League reconstruction: Let's hear your view

[itzdrk]

Ah yes, just get rid of 10 teams and encourage regional football.

I propose as a counter argument that there are no changes and we just kick Rangers and Celtic out.

[RabidAl]

I think the OP's pretty good, but I'd like to see the introduction of play-offs for Europe if we had a bigger league.

If the top 6 were at least guaranteed a European play-off place then the mid-table would be kept interesting for longer. As I understand it, the top 4 currently qualify for Europe IF no-one from outwith the top 4 wins the Scottish Cup. In a bigger league you could be looking at starting out a season with teams knowing that 1st and 2nd are guaranteed European football, with 3rd-6th guaranteed a play-off place.

(A possible format being*: 3rd at home to 6th and 4th at home to 5th in mid-week one-off games, with the highest-ranked winner playing the one-off final at home. The winner guaranteed a European place, the runners up also qualifying if 1st, 2nd or the play-off winner subsequently wins the Scottish Cup.

Or they could just have the play-offs after the Scottish Cup final, with 3 or 4 teams playing in a similar format to this depending upon who wins the Cup - the highest-ranked team playing the winner of the mid-week semi-final in the event of just 3 teams playing for the final European place, or even 4th-7th playing off would be a possibility.)

This would allow 9 out of the 16 of the league positions to mean something at the end of the season, even if it's only relegation for the bottom two or three - a better ratio than we have at the moment (6/12) and an end to the 'bigger league equals more meaningless games' slander.

At any rate, I think leagues of 16 allow a little more time for player development and for managers to attempt to implement more attractive football than small, cut-throat leagues do; they also enable more teams to be concentrated around a similar number of points during the season, therefore more changes in position and more interest to fans; and there'd be about 6 full-time clubs in the second tier with leagues of 16, which is fine when you consider that part-time clubs would being having a sniff of the promotion play-offs to the top tier each season and that'd bring some supporters oot.

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*Edit, re-European play-offs:

As it stands, the top four in the league qualify for Europe unless a team from outwith the top four wins the Scottish Cup.

There wouldn't be space for European play-offs in the current calendar, but there would be ample room with a 16-team top tier, they'd add to the end-of-season interest, and would be a good target for middle-top end teams each season to keep things interesting throughout the league.

If European play-offs were to take place before the Scottish Cup final, they could be between 3rd, 4th 5th and 6th. The winners of the play-offs would take a European place, the runners up would also take a place IF 1st or 2nd in the League or the European play-off winners then went on to win the Scottish Cup.

If European play-offs were to take place after the Scottish Cup final, they could be:

between 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th IF 1st, 2nd or 3rd won the Scottish Cup;

between 3rd, 5th, 6th and 7th IF 4th place won the Scottish Cup;

between 3rd, 4th, 6th and 7th, IF 5th place won the Scottish Cup;

between 3rd, 4th, 5th and 7th IF 6th place won the Scottish Cup;

between 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th IF 7th or below won the Scottish Cup.

So teams and fans could know in advance of the season that finishing in the top 6-7 places would give them a crack at Europe.

Edited December 15, 2015 by RabidAl

[bendan]

Ah yes, just get rid of 10 teams and encourage regional football.

I propose as a counter argument that there are no changes and we just kick Rangers and Celtic out.

I'm all for kicking out Celtic and Rangers, but I don't see why regionalisation has to mean being kicked out. A regional third tier could still be part of the SPFL.

[itzdrk]

I'm all for kicking out Celtic and Rangers, but I don't see why regionalisation has to mean being kicked out. A regional third tier could still be part of the SPFL.

It doesnt, im saying they are both bad.

The people who seem to want regional football the most are the fans of the clubs in Scotland's top two leagues, only they don't want it for themselves. Funny that.

[SpoonTon]

The people who seem to want regional football the most are the fans of the clubs in Scotland's top two leagues, only they don't want it for themselves. Funny that.

The point is if we want a proper pyramid in place then we need something enticing for clubs currently outside of the league structure. A fourth tier with trips as far away from each other as Elgin and Annan is not enticing to most clubs. So it's a choice between opening up the leagues or being content with what we have right now. There's no way of having both.

