League reconstruction: Let's hear your view

[mcruic]

13 minutes ago, honestman54 said:

Sounds good but at tier 5 I doubt the regionalisation would take place.  Due to much including SFA blundering and self interest at tier 6 it is struggling to get off the ground.

Yes - it's the same old problem with junior clubs (wanting to remain junior - which means absolutely nothing, really) - and floodlights now being part of the licensing requirements.

But the way the pyramid is currently being built, the West of Scotland junior teams would have to join the East of Scotland League.  If a certain number of WoS junior teams go senior, this would tip the balance in favour of a 3-way split at Tier 5.

I am fully aware this is all pie in the sky stuff at the moment because the people involved in making the decisions are not fit for purpose, and there are individual agendas rather than just getting a proper pyramid.  Every other country in Europe has one, but here in Scotland everyone acts like it's something alien or complicated.  What we have at the moment is a pyramid that is being built on incomplete foundations, and it's going to collapse at some point.

Most times I have posted about the pyramid on this forum (in the juniors or East of Scotland section), it's like "not the pyramid again", or "that would never work" or "it will never happen".   But most threads on the pyramid are just random and incoherent tit-for-tat, with no real concrete proposals about what it would/should actually look like, because "there are too many clubs" or "Scotland's geography is too complex", etc. etc.

Nonsense.  The system I have designed below would work, and it would be better than what we have now. It allows teams to "opt out" of promotion (which in effect means they could opt out of the pyramid, while still being in it).  There would be no negative consequences for any team, and most of the lower level teams would be playing pretty much the same teams they are playing now.  Judging by some people's reactions, it's as if they imagine that joining the pyramid means playing Wick or Newton Stewart away every week.

Edited May 10, 2019 by mcruic

[honestman54]

37 minutes ago, mcruic said:

Yes - it's the same old problem with junior clubs (wanting to remain junior - which means absolutely nothing, really) - and floodlights now being part of the licensing requirements.

But the way the pyramid is currently being built, the West of Scotland junior teams would have to join the East of Scotland League.  If a certain number of WoS junior teams go senior, this would tip the balance in favour of a 3-way split at Tier 5.

I am fully aware this is all pie in the sky stuff at the moment because the people involved in making the decisions are not fit for purpose, and there are individual agendas rather than just getting a proper pyramid.  Every other country in Europe has one, but here in Scotland everyone acts like it's something alien or complicated.  What we have at the moment is a pyramid that is being built on incomplete foundations, and it's going to collapse at some point.

Most times I have posted about the pyramid on this forum (in the juniors or East of Scotland section), it's like "not the pyramid again", or "that would never work" or "it will never happen".   But most threads on the pyramid are just random and incoherent tit-for-tat, with no real concrete proposals about what it would/should actually look like, because "there are too many clubs" or "Scotland's geography is too complex", etc. etc.

Nonsense.  The system I have designed below would work, and it would be better than what we have now. It allows teams to "opt out" of promotion (which in effect means they could opt out of the pyramid, while still being in it).  There would be no negative consequences for any team, and most of the lower level teams would be playing pretty much the same teams they are playing now.  Judging by some people's reactions, it's as if they imagine that joining the pyramid means playing Wick or Newton Stewart away every week.

I certainly wouldnt disagree that this looks great and I wish they would consider it seriously.  I just dont think there is the will power at the top to drive such a revision through and little interest in some of the lower ranks in football.  Why dont you get a job at the SFA and push it through

[Sergeant Wilson]

2 hours ago, mcruic said:

Given that SPFL clubs don't want regionalisation, I think it would be sensible to divide the clubs into 3 leagues instead of 4 (12-14-16?).  Top tier as it is now, 2nd tier play each other 3 times each (as has happened previously - 39 game season), 3rd tier playing a 30-game season.  It means only 2 promotions are required to reach the Premier instead of the current 3.  It also freshens up the fixtures list a bit with more teams instead of playing the same 9 teams all season...  If Tier 3 teams are concerned that 30 matches isn't enough, split the league and play an extra 7 each.

Below the SPFL, 3 regional leagues at Tier 5.  Stop with this obsession with Highland/Lowland.  There are 3 natural regions in Scotland in terms of clusters of clubs - and those are the divisions used by the juniors.

Tier 5 East/West/North would all have 16 clubs as well. 

