"Scotland Has Too Many Clubs" - Ann Budge

[RandomGuy.]

Shes an absolute fanny who spouted shite during his early days at Hearts that they all lapped up, so now assumes shes a genius with flawless ideas.

[LongTimeLurker]

Think she's right that the two mainly part-time divisions really don't need to be under the SPFL banner and would be better placed in a regional format like the east-west-north juniors setup, but there's nothing new in any of this. There are 42 SPFL clubs because a super-majority of SFL clubs was needed to get the merger through, not because the top full-time clubs value the presence of the bottom two tiers in any way. If SPL2 had been doable without any need for an ongoing breakaway payment and League Cup entry to the 20 or so remaining SFL clubs, odds on they would have pursued that option instead. 

[The Real Saints]

This is exactly what happens when women find themselves in a position of power. They want to assert their authority. They tend to overcompensate. Theresa May, Hillary Clinton, Ann Budge.. It's a scary time to be alive right now.

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

30 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

To answer a couple of the above. The intention would be to limit the "professional" game to the top 2 divisions. Reduce the share of revenue even further and stop any lower division reps from having influence. SPL as it was previously known.

In addition to this, the next club that dies will slot quite easily into the lower division, no questions asked.

[HibeeJibee]

18 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

To answer a couple of the above. The intention would be to limit the "professional" game to the top 2 divisions. Reduce the share of revenue even further and stop any lower division reps from having influence. SPL as it was previously known.

They don't get a meaningful amount of money - nor exert a meaningful degree of influence - at the moment, though.

20 clubs in SPFL1 & SPFL2 only get to elect a single Board rep between them. 10 Championship clubs get to elect 2 reps and 12 Premiership clubs get to elect 3 reps. Chairman (Sir Ralph Topping), CEO (Neil Doncaster), and a non-executive director appointed by the collective Board are also there. No-one from the lower level ever gets near the SPFL's seats on SFA - it's always Doncaster, Topping, Lawell, etc.

If SPFL has £20M to distribute then 22 Premiership & Championship clubs share £18.9M, and 20 SPFL1 & SPFL2 clubs share £1.1M. Plus substantial parachute payments are given for relegation into the Championship - which the levy of 50% of playoff ticket sales may not cover every year - but there are no parachute payments for relegation to SPFL1 or SPFL2. SPFL expenditure will also be more heavily weighted towards Premiership & Championship clubs - for example referee fees are higher and administering the Development League. It is probable that Premiership & Championship clubs "receive" £24 of every £25 that goes through SPFL considering prizemoney, costs and administration.

[Aubrey Maturin]

3 minutes ago, The Real Saints said:

This is exactly what happens when women find themselves in a position of power. They want to assert their authority. They tend to overcompensate. Theresa May, Hillary Clinton, Ann Budge.. It's a scary time to be alive right now.

Desperately building up the courage to visit a dominatrix type post.

[Tulloch Gorum]

52 minutes ago, The Real Saints said:

This is exactly what happens when women find themselves in a position of power. They want to assert their authority. They tend to overcompensate. Theresa May, Hillary Clinton, Ann Budge.. It's a scary time to be alive right now.

Utter slavering drivel.  How are those people any more assertive or scary than Putin, Trump or Romanov?  

It's a crap, self-serving idea with no sense of respect for smaller clubs or the history of the game, but that's nothing to do with her being a woman. 

[RandomGuy.]

bananas logged into the wrong account by the looks of things

[The Real Saints]

My posts have backfired somewhat. Just to clarify, I obviously don't believe anything I've just said. Carry on with your original conversation.

[Yoda8]

I'll bet she doesn't mind the lower tiers when she's loaning out their young players to gain experience,  surely more players & coaches can only benefit the game.

is there only 22 teams in Malta & this is the pish excuse or is to change the conversation away from the fact they embarrassed Scottish football in Europe 

[The Grass Is Greener.]

Would it even make a difference? Wouldn't the teams just join the pyramid and try get promoted to the top two leagues like they already do?

