Post split fixtures

[Thenorthernlight]

1 minute ago, RandomGuy. said:

Celtics wage bill is higher than the 10 non-OF clubs combined.

Adding Morton and Ayr to the league isnt stopping them.

Making it a 16 or 18 team league will just lead to loads of meaningless games from the Spring onwards, where teams from say 7th - 13th have sod all to play for. 
One of the main reasons the 10 team league was created in the late 70’s. 

 

[TPAFKA Jersey 2]

Maybe the SPFL could use the Wullie Hills handicap bet at the start of each season. All teams are given various points of a start. 
If this comes to pass I want some royalties for this suggestion. 

[LIVIFOREVER]

57 minutes ago, SJFCtheTeamForMe said:

There's almost the outside chance of an Aberdeen or Hearts side putting together a team for a season to be up there. A few young lads coming through in quick succession maybe. 

The issue is though it's never sustainable long term if it did happen as within 3 windows every single one of the good players will been gobbled up by down south and it's near impossible to replace 3-4-5 top players if you're not the Old Firm. 

Aye but Aberdeen or Hearts are always likely to drop a few pts against the other teams, as well as the erse cheeks, compared to the likes of Celtic only having the odd blip, unless we all agree to just chuck it against whoever is most likely to give them a run for their money i can't see it happening.

31 minutes ago, Thenorthernlight said:

Scottish football is a one horse race.

Celtic have won 21 out of the 30 domestic trophies since the **** liquidation/death in 2012.

Nine of the last 10 leagues. 

There is no 2nd horse. 
 

Yep, Sevco did win the league though, and are a bit better recently, they may offer a stiffer challenge in a couple of seasons. Unless they go tits up for liquidation take 2.

[LIVIFOREVER]

14 minutes ago, TPAFKA Jersey 2 said:

Maybe the SPFL could use the Wullie Hills handicap bet at the start of each season. All teams are given various points of a start. 
If this comes to pass I want some royalties for this suggestion. 

Celtic starting from -40 pts

Sevco -30 pts

Everyone else on 0 pts

That might make it interesting.

[RandomGuy.]

4 minutes ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

Celtic starting from -40 pts

Sevco -30 pts

Everyone else on 0 pts

That might make it interesting.

Theyd probably still win the league.

Just now Celtic would be 1pt off the top.

[coprolite]

4 hours ago, HibeeJibee said:

Play each other 3 or 4 times via splits
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Rep, Denmark, Gibraltar, Greece, Finland, Iceland, Israel, Moldova, Northern Ireland, Romania, Scotland, Serbia, Slovakia, Switzerland (from 2023-24), Wales

Play each other 3 or 4 times without splits
Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Eire, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Hungary, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia

Leagues that aren’t listed there are the top ten nations by population (except Romania, which is listed), Norway, Sweden, Belarus and Portugal.

Norway, Sweden and Belarus each have a 16 team division which by my calculations is 30 games. 
 

I think Norway and Sweden have both had a decent variety of winners, don’t know about Belarus. Their European coefficient is shite and they don’t get an EL place now. 
 

Portugal has 18 teams (34 games) and for a country twice the size of Scotland is no more competitive, basically a three way OF. 
 

Other similar ish countries that have a split are above and below us in the rankings, although I don’t think any are quite as uncompetitive.

 

Evidence is limited but I’d say that there’s some suggestion that fewer games could improve competitiveness in terms of more winners, possibly, but could come at the expense of European places. 
 

Of course, none of the leagues above are starting from where we are.  I’d guess that if we wanted a competitive title race we’d have to do something radical and way outside the bounds of currently plausible. Pissing about with numbers of teams won’t change the major weakness in Scottish football.

Having said that, I don’t think it’s particularly broken. Sure it’s shite that it’s hard to win anything but the whole culture, spectacle and experience is very entertaining.

[Dons_1988]

Surely any league reconstruction proposal isn’t about making it more competitive? 

There is one reason for the lack of competitiveness and unless it’s addressed then the top 2 will remain the same. 

That doesn’t mean there’s no argument for reconstruction, although I’m relatively ok with the current set up. 

[Gorgie greatness]

2 hours ago, Thenorthernlight said:

Scottish football is a one horse race.

Celtic have won 21 out of the 30 domestic trophies since the **** liquidation/death in 2012.

Nine of the last 10 leagues. 

There is no 2nd horse. 
 

And yet the 60000+ happy clappers are convinced it’s a competition.

[Huisdean50]

One of the big issues for me is playing each other 4 times a season. It creates a staleness at times that doesn't help the football. 

I think reconstruction has to be looked at seriously, whether that is 16 or 18 is up for debate. To me that has the potential to make the league more competitive as teams only play the old firm twice so potentially less points dropped and more of a chance of the other teams taking points. Fewer games means less mid week games potentially which should help with costs for clubs. 

No solution is perfect but we need to get away from the lazy rhetoric about dead rubbers being a reason for not seriously looking at reconstruction and some clubs need to look beyond the old firm dollar for the good of Scottish football. 