Playing 3 times was tried and rejected, the problems are obvious, two away game against a rival. Too few games in level 3.

[ahemps]

This structure looks great and really simple, it's amazing that the SFA/SPFL can't come up with it themselves.

As a slightly off-topic idea, why don't the Juniors keep their Scottish cup and make it a competition from all T4 teams down to enter? I grew up in town with a successful Junior side and the Scottish cup days were a massive deal drawing four-figure crowds on lots of occasions. I always questioned why some teams would want to swap that type of success to be an irrelevant League 2 club??? I also feel if the opt-in/out option was there it would allow clubs to remain in the T4 level and stay hugely relevant as a semi-pro/junior side. Some clubs like Auchinleck, for example, are hugely relevant in the junior game but Auchinleck is a village of under 5k population and may not want to get to T3,  it is totally understandable that some clubs from a small village would not want the responsibility of going to T3  but may still want the chance of being a successful side and being the top T4 team with a Scottish cup allows that. This solution might appease the Juniors and Lowland/Highland league teams and get them to buy into the structure.

[Spyro]

I’ve been busy...

Plan.pdf

It’s not perfect, it’ll upset some. It seems the best way to FAIRLY allow new teams to enter at tier 8 with no major restriction to entry, to progress to as far as they wish to go.

* Jeanfield Swifts, Newburgh, Kinnoull and Tayport can choose between NoS or EoS but once chosen, any changes will result in starting at tier 8.

Jeanfield can enter straight into HL Division 1 at the expense of Broughty Athletic (or Lochee if they don’t wish to be at tier 6), basically the highest ranking team who pass tier 6 licensing standards and is willing from that area. 

Apart from that, it leaves plenty of spaces open all over the country for any new team wishing to have a go at tier 8.

Edited May 22, 2019 by Spyro
Update

[anonanist]

Eh - regarding the possible expansion of the Championship to 12 teams, which seems to be driven by the desire to give colts teams/players more experience...

...would it be possible to finally kill off the colts-in-the-league idea by instead having colts teams sitting in a league parallel to the SPFL, such that they'd play all 30 non-Premiership teams once each per season, and play the other colts teams at least once per season (depending upon numbers)?

 

The obvious criticism of this is that the non-Premiership teams would have no incentive to play strong teams against the colts, but I can't see any reason why points couldn't be awarded as normal for a win or draw against a colts team, with the points being added to each senior team's league tally for that season - since each senior team would be playing each colts team once, there would be no unfairness in this.

This would give colts experience of playing against men in games that are meaningful to both teams, developing experience at a young age across a broad variety if fixtures (against Championship, League One, and League Two teams) without jeapordising the integrity of the League structure - and so end the spectre of colts teams distorting promotion/relegation issues.   

For example, with 10 colt teams (presumably from the leading 10 Premiership clubs), each Championship, League One and League Two team would face an additional 9 matches (either at home or away - wouldn't seem to be important?) per season, to be played in mid-weeks; they could accrue points as normal to add to their league tally, or simply earn a bonus point for a win; the 10 colts teams would sit in their own division, accruing points there from the 30 matches against senior teams and 9 matches against each other.

Hmm - I could see a difficulty being that the colts might not pick up too many points and their league table might be a bit farcical, so perhaps they'd be better off playing themselves both at home and away (18 games) and just playing the League One and League Two teams (once, for 20 games; 38 in total).

 

Another variation could be to sit the 12 Premiership Reserve/Colts teams in a league parallel to a 12-team Championship, with all 24 teams playing each other once, before they then play the remaining 11 reverse fixtures against teams within their own league to finish off the season with competitive head-to-heads: 34-game season, points accruing within their own league, no reserves/colts required to be in the pyramid, more full-time teams possible at tier 2.

It's a bit elitist, but youths from smaller clubs could perhaps be involved in a similar set-up parallel the Lowland League, etc; not sure what supporters would make of seeing so many colts teams in this second scenario, though.

[anonanist]

Regarding the Premiership - it'd be interesting to see a top level of 18 teams, playing each other once (either at home or away) in each of two half-seasons (once before xmas, once after).

This would give a standard 17 games in each half-season, with 34 league games guaranteed for each club over the course of the full season.  Each half-season could end with play offs for the top 6 teams, to see who would take the title and who would progress into Europe.  Points would then be reset to zero for the beginning of the next half-season.