[HibeeJibee]

15 minutes ago, Yoda8 said:

I'll bet she doesn't mind the lower tiers when she's loaning out their young players to gain experience,  surely more players & coaches can only benefit the game.

is there only 22 teams in Malta & this is the pish excuse or is to change the conversation away from the fact they embarrassed Scottish football in Europe 

Funnily enough there are 54 clubs in the Maltese Football League - some 12 more than in Scotland. Spread across 4 divisions (the same as in Scotland).

Maybe we should add more.

[Sergeant Wilson]

1 hour ago, HibeeJibee said:

They don't get a meaningful amount of money - nor exert a meaningful degree of influence - at the moment,

So why do you think this crops up so often?

[Gordon EF]

The idea that cutting out 20 clubs would improve Scottish football in any way is stupidity. If regionalisation was so great for L1 and 2 clubs why do none of the clubs and none of the fans want it? And why is there no decent argument for it been put forward yet.

The wake of tired old zany schemes that if only we were forward-thinking enough to implement would transform Scotland into a world football power house is getting really boring now. Football is a sport. Any decision taken which goes against the sporting, competitive nature of football is going to be damaging, whether it's in the short or long term.

Regionalising the bottom 2 leagues would result in a 'North' League of Peterhead, Elgin, Arbroath, Montrose, Forfar, Brechin, East Fife, Cowdenbeath and Stirling, which would result in far more travelling for the 3 'southern' clubs in that group.

I'm not against League reconstruction at all, even if that meant cutting the number of places in the 'national' level leagues. But it has to be done with the goal of improving Scottish football as a sport, not just of the back of random moronic musings from people like Ann Budge.

[FairWeatherFan]

Maybe one of the reasons it got brought up again is because of the development teams. While financially it might not bring in anymore money, but it would force reorganisation. Those seeking to have their development squads within the pyramid could see their teams slotted into a new 3rd tier.

[Wasps1]

f**k Ann Budge too many clubs my ass

We need at top flight of 16 

Championship of 16 

First div of 16 

Simple our game is fucken dieing and she wants less clubs 

Not got a clue silly Woman! !!

Edited August 7, 2016 by Wasps1

[Dr Koop]

Well, if we're going to cull clubs from the seniors set up let's use that magic 'fiscal probity' formula and boot out every club that's been to the administrators or dragged the Scottish game through the mire in the past 15 years. It's only fair.

Also, which wee team pissed Ann Budge off and nicked all her tins?

[LongTimeLurker]

1 hour ago, HibeeJibee said:

Funnily enough there are 54 clubs in the Maltese Football League - some 12 more than in Scotland. Spread across 4 divisions (the same as in Scotland).

Maybe we should add more.

Malta is only slightly bigger than Clackmannanshire with less than a tenth of Scotland's population, so that isn't a sensible parallel. Not sure why people see having twenty fewer clubs in the national divisions as meaning clubs would no longer exist. Most of Scotland's 950 or so Saturday afternoon teams already play outside the SPFL. Bo'ness United vs Alloa makes more sense than Stranraer vs Alloa from a logistical standpoint when part-time players are involved and you would still get a decent sized crowd along to watch it. Regional divisions at the top part-time level would not be the end of the world for the clubs involved.

[BFTD]

Christ, this again.

At its heart, the idea is that the diddies will all go and watch the big teams if their clubs disappear, which only people who completely fail to understand football would put forward as a likely scenario.
Once that's been laughed out of the room, the next suggestion is that the smallest clubs are removed from the SPFL (or whatever it's called at the time), which would give the bigger clubs the extra money to invest in youth development, transforming the Scottish game over time, and leading to a renaissance in the fortunes of the Scottish national team. The money involved is eventually projected as providing the larger clubs with an annual sum that would enable each of them to employ a junior addition to the admin team.

So, we're inevitably left with the concept that the SPFL should only consist of full-time clubs for some reason, for very little benefit to those left within its auspices. The only unanswered reason I've seen for this so far is that regionalisation and stuff, but I've seen no indication that the part-time clubs (or their fans) want to be in regional leagues, and there's no reason this couldn't be done under the SPFL if it was wanted/needed anyway. So, WTF?

[AMC13]

"Ann Budge has had too many pies" - Amc13