League Reconstruction 20/21 season

[bairney]

2-10-10-10-10

The weegie bigots play each other in a 36 game card a season in their own wee cabbage patch.

The rest of Scottish Football plays meaningful competitive football with real, healthy promotion and relegation. Why not? FFS they're tried everything else in the last 20 years in the total joke that is Scottish Football's constant 're-branding / reconstruction' crap.

[vikingTON]

9 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

A team finishing 7th or 8th out of 14 should not be getting a shot at a promotion playoff.

You wanted a solution to the problem; there's a straightforward one right there. A team that finishes 7th or 8th has no massively inferior claim to one that finishes 4th out of 10 under the current system, nor some outfit that stinks out the top half of the split.

You give the 'winners' of the bottom half a glorified raffle ticket alongside a team from the top half to fight it out for entry: if they get through that and past two objectively better teams in the play-off proper then they would have earned their prize the hard way. That's how you achieve a genuinely meaningful league from top to bottom to the end of the season regardless of the number of teams.

 

Edited May 5, 2020 by vikingTON

[topcat(The most tip top)]

Yeah, this is why a 14 team league is always going to be worse than 12. Any split will come far too early and it's unworkable without one.

And why a 14 team league would be temporary, even if it’s supposed to be permanent

 

 

[Dunning1874]

2 minutes ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

And why a 14 team league would be temporary

 

If a reconstruction isn't going to be permanent there's no justification for it happening at all.

[Poet of the Macabre]

14 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

A team finishing 7th or 8th out of 14 should not be getting a shot at a promotion playoff.

A team finishing 4th in Champ, L1 or L2.shouldn't be able to be promoted either. If you're looking for fairness then that ship sailed years ago.

[topcat(The most tip top)]

If a reconstruction isn't going to be permanent there's no justification for it happening at all.

What I mean is that if, as we both expect, it’s shit and enough clubs dislike it then the system will end up being reshuffled again in a few years time.

None of the previous “permanent” set ups have actually been permanent I don’t expect this one to be, or the next one

[MacGafraidh]

14-14-16 for me

[Caledonian1]

1 hour ago, Green Day said:

So is this right?

26 games before the split, not like current set up which is 33.

Based on this season, the split would be 3 weeks after the winter break (mid Feb)

And there would then be 14 games in the split instead of the current 5.

Imagine being safely in 7th spot,  you basically have 14 meaningless games - i.e one third of the fixtures being effectively pointless.

What is the point????

 

This would mean 12 games post split.  Although I would favour a 6-8 split (total 36 games for top 6)

Surely a team in 7th with 12 games to go would / should fancy their chances of a European place - playing all their rivals a further 2 times

I think a 14 team top division with an 6-8 spilt is preferable to the current set up (inbalance of home and away fixtures)

Most important features of reconstruction for me are a return to playing with a white ball and re-naming the divisions 1,2 & 3 (hate this copying of wanky english division names....championship????)

 

[Steve McQueen]

9 hours ago, Green Day said:

So is this right?

26 games before the split, not like current set up which is 33.

Based on this season, the split would be 3 weeks after the winter break (mid Feb)

And there would then be 14 games in the split instead of the current 5.

Imagine being safely in 7th spot,  you basically have 14 meaningless games - i.e one third of the fixtures being effectively pointless.

What is the point????

 

I think the main point might be fitting all the games in. Just takes a couple of week of bad weather & theyll struggle to get the games played by end of January.

[Dons_1988]

The last couple of pages is exactly why rushing through some permanent change to the league structures during the current situation is ludicrous.

[Dunning1874]

12 hours ago, virginton said:

You wanted a solution to the problem; there's a straightforward one right there. A team that finishes 7th or 8th has no massively inferior claim to one that finishes 4th out of 10 under the current system, nor some outfit that stinks out the top half of the split.

You give the 'winners' of the bottom half a glorified raffle ticket alongside a team from the top half to fight it out for entry: if they get through that and past two objectively better teams in the play-off proper then they would have earned their prize the hard way. That's how you achieve a genuinely meaningful league from top to bottom to the end of the season regardless of the number of teams.

 

 

12 hours ago, Poet of the Macabre said:

A team finishing 4th in Champ, L1 or L2.shouldn't be able to be promoted either. If you're looking for fairness then that ship sailed years ago.

There's obviously a trade off to be made between fairness and an exciting league with meaningful games. A team finishing 2nd out of 10 have proven themselves to be better than the teams finishing 3rd and 4th, but the lower leagues are undeniably more exciting and have been made more meaningful with the top four getting into playoffs.

Playoffs are therefore a worthwhile addition and rightly here to stay, despite being less fair than just promoting the team in second or putting them directly into a final against the team from a higher division. There's a risk of 4th placed sides being promoted who clearly aren't ready for it and being miles out of their depth the following season (Brechin in 17/18 the extreme example, Stirling in 14/15 a normal one) but that's a worthwhile trade off for meaningful leagues.