For the play offs, I'd have one-off games: Quarter Finals - 3rd at home to 6th, 4th at home to 5th; Semi-Finals - 1st at home to winner of 4th-5th, 2nd at home to winner of 3rd-6th; Final - home advantage to the remaining team who had the highest point tally from that half-season (e.g. 1st at home to 2nd).

This would guarantee all teams 34 games (17 home games) across the full season (with fixtures reversed in the second half-season, to ensure fairness in terms of providing one home and one away matches against each team over the full season/calendar year), yet would only mean an additional 2 matches for the top two teams in each half season - so no more that 38 league games/play offs for the best teams over the two half-seasons.

Qualification for the Champions' League place  would go to the team with the best record over both sets of play offs: a team winning both half-season play-offs would automatically qualify; a team winning the autumn play off, and coming second in the spring play off would qualify ahead of a team coming third and first in those respective play offs; if a team won the autumn playoffs and came second in the spring play offs, with another team coming second in autumn and first in spring, the team going forward to the Champions' League would be the one with the highest points tally across the entire season (the other team would qualify automatically for the Europa League).

This would necessitate a 3rd-4th place play off in each half season, but these would be meaningful games because there would still be at least once Europa League place to play for.

I see the advantages being to make the league winnable for smaller clubs over each half-season, but with the strongest teams likely to emerge over the full season/across both sets of play offs, with fans of teams throughout the division being engaged with/enthused by the realistic possibility of finishing 6th over the 17 games, to then have a go at winning the title through the play offs.  It should also deliver 4 Old Firm games each full season, if that's seen as desirable, via a league match and a play off match in each half season, if both sides reach both finals; I doubt it'd be necessary for commercial revenues, though, given the excitement and interest levels that such a division would create.

Relegation could be done via the same method, applied in reverse to the bottom of the table (although that may be a bit harsh, so perhaps only the bottom several teams would be involved, in order to give the mid-table clubs a chance to build teams and bring though players for the future.  

[EdTheDuck]

Plod will never countenance a championship game between the Fugly Sisters. Christ, we can scarcely have one of the beauts win the title at their opponents place even though they're 12 points ahead and the 'league decider' is f**k all of the kind.

Much as I'm a fan of apertura/clausura short seasons for all sorts of reasons an alternative decider would have to be found and in conservative Scotland that would probably mean adding together all the points over the two half-seasons thereby rendering the two 'separate' championships utterly worthless.

[anonanist]

12 hours ago, EdTheDuck said:

Plod will never countenance a championship game between the Fugly Sisters. Christ, we can scarcely have one of the beauts win the title at their opponents place even though they're 12 points ahead and the 'league decider' is f**k all of the kind.

Much as I'm a fan of apertura/clausura short seasons for all sorts of reasons an alternative decider would have to be found and in conservative Scotland that would probably mean adding together all the points over the two half-seasons thereby rendering the two 'separate' championships utterly worthless.

One benefit of it being two half-seasons rather than a full season is that there wouldn't be as much riding on each individual half-season's deciding play off, so there would be no 'deciding game' for the overall season, as such...

 

On ‎10‎/‎05‎/‎2019 at 19:21, Sergeant Wilson said:

Playing 3 times was tried and rejected, the problems are obvious, two away game against a rival. Too few games in level 3.

...and yet having an imbalance of home/away matches against a rival is  tolerated in both the post-split Premiership and the League Cup group stages. 

Playing three times and inherent imbalances would be fine across the divisions, in my view - the Old Firm could have their third match at Hampden; the fixtures in one season could be reversed for the following season to give overall home/away fairness for gate revenues, with the top promoted team taking over 14th from the previous season's fixtures, second promoted team taking over 13th from previous season's fixtures, etc. 

The imbalances give a little extra character to the season, ameliorating done-to-death-four-times-per-season drudgery, without being too unfair (everyone would still be playing the same opposition the same number of times in a given season).    

[anonanist]

13 hours ago, EdTheDuck said:

Plod will never countenance a championship game between the Fugly Sisters. Christ, we can scarcely have one of the beauts win the title at their opponents place even though they're 12 points ahead and the 'league decider' is f**k all of the kind.

