, craigkillie said:

I have spent a lot of time researching the early days of Scottish football, and shared a different perspective on the discussion to act as a counterpoint to what had already been stated. Again, your warped single-issue thought process makes you incapable of realising that it doesn't mean I completely disagree with the point being made by the original poster, it just means I think there is another side to the story. This is also true of a lot of what I post on here, it's a mixture of my actual opinion and playing devil's advocate on a topic - I don't think it's healthy or helpful to any argument to just end up with a succession of people agreeing with each other without any genuine thought as to what the alternative argument is. If you're able to consider that alternative argument and prepare a response to it, then it means that the next time you make the case, you can present an even more convincing argument.

The problem is that you are every bit as one-eyed as weirdowilly or whatever he's called, and are entering this and base your opinion on basically every issue on your hatred of the Old Firm. As soon as a nuanced discussion arises, you aren't capable of actually participating in that discussion because you don't actually possess any individual thoughts on the topic. Therefore you just resort to ad hominem attacks like the one above and hope that it will garner enough support from a bunch of other cultists like you. It's basically the exact same thought process that a Celtic or Rangers fan has in their opposition to the other.

 

 What was that about "ad hominem attacks"?

If my posting history has told you that I'm incapable of nuanced discussion, lack the capacity for individual thought and am guilty of adopting a similarly irrational outlook to Willy's, then I'd humbly suggest that you're not a terribly skilled reader.

Of course I get the idea of devil's advocacy, but thanks for explaining it as if to an unusually slow 9 year old.  My difficulty is not with you playing such games - a perfectly valid pursuit.  It's that your instinct is always to rubbish the ideas of those seeking to challenge how things are, by artlessly constructing a series of straw man arguments.

If someone suggests that there are aspects of American sports governance that we could learn from, you immediately jump to the absurdities of the franchise system as a means of destroying the wider point.  Similarly, if somebody suggests there were desirable aspects of how our game operated before, your goto position involves attacking indefensible practices that disappeared in the early 60 such as the Maximum Wage and Retain and Transfer.

It's essentially dishonest as an approach because it denies the existence of that very nuance you allegedly value.

I think your instincts take you in a direction of defending things that are terribly wrong with the way football operates.  Therefore, I see you as an apologist for the forces behind such things and will say so.

Edited November 6, 2019 by Monkey Tennis

[wastecoatwilly]

5 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

If my posting history has told you that I'm incapable of nuanced discussion,

Spoke to Stephen Dobbie the other day hes having a problem with his lower back, is he out injured? 

[Guest JTS98]

5 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

If someone suggests that there are aspects of American sports governance that we could learn from, you immediately jump to the absurdities of the franchise system as a means of destroying the wider point.  Similarly, if somebody suggests there were desirable aspects of how our game operated before, your goto position involves attacking indefensible practices that disappeared in the early 60 such as the Maximum Wage and Retain and Transfer.

I'm cool with anyone playing Devil's Advocate, I'm an argumentative p***k myself, often just for the sake of it. But I do agree with the point you raise here and feel it is part of a pattern where many people dismiss any change towards any aspect of any other system as if it necessitates embracing that entire system, like the NFL's financial equality suddenly meaning we'd need a draft system. I don't see why that must be the case.

Look around the world and you'll see sporting competitions operating all kinds of combinations of the different systems available to protect competition. Using some doesn't mean using all, yet the SPFL uses none. We do literally nothing to encourage competition in our league.

It would be nice if someone in the Scottish football media would use their position to move the Overton Window by raising these issues more. Nobody in the Scottish media ever questions why we have to have a tv deal that protects the richest clubs. Or why we can't have play-offs, indeed that very idea is treated as some kind of heresy when it's perfectly common around the world and used by competitions much more successful and interesting than ours. Or why we stick with a completely out-dated system of competition. Or why it's a good thing for our biggest clubs to do well in Europe. Or why the clubs don't share gate receipts any more. Or why we don't have some kind of limit on spending. These discussions just aren't had. They're off-limits.

