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League reconstruction: Let's hear your view


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6 hours ago, tamba_trio said:

It is to Scottish footballs credit that they've created the most predictable sports league imaginable. That takes skill. And they've not noticed that 35 years of the title being won by the same city dilutes interest. 

How's about 16 teams... Play each other once. And you play the teams closest to you in the league an extra time. So top 4 get two games against each other, and so on.  Poorer teams get slightly easier fixtures. 

And we can share revenue a bit too. It doesn't even need to be a hard salary cap. But it'd be nice to maybe only be the second or third least competitive league in the Universe. 

Colombia used to do just that. Each half season they'd play everyone once with a second game against their traditional or local rival. They've dumped that extra game this season.

Colombia adopted the Liga MX system a few years back by the way, top 8 playing a KO for the title.

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14 hours ago, EdTheDuck said:

Colombia used to do just that. Each half season they'd play everyone once with a second game against their traditional or local rival. They've dumped that extra game this season.

Colombia adopted the Liga MX system a few years back by the way, top 8 playing a KO for the title.

Probably the most important thing Scottish football needs is a salary  cap. I love this quote from the A-League website:

The Salary Cap facilitates competitive balance and parity between Clubs by ensuring that the playing talent is distributed amongst the Hyundai A-League Clubs. In doing so, this increases the attraction of the competition to fans, sponsors and broadcast partners.
The Salary Cap also safeguards the economic viability of the Hyundai A-League by ensuring that Clubs are not put in a position where they are forced to spend beyond their financial capabilities in order to stay competitive on the field.

https://www.a-league.com.au/salary-cap-system

I mean, it's like they were pointing at Scotland as they wrote it. The A-League, despite soccer being about the fifth biggest sport in Australia (average crowds of 13,000) and despite only having 27 games a season, still has a better TV deal than us.

Give Scottish football a salary cap and an 18 game season (with playoffs) and it wouldn't be long till other countries are copying us.

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UEFA has killed it by imposing on FAs who can qualify from what competition. We already have a very good knockout championship in Scotland already, a few years ago Hibs won the final against Rangers to take the title. The problem is UEFA dictating whether or not the winner can qualify for the Champions League. Still, when the clubs had a few years to change the voting structure and didn't, that's a bit of an own goal isn't it?

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1 hour ago, Arsenal till I die said:

UEFA has killed it by imposing on FAs who can qualify from what competition. We already have a very good knockout championship in Scotland already, a few years ago Hibs won the final against Rangers to take the title. The problem is UEFA dictating whether or not the winner can qualify for the Champions League. Still, when the clubs had a few years to change the voting structure and didn't, that's a bit of an own goal isn't it?

Yeah, the Scottish Cup is exactly the same as championship playoffs <_< and what has UEFA got to do with the championship format?

Not changing the voting structure is a very good barometer of just how self serving and stupid certain of our larger clubs are, so yes.

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On ‎21‎/‎05‎/‎2018 at 08:49, tamba_trio said:

Give Scottish football a salary cap and an 18 game season (with playoffs) and it wouldn't be long till other countries are copying us.

A salary cap requires all participants to be capable of paying more or less the same and this is clearly not the case in Scottish football. Celtic/Rangers can pay more than Aberdeen/Hearts/Hibs who in turn can pay more than Partick/Ross County and this trickles all the way down.

I do have a liking for less games - more chance of a competitive league over 18 rather than 38 games.

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22 hours ago, Northboy said:

A salary cap requires all participants to be capable of paying more or less the same and this is clearly not the case in Scottish football. Celtic/Rangers can pay more than Aberdeen/Hearts/Hibs who in turn can pay more than Partick/Ross County and this trickles all the way down.

I do have a liking for less games - more chance of a competitive league over 18 rather than 38 games.

Good point, I hadn't really thought of it this way before. I've always been in favour of a straight once home, once away format but I hadn't considered the added bonus of giving the teams outside the OF a better chance. If that leaves not enough games then maybe make the cups 2 legged or grouped, or something.