The way I see it there should be two regions below the league proper if we want to go down that route. Basically divide the north from the south. Obviously the south region would be much stronger, and that would have to be acknowledged in some way.

If you aren't in favour of a pyramid system, and like things the way they are, then fair enough. But it's not simply a decision for the clubs currently in and around the bottom tier.

[RabidAl]

The point is if we want a proper pyramid in place then we need something enticing for clubs currently outside of the league structure. A fourth tier with trips as far away from each other as Elgin and Annan is not enticing to most clubs. So it's a choice between opening up the leagues or being content with what we have right now. There's no way of having both.

The way I see it there should be two regions below the league proper if we want to go down that route. Basically divide the north from the south. Obviously the south region would be much stronger, and that would have to be acknowledged in some way.

If you aren't in favour of a pyramid system, and like things the way they are, then fair enough. But it's not simply a decision for the clubs currently in and around the bottom tier.

Why are you advocating two regions if you are also saying that one would be much stronger? Wouldn't it make more sense to divide the south, into east and west regions? You more or less get an even three-way split of the clubs into West, North and East regions that way.

It would likely keep the juniors interested by still being able to aim to become East/West of Scotland champions before a move up to a national league (tier two) that, ideally, would have some full-time clubs in it as an incentive to move to national football. Again, ideally, this would be supported by a proper all-through financial model without the large drop in revenues between tiers 1 and 2 that we have at the moment, so the full-timers would be reasonably well supported.

So you'd hopefully be looking at tiers 3 and 4 being regionalised into West, North and East, with tiers 5 and 6 being three-four district leagues per region, then local, amateur leagues beyond that. That would be a pyramid that kept costs down to a level appropriate to the size of the club, enabled clubs to find their level, and linked the top of the game to the bottom.

I can't see the point of the 18 and 15 team Highland and Lowland leagues we have at the moment with clubs just sitting there with virtually nothing to play for season in, season out - if there's no throughput of clubs then it aint a pyramid.

Edited December 15, 2015 by RabidAl

[SpoonTon]

Why are you advocating two regions if you are also saying that one would be much stronger? Wouldn't it make more sense to divide the south, into east and west regions? You more or less get an even three-way split of the clubs into West, North and East regions that way.

It would likely keep the juniors interested by still being able to aim to become East/West of Scotland champions before a move up to a national league (tier two) that, ideally, would have some full-time clubs in it as an incentive to move to national football. Again, ideally, this would be supported by a proper all-through financial model without the large drop in revenues between tiers 1 and 2 that we have at the moment, so the full-timers would be reasonably well supported.

So you'd hopefully be looking at tiers 3 and 4 being regionalised into West, North and East, with tiers 5 and 6 being three-four district leagues per region, then local, amateur leagues beyond that. That would be a pyramid that kept costs down to a level appropriate to the size of the club, enabled clubs to find their level, and linked the top of the game to the bottom.

I can't see the point of the 18 and 15 team Highland and Lowland leagues we have at the moment with clubs just sitting there with virtually nothing to play for season in, season out - if there's no throughput of clubs then it aint a pyramid.

I'd argue it's an issue of geography at that initial level. It's more than 60 miles from Dundee to Aberdeen, another 100 to Inverness, and another 100 to Wick. It's only about 80 miles from Ayr to Kirkcaldy. Itzdrk does make an important point, there's no point in dividing teams up into regions when there's no need to. Below that level you could have 4 or 5 regions, depending on what there was a will for.

[effeffsee_the2nd]

I'd argue it's an issue of geography at that initial level. It's more than 60 miles from Dundee to Aberdeen, another 100 to Inverness, and another 100 to Wick. It's only about 80 miles from Ayr to Kirkcaldy. Itzdrk does make an important point, there's no point in dividing teams up into regions when there's no need to. Below that level you could have 4 or 5 regions, depending on what there was a will for.

Why are you advocating two regions if you are also saying that one would be much stronger? Wouldn't it make more sense to divide the south, into east and west regions? You more or less get an even three-way split of the clubs into West, North and East regions that way.