Nobody in the Scottish media ever seriously examines and lays out to the public the reasons why we're now three and a bit decades into a run of only having two champions, and why we're on course for a second 9-in-a-row in my 35-year lifetime. Why not? Both of these things are scandalous and show that our system is utterly broken.

Without someone in the media questioning the status quo, the public discussion will never move and nothing will ever change. We can hardly leave it to the Old Firm sycophants we're all familiar with, the type that give us "other clubs should do more" or "get their houses in order" blah blah, so it'd be nice if someone else could maybe use a platform to do that.

For anything to change, someone with a platform has to start questioning things that nobody else is questioning.

Edited November 6, 2019 by JTS98

[Monkey Tennis]

8 hours ago, wastecoatwilly said:

Spoke to Stephen Dobbie the other day hes having a problem with his lower back, is he out injured? 

No he's playing, but is not at his best.

I can't imagine that talking to you helped.  Can you leave him alone please.

[Monkey Tennis]

8 hours ago, JTS98 said:

I'm cool with anyone playing Devil's Advocate, I'm an argumentative p***k myself, often just for the sake of it. But I do agree with the point you raise here and feel it is part of a pattern where many people dismiss any change towards any aspect of any other system as if it necessitates embracing that entire system, like the NFL's financial equality suddenly meaning we'd need a draft system. I don't see why that must be the case.

Look around the world and you'll see sporting competitions operating all kinds of combinations of the different systems available to protect competition. Using some doesn't mean using all, yet the SPFL uses none. We do literally nothing to encourage competition in our league.

It would be nice if someone in the Scottish football media would use their position to move the Overton Window by raising these issues more. Nobody in the Scottish media ever questions why we have to have a tv deal that protects the richest clubs. Or why we can't have play-offs, indeed that very idea is treated as some kind of heresy when it's perfectly common around the world and used by competitions much more successful and interesting than ours. Or why we stick with a completely out-dated system of competition. Or why it's a good thing for our biggest clubs to do well in Europe. Or why the clubs don't share gate receipts any more. Or why we don't have some kind of limit on spending. These discussions just aren't had. They're off-limits.

Nobody in the Scottish media ever seriously examines and lays out to the public the reasons why we're now three and a bit decades into a run of only having two champions, and why we're on course for a second 9-in-a-row in my 35-year lifetime. Why not? Both of these things are scandalous and show that our system is utterly broken.

Without someone in the media questioning the status quo, the public discussion will never move and nothing will ever change. We can hardly leave it to the Old Firm sycophants we're all familiar with, the type that give us "other clubs should do more" or "get their houses in order" blah blah, so it'd be nice if someone else could maybe use a platform to do that.

For anything to change, someone with a platform has to start questioning things that nobody else is questioning.

Excellent post.

I think we can safely assume that Barry Ferguson and Pat Bonner are not going to be the pundits who see through to the heart of the issue and press for change.

It's dispiriting however when those with a different sort of media platform, such as Craig, gaze contentedly through the current Overton Window too.  He's articulate and I do believe he's even done some research you know.  Yet with regard to this, he's as helpful as Billy Dodds.

[craigkillie]

Again, the problem seems to be that you are not happy that I am not raising the specific issues that you care most seriously about. Anyone who knows me across any or all of the three main platforms where I share my opinions on Scottish football (here, Twitter and on the Terrace Podcast) will have absolutely no doubt as to my opinions on any range of topics.

I've used those platforms to "campaign" on many topics. Like many people on here (probably including you), I was involved in shifting that "Overton Window" in terms of Rangers gaining access to the SPL (or SFL1) in 2012, including using my "platform" with a social media account with a large number of followers to argue that case. I used that same platform to write about it in The Blizzard to a UK (or even worldwide) explaining the whole scenario.