Much as I'm a fan of apertura/clausura short seasons for all sorts of reasons an alternative decider would have to be found and in conservative Scotland that would probably mean adding together all the points over the two half-seasons thereby rendering the two 'separate' championships utterly worthless.

 

33 minutes ago, anonanist said:

One benefit of it being two half-seasons rather than a full season is that there wouldn't be as much riding on each individual half-season's deciding play off, so there would be no 'deciding game' for the overall season, as such...

...and since having shorter seasons gives smaller clubs a greater chance at success, there's a diluted likelihood of such Old Firm deciders taking place; whereas the full season as it presently operates seems to be a guarantee of heightened emphasis on the final Old Firm match, yet (regarding the bit I've highlighted, in bold) these Old Firm matches are absolutely ugly anyway, no matter what is additionally at stake. 

Edited May 31, 2019 by anonanist

[Sergeant Wilson]

2 hours ago, anonanist said:

One benefit of it being two half-seasons rather than a full season is that there wouldn't be as much riding on each individual half-season's deciding play off, so there would be no 'deciding game' for the overall season, as such...

 

...and yet having an imbalance of home/away matches against a rival is  tolerated in both the post-split Premiership and the League Cup group stages. 

Playing three times and inherent imbalances would be fine across the divisions, in my view - the Old Firm could have their third match at Hampden; the fixtures in one season could be reversed for the following season to give overall home/away fairness for gate revenues, with the top promoted team taking over 14th from the previous season's fixtures, second promoted team taking over 13th from previous season's fixtures, etc. 

The imbalances give a little extra character to the season, ameliorating done-to-death-four-times-per-season drudgery, without being too unfair (everyone would still be playing the same opposition the same number of times in a given season).    

Send it in as a suggestion...Good luck. 

[EdTheDuck]

8 hours ago, anonanist said:

The imbalances give a little extra character to the season, ameliorating done-to-death-four-times-per-season drudgery, without being too unfair (everyone would still be playing the same opposition the same number of times in a given season).    

SPFL attendances have increased for the fourth season in a row with 25 of 42 teams showing an improvement.  Remarkable in the face of such drudgery.

[EdTheDuck]

8 hours ago, anonanist said:

One benefit of it being two half-seasons rather than a full season is that there wouldn't be as much riding on each individual half-season's deciding play off, so there would be no 'deciding game' for the overall season, as such...

 

7 hours ago, anonanist said:

 

...and since having shorter seasons gives smaller clubs a greater chance at success, there's a diluted likelihood of such Old Firm deciders taking place; whereas the full season as it presently operates seems to be a guarantee of heightened emphasis on the final Old Firm match, yet (regarding the bit I've highlighted, in bold) these Old Firm matches are absolutely ugly anyway, no matter what is additionally at stake. 

wouldn't be as much riding on each individual half season translates as fewer attendees and fewer TV viewers and asks the question 'why bother then?'. As a matter of fact I think it would be pretty easy to crank up the stakes in apertura/clausura tournaments. The whole point of any change is to increase interest (i.e. excitement), not water it down.

I do agree the chances of a non-weeg club winning an 18 team, 17 game championship is better but then again over the last 10 years after one round of games there has been one instance of a club other than rangers or celtic being top of the table (this last season, in fact,  Hearts) and in fact twice in 20 years (Hearts again in 2006 IIRC) so maybe the brave new world wouldn't be everything I'd hope it would be. 

[anonanist]

Yeah, maybe.  The way I look at it is:

- with teams only playing each other once in each league half-season, there are fewer points dropped by the best non-OF teams (because more games against each other would guarantee more dropped points), so there would be more chance of other clubs beating the OF/making the finals;

- nevertheless, with 6 play-off places available each half season the OF would almost be guaranteed to make the play offs;

- yet, since it's rare to see the OF meeting in the final of a domestic knock-out competition (let alone two finals in a single season), there is a low probability of them both coming through both sets of half-season play offs to make a final decider, particularly since the play offs would be of a higher standard than the cup competitions in which they usually fail to produce an OF 'decider' final.

The potential decisive/fourth OF match could be a selling point for the commercial and media hard-on, but - unlike now, where the SPFL seem to frantically back-pedal whenever it may actually happen - it would rarely materialise (for the reasons given above), and that focus/need gradually would be replaced by a genuinely exciting, refreshing competition.