It would likely keep the juniors interested by still being able to aim to become East/West of Scotland champions before a move up to a national league (tier two) that, ideally, would have some full-time clubs in it as an incentive to move to national football. Again, ideally, this would be supported by a proper all-through financial model without the large drop in revenues between tiers 1 and 2 that we have at the moment, so the full-timers would be reasonably well supported.

So you'd hopefully be looking at tiers 3 and 4 being regionalised into West, North and East, with tiers 5 and 6 being three-four district leagues per region, then local, amateur leagues beyond that. That would be a pyramid that kept costs down to a level appropriate to the size of the club, enabled clubs to find their level, and linked the top of the game to the bottom.

I can't see the point of the 18 and 15 team Highland and Lowland leagues we have at the moment with clubs just sitting there with virtually nothing to play for season in, season out - if there's no throughput of clubs then it aint a pyramid.

I think going from national to 3 way regional is too much to do in one go, it would need 3 automatic relegations spots to accommodate the 3 respective champions, now the thing with that is with it being such a step up you may find that very few promoted teams last longer than 1 season in that league, you may also find that all 3 relegated teams are from the north most years whilst only 1 promoted team is, so the northern teams get replaced at a rate of 3 to 1 until there isn't a home for them.

A north south intermediate level isn't really what anyone wants but its probably necessary to build up strength in the north . 2 leagues of 16 , draw the boundaries where appropriate. 2 champs go up, play of between both 2nd places, 3 delegations spots isn't as big a deal with this step down.

[honestly united]

I think going from national to 3 way regional is too much to do in one go, it would need 3 automatic relegations spots to accommodate the 3 respective champions, now the thing with that is with it being such a step up you may find that very few promoted teams last longer than 1 season in that league, you may also find that all 3 relegated teams are from the north most years whilst only 1 promoted team is, so the northern teams get replaced at a rate of 3 to 1 until there isn't a home for them.

A north south intermediate level isn't really what anyone wants but its probably necessary to build up strength in the north . 2 leagues of 16 , draw the boundaries where appropriate. 2 champs go up, play of between both 2nd places, 3 delegations spots isn't as big a deal with this step down.

At the moment there is a play off for the bottom team, against a play off winner of HL & LL winners, if there were 3 feeders now then you could include the bottom club and have SF's and a Final for the place in the league.

The problem with the pyramid is until the Juniors are on board (or told they are getting involved) you just have a HL in the north, and the LL, and EoS and SoS (although don't think they are official feeders as of yet) in the south which is probably the least pyramid like set up you could have. This would be the first step to get them involved before you start worrying about how many teams are in each division or what split in regions there is

[Mr Bairn]

At the moment there is a play off for the bottom team, against a play off winner of HL & LL winners, if there were 3 feeders now then you could include the bottom club and have SF's and a Final for the place in the league.

The problem with the pyramid is until the Juniors are on board (or told they are getting involved) you just have a HL in the north, and the LL, and EoS and SoS (although don't think they are official feeders as of yet) in the south which is probably the least pyramid like set up you could have. This would be the first step to get them involved before you start worrying about how many teams are in each division or what split in regions there is

I'd personally have the 3 winners automatically promoted and then the 3 second placed teams in a playoff with 13th in the championship.

I know there might be an imbalance, say for example 13th to 16th are all in the North, then the 3 winners come up and the second placed team in the West wins the playoffs, but I'm proposing the 3rd tier be equally sized leagues with the possibility of teams moving laterally from season to season. Obviously it would be a bit unfair on your Arbroath's and your Stenhousemuir's and your Stirling Albion's who might be having to move from league to league each year, but that's how the conference North and conference South work down in England and is a far better solution than the fixed HL/LL boundaries which could lead to major disparities.

I think the 3rd tier would need to be fairly small league (12 teams probably) since there's only room for 1 automatic promotion and 1 playoff slot, in reality this means the North premier league would have several teams currently playing in the SPFL and only the very best HL/Junior teams would be in here.

