Our Competitive League

[Jacksgranda]

2 hours ago, Junior_Arab said:

What about a tweet containing the words “rock bottom” and a keeper getting busted wide open (to use the wrestling colloquialism) by a foreign object? 
 

2/3 ain’t bad. 

Bit xenophobic, imho...

[Jacksgranda]

1 hour ago, Proudtobeabairn said:

Imagine going into the last game of the season on level points at the bottom and not trying because you were playing Rangers or Celtic and that was the 'agreement' you'd made.  Likely? 

No, as that would mean Rangers and Celtic being in the bottom 6.

[RandomGuy.]

I think Austria tries to "balance" things by halving points totals when they split.

Im not sure how much that would help here. There would be a 13pt gap between Celtic/Hearts heading into the final 5 games last season, and i think 8 between Rangers/Hearts.

[Monkey Tennis]

1 hour ago, Proudtobeabairn said:

Imagine going into the last game of the season on level points at the bottom and not trying because you were playing Rangers or Celtic and that was the 'agreement' you'd made.  Likely? 

What an act of treachery it would be to harm the brotherhood of football I'd single handedly established with my searing vision.

[Monkey Tennis]

1 hour ago, Proudtobeabairn said:

Been said before but the only way to increase competition is to increase the size of the league to 18 or 20 teams and play home and away. 

Most teams lose to Rangers and Celtic so are effectively starting 8 games behind at the moment. Reduce that to 4 and someone like Aberdeen (for example) could potentially challenge at the top if they go on a run v the rest of the teams in the league.  

Not much evidence to suggest this would be key.

The 80s saw plenty of competition, soon after the smaller top flight came in.

[AJF]

2 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Anyway, I've already outlined how we fix this in the other similar recent threads:

All the non-OF clubs get together and demand a massively different distribution model that presents a much, much more level playing field for clubs.  

It could involve gate sharing, merchandising being pooled, a requirement for a large chunk of European income to be shared out etc.    There would be a need for this model to involve lower league clubs also, so that no cliff face exists.

When these demands are rejected by the clubs and spluttered about in the media, the top flight diddies agree ahead of the next full season, that they will field youth sides against the OF, ensuring that they get hammered each and every time.  For home matches against the OF, they should urge their own fans to boycott the games, opening the grounds entirely to OF fans if they still want to come.  It'll mean that the OF sides take maximum points from everyone else, and the title will rest solely on the 4 OF games.  The spectacle for Sky will be shit and thoroughly devalued.

Meanwhile, the teams will all compete as usual against each other, meaning the 3rd placed team will be regarded as Champions by actual fans everywhere.  A trophy could even be presented. Relegation will still be decided in the traditional way, but as everyone has lost to the OF every time, the outcome will again be entirely reliant on non-OF fixtures.

The actual end of season table would not be that vastly different from what we get each year anyway.  The difference would be that the others would have stopped pretending that they all take part in a valid competition to win the league.

Think how this would capture the imagination.  Fans would for the first time be involved in what would be considered the actual title race.  This would be an international, sensational media story of the ancient footballing nation that stood up to the injustices of the modern game. 

The Latest OF league win would be rendered hollower than ever, derived as it would be from just 4 matches against 1 opponent.  Meanwhile, we'd all hail our new real champions.

No way would those in our game have the courage to do any of this of course, but it's a nice dream.  

We need the behaviour of our clubs to reflect that we don't need the OF, but they do need us.

2

There are suggestions, and then there is this. I think everyone would find a more competitive league to be infinitely more exciting and enjoyable, but your proposal advocates actively devaluing the product on offer. How many clubs will vote in favour of a proposal that brings them less money even if they have the chance of being an unofficial champion?

[HibeeJibee]

20 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

I think Austria tries to "balance" things by halving points totals when they split.

Im not sure how much that would help here. There would be a 13pt gap between Celtic/Hearts heading into the final 5 games last season, and i think 8 between Rangers/Hearts.

They also play 22 games > split > play 10 games = 32 games in total so post-split period represents 52% of possible points available.

Here it would amount to 23% and therefore much less likely to have an impact.

Romania also does that (with 14 teams so play 26 games > split > play 14 games = 40 games so post-split period = 51%)... Belgium similar though bit more complicated... but all 16 other leagues with splits 'carry over' all points, as will Switzerland when they introduce a split next season.

Edited December 23, 2022 by HibeeJibee

[Jacksgranda]

12 minutes ago, HibeeJibee said:

They also play 22 games > split > play 10 games = 32 games in total so post-split period represents 52% of possible points available.

Here it would amount to 23% and therefore much less likely to have an impact.

Romania also does that (with 14 teams so play 26 games > split > play 14 games = 40 games so post-split period = 51%)... Belgium similar though bit more complicated... but all 16 other leagues with splits 'carry over' all points, as will Switzerland when they introduce a split next season.

Belgium, "complicated, surely not...