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Right I can say this now without sounding like i have a vested interest. I don't want an 18 team league. It produces far too many boring games.  People say they get bored playing the same team 4 times a season, but it,s not the number of times you play that's boring it's meaningless games that are boring. Thistles fourth games with Hamilton Ross Co. and Dundee brought in an extra 1000 each on the earlier fixtures because their was something to play for. If it was an 18 team league the teams 9th-12th would have nothing to play for and the crowds would be down. 4 smaller leagues mean more relegation battles, more promotion battles.  Just more interesting games. Thistle are now in the Championship. it's a great league. it would disappear if we had an 18 team league. 

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A salary cap across all Leagues including Scottish would be fantastic. As it generates excitement and competition across every league. Sad it will never simply because big clubs wont to equal. 


It wouldn’t work in reality thought. You’d very quickly see certain clubs buying players houses, cars etc.
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9 hours ago, Enigma said:

 

 


It wouldn’t work in reality thought. You’d very quickly see certain clubs buying players houses, cars etc.

 

Putting money in a non taxable "discretionary" loan account...

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A  salary cap would work. However you would need to make every country adopt it. If Scotland took the lead to FIFA/UEFA and showed how in other sports such as Rugby League/Union and in other sports those in Australia/United States how it works to improve competitive domestic game,

 

 

 

 

Edited by DARREN38
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2 hours ago, DARREN38 said:

he clubs in Scotland should a league with the Netherlands played each weekend. Something like this

Dutch/Scottish Super League of 12 teams with two champions league places. One reserved for Scotland and the other for the Dutch. Six Scottish and Six Dutch use the present Scottish system for relegation.

Dutch/ Scottish Premier with 14 Teams. Again 7 Scottish and 7 Dutch.

Next below

The Eredivisie and Scottish Premier League 

Something like this below

Super League

Super League 2

Eredivisie and Scotland Premier League

Jupiler League(Dutch 2nd Division) and Scotland Championship

Scottish Championship North and South feeding into Scottish Championship. The same with the Dutch Equivalent and so forth.

 

RESULT 

It Would place UEFA in the sense that national leagues are still there. It would increase Competitive football in both countries since Scottish and Dutch would be desperate to prove there countries are superior at football. Plus revenue from the media would also increase.

Also give that the Super League 1 and 2 only play at weekends. Fans would have time to travel the short overseas and get fans in both countries talking

I'd have no problem with some kind of cup competitions with other smaller countries, but this is never going to work. And I can assure you that in The Netherlands there won't be much enthusiasm for it.

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If the rules for Scottish football were just being invented now it's an absolute no brainer that a salary cap and equal distribution of TV/ticket revenue is the obvious choice for a competitive product. Unfortunately this has zero chance of ever happening as the clubs holding all the advantages will never vote for the greater good. Also I can't ever see this happening in a uefa region as they would have employment lawyers all over any attempt at capping a players potential earnings.

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In the championship playoff, each team plays the others home and away again. The top team at the end of the playoff is Scottish Premier champion and enters the UEFA Champions League in the second qualifying round. The second-place team enters the UEFA Europa League in the first qualifying round. The third-place team advances to a one-off playoff match for another Europa League place (if the winner of the Scottish Cup finishes in the top three, the match will instead involve the fourth-place team).

The qualifying playoff is split into two groups, with the teams that finished the regular season in 7th, 10th, 11th, and 14th in one group and those finishing 8th, 9th, 12th, and 13th in the other. Each group plays home-and-away within its group.

The top two teams from each group then enter a knockout tournament, with each match over two legs. If the Scottish Cup winner is among the top two finishers in either playoff group, it is withdrawn from the knockout playoff and its opponent automatically advances to the tournament final. The winner of that tournament faces the third-place (or fourth-place) team from the championship playoff in a one-off match, with the winner entering the Europa League in the first qualifying round.

The bottom two teams from each group then contest a relegation playoff with several steps, centered on a separate four-team knockout playoff, also consisting totally of two-legged matches:

  • The winners of the semifinals advance to the final.
  • The losers of the semifinals then play over two legs, with the winner remaining in the Premier League and the loser dropping to the 1st Division.
  • The winner of the final plays the 1st Division runner-up, and the loser of the final plays the third-place team from the 1st Division, also over two legs. In each case, the winner plays in the next season's Premier League.
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  • 2 weeks later...

3x leagues of 16, premiership, championship & Third Division, regionalisation after this.

 

Each league uses the same format.