I've regularly opposed the inclusion of Colts teams in the league and defended smaller clubs against suggestions they should be forced to merge and/or lose their place based on club size (note that those in favour include a current BBC sport journalist, a much lauded comms manager at a Scottish Premiership club and the unfathomably popular Jim Spence). Both of those are widely considered "the right thing to do" by the bulk of the media in Scotland, and would most likely have been railed through but for the resistance they have met from other sources. You could probably look through a plethora of other topics - plastic pitches (even before we had one), minimum seat rules, the pyramid system, Scottish Cup reform, ticket pricing etc as areas where I have advocated for change for things I care about.

In your posts above you've highlighted things that I have argued against in the past - in each case these have been either because I don't like the ideas or more likely because I find them impractical. Nothing annoys me more than people saying stuff along the line "Why don't we just copy X? It's so obvious!" without actually giving the tiniest bit of thought as to the practicalities of that. There's no point in having an idea or campaigning for change if you don't actually know what it is you actually want to happen at the end beyond some vague notion.

Some of the other things you've suggested, I wouldn't advocate for because I don't agree with them. I don't like the idea of play-offs for any sporting competition where all of the teams have already participated against each other. I get it to some extent in US sports where they have different conferences and not every team plays the same fixtures, but if it's just a simple league system then it seems a bit wonky to have play-offs at the end. It devalues the rest of the games to some extent, and seems unfair on the team who has clearly proved themselves to be the best over the season. I appreciate that this also extends to promotion play-offs - but I find it more egregious when it's about who actually wins a competition. You disagree, and you use your own platform on here to share those opinions, but the way you express them doesn't seem particularly successful and therefore if anything you're probably damaging (or at the very least not helping) your own cause.

[Guest JTS98]

57 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

 

I've used those platforms to "campaign" on many topics. Like many people on here (probably including you), I was involved in shifting that "Overton Window" in terms of 1) Rangers gaining access to the SPL (or SFL1) in 2012, including using my "platform" with a social media account with a large number of followers to argue that case. I used that same platform to write about it in The Blizzard to a UK (or even worldwide) explaining the whole scenario.

2) I've regularly opposed the inclusion of Colts teams in the league and 3) defended smaller clubs against suggestions they should be forced to merge and/or lose their place based on club size (note that those in favour include a current BBC sport journalist, a much lauded comms manager at a Scottish Premiership club and the unfathomably popular Jim Spence). Both of those are widely considered "the right thing to do" by the bulk of the media in Scotland, and would most likely have been railed through but for the resistance they have met from other sources. You could probably look through a plethora of other topics - 4) plastic pitches (even before we had one), 5) minimum seat rules, 6) the pyramid system, 7) Scottish Cup reform, ticket pricing etc as areas where I have advocated for change for things I care about.

 

I count 8 issues there.

1) Along with almost all non-Rangers supporters.

2) The colts idea is not popular among fans. You know that, I know that.

3) Clubs being shut down due to size is something almost all football fans oppose. Not exactly swimming against the tide there.

4) Divisive issue, but plenty of people make the case for them. Lots of clubs have them, for goodness sake.

5) Minimum seat rules were widely unpopular for years. Hardly a brave stand (no pun intended).

6) Again, the introduction of a pyramid has been a popular issue for years.

7) Scottish Cup reform had been a discussed issue since I was a wean.

8 ) Ticket pricing... Come on!

You brought this stuff up, but there's absolutely nothing controversial or new there and you've certainly not been saying anything nobody else is saying. They're all pretty popular positions among Scottish football fans.

By just dismissing any change because you don't like all associated change you lessen the possibility of things getting better. People argued for years that promotion play-offs were the way to go. It became a mainstream idea and now we have them. People made it clear en masse that they wouldn't put up with Rangers being punted into the top flight and it changed the idea from an inevitability into an impossibility. The views expressed contrary to the accepted views became mainstream and won.

No ideas contrary to the Old Firm closed shop are even being expressed at the moment. Until they are, nothing will change. 35 years will become 70.