The current set-up, with an OF games guaranteed in the final 5 matches, would seem to be more of a challenge to plod (who does just fine) than an 18-team top level, over two half-seasons, with play offs.

Taking a 14-team league, playing each opponent x3 for a 39-game season, the final OF game needn't ever be close to becoming a decider since it could be played on matchday 27 - the beginning of the final round-robin of fixtures, 12 matches before the season's end.  Being creative, the SPFL could easily schedule this as a home-away double header over matchdays 26 and 27, making an event of it (and similar rivalries, throughout the divisions) without it being 'the decider'.  The first OF game of the season could, ofcourse, be played at Hampden. 

[anonanist]

16 hours ago, EdTheDuck said:

SPFL attendances have increased for the fourth season in a row with 25 of 42 teams showing an improvement.  Remarkable in the face of such drudgery.

I would imagine SPFL attendances have been increasing because we have been seeing the biggest clubs finally return to the top of the League over the past few season, and the return of their larger fan bases to support their relative success will be skewing the stats.  However, it's good to see some of the bigger part-time clubs (Arbroath, Peterhead, Clyde) moving up - one thing I'd like to see is the SPFL concentrate on supporting more of these clubs to go full-time, not least in order to provide more full-time football for loanees to develop.

My view is that attendances would rise further with an 18-team top tier, with half seasons and play offs, because our middle-sized clubs would also pull in more punters as they competed for play-off places each half season: there would be more top flight teams on winning runs than at present, which fans will turn out to support, and a top 6 with a competitive reward (reaching the play offs) would a realistic goal for many clubs.  They wouldn't be wasting a full season in the dumps because of a bad run: they would just reset and go again in a couple of months. 

15 hours ago, EdTheDuck said:

wouldn't be as much riding on each individual half season translates as fewer attendees and fewer TV viewers and asks the question 'why bother then?'. As a matter of fact I think it would be pretty easy to crank up the stakes in apertura/clausura tournaments. The whole point of any change is to increase interest (i.e. excitement), not water it down.

I do agree the chances of a non-weeg club winning an 18 team, 17 game championship is better but then again over the last 10 years after one round of games there has been one instance of a club other than rangers or celtic being top of the table (this last season, in fact,  Hearts) and in fact twice in 20 years (Hearts again in 2006 IIRC) so maybe the brave new world wouldn't be everything I'd hope it would be. 

No, it doesn't - as you state in your next sentences.  There clearly wouldn't be as much riding on an individual half-season as there would be on any full season, but the two half-seasons combined would produce more excitement, commercial revenues, etc than at present because of the greater involvement of smaller clubs and non-OF clubs through competing to be in the play offs, and then in the play offs themselves.  Nothing's being watered down over the full season, other than the potential drama of  a 'decisive' OF game.

[EdTheDuck]

2 hours ago, anonanist said:

I would imagine SPFL attendances have been increasing because we have been seeing the biggest clubs finally return to the top of the League over the past few season, and the return of their larger fan bases to support their relative success will be skewing the stats.  However, it's good to see some of the bigger part-time clubs (Arbroath, Peterhead, Clyde) moving up - one thing I'd like to see is the SPFL concentrate on supporting more of these clubs to go full-time, not least in order to provide more full-time football for loanees to develop.

My view is that attendances would rise further with an 18-team top tier, with half seasons and play offs, because our middle-sized clubs would also pull in more punters as they competed for play-off places each half season: there would be more top flight teams on winning runs than at present, which fans will turn out to support, and a top 6 with a competitive reward (reaching the play offs) would a realistic goal for many clubs.  They wouldn't be wasting a full season in the dumps because of a bad run: they would just reset and go again in a couple of months. 

No, it doesn't - as you state in your next sentences.  There clearly wouldn't be as much riding on an individual half-season as there would be on any full season, but the two half-seasons combined would produce more excitement, commercial revenues, etc than at present because of the greater involvement of smaller clubs and non-OF clubs through competing to be in the play offs, and then in the play offs themselves.  Nothing's being watered down over the full season, other than the potential drama of  a 'decisive' OF game.

Please accept my apologies.

I churned some numbers based on the Prem since the 12 team top flight began and I have to say it surprised me.  Granted each "half season" is only based on 11 games but that is still around two thirds of an 18 team half season so is a reasonable indicator.

What came out was:

Celtic were top on 27 occasions.