Giving 8th out of 14 that chance is not the same thing - that'd be like giving 6th out of 10 a playoff place, so yes, they would have a "massively inferior" claim to sides in 4th in the current system. They would certainly have a massively inferior claim to sides who've finished above them in the same division as you're advocating, with 7th/8th leapfrogging sides in 5th/6th/7th into the playoffs.

You're actually incentivising sides to do worse if you award a playoff spot to someone in the bottom half of the split but not to everyone in the top half. Finishing 8th in a league should not grant you a reward that a club finishing 6th is denied.

That is going considerably further than the current playoff system and is too much of a trade off. You try to strike a balance between fairness and meaningful competitiveness in any system, and this goes way too far to one side of that into Belgium levels of mentalism.

If we want a bigger top flight then we need to have the strength in depth of clubs to maintain a strong enough second tier to have a 16 team top flight without causing too big a gulf between those divisions. Whether we can do that is up for debate, but if it's not workable then staying with 12 teams is a much better option than going to 14.

The fact even the advocates of a 14 team league think you need these kind of ridiculous contortions in creating a split is proof that it's just an unworkable size of league.

Edited May 6, 2020 by Dunning1874

[The DA]

9 hours ago, MacGafraidh said:

14-14-16 for me

12-10-10-10 for me.

[ahemps]

1st tier - 16 team Premiership

2nd tier - 18 team Championship

-------------------

3rd tier - 18 team National

4th tier - Regional leagues (Highland/Lowland, East, West etc.)

------------------

4 teams who win their regional leagues all get promoted. Would give teams from the Highland leagues, ex junior teams etc. a chance to be in the national league or championship within 2-3 years if they are successful.

2-3 teams getting promoted/relegated at the other levels gives plenty of turn around and opportunity to all the teams.

[NorthBank]

If it wasn't for the pandemic there wouldn't be any reconstruction. Keep as is.

[Ric]

1 hour ago, Dons_1988 said:

The last couple of pages is exactly why rushing through some permanent change to the league structures during the current situation is ludicrous.

Surely the that argument applies irrespective of time span.

1 minute ago, NorthBank said:

If it wasn't for the pandemic there wouldn't be any reconstruction. Keep as is.

I'm torn, I want a larger league and always felt it should be bigger (if only to take away the x4 nonsense).

I feel you are spot on though, if it wasn't for Covid and more specifically if it wasn't for Covid and Hearts being bottom, then reconstruction would be getting short shrift. It would also be chucklesome to see Hearts relegated.

Edited May 6, 2020 by Ric

[MacGafraidh]

29 minutes ago, ahemps said:

1st tier - 16 team Premiership

2nd tier - 18 team Championship

-------------------

3rd tier - 18 team National

4th tier - Regional leagues (Highland/Lowland, East, West etc.)

------------------

4 teams who win their regional leagues all get promoted. Would give teams from the Highland leagues, ex junior teams etc. a chance to be in the national league or championship within 2-3 years if they are successful.

2-3 teams getting promoted/relegated at the other levels gives plenty of turn around and opportunity to all the teams.

That’s a pretty good plan

[Dons_1988]

26 minutes ago, Ric said:

Surely the that argument applies irrespective of time span.

I'm torn, I want a larger league and always felt it should be bigger (if only to take away the x4 nonsense).

I feel you are spot on though, if it wasn't for Covid and more specifically if it wasn't for Covid and Hearts being bottom, then reconstruction would be getting short shrift. It would also be chucklesome to see Hearts relegated.

My point is that clearly there is consensus amongst fans, clubs or any other stakeholder as to what permanent reconstruction should look like. I would also lean towards a bigger league but there's several options on the table with several implications for each option. The time span is simply not long enough to work through all of those and do the required consultations to do this properly, plus is it really where resources should be being diverted right now?

I'm leaning towards leaving it as is.

I am sympathetic to Hearts, Partick, Stranraer situation to be honest but if there's no appetite for a temporary fix then those clubs just have to suck it up.

 

 

[NorthBank]

League 2 Clubs have agreed that the only option they will back is 14-14-14. If it ain't that it ain't happening. Any other option requires their support which they have said they will not give.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/spfl-reconstruction-plans-tatters-lower-21933540

[Dons_1988]

3 minutes ago, NorthBank said:

League 2 Clubs have agreed that the only option they will back is 14-14-14. If it ain't that it ain't happening. Any other option requires their support which they have said they will not give.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/spfl-reconstruction-plans-tatters-lower-21933540

I'd be surprised if the league 2 clubs can't move at all on that position.

I think that was them trying to gain some collective bargaining power.

[NorthBank]

Just now, Dons_1988 said:

I'd be surprised if the league 2 clubs can't move at all on that position.

I think that was them trying to gain some collective bargaining power.

Maybe but on Sportsound two weeks ago they seemed quite adamant (two Chairmen were on - Elgin and Stenhousemuir). They seemed pissed off that the Premiership teams effectively ignored League 2 and their thoughts on the game. They had to suffer the consequences of what the big boys wanted with their concerns never addressed. Stenhousemuiir did not want reconstruction at all but if it happened that was the only option they would accept and they wanted more money drifting down to the lower Leagues. They certainly did not want two more teams added to make their small cut even smaller.