People's opinions of the split (..and possible reconstruction?)

[gudge1903]

East and West of Scotland leagues. Two top leagues of 12, winners play off for top euro spots.

Hopefully the eastern based clubs could construct a fair competition. 

The west would just be some sort of comedy set up with the wedgies organising their own referees like they do just now.

[Ranaldo Bairn]

1 hour ago, ol1vercloff said:

Destroyed = being told that Germany does it, so it must be right?

(Only Scottish people could enjoy a relegation play off) + (eh, they do it in Germany and elsewhere) = destruction of your argument.

[Trackdaybob]

48 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

Rangers weren't in the top flight for 4 years and despite us constantly being told in this sort of tone that "they" wouldn't let that happen, it did in fact happen.

You and I both know that if they could have got away with keeping them in the top flight, then that's exactly what would have happened. 

[craigkillie]

Yes, but they (whoever "they" are) couldn't get away with it, just like they wouldn't get away with what you suggested.

[Trackdaybob]

15 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

Yes, but they (whoever "they" are) couldn't get away with it, just like they wouldn't get away with what you suggested.

"They" as you put it, are the people running the league. The people in charge. Was it a mistake assuming you knew that? 

Never mind. 

Originally I was being tongue in cheek with a ridiculous example of pandering to the ugly sisters. Because the pandering as it is, its just that. With no desire to try and improve things, nothing will improve. If 'they' are happy with the way things are, the same two teams winning for evermore, that's a bit sad. 

All that said, I doubt it'll be my concern next season  

 

 

[ol1vercloff]

1 hour ago, Ranaldo Bairn said:

(Only Scottish people could enjoy a relegation play off) + (eh, they do it in Germany and elsewhere) = destruction of your argument.

Not quite, but whatever helps you sleep at night. You've been too close to that power plant, young man. 

[ropy]

9 hours ago, 10menwent2mow said:

As far as reconstruction goes. I've always been a pretty vocal critic of a 14/16/18 team league. 

14 - would only work with a split after 26 and a total of 38 games, for me that split comes too early. 

16 - 30 games is too short a season and a split after 30 would mean 37, and a home away imbalance that the OF would moan about spectacularly

 

After the split in a 16 team league the fixtures could be predetermined, e.g. 1st at the split plays 2nd, 4th, 6th and 8th at home.

[tamba_trio]

On 11/02/2022 at 22:50, gudge1903 said:

East and West of Scotland leagues. Two top leagues of 12, winners play off for top euro spots.

Hopefully the eastern based clubs could construct a fair competition. 

The west would just be some sort of comedy set up with the wedgies organising their own referees like they do just now.

I like this idea. I feel like the East coast teams would be a lot happier. 

[Dunning1874]

On 07/02/2022 at 12:36, flyingscot said:

I actually think the current format in the Premiership is probably the best balance we can get. I'm not sold on the 18 team league for our size of country. I think the division below would probably be an abyss for full time teams. 

This is the crux of the issue. You can speculate and compare the merits of a top flight with anywhere from 10-20 clubs in isolation, and personally I think 18 teams is a good size for a division, but you need to consider the impact on leagues below as well for the health of the game as a whole.

If you increase the size of the top flight to 16 or higher then you're creating a financial wasteland beneath it because of the size of clubs who'll be left behind. That's not just bad for the clubs outwith the top flight but bad for everyone in it who could realistically get relegated, which would be the vast majority of them, if relegation means falling into a financial abyss relative to the current second tier.

A 14 team top flight would still be sustainable in that regard, but that requires an earlier and more imbalanced split than 12 does, so if your issue with 12 is the split then 14 isn't a solution anyway and actively makes that issue worse. I genuinely think 12 is the ideal size for the Scottish top flight just now, all things considered.

I do think though that people vastly overstate the meaningless games problem of larger leagues. If you have an 18 team league playing 34 games then clubs in the middle of the pack aren't going to have their seasons finished by December as they're sitting in 9th or 10th. You've still got the same probability of a points gap to the top and bottom over 34 games in an 18 team league as you do in 34 games in any other size of league, if that makes sense.

Teams in midtable in an 18 team league halfway through the season are still going to know a positive run of results can have them threatening the top few places and a terrible run could put them in relegation trouble. Dead rubbers where teams are mathematically ruled out of a meaningful position at the top or bottom are still only going to happen in the final three or four games of a season, and I think we can maybe a bit too obsessive about every single game having to count anyway.

People have always talked up how competitive the Scottish Championship is, but while it's entertaining to watch being so cutthroat doesn't exactly make for a healthy environment for clubs to operate in either. Clubs are always panicking and launching money at journeymen because of that competitiveness and how it incentivises short-term thinking. There's no time for long term planning or using transfer windows to build something slowly when two bad results can put you in a relegation battle. It's a significant reason the division is riddled with financial instability, as clubs failing to break even fear even taking one window to sort themselves will doom them to the seaside leagues and as Falkirk have shown, that can be very hard to come back from.