[SpoonTon]

I'd personally have the 3 winners automatically promoted and then the 3 second placed teams in a playoff with 13th in the championship.

I know there might be an imbalance, say for example 13th to 16th are all in the North, then the 3 winners come up and the second placed team in the West wins the playoffs, but I'm proposing the 3rd tier be equally sized leagues with the possibility of teams moving laterally from season to season. Obviously it would be a bit unfair on your Arbroath's and your Stenhousemuir's and your Stirling Albion's who might be having to move from league to league each year, but that's how the conference North and conference South work down in England and is a far better solution than the fixed HL/LL boundaries which could lead to major disparities.

I think the 3rd tier would need to be fairly small league (12 teams probably) since there's only room for 1 automatic promotion and 1 playoff slot, in reality this means the North premier league would have several teams currently playing in the SPFL and only the very best HL/Junior teams would be in here.

You could have larger 3rd tier leagues if there were qualification places for a group stage of the League Cup up for grabs. I think incorporating the 3rd teir teams into a Challenge Cup with the second tier, and some of the top 3rd tier clubs into the League Cup, would help to maintain the connection with the league above and provide encouragement for clubs to actually want to join this set-up. I think you have to give clubs from other set-ups (Junior, etc.) a reason to want to join this system before they can be convinced to do so.

[effeffsee_the2nd]

Still thinkin that going from east/west/north straight to the championship against full time clubs is too big to do in 1 step. Its not much of a pyramid if the promoted teams only last one season before going straight back down again. North and south leagues of 16 for a 3rd teir with the top 7 qualifieng for the league cup group stage to hopefully give a bit of a carrot for smaller sides.

For those who think this is all a bit unfair on the current spfl 2 sides i say tough. Football is a competetive sport. 4th tier clubs very rarely make it past the 3rd round in the current league cup but they are now going to get 4 games with 1 guarenteed against premier opposition. If they want to funnel that money into directors pockets fine but failure to invest in the squad will result in relegation. A fate not possible untill last season and still not a real enough danger. None of this finishin bottom 3 years in a row with 8 points all season nonsense

[grazza]

Seems to be often the top league that is expanded in any of these plans I just don't really see how you make more meaningful games unless there was some sort of play off for euro positions etc. The 2nd tier is very important and maybe even the key area for small ambitious clubs.I think adding potentially 10 new teams into top 2 tiers kills full time football outside of top league.

Elite Division - 12 teams though would make 11th place an automatic relegation slot. If we ever got a 5th Euro slot then a play off where winner of bottom section of split could get a slot e.g. final 4th v semi winner, semi final 5th v quarter winner, quarter - 6th v 7th, Each one off matches with higher ranked team getting home advantage in one off game.

Celtic, Aberdeen, Hearts, Dundee, Dundee Utd, Ross County, Inverness, Kilmarnock, Motherwell, Hamilton, Partick, st johnstone

Championship Division - I would go to 12 teams. They then have options of more matches to generate more income or have a split like premiership which would mean teams fighting for play off contention getting into top half. Ambitious part time teams might have more chance to get up and establish themselves and strive towards more professional setup. Bottom 2 would be automatically relegated. Promotion play offs runners up get bye to final, 3rd place plays 4th in semi's.

Rangers 2012, Hibs, St Mirren,Dumbarton, Raith, Falkirk, Livingston, Alloa, QOS, Morton, Dunfermline, Ayr

National Division A - 12 teams. This level would be a hybrid between national and regional setup. North East and South East conferences. Play own conference 4 times = 20 games and other conference 2 times = 12 games. 2 conference winners (1 will be overall winners) go up automatically. Next best team in overall table get bye to promotion final. Next team down in overall table play 10th championship team in semi final. Games such as Stranraer v Peterhead would be fixtured in say August and April to minimise sillyness.

North - Peterhead, Forfar, Cowdenbeath,Stenhousemuir,Brechin, Elgin

South- Albion, Stranraer,Airdrie,Annan, Clyde, Queens Park

National Division B basically the same as A but taking in 6th lowest league two sides and best couple of teams in highland, lowland/eastern juniors. and western juniors.