[Monkey Tennis]

21 minutes ago, AJF said:

There are suggestions, and then there is this. I think everyone would find a more competitive league to be infinitely more exciting and enjoyable, but your proposal advocates actively devaluing the product on offer. How many clubs will vote in favour of a proposal that brings them less money even if they have the chance of being an unofficial champion?

None I'd imagine.

They'd lack the necessary courage, and fail to take the long term view required.

 

Absurd language like "devaluing the product" helps identify the nature of the problem.

 

[AJF]

2 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

The spectacle for Sky will be shit and thoroughly devalued.

 

2 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

None I'd imagine.

They'd lack the necessary courage, and fail to take the long term view required.

 

Absurd language like "devaluing the product" helps identify the nature of the problem.

 

Absurd language? You mean, the language that I was mirroring that you used?

[Monkey Tennis]

19 minutes ago, AJF said:

 

Absurd language? You mean, the language that I was mirroring that you used?

Exactly.

 

Anyway, you misunderstand my masterplan.

I'm not suggesting this model as a long term alternative to what exists currently.  Instead, I'm suggesting it as a protest, a bargaining stance in calling for a less grotesque distribution of resources.

 

Of course nothing like it would ever happen for the reasons you suggest.  However, it beats settling for the rigged set up we endure just now.

Edited December 23, 2022 by Monkey Tennis

[Dundee Hibernian]

On 22/12/2022 at 10:54, Squonk said:

All our clubs, including Celtic, were complicit in the drafting of a five way agreement that was concocted to pretend that Rangers had only undergone a change of ownership, rather than dying exactly the same death of liquidation as Third Lanark, amongst others, as we all know they did.

 

Jump to the last two paragraphs if this is a ‘tl:dr’.

Sorry for the late response, I agree with much of what you have written. Regarding the 5-way agreement, I have a draft of this, but I don't think it's the final edition.

As far as I know, the agreement didn't specify the club/company pretence. Charles Green was the person who muddied the truth, with an eager about-face from the sports media in Scotland. 

The same media in June 2012 headlined the death of Rangers. It took Neil Doncaster until January 2015 to say publicly he was going along with the lie.

Further, I don’t recall ‘all the clubs’ being involved in any discussions around the 5-way agreement. Nonetheless, they should have come together to ensure the football community wasn’t being conned by the five parties (SPL, Scottish League, SFA, old Rangers and Sevco).

Some aspiring league members such as Spartans and Gala Fairydean (now Gala Fairydean Rovers) were given behind the chair information about setting up a Lowland League and pyramid system, as a carrot and fall back, so as not to raise any fuss if Sevco were given access to the fourth level.

In any case, many boardrooms across the country have “good Ibrox men” within their structures, who were happy to be acquiescent.

Which might have been a simpler explanation to save you reading the above.

Edited December 23, 2022 by Dundee Hibernian
Gala clarification

[Guest]

Deduct points for when they start their bigotry pish instead of ignoring it, would at least give other teams a chance until their fans learned to not be bigots.

[Crawford Bridge]

8 minutes ago, Empty It said:

Deduct points for when they start their bigotry pish instead of ignoring it, would at least give other teams a chance until their fans learned to not be bigots.

My Team : Heart of Midlothian

That would have to apply to everybody and rightly so.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Crawford Bridge said:

My Team : Heart of Midlothian

That would have to apply to everybody and rightly so.

Agreed, would maybe give the club more of a kick up the arse to get the small contingency of arseholes at our games banned.

[Crawford Bridge]

1 minute ago, Empty It said:

Agreed, would maybe give the club more of a kick up the arse to get the small contingency of arseholes at our games banned.

Likewise.

[Jinky67]

4 hours ago, AJF said:

There are suggestions, and then there is this. I think everyone would find a more competitive league to be infinitely more exciting and enjoyable, but your proposal advocates actively devaluing the product on offer. How many clubs will vote in favour of a proposal that brings them less money even if they have the chance of being an unofficial champion?

Your first mistake was quoting MT and expecting any sort of debate that would appear logical.

 

[Monkey Tennis]

15 minutes ago, Jinky67 said:

Your first mistake was quoting MT and expecting any sort of debate that would appear logical.

 

There is nothing illogical in what I'm saying here.

OF fans just tend not to like it because it counters their self serving outlooks regarding how our game is configured.

[Dons_1988]

25 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

There is nothing illogical in what I'm saying here.

OF fans just tend not to like it because it counters their self serving outlooks regarding how our game is configured.

Without sounding too tinfoil hat you can see that people are now just conditioned to the sky sports version of football. Devaluing the product, whatever that means is deemed more important than an actual competition breaking out. 

Oh and @AJF we’ve all heard the ‘a competitive league would be great but…’ speech from OF fans before. 

[Jinky67]

1 hour ago, Monkey Tennis said:

There is nothing illogical in what I'm saying here.

OF fans just tend not to like it because it counters their self serving outlooks regarding how our game is configured.

I decided to read your post again based on your reply.

And the conclusion I came to was it’s still moonhowling pish.