That's why I'd have any reconstruction leaving the size of the top flight as it is, but change the lower leagues so we have 12-18-18. On number of fixtures, clubs are only dropping one home game and in turn they get increased stability. It wouldn't be so big a league that your current lower midtable to relegation battling Championship clubs would be insulated from a relegation battle, but it would give them some space for long term planning and hopefully provide a foundation for the smaller full-time clubs to be less of a financial basketcase.

Everyone has something to gain from that. Where part-time clubs reaching the second tier now effectively know they're on a cycle and will go down eventually - see Alloa's ups and downs over the last 20 years or so, and while Arbroath are smashing it this season they only avoided the relegation playoff by a point last year - a league of that size would be something bigger part-time clubs could credibly aim to get in and stay in, rather than knowing it's going to peter out over the course of time. It could be a real opportunity for the smallest full-time clubs like Airdrie to grow sustainably, rather than clubs doing a Queen's Park or Kelty and shovelling money at mercenaries to try to get up and establish themselves.

While current top flight clubs could look at it negatively in dropping an extra home game if they go down, and also replacing eg two games with a travelling support from Dunfermline with one from Dunfermline and one from Clyde, there's still positives to this. If you're a Dundee United/Hibs type club (or potentially Kilmarnock) who are expecting to go straight back up then f**k it up, being in a league that's less of a financial basketcase means you're at less risk of turning into a Caley Thistle style trainwreck yourselves. If you're St Mirren, looking at your own recent history as well as Hamilton and Partick since, you know that if you go down you're less likely to find yourselves staring consecutive relegations in the face and have a chance to stabilise. Also from a fan perspective for clubs like that, in this scenario you'd get a game at a place like Montrose rather than two trips to grounds you've already been to dozens of times.

If you had a playoff for clubs from 2nd-5th and three automatically down in the second tier, with two automatically up, a playoff for 3rd-6th and three automatically down in the third tier, I don't think you're ending up with many clubs playing dead rubbers from March in that scenario. The sticking point would be that it would be hard to justify not having 11th in the top flight automatically relegated rather than having them in the playoff, and I don't see top flight clubs ever agreeing to that.

This would also add six more clubs to the SPFL in one swoop to get the pyramid moving; there's a trade off there for clubs currently at the bottom of the SPFL in that you'd be introducing automatic relegation, but giving them something of a safety net in having more clubs in the SPFL and making it easier to get back. 3 up, 3 down there would have the champions of both the HL & LL promoted with a playoff between the runners up of each having a playoff. The Lowland League becomes a less terrifying place to fall into if you know you don't need to win the title then two playoff ties to make it back, while you've also made it less shit by creating the space to promote teams from Tier 6 to it more quickly.

Edited February 14, 2022 by Dunning1874

[jamamafegan]

The Norwegians have it right. 16 teams, play each team once home and away. 2 teams go down. Team 14 enters a play-off. That for me would be the dream league. It would do away with this absolute nonsense of playing teams 4 times a season, which for fans is really boring.

The Old Firm derby, billed as one of the greatest derbies in the world, is actually incredibly tinpot. Is there any other country in the world where two giant clubs like them can potentially face each other 6 times in one season?

Sadly the 16 team league will almost certainly never get voted through because Celtic and Rangers won’t want to miss out on those extra derbies.

[jamamafegan]

Just been looking at the league winners when we last had a 16 team league (1946 - 1955.) Titles won:

Rangers 4
Hibernian 3
Celtic 1
Aberdeen 1

In the seasons Rangers won, their closest challengers (Hibs and Dundee) only finished a point or 2 behind them. One season was even won on goal difference. Would a 16 team league help to narrow the gap? Would less games put more pressure on the OF to their games win? Would lesser sides see their home and away games against the OF as a bigger occasion, a free hit, and throw everything at them and make it harder for them?

Who cares about the loss of 8 games? Make up for by letting more teams in the cup competitions or something. We have a beautiful pyramid system below the senior sides. Lots of teams that could be let into cup comps.

[the tungston weasel]

People seem to think that playing the same team 4 times is boring and therefore bigger league required.

I disagree.

The fact we play each other 4 times is one of the leagues great strengths. It let's rivalries over a season build and resolve. Creates a familiarity with the characters of scottish football which are many and varied. Opesition players become pantomime villans twice a season.

A 16 or 18 team league would destroy the character of scottish football.

[topcat(The most tip top)]

7 hours ago, jamamafegan said:

Just been looking at the league winners when we last had a 16 team league (1946 - 1955.) Titles won:

Rangers 4
Hibernian 3
Celtic 1
Aberdeen 1

So you're saying that in order to have a more competitive league we need another war?

[Kyle Reese]

53 minutes ago, the tungston weasel said:

People seem to think that playing the same team 4 times is boring and therefore bigger league required.

I disagree.