North - Montrose, Arbroath, Stirling, Brora, Cove, East Fife

South- Berwick, East Stirling, Edinburgh City, Kirkintilloch, Pollock, Bonnyrigg

Regional Leagues - Champions of 3 regions go up.

Western as it is just now but incorporate South of Scotland league into its lowest tier alongside ayrshire and central. Western Lowland league teams going into top division.

Eastern - Merger of Eastern Juniors and East of Scotland and eastern lowland teams

Highland - Highland league at top and incorporating juniors and north caledonian league below

Scottish cup - would be open to all clubs and top amateur clubs could be encouraged to enter and would like the idea of the top teams entering in a round of 64.

League Cup - try out the group stage but make sure that its not just group winners that can progress some sort of play off for runners up or something.

Challenge Cup - Tier 2 and 3 bye to round 2. In round 1 12 tier 4 teams joined by Junior cup holders and holders of west, east and highland cups or best teams not already in competition.

Junior cup - keep the tradition there and boosted by Highland, SOS and EOS teams and teams dropping from national league. Open to all regional level clubs below 4th tier and potentially top amateur clubs.

Think something like this would give a bit of something and not really take anything away. It encourages top end part time teams to have ambition and grow. The Juniors keep a lot of their tradition going with a boost in membership and access to the Senior Scottish Cup for all. The 3 regions I think has a more natural fit and balance than highland and lowland. Would like to see transition between each level fairly gentle so less chance of teams running away with leagues or falling way behind. It needs to be difficult to reach the top tier its part of the challenge. A good solid mostly full time 2nd tier means more training time and opportunities for young players but boosting it a bit maybe makes it more feesable for some clubs to move towards full time. Enough for evolution and gradual change that can get people on side.

Anyone know much about politics of old SFL and now SPFL. Why has it been 3 leagues of 10 below the top tier for over 20 years, I can't even think of any motions or talk to reconstruct within. All talk seems to be the top tier as if everything else is stuck unless they change. Just about every team in championship except maybe 2 or 3 have been or very nearly ended up in 3rd tier in fairly recent times you think they wouldn't mind going to say 12.

Edited December 17, 2015 by grazza

[RabidAl]

^ I like your conferences idea (although it's a little bit confusing to begin with) to keep some element of national football alongside more local matches, although your set-up does seem to keep the dreaded playing each team four times in a season. I think having a mixed part-time/full-time second tier is desirable to give the part-timers something achievable to aim for, to see what they can bring in terms of larger supports given the chance of promotion to the top tier, and also to give full-time clubs the stability to prepare for a push at the top tier without having to fight relegation to tier three each season (where their support bleeds away) as they do now.

In terms of what we have right now, I think one of the reasons that licencing was brought in was to ensure that clubs falling out of the league (SPFL) can still play at a decent, consistent level. There are 20 clubs in the highland region that are licenced now (HL 18 + Banks o' Dee & Golspie Sutherland) and 22 in the lowland region (LL 15 + Burntisland, Civil Service, Coldstream, Glasgow Uni, Hawick, Linlithgow & Wigtown/Bladnoch). This would be enough for 2 divisions in each region, with some promotion/relegation between them at least giving some semblance of a pyramid if the HL2 and LL2 were less strict on licencing to allow for EoS, SoS and (maybe?) NCL/north juniors clubs access to the pyramid. There's also about enough depth, in terms of licencing, for an east/west split of the Lowland League at this point, which could enable our fourth tier to be shuffled in with these clubs in the near future. That said, I take the point that our national part-timers aren't going to be too keen on being regionalised unilaterally, and also that there could (initially) be an issue with the teams from regions not being strong enough to compete nationally.

If the juniors could be tempted, an initial structure could look like:

Premiership (16)

I

Championship (16)

I

Conference (0-??)