 

All 16 teams will play each other once at home and once away for the first 30 games. After this, the league will be split into 4, 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16. These teams will then play each other twice more, once at home and once away, bringing a nice grand total of 36 games per season. 

 

In the premiership, 1st qualifies for the champions league first qualif round while 2nd automagically qualifies for europa league first qualif round. The teams ranked 3-6 will then play 2 legged play offs (3v6 & 4v5) with the winners then playing another 2 legged play off to decide the final Europa league spot. If the Scottish cup winner happens to be one of the teams ranked 1-6 in the final league standings, the team in 7th will then participate in the europa league play offs, again 4v7 & 5v6.

 

The teams that finish 1-10 in the premiership will receive a by to the knockout rounds of the betfred cup, this gives the end of season games between teams ranked 9-12 which don’t have much to play for a little bit more meaning 

 

teams finishing 15th & 16th will be automatically relegated, with 14th going into a play off with 3-5th in the championship, I’ll get on to this in a bit.

 

all in all for the premiership this means that 9 of the 16 finishing spots mean something.

 

The championship works mostly the same way with the europa league play offs being replaced by promotion play offs. Top 2 go up automatically with 3rd-5th going into the play-offs along with 14th place in the prem. teams will play 2 legged semis (3v5 & 4v14) with the winners playing a 2 legged final, with the winner of that gaining promotion/maintaining their premiership status. Relegation works exactly the same, 2 automatically down, 14th goes into the play off. For the top 10 teams in the championship (+all premiership sides) they will all receive a by to the Scottish cup second round. Again, this will increase competitiveness in the games between the teams ranked 9-12.

 

the third tier works nearly exactly the same as the championship, promotion works exactly the same way, while there is no extra incentive this time for the top 10 teams. At the bottom, the bottom 3 go down with the winners of each regional league get promoted.

 

 This format still assures you of 4 OF games a season (unless something goes horribly wrong for one of them) and it should increase competitiveness across all leagues. 

Edited by Rosco4
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I like your ideas, but i'd have teams in 5th-12th after 30 games seeded and drawn in two groups of 4 then a wee knock-out tourney for a EL place.  But then again that would need more EL places, which is seemingly being recommended by the European Club Association for CL and EL, but not until 2024 (so say recent media reports).

 

On ‎08‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 15:11, ShaggysBeard said:

I wasn't offering a solution. It's just the way the country developed.

If you were to do a round trip from Montrose down to Arbroath, Dundee round to Forfar and back to Montrose. You'll have done a mere 60 mile roadtrip and the collective population under 200,000 and containing 5 senior clubs. No wonder it's hard to run a club there's not enough fans to go around.

In England, you have places like Birmingham, over one million and contains only two clubs. Manchester, one city two clubs but populated by 500,000. Leeds, one club city with population of 750,000. Newcastle, one club city and a population of 280,000. Sunderland one club and a population 275,000. Even the smaller sides, Preston one club town of 122,719. Plymouth one club town of 260,000.

Hypothetical shite, but imagine the leagues developed differently and the 400,000 of Fife were represented by one senior club, be a lot less teams in the league but be much bigger clubs.

42 senior clubs for a population of 5,000,000 is too much. It's no wonder clubs are struggling and it's just the Old Firm, 5 or 6 medium sized clubs and a barrel load of tiny clubs.

I am of the opinion we should just accept that this is the way it is and enjoy what we have.

Seemingly in Italy, Roma v Lazio is the city of Rome versus the region around it, so maybe we could have Aberdeen v Aberdeenshire at the new todders (to be built outwith Aberdeen?). 

Probably wouldn't work in the capital and Lothians since East Lothian folks support Hibs, West Lothian folks support Rangers II and Heart of Midlothian are supported by, hm, Midlothian folks (I've met 2 of them, so I can confirm this).

Buff, thrifty Sportsound reporter Gym Pence once mentioned that Letham was to be the location of an amalgamated Angus club, but don't know what happened to that.  And Ross County, also representing a whole region.

Can't see why Dundee City FC wouldn't thrive since there are no territorial issues that there are in Edinburgh or Glasgow in terms of who lives somewhere must support someone, since Dundee and United live in the same place and all.  Would like to see them share a new, modern stadium as a step towards integration...a sugar daddy would probably be needed to make it successful in the beginning, to help bring in/persuade supporters and build the fan base.

Edited by anonanist
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