Rangers 6 times

Hearts 3 times

Aberdeen twice.

However, there were a further dozen instances where a club other than one half of the weegie twins was within 3 points of the top dog after 11 games. That's almost half the time! Given that the remaining 6 games would be against none of the "major" clubs  it suggests, as you said, that apertura/clausura offers a realistic chance of non-exOF clubs winning a 'title' even without playoffs.

I also owe an apology to the lesser lights by suggesting earlier that only Hearts/Aberdeen/Hibs could realistically win even a half season title.  In fact,  Hamilton, Inverness, St Johnstone, Motherwell, Kilmarnock were level with or within 3 points of top spot.

Let's start a campaign. It would transform our game!

 

 

[anonanist]

No need to apologise to me. 

I'm all for the campaigning, but if it's to be online then this burst battle bus of an internet connection may prove prohibitive.

Your results seem intuitive, and illustrate the potential of playing better teams fewer times for opening up a title race.  We may have seen the limits of that within smaller leagues with the ultra-closeness of the Premiership table at the mid-season break this season, where teams had all-but played one another only twice - before things went awry. 

It doesn't take too much to imagine how having a clutch of the current Championship clubs playing instead in an expanded top tier would have prolonged this season's title race, if not because they each would be easier opponents twice per season than playing the top teams for a third and fourth time, then because head-to-heads between contenders guarantees dropped points for one of them and enables the OF to sneak away.

I'm for any league set-up following that kind of logic: in the same way that smaller-resourced teams have their best chance of success in cup competitions from one-off games, fewer games against stronger opponents can help to sometimes produce an unexpected outcome in the league. 

 

Another example would be a 16-10-16 SPFL, where the divisions of 16 split 9-7 after teams playing one-another twice (after 30 matchdays).  The top 9 would carry on playing each other once more - either at home or away, for 38 games - with more teams thus able to compete for longer for the Europa League places in the Premiership, or for promotion places in League One.  Similarly, the bottom 7 could play each other just once more, either at home or away, for 36 games in total and attempting to avoid relegation.  The middle 10 would avoid the staleness of x4 against the same teams each season, because there could be 2 automatically promoted and relegated plus one play off place in each direction - i.e. 3 could go up to the Premiership, 3 down to League One in each season.  Although fixture dates would be 'at a premium', they could also have Premiership play offs for the Europa League places from 3rd-6th, with 1st and 2nd qualifying automatically for Europe in order to avoid the feared OF title 'decider'; bottom place in League One could be automatically relegated, to be replaced by the winner of the non-league/pyramid play off.  Altogether a vibrant set-up that should give a better chance of non-OF success, more variety in fixtures, more realistic chance for part-timers to progress, better chances for middle-sized clubs to play bigger clubs and challenge for Europe, and encourage more player development in expanded but still competitive mid-tables. 

Skulking off now.

[Cornishman]

There have been many splendid ideas and proposals aired on this thread (which I've 'lurked' on for some time!). I'd now like to present my own modest proposal...

If one arranges a Division first into two (random?/regional?/league-place-ordered?) Conferences, followed by a halfway split & recombination into an 'upper/lower' pair of Conferences, one may operate Divisions with precisely 4/3rds. the number of teams in them compared to regular double-round-robin structured Divisions. This works as long as the total number of teams is divisible by four and results of all head-to-heads among qualified teams from the preliminary Conferences are retained in the upper/lower Conferences.

Ergo, we could have 24-team Divisions, playing a 34-match season... &/or... 28-team Divisions, playing a 40-match season.

That would respectively give 22/26 games each in the preliminary Conferences; 6/7 teams carry over their 10/12 head-to-head results; then the upper/lower Conferences kick-off with halfish-completed league tables and are finished via the teams playing their final 12/14 games versus those they've not yet played in the present season. 22+12/26+14.

The 'Premer Division' can, of course, be 'fixed' to provide the Glasgow OF pair with their four fixtures against each other (presuming that they both end up in the same upper or lower Conference for the end of season run-in!).

Advantages of this system...

(i)... Allows 1/3rd. more teams to compete in higher prestige League matches.

(ii).. Can provide high-interest derby matches in the first period of the season - if Conferences are split regionally.

(iii). The first period of the season Conferences 'split' exactly halfway through the middle, providing for that split to be made right at the point where statistically the highest number of teams with the closest points totals reside. Creating extra will-they/won't-they excitement for very many fans.