[TPAFKA Jersey 2]

Our situation is WAY beyond addressing/reversing as long as the two big teams remain in the league. It’s too late. Either they leave or it will forever be as it is now. Not even worth debating. The games an eternal bogey. The horse has bolted. The milk has been spilled. The die is cast. The very sheep looking horse wearing a wig was led to water during Rangers absence but it refused to drink. 
The best the rest of us can do is brainwash ourselves into thinking that coming 3rd is actually winning the league and that we play in a country that doesnae get any champions league slots.

[ropy]

3 hours ago, Huisdean50 said:

One of the big issues for me is playing each other 4 times a season. It creates a staleness at times that doesn't help the football. 

I think reconstruction has to be looked at seriously, whether that is 16 or 18 is up for debate. To me that has the potential to make the league more competitive as teams only play the old firm twice so potentially less points dropped and more of a chance of the other teams taking points. Fewer games means less mid week games potentially which should help with costs for clubs. 

No solution is perfect but we need to get away from the lazy rhetoric about dead rubbers being a reason for not seriously looking at reconstruction and some clubs need to look beyond the old firm dollar for the good of Scottish football. 

Not that it’s much better but pedantically we play everyone 3 times then go into a play off where we play 5 teams one more time.

[coprolite]

4 hours ago, Huisdean50 said:

One of the big issues for me is playing each other 4 times a season. It creates a staleness at times that doesn't help the football. 

I think reconstruction has to be looked at seriously, whether that is 16 or 18 is up for debate. To me that has the potential to make the league more competitive as teams only play the old firm twice so potentially less points dropped and more of a chance of the other teams taking points. Fewer games means less mid week games potentially which should help with costs for clubs. 

No solution is perfect but we need to get away from the lazy rhetoric about dead rubbers being a reason for not seriously looking at reconstruction and some clubs need to look beyond the old firm dollar for the good of Scottish football. 

It's not just Old firm money though. 

From the dons point of view we'd potentially be voting to replace, say 7,000 away fans for top half games with less than a thousand and have probably an even bigger drop in home crowds as well as less telly money, catering, hospitality etc. and fewer games too. 

No way Dave's going to give up upwards of half a million a season so we can play in Dumfries and Ayr. 

Other clubs may rely more heavily on away gates, not all OF. 

[AJF]

13 hours ago, Greenlantern said:

debtbrox

I’m getting second hand embarrassment from that one 

[Melanius Mullarkey]

7 minutes ago, AJF said:

I’m getting second hand embarrassment from that one 

IOUbrox surely?

[AJF]

28 minutes ago, Melanius Mullarkay said:

IOUbrox surely?

A definite improvement. Still needs work, IMHO. Ibrokes is probably still my favourite.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

2 minutes ago, AJF said:

A definite improvement. Still needs work, IMHO. Ibrokes is probably still my favourite.

I’m throwing Ayebrokes into the mix.

[Fife Saint]

12 hours ago, TPAFKA Jersey 2 said:

Our situation is WAY beyond addressing/reversing as long as the two big teams remain in the league. It’s too late. Either they leave or it will forever be as it is now. Not even worth debating. The games an eternal bogey. The horse has bolted. The milk has been spilled. The die is cast. The very sheep looking horse wearing a wig was led to water during Rangers absence but it refused to drink. 
The best the rest of us can do is brainwash ourselves into thinking that coming 3rd is actually winning the league and that we play in a country that doesnae get any champions league slots.

I'm fatalist like my man above. Its fucked, just enjoy the ride. 

[Paisley Ton]

Making our top league more competitive requires radical change.

Put simply the OF have by far the biggest support/financial budget and we are 99% certain to have one of them top each year.

What we need are bigger clubs to challenge them. While it may only have a 1% chance of happening we need a larger Edinburgh and Dundee teams. I have visited the Dundee teams frequently on their holidays in the Championship and never fail to understand in this day and age why they do not share a modern 20,000 stadium. With five big clubs the OF domination would be probably only reduced to 75%, so in addition to that change we would need to reverse the league prize money. With the bottom club would get the most money and top least.

Pity we can't also include a new drafting system where the bottom club gets first pick of junior players coming through a central Scottish Academy.

[tarapoa]

1 hour ago, Paisley Ton said:

I have visited the Dundee teams frequently on their holidays in the Championship and never fail to understand in this day and age why they do not share a modern 20,000 stadium.

With each of the two clubs averaging home attendances of 4-7k, unless Dundonians enjoy rattling around like stray frozen peas on a washboard, then maybe that's the reason.

 

[Archie McSquackle]

Back to the post-split fixtures, normally there are fans of at least one club bleating about how they've been done over but I'm not picking up on that this time. Is there a club complaining or have they pretty much got it right this time with equal home and away games all round? Obviously there are some clubs having to visit others for a third time but that's very difficult to avoid unless everyone finishes in the expected half.