RabidAI

In terms of the changes that the SFA are looking to make to the Lowland League in time for season 2023-24, my first thought would be to have 24 teams overall including the 8 elite development teams and the 16 clubs who are already there - who I would divide into the 8 most westerly, and 8 most easterly. For fixtures: each 8 plays one another twice each (once at home and once away), and plays the other 16 once each (either at home or away), to give 30 games per team. For tables: an overall table of 24 teams to see how the youngsters compare to the oldsters; a table of 16 teams to see who the best seniors are; and three separate tables of 8, to find the best of the youngsters, the best if the West, and the best of the East, with a possible play-off between the West and East winners since they would have had different fixtures lists (winners progressing to pyramid play-offs; or East winners, West winners Highland winners, and Club 42 could meet in play-offs; or Club 42 relegated automatically, with Club 41, East winners, West winners and Highland winners competing for 2 SPFL places).

Partly agree. A 'sugar daddy' is only useful in situations where a club has a potentially large fan base, which just needs re-invigourating. No point in wee clubs signing players that bigger clubs should be, blocking their opportunities, then the whole thing collapsing in a season or two. Regarding stats, etc - the BBC have a couple of super articles on the footballing origins of this at the moment - see link, and link within the article itself: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61648608 Also: i'm reading 'Only A Game?' by Eamon Dunphy, a 1976 book detailing football in the old English Second Division from within the dressing room. Superbly insightful about the psychology of teams and footballers (not much to do with this thread, though!). Sorry for interrupting!

Rangers and Celtic could make that happen, if they genuinely wanted a shorter, 36-game league season in order to boost their chances in European competitions. They don't really need the domestic prize money that they earn for finishing in the top places - because they make significantly more from competing in Europe. So they could certainly take a lower percentage of league revenues, as part of a genuine all-through financial model. One properly supporting the second tier, on a continuous sliding scale, without the great drop-off between Premiership and Championship payments.

I can, yes. I thought to make a virtue of it by awarding the top four teams qualifying for the top eight and bottom eight mini-leagues with home advantage for four of the final seven games. Hopefully the intensity of the competition (and better sponsorship) would eclipse any unfairnesses, and there would be more home games on average with teams playing forty games each. For the middle eight, I might try to start with the following table: 1st - 10 points, 4 home games - 9th from Premiership 2nd - 8 points, 4 home games - 10th from Premiership 3rd - 7 points, 4 home games - 1st from Championship 4th - 5 points, 4 home games - 11th from Premiership 5th - 5 points, 3 home games - 2nd from Championship 6th - 3 points, 3 home games - 12th from Premiership 7th - 2 points, 3 home games - 3rd from Championship 8th - 0 points, 3 home games - 4th from Championship What that does is reflect the current situation by giving preference to the best two Premiership teams; ranks first from the Championship above the bottom two from the Premiership; ranks eleventh from the Premiership marginally above second from the Championship; and ranks twelfth from the Premiership above the bottom two from the Championship - who still have their slimmer chance at success. Difficult to balance out unfairnesses and to keep the pre-split games meaningful; post-split games, however, should be competitive to the end because of there being four relegation and four promotion places.

Just thinking that the current investors at clubs near the top of Scottish football are a quirky bunch. What with the spending tens of millions on a new stadium when all the present stadium needs is a thorough refurbishment and upgrade, in order to retain its quirky individuality - like any home should be. Or the sacking of a manager who just about achieved all you can do, given the disparity of resources - third in the league, and two sucessive cup finals. Or the determination to pursue a new stadium alone, when your very near neighbours may just be interested in sharing the burden with you. I'm wishing them every success in their efforts, because I want to see the Old Firm beaten in the league before I die, but my eyebrows are on the ceiling and my jaw on the floor when I read about what these successful businessman do when they become involved in Scottish football.

Dividing into three wee leagues of eight at matchday 22 seems too early: having so many games after the split might end up with many meaningless matches in the bottom and middle sections as soon as teams are safe or relegated. As you have intimated, this would also be an issue if teams in the middle eight all begin with zero points - but with the meaningless matches coming before the split once teams have qualified for that section. For those reasons, I would only split into three sections after teams have played each other three times - 33 games each. That would just leave a wee 7-game sprint to the finish, where teams just play once against those in their section - 40 league games each in total. For the middle eight to be fair, league positions before the split would need to convert to an initial post-split points allocation. This would have to take into account how unjust it would be for ninth in the Premiership to be relegated or fourth from the Championship to be promoted, for example, aswell as to keep the pre-split games meaningful.

Better A 36-matchday season in the Premiership would make fixture scheduling easier next season, and in other Euro/World Cup years, without the need for restructuring the league. A 36-matchday season in the Premiership would also enable relegation play-offs with a 10-team Championship to be the same as the play-offs in the rest of the divisions. Worse A top 4 rather than a top 6 would mean fewer head-to-heads between the biggest clubs. It would also mean fewer clubs would be able to have four home games against the Old Firm. Therefore...you will never see it in action!

More points before the split could convert to a home advantage for group games. Or perhaps a small head-start (3 points, 2 points, 1 point, 0 points to start each group). I'd maybe add in a semi-final knock-out stage. Or the middle eight teams could just carry on with their 8-team mini-league, playing each other once more for 37 games per team. The top 2 in a European play-off, possibly with the team finishing bottom of the elite group depending upon who wins the Scottish Cup.