I

West Premier (16) - North Premier (16) - East Premier (16)

I I I

West One (16) - North One (16) - East One (16)

I I I

South/Galloway - Strathclyde - Lanarkshire - Ayrshire Aberdeenshire - Moray - Highland Tayside - Lothian/Borders - Fife - Forth

With local, amateur leagues below this; the second tier of the regions varying in size to accommodate the imbalances of the pyramid and being useful for clubs coming up from the districts to adjust to the higher level; the Scottish Cup to reflect the size of the pyramid, taking in clubs from the amateurs at the bottom to the big clubs at the top.

Edited December 22, 2015 by RabidAl

[grazza]

Interesting thread. I can see why there is merit in 16 team top flight in that there is no real gap between top end of tier 2 and top league but wouldn't be anything more to play for really and more meaningless games,.If there is less games though teams may carry smaller squads. Lets say it happened and for argument the biggest 4 teams went up Sevco, Hibs, St Mirren and Falkirk. Your left with QOS, Morton, Raith and Livy who are probably clubs that year to year already need to evaluate if they can stay full time. You would lose away crowds from these bigger end teams and in a bigger 16 team league probably less pressure on them to stay full time to stay up. The likes of Hamilton in tier 2 had a pretty low home following but boosted by decent away support from central belt teams. Why top two tiers having 16 teams but tier 3 only 10? Would have to play each other 4 times in ten team league surely. I suppose my national league A and B could merge but I was mindful of a Stirling or East Fife I think a hybrid system would mean travel wise its not really worse for them. Respectfully I don't think the 2nd tier is a natural level for clubs like Albion Rovers or Stenhousemuir. At the moment Albion are kind of living the dream of maybe making a play off slot. Really they would need to have more infrastructure and less reliant on volunteers to get established at that sort of level by all means they could make it in current setup which would be a roy of the rovers story which would be great if they earn it. The non league level leave them to work it out but each region gets same number promotion slot to national levels. Existing lowland leagues I think though should be placed at top of region given efforts they have made to licence and build but ultimately SJFA have autonomy to run this level.

Tier 1- Only Celtic and maybe Sevco are likely to win this in foreseeable future. Battle for Europe so need to have a slot for best of the rest in third and of course Scottish cup. 1 up one down was very stale. Play off is progress but 2 down automatically make there a lot more to play for. Needs to be a challenge to get to top tier rather than 75% plus of full time teams (maybe a part time team a some stage in top tier or at least until they get there) Can't see them happy to potentially half amount of Glasgow, Dundee derbies, Edinburgh derbies, Highland derbies. The real challenge is having more to play for which isn't really about how many teams are in league but more if there can be a euro play off and more threat of relegation.

Tier 2 - Want a strong core of full time clubs at least half ideally more even if mainly young guys. This is for clubs with reasonable sizes supports 1500 plus ideally and still a core of decent away crowds helping boost smaller clubs maybe to or close to full time level. If clubs want to remain or aspire to be full time they need to at least play as many games if not play more. I would say conference is probably comparable level in terms of crowds down southe (if You exclude Hibs and Rangers) they play 46 games and that probably allows and justifies a lot of them to be full time. With 12 teams you have option to emulate premier split (interesting for challenging for promotion play offs and with potential 3 relegation slots) or you go for 44 games. to squeeze a few more pennies and more games for young squad players.

tier 3 / 4- Travel costs could be reduced, want to be part of national setup but avoid extreme trips to peterhead or stranraer twice a year and certainly not when weather is at its most likely worse. Local games e.g. Angus derbies will give a boost to crowd so business hat on 4 times a season probably makes sense. Surely if we stay national this is the level that a 16 team league and 30 match days makes sense at a part time level.

[RabidAl]

I think there'd be more meaningful games throughout the course of the season with 16-team leagues, as you'd have more teams clustered around similar numbers of points as we often see in larger leagues elsewhere. This increases the number of games against rivals (in terms of league position) and adds to the interest throughout the campaign.

The meaningless games argument only really comes in towards the very end of the season, which I would mitigate with play-offs for Europe in the top tier, and in the tier below with the top five either in play-offs for promotion or being automatically promoted. Even without play-offs for Europe, you'd be looking at 7 of 16 teams qualifying for something at the season's end (assuming 2 automatically relegated, 1 in relegation play-off) in the top flight, a similar ratio to the English top tier (9/20). The increased number of teams being promoted and relegated adds freshness to the leagues, as does only playing each other twice.