(iv).. The system provides a natural break at just the right time of year for the 'winter break'

(v)... There will be 'peril' for the last-placed team in the upper Conference, in the form of having to participate in promotion/relegation playoffs. There will also be 'reward' to be earned - in the form of playoffs for the top-2 in the lower Conference toward gaining Europa League entry.

(vi).. The upper Conference would be competing for the usual prizes & European competition entry, noting that the lowest of the would-be Europa League qualifiers would still be required to win playoffs versus the two best teams from the lower Conference (EoS-2018-19-style probably). Depending on the number of relegation places decreed in the League's rules; here I'm assuming four direct relegations and one or two playoff places; there will be a 'direct relegation line' drawn above the fourth-from-bottom position and a 'playoff zone line' drawn above either the 5th./6th.-from-bottom position - that dependent on whether a preliminary playoff be required between 6th.-bottom and 12th. from the upper Conference.

(vii). Competition prize money will be awarded strictly pro-rata, based on 'total points won over the 34/40 matches of the season'.

 

Disadvantages of this system...

 

(i)... The pattern of matches to be played might be a little tricky to understand by some, particularly in its inception season.

 

 

Well, there you have it. Not really that complex, yet still exercising for the old grey matter!

 

I would allow for just the one national Division, with each subsequent tier dividing the tier above in half in regional, then area and maybe district based Divisions/Conferences. I'd suspect that the 24-team model would be more popular than the 28-team one. If someone wishes to illustrate my model with spreadsheets/maps - feel free. It's not copyrighted and doing such things exceeds my capabilities! lol. Hope folks enjoy perusing and pondering on my modest model.

 

Edited June 16, 2019 by Cornishman

[Spyro]

15 hours ago, Cornishman said:

There have been many splendid ideas and proposals aired on this thread (which I've 'lurked' on for some time!). I'd now like to present my own modest proposal...

If one arranges a Division first into two (random?/regional?/league-place-ordered?) Conferences, followed by a halfway split & recombination into an 'upper/lower' pair of Conferences, one may operate Divisions with precisely 4/3rds. the number of teams in them compared to regular double-round-robin structured Divisions. This works as long as the total number of teams is divisible by four and results of all head-to-heads among qualified teams from the preliminary Conferences are retained in the upper/lower Conferences.

Ergo, we could have 24-team Divisions, playing a 34-match season... &/or... 28-team Divisions, playing a 40-match season.

That would respectively give 22/26 games each in the preliminary Conferences; 6/7 teams carry over their 10/12 head-to-head results; then the upper/lower Conferences kick-off with halfish-completed league tables and are finished via the teams playing their final 12/14 games versus those they've not yet played in the present season. 22+12/26+14.

The 'Premer Division' can, of course, be 'fixed' to provide the Glasgow OF pair with their four fixtures against each other (presuming that they both end up in the same upper or lower Conference for the end of season run-in!).

Advantages of this system...

(i)... Allows 1/3rd. more teams to compete in higher prestige League matches.

(ii).. Can provide high-interest derby matches in the first period of the season - if Conferences are split regionally.

(iii). The first period of the season Conferences 'split' exactly halfway through the middle, providing for that split to be made right at the point where statistically the highest number of teams with the closest points totals reside. Creating extra will-they/won't-they excitement for very many fans.

(iv).. The system provides a natural break at just the right time of year for the 'winter break'

(v)... There will be 'peril' for the last-placed team in the upper Conference, in the form of having to participate in promotion/relegation playoffs. There will also be 'reward' to be earned - in the form of playoffs for the top-2 in the lower Conference toward gaining Europa League entry.

(vi).. The upper Conference would be competing for the usual prizes & European competition entry, noting that the lowest of the would-be Europa League qualifiers would still be required to win playoffs versus the two best teams from the lower Conference (EoS-2018-19-style probably). Depending on the number of relegation places decreed in the League's rules; here I'm assuming four direct relegations and one or two playoff places; there will be a 'direct relegation line' drawn above the fourth-from-bottom position and a 'playoff zone line' drawn above either the 5th./6th.-from-bottom position - that dependent on whether a preliminary playoff be required between 6th.-bottom and 12th. from the upper Conference.