Yeah, that would be 40 games each you twit. I'd be happy enough with 16 teams, playing home and away to split at 30 games into a top 6 and bottom 10. Top 6 do the elite thing, home and away (40 games each); bottom 10 play again at home or away (39 games each). With the battle up to the split and plenty of relegation places (2.5?), and possibly involving 7th in a play-off for Europe then it could be decent. Or maybe just 18 teams playing home and away for 34 games each, with the top 4 going on to play home and away in a m*****s series, with 5th-8th in Euro play-offs.

It's not lunacy to try to retain your elite fixtures in order to facilitate league expansion. Or to showcase those best v best fixtures in the summer, when other leagues have shut down. That's probably an improvement. I see you've reduced the fixtures burden to a 36-game season, so that would give more freedom for a wee elite tournament, perhaps across July weekends.

For more investment in Scottish football you're really talking about how to attract more viewers, which can be either bums on seats in grounds or attention through the media. Therefore, as a club chairperson I would surely be aiming to fill as much of the stadium as possible with home fans each game. I don't think you can charge adults under a fiver because of the baddies you might attract, but more than a tenner for most league games will keep people away because they also have to pay for food and transport. For me, £5 at the gate or £10 for entry plus voucher for a pie and a bovril would be enough to attract me back to the game. There'll be plenty like me who listen to the radio or do cheaper things on a Saturday afternoon - particularly those with families who would hugely benefit from a consistent approach to fair pricing, rather than the occasional gimmick that clubs usually go for just to tick the 'we tried that but it didn't work' box in order to excuse their bloated prices. Children free with paying adults is good for the future, as is £1 each for youngsters going along with their mates who all have hollow legs and will spend plenty on grub once in the ground. I don't see any point in just knocking-off a couple of quid from the usual high prices in the hope of attracting a few more to less glamorous games: you just end up losing money on the usual punters and no-one else turns up. People aren't THAT sensitive to a change in ticket price (also shown by a willingness to pay much more for the biggest games), so you have to go further and over a sustained period in order to bring them into the habit of going along to matches. It's also worth potential sponsors/media remembering that it's not the same people who make up the home support each game, as different people have different commitments on Saturday afternoons - therefore the actual home support/eyes on their product is larger than seemingly-consistent home attendance figures suggest. That's my view of the bottom-up approach to increasing investment. From the top-down, it's about the collective product and having competitions as sellable as can be. So for me you're looking at some sort of Masters competition between the best teams, even if it's just a re-brand of the post-split top 6 - but possibly something new, beyond the League competition, as part of a wider restructure. The League Cup I like, as it has quirky dynamic to it. The Challenge Cup would benefit from a stronger identity, such as including the best Scottish part-timers (16HL+16LL in Round 1) - rather than its recent nebulous lack of focus with invites to B teams and those from other countries).

I have this idea that, because most clubs are within the lowland area, the Lowland champions could be automatically promoted to the SPFL with the LL being the de facto national tier 5. Highland area clubs could always have sort of branch-line access via a play-off with SPFL Club 41, but there would generally be a smooth main-line transition of one lowland-based SPFL Club 42 being automatically replaced by the LL winners most seasons.

If we're going to have twelve teams in the Championship aswell as the Premiership then split after 33 matchdays into 3 divisions of eight, playing opponents one more time for 40 games each. That improves on the current system by having two more teams each season with definite home games v the biggest clubs, and an additional home game anyway. The middle eight improves on the previously rejected proposal because it only requires a 7-game each post-split sprint, rather than splitting too early after just 22 matchdays.* The bottom eight (rump of Championship) remains interesting with only seven fixtures each and two automatically relegated. I would also name the current post-split top 6, or top 8 in the above scenario, as the SPFL Masters or Scottish Masters, which sounds a bit naff to us but could sell well abroad. My current preference is for a top tier of 16, splitting into top 8 and bottom 8 after 30 matchdays. Then playing opponents once more to reach 37-games per club, whereupon positions are finalised except for the top 4 who play one another for a fourth time in the SPFL Masters (continuation of league points) to complete 40 games each. Two to be automatically relegated, with one relegation play-off place v 3/4/5 of Championship). *Middle eight post-split would only be fair and prevent spectre of meaningless games if the initial post-split points were re-set based upon league position up to that point. E.g. - 9th Prem starts with 14 points, 1st Champ with 12 points, 10th Prem with 10 points, 2nd Champ with 8 points, 11th Prem with 6 points, 3rd Champ with 4 points, 12th Prem with 2 points, 4th Champ with 0 points.

That's a bit conservative. If, instead, you have the bottom two SPFL teams and the top three from each of the HL and LL going into the pyramid play-offs then you give good opportunities for relegated clubs to return immediately and you also can be more sure that the clubs deserve their place in the SPFL the following season. So you might have the winners of SPFL41 v HL3 meeting the winners of HL1 v LL2 for one SPFL vacancy, and the winners of SPFL 42 v LL3 meeting the winners of LL 1 v HL2 for the other SPFL vacancy.

I can better that. The following is a completely true confession... ...my one and only shag was in January 2001 when my girlfriend took pity on my bungled attempts at, eh, 'lovemaking' and went cowgirl for the duration. Bless her. Sadly, we broke up soon afterwards. Half a dozen other failed attempts with various ladies, and I gave up - for good. Sorry for the overshare. What always amazes me is how all animals know automatically how to do it, and what goes where, and at which angle. Humans seem to know, too; but not me. Must be why I take out my frustrations on here! Or did, anyway: don't think I'll be back, somehow. Oh, is that the time? I'll get my coat...