Scottish football needs to change

[Monkey Tennis]

1 minute ago, Pearbuyerbell said:

I've provided you with some of the many benefits of roof covered football.  You've agreed that it has benefits, yet can't construct any reasons why it would be a bad thing.   

As others have wasted lots of time telling you, it can't possibly be afforded.  I shall leave this nonsense there.

[Pearbuyerbell]

Just now, Monkey Tennis said:

As others have wasted lots of time telling you, it can't possibly be afforded.  I shall leave this nonsense there.

It can't be done!   

Give yourself a shake you utter fool.    It's perfectly affordable and would enhance our game.   

 

[MrDust]

3 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Thanks for supporting my argument by mentioning two massive English spenders that can still be eclipsed, due to the huge extent to which their bloated top flight actually manages to be more egalitarian than ours.

Are you seriously suggesting that Liverpool players are volunteers?

So you are suggesting Manchester clubs spending has ruined the EPL ?

Your point of imbalance of resources ruins football, sorry but Man City will win nothing this year and Man Utd might only win the league cup of which I think is great

Did I suggest Liverpool players are volunteers ?

 

[Monkey Tennis]

5 minutes ago, MrDust said:

So you are suggesting Manchester clubs spending has ruined the EPL ?

Your point of imbalance of resources ruins football, sorry but Man City will win nothing this year and Man Utd might only win the league cup of which I think is great

Did I suggest Liverpool players are volunteers ?

 

What?

Can you really not follow a discussion properly?

I suggested that the imbalance at the top of our game is unusually huge.  You cited other leagues you felt had comparable issues, among them that in England.  

I challenged this and you provided a bizarre retort about some big spenders there clearly not being far ahead of plenty others.

Moreover, you implied that teams like Liverpool and Southampton spend "nothing" on employing footballers.

'All over the place' scarcely does justice to your current disarray.

[Scottydog]

Scottish football has been in decline for a long time, every team has it's up and downs but in general we are losing ground on the rest of the world.  The national team hasn't graced a finals event this millennium, a club side haven't won (or even looked likely to have) a European completion since the 1980's and it was really only the late 60's that we had a side that was respected and feared.  I once worked beside a Morton fan who said that "I've know Scottish fitba's been pish fur years, we thought it was ok until we saw Real Madrid at Hampden in 1960, after that we were just kiddin oor selfs on".  No national team finals and only 2 EUFA cup finals in the last 30 years, add to the fact that the League has only been won by either of the Old firm in that time and it's a poor show. The OF winning the SPL is a damming statistic. Aberdeen and Dundee Utd were the last clubs to have been champions outwith the OF but since the 1980's passing of the approval that the home team keep in all the gate money it has been at best a two horse race and for the time being a one horse race, not a healthy set up in anyone's eyes.

I too think drastic changes are required and getting shot of the two numpties in control of our game would be a good start.

Perhaps fewer clubs could be way forward. Fife has 4 clubs (at present), Angus has 4, Falkirk had 3 but now only has 2.  Personally I've no appetite for losing clubs but maybe in the long term perhaps it'll happen eventually anyway and we'll be left with only a dozen to half a dozen clubs in the entire country.

An alternative could be adding another 2 clubs and expanding the leagues. It's one of the options I'd prefer as the 4 leagues set-up is a joke and part of the problem with low crowds is the playing each other x4 farce.

 1st Div of 16, a 2nd of 16 both of which play each other once H & A, a 3rd tier of 10 who do play each other 4 times (not ideal but if you are in that league you're there for a reason). 

Summer football? I'd actually go for it as you are more likely get people (especially kids) to attend when people aren't getting wrapped up like Nannuk of the North and sitting in freezing hail and sleet, there genuinely are fair weather supporters who will show up in shirt sleeves up until Sept who won't turn up again until the weather improves.

I'd go for:

Increase the total number of teams to 46

Div 1, 18 teams playing each other H & A, Div 2, 18 teams playing each other H & A, Div 3, 10 teams playing each other twice at  H and twice  A,

Summer football from March until end of November. (better for fans, better for players, better surfaces, maybe better football and enjoyment)

League Cup is sections, 8 sections  x 6 teams playing each other H&A (2 additional teams from Highland/Lowland leagues added), Winners & Runners up into the 2nd round 4 groups x 4 teams. Winners progress to Quarter finals, then Semi's the final in late May.

Scottish cup to be played from May to September.

An auxillary sponsored (like the challenge cup) tournament to be played as a H & A derby match in Dec, (e.g. Celtic v Rangers, Hearts v Hibs live on Sky for the Betfred cup on boxingday?)