(vii). Competition prize money will be awarded strictly pro-rata, based on 'total points won over the 34/40 matches of the season'.

 

Disadvantages of this system...

 

(i)... The pattern of matches to be played might be a little tricky to understand by some, particularly in its inception season.

 

 

Well, there you have it. Not really that complex, yet still exercising for the old grey matter!

 

I would allow for just the one national Division, with each subsequent tier dividing the tier above in half in regional, then area and maybe district based Divisions/Conferences. I'd suspect that the 24-team model would be more popular than the 28-team one. If someone wishes to illustrate my model with spreadsheets/maps - feel free. It's not copyrighted and doing such things exceeds my capabilities! lol. Hope folks enjoy perusing and pondering on my modest model.

 

Ffs, took me all night to work out the first bit! I love it, but only because I’m a maths geek and l like sh1t like that...

I think we need to see how the EoS conferences work out this year and how many boardroom meltdowns it causes before we unleash a beast like that on the public though. Once my brain regroups, I’ll read the rest of it properly... looks interesting so far from the quick scan down I mustered out of my poor head 

[anonanist]

Story time...

Earlier in the year when World Rugby (or whatever their righteous appellation) were looking at a revamp of the international test calendar, I connived a version that might  have applications in restructuring of the League. 

The basic premise that I was working to was to bring two additional countries (Georgia and Romania) to supplement the Six Nations, and to bring 4 countries (Japan, Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga) to supplement the Tri-Nations-Plus-Argybargy in the southern hemisphere - but without losing the quick, compact competition that the spring or autumn test series give. 

My solution was to have the 8 teams in each hemisphere seeded into 2 groups of 4, playing each other once to give 3 test matches each, and so for the top 2 from each group to progress to the Winners group of 4, with the remaining 4 nations combining for a Consolation group of 4.  There each team would play only a further two test matches, against 2 the nations that they had not already met, with the result against the nation that they had already met in the initial group phase carried forward to this final group table.  So each team would have played 5 matches over the period, with the final Winners or Consolation group showing the points, etc for the 3 head-to-head matches against teams within that group.

E.g. - (A) Ireland, France; Scotland, Georgia; (B) England, Wales; Italy, Romania.  (Winners' group) Ireland, England, France, Wales; (Consolation group) Scotland, Italy, Georgia, Romania.  Scotland would not need to play against Georgia in the Consolation group as they had already done so, with this match's result carrying forward to the Consolation group table alongside the results of matches to be played against Italy and Romania.     

If that makes any sense...

The application that this may have in Scottish football could be in either a 16 or 14 team top flight. 

In a league of 16, after teams had played each other both at home and away, for 30 games each, the top 4 could play one another home and away again for a further 6 matches each, with the bottom 4 doing the same.  The middle 8 could divide into 2 groups of 4, and progress as outlined above for an additional 5 matches each to decide on a European place - if there was one available, either with the new European competition that's supposedly coming, or via a play off between 4th in the league and the winner of this Middle 8.  Or they could have the two groups of 4, with knock-out semi-finals for the top 2 of each, a Mid 8 final and then a European play-off match with 4th. 

In a league of 14, after teams had played one another both at home and away, for 26 games, the top 6 could play one another home and away again for a further 10 matches each, giving 36 games in total for each team.  The bottom 8 could divide into 2 groups of 4, playing home and away within those groups and for a further 6 games each, with the top two of each group reaching safety after those 32 games but still meeting the other group's top 2 home and away for a final 4 matches (for pride, dosh, developing players, cup qualification seeding, etc), whilst the bottom 2 from each group would be playing the bottom 2 from the other group, home and away for 36 games each, in the Relegation group of 4, to decide the relegation issues.  All points would be brought forward throughout, so results against the relegation candidates from the same initial group would count.   

Or, flip that, with the Premiership top 8 seeded into 2 groups of 4 after 26 games each, then playing home and away within each group for a further 6 matches each, with the top two from each group progressing to play the top 2 from the other group at home and away for a final 4 matches and 36 games in total.  Similarly, the bottom two from each of the groups would play each other both at home and away for the prize of a European play-off place against 4th in the League.  The bottom 6 of the Premiership (who were cast away after 26 games each) would simply play each other again at home and away for 36 games each.  Again, all points would carry over throughout the league and group stages.

If you bothered to read all of that - thanks; hope it made some kind of sense!