The fact we play each other 4 times is one of the leagues great strengths. It let's rivalries over a season build and resolve. Creates a familiarity with the characters of scottish football which are many and varied. Opesition players become pantomime villans twice a season.

A 16 or 18 team league would destroy the character of scottish football.

I find it so difficult to understand this point of view. Fair enough, we all see things differently though.

I find it dull as dishwater. Go on a wee run… oh look, we’ve got Celtic this weekend. Oh well. Or, who have we got in the next few fixtures? Oh, Dundee United twice and Aberdeen for the fourth time this season. That’ll be exciting. 

Nah, it’s utter guff tbh. Playing the same team sometimes six times a season if you are unlucky enough to draw the same club in both cups. Absolute fucking tedium.

[itzdrk]

I'd like the top flight relegation playoff to be changed, It always feels like the championship finishes too early to accommodate it for me. 

 

[jamamafegan]

So you're saying that in order to have a more competitive league we need another war?

If that’s what it takes to get back a 16 team league then I hope Russia invades Ukraine immediately.

[craigkillie]

I'd like the top flight relegation playoff to be changed, It always feels like the championship finishes too early to accommodate it for me. 
 

The end of April is pretty much when the second tier has always finished, even before the play-offs.

[Kyle Reese]

Can you imagine boxing was done SPFL style? Or the Six Nations? The World Cup? 

The Big Fight? Meh, I’ll catch the third or fourth bout.

Scotland win the Calcutta Cup! Shit, England won it back a month later.

Its bad enough playing the same nations in the qualifiers every couple of years in international football. Why don’t we just get the biggest national teams to play each other four times every finals?

We could extend the familiarity concept to the Champions League as well. Just do away with teams from the smaller countries. They aren’t box office enough. Let’s just have the same 15-20 teams take part every year instead. They are the big guns. Who cares about Belgian, Scottish or Norwegian clubs?

I will never get this idea that it’s better to play the same teams 3-6/7 times a season. It’s not entertaining and it’s not exciting. It leads to players sussing each other out and leads to dull games. How many times have you heard a player leave the Scottish top flight for the English lower leagues, and then cite the boring repetitive nature of our league as part of the reason?

Even derbies. You know if you lose one, you’ll get at least another three cracks at it the same season. It totally takes away from the big game nature of the fixture.

[Nightmare]

The “meaningless games” argument against bigger leagues is completely overblown, imo. It seems to suggest that games in smaller leagues will be more competitive if they involve teams who may be fighting over the same thing, but oddly doesn’t seem to account for these games often being a negative, attritional slog because one (or both) of the teams might be terrified to lose.

Maybe bigger leagues would result in open, expansive football and the introduction of more youth players - two aspects which may contribute to the appeal of a “meaningless” mid-table game in March and result in a better product on the field. Competitiveness doesn’t necessarily = a better game of football or atmosphere.

Scottish football in its current guise is alright, but for the sake of variety of opponent I’d much prefer bigger leagues. I appreciate the top flight is unlikely to expand due to financial and OF-related reasons which have previously been discussed, but even if tiers 2 and 3 transformed to 18-team setups as @Dunning1874 suggested in an earlier post then that would be a start.

As an example, we’re already due to play Dunfermline 6 times this season, which was very close to being 7 if our Scottish Cup game hadn’t included a late winner to avoid a replay. And it doesn’t even stop there: there could have been an 8th fixture if we’d drawn each other in the Challenge Cup, and now due to the playoffs there’s the potential for another two legs at the end of the season. Any structure where you can play the same team 10 (TEN) times in a season probably isn’t ideal.

[Kyle Reese]

2 minutes ago, Nightmare said:

The “meaningless games” argument against bigger leagues is completely overblown, imo. It seems to suggest that games in smaller leagues will be more competitive if they involve teams who may be fighting over the same thing, but oddly doesn’t seem to account for these games often being a negative, attritional slog because one (or both) of the teams might be terrified to lose.

Maybe bigger leagues would result in open, expansive football and the introduction of more youth players - two aspects which may contribute to the appeal of a “meaningless” mid-table game in March and result in a better product on the field. Competitiveness doesn’t necessarily = a better game of football or atmosphere.

Scottish football in its current guise is alright, but for the sake of variety of opponent I’d much prefer bigger leagues. I appreciate the top flight is unlikely to expand due to financial and OF-related reasons which have previously been discussed, but even if tiers 2 and 3 transformed to 18-team setups as @Dunning1874 suggested in an earlier post then that would be a start.

As an example, we’re already due to play Dunfermline 6 times this season, which was very close to being 7 if our Scottish Cup game hadn’t included a late winner to avoid a replay. And it doesn’t even stop there: there could have been an 8th fixture if we’d drawn each other in the Challenge Cup, and now due to the playoffs there’s the potential for another two legs at the end of the season. Any structure where you can play the same team 10 (TEN) times in a season probably isn’t ideal.

Good post.