Restrict teams in certain leagues to a certain amount of full-time player over the age of 23 but as many U23 pro's as they like.  Enforce the playing of young players by stating sides must field and play U23's. (not like the joke system we have of increasing the number of subs to meet criteria which leaves youths benched with no hope of getting on).

Ok so far from perfect ideas, probably too difficult to make all or even some of the above work but maybe somethings that can be adapted to improve the current model which isn't going anywhere fast.

 

Summer football would have problems of it's own as it would clash with finals tournaments and of course any league that finishes before Christmas would hamstring teams involved in European competition after X'mas (sorry I had to stop to collect myself there). On the plus side though it could lead to better tv sponsorship and could see cross border player loans and development improve greatly,  Likewise with International and European competitions, The national team are playing in June and club cup sides are involved in preliminaries in July, maybe it'd prove beneficial to have players in the middle of their seasons. Perhaps it could be tried over a 5 year period with a long term plan to adopt it or drop it if it proves a no goer.

[invergowrie arab]

We could start with sheets of plastic

[roman_bairn]

Is there any evidence that referees are actually getting worse?  It just strikes me as one of those generic complaints that fans and the media morons like to trot out, but I don't think it has any factual basis.  Referees have always made mistakes, fans have always moaned about it.  Fans were complaining about the declining standards of referees ten years ago, and ten years before that.  If the rate of supposed decline actually matched the way fans moan and claim there is one, referees by now would spend the whole game rolling around the centre circle farting into a saxophone.  
Actually, since they're fitter now than they used to be, and have the headphones to communicate with the linesmen, they're probably better now than they were a generation or two back.  Loathe though I am to blame everything on social media and TV, I guess that more people are more aware of officials' mistakes now than they were when they had to rely on the papers or radio saying the ref got this or that decision wrong.  Now we can see it all ourselves and tweet about it.  

I do think they are getting worse although I temper that by saying that the rules nowadays are so complex that there are a lot of very subjective rules meaning fans interpretation of situations varies.

Also I think there is more of a tendency to cheat nowAdays which makes it even tougher for referees.

[roman_bairn]

It can't be done!   
Give yourself a shake you utter fool.    It's perfectly affordable and would enhance our game.   
 

It's something that one of the old firm may consider in the future but I doubt any other club will do it in my lifetime.

Also in terms of keeping games on how many times in recent years have I heard of games being called off because of conditions around or travelling to the stadium. A roof won't be much use then either.

[TheGoon]

Has a poster above really just had a go at Scottish Fitba because "we haven't looked like winning a European competition"  

Nobody outside of the big four get close, this has been the case for decades. We've had two teams in European finals in the last 15 years - more than Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Croatia, Romania etc could dream of, not to memtion the Irish & Welsh, the former celebrating their biggest tean making the group stage for the first time last year. There is a clear issue with teams like Aberdeen & Hearts getting into Europa League group stages, that extends beyond them "not being good enough." They are, and that must be examined, not us not competing in the Champions League, those days are gone for everyone outside England, France, Spain, Italy & Germany. 

[HibeeJibee]

11 hours ago, Scottydog said:

a club side haven't won (or even looked likely to have) a European completion since the 1980's

Perhaps fewer clubs could be way forward. Fife has 4 clubs (at present), Angus has 4, Falkirk had 3 but now only has 2.  Personally I've no appetite for losing clubs but maybe in the long term perhaps it'll happen eventually anyway and we'll be left with only a dozen to half a dozen clubs in the entire country.

An alternative could be adding another 2 clubs and expanding the leagues. It's one of the options I'd prefer as the 4 leagues set-up is a joke and part of the problem with low crowds is the playing each other x4 farce. 1st Div of 16, a 2nd of 16 both of which play each other once H & A, a 3rd tier of 10 who do play each other 4 times (not ideal but if you are in that league you're there for a reason). 

Good heavens.

Club side hasn't "even looked likely" to have won a European competition since 1980s... hold on, did I imagine Rangers reaching the UEFA Cup Final in 2008 and Celtic reaching it in 2003 when it required extra-time?

"Fewer clubs" is a tired cliché, plus achieving it by merging teams or forcing them out of the league or out of business is a monstrous suggestion. There is absolutely no evidence that "in the long term perhaps it'll happen eventually anyway", either. In the last half-century the only part-time side to fold has been Clydebank, IIRC? Notably several more full-time sides have gone bust mainly through over-extending themselves. Lesson for OP perhaps with his "turn full-time" idea.