The corollary to your argument about clubs in tier two struggling with lower away supports (from their being fewer full-time opponents with 16 team top tiers) is that having a larger top tier supports more full-time clubs in that tier, through them having access to the larger away supports in that tier compared to the status quo, and this is also emphasised by more open promotion making it easier to access those larger crowds - i.e. less time in the 'wilderness' of a lower division.

Although I don't really think it's necessary, I kept a 10-team third tier in that example since many folk wouldn't be too happy about simply punting 10 clubs out of the national set-up ('enforced regionalisation') and to address concerns about it being too big a jump from regional leagues to a tier 2 that included full-time clubs. I'd like to see the regions being as strong as possible - and think that this would happen pretty quickly with ambitious clubs from below and established clubs relegated from above - and at a high tier to keep them in national focus and give them some prestige.

16-16-10 would also take minimal effort in terms of re-construction, which they could tie for a fixed four year period along with the new League Cup since the old fixed period expires this coming summer.

All that said, I still quite fancy three tiers of 14 with a 9/5 split after 26 games/2 rounds of fixtures (top 9 play each other again once, bottom 5 play each other again twice) for 34 games in total.

Edited December 19, 2015 by RabidAl

[Doink]

Ayr fan promoting his own while relegating others

[effeffsee_the2nd]

I think there'd be more meaningful games throughout the course of the season with 16-team leagues, as you'd have more teams clustered around similar numbers of points as we often see in larger leagues elsewhere. This increases the number of games against rivals (in terms of league position) and adds to the interest throughout the campaign.

The meaningless games argument only really comes in towards the very end of the season, which I would mitigate with play-offs for Europe in the top tier, and in the tier below with the top five either in play-offs for promotion or being automatically promoted. Even without play-offs for Europe, you'd be looking at 7 of 16 teams qualifying for something at the season's end (assuming 2 automatically relegated, 1 in relegation play-off) in the top flight, a similar ratio to the English top tier (9/20). The increased number of teams being promoted and relegated adds freshness to the leagues, as does only playing each other twice.

The corollary to your argument about clubs in tier two struggling with lower away supports (from their being fewer full-time opponents with 16 team top tiers) is that having a larger top tier supports more full-time clubs in that tier, through them having access to the larger away supports in that tier compared to the status quo, and this is also emphasised by more open promotion making it easier to access those larger crowds - i.e. less time in the 'wilderness' of a lower division.

Although I don't really think it's necessary, I kept a 10-team third tier in that example since many folk wouldn't be too happy about simply punting 10 clubs out of the national set-up ('enforced regionalisation') and to address concerns about it being too big a jump from regional leagues to a tier 2 that included full-time clubs. I'd like to see the regions being as strong as possible - and think that this would happen pretty quickly with ambitious clubs from below and established clubs relegated from above - and at a high tier to keep them in national focus and give them some prestige.

16-16-10 would also take minimal effort in terms of re-construction, which they could tie for a fixed four year period along with the new League Cup since the old fixed period expires this coming summer.

All that said, I still quite fancy three tiers of 14 with a 9/5 split after 26 games/2 rounds of fixtures (top 9 play each other again once, bottom 5 play each other again twice) for 34 games in total.

Not including sevco , Who brought the biggest away support to east end park in the league since you went down and what was it?

[grazza]

Ayr fan promoting his own while relegating others

No one has been relegated in my plans unless maybe you maybe looking at how lowland and EOS teams merge into the non league. Two automatic relegation spots form SPFL would also boost Falkirk's chances of going up. Also would be inviting 6 new teams to SPFL in my plan. Even if the top two tiers stayed the same number as currently I think we are mad not to have some sort of regionalisation at tier 3 and below at part time level.

[RabidAl]

Not including sevco , Who brought the biggest away support to east end park in the league since you went down and what was it?

Which relegation?! You lot probably. Enlighten me.