Your numbers don't add up (16+16+10 = 42), but part of the problem is that the clubs won't believe that expanding the leagues to 16 and slashing the number of games to 30 will see crowds increase - either on average or aggregated over a season (indeed they'd have to increase 20-25% just to stand still due to having fewer games). Crowds could indeed well be expected to fall on average, through more meaningless games and more against small clubs; and aggregated over a season regardless, due to having fewer games.

[NorthBank]

The BBC are currently paying the EPL £68M per annum for Match of the Day. They pay £2.8M per annum for all hightlights in Scotland. If license payers money was evenly distributed the BBC should be paying in the region of £7M per annum for Scottish football. That would make a significant difference I would think. At the moment the Scots are subsidising the EPL.

[Cruoninga]

The current league structure seems absolutely fine to me. Did they at the time not split up the league into smaller ones in order to boost crowds by lessening the amount of meaningless mid-table games? So now crowds have still not reached the desired size we should just go back to the old situation and hope it will suddenly work out this time?

Improve the game by looking what training methods they use overseas, especially for youngsters, and incorporate the best of those methods in Scotland. Improve the level of football by looking at football, not by keeping on changing the league structure and calendar until the magical setting is found.

[CityDave]

10 hours ago, TheGoon said:

Has a poster above really just had a go at Scottish Fitba because "we haven't looked like winning a European competition"  

Nobody outside of the big four get close, this has been the case for decades. We've had two teams in European finals in the last 15 years - more than Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Croatia, Romania etc could dream of, not to memtion the Irish & Welsh, the former celebrating their biggest tean making the group stage for the first time last year. There is a clear issue with teams like Aberdeen & Hearts getting into Europa League group stages, that extends beyond them "not being good enough." They are, and that must be examined, not us not competing in the Champions League, those days are gone for everyone outside England, France, Spain, Italy & Germany. 

That's five???

[Menzel]

Roofs 

[sjc]

I thought the whole of Scotland had a roof over it and we were all just living our lives out in a Truman Show manner?

[HibeeJibee]

3 hours ago, NorthBank said:

The BBC are currently paying the EPL £68M per annum for Match of the Day. They pay £2.8M per annum for all hightlights in Scotland. If license payers money was evenly distributed the BBC should be paying in the region of £7M per annum for Scottish football. That would make a significant difference I would think. At the moment the Scots are subsidising the EPL.

It's a more complicated argument than that though.

You could equally argue the Northern Irish league is underfunded since pro rata they get nothing like what Scottish football does.

Lots of Scots will also want to watch MotD - indeed it wouldn't surprise me if more would choose it over Sportscene, unfortunately.
 

3 hours ago, Cruoninga said:

The current league structure seems absolutely fine to me. Did they at the time not split up the league into smaller ones in order to boost crowds by lessening the amount of meaningless mid-table games? So now crowds have still not reached the desired size we should just go back to the old situation and hope it will suddenly work out this time?

That was the motivation behind moving away from 18-20 in 1975. In particular the desire was for a Premier Division playing four times so they moved to 10-14-14. In the first year the 14s only played twice, with the season being filled-out by a Spring Cup, but crowds in it were terrible so the following year the 14s moved to playing thrice. It moved to 12-12-14, then back to 10-14-14, then back to 12-12-14 again due to arguments over the size of the top division. By the early 1990s there was dissatisfaction at playing thrice in the bottom level but more importantly 44 games was too many particularly with expanding international / European schedules. In 1995 two new clubs were elected and 10-10-10-10 introduced along with 3pts for a win. In 1998 top clubs wished to break away to form a separate SPL - as part of the deal struck to avoid them having to serve several years notice they agreed to return the top division to 12 clubs after 2yrs. Two new clubs were again elected so things became 12-10-10-10. Obviously 44 games wasn't workable, so the 'split' was created, which also gave something extra to play for in the mid-table.

There has been 4 times playing in the top division here for over 40yrs now - and in the lower divisions for over 20yrs. There also hasn't been 2 times playing in any of the divisions for over 40yrs. Also despite occasional criticisms the current arrangement has lasted for 18yrs which makes it the second most enduring in our history (after 18-20 which lasted for 20yrs from 1956). There hasn't been more than 12 clubs in the top division for over 40yrs.

[NorthBank]

2 hours ago, HibeeJibee said:

It's a more complicated argument than that though.

You could equally argue the Northern Irish league is underfunded since pro rata they get nothing like what Scottish football does.

Lots of Scots will also want to watch MotD - indeed it wouldn't surprise me if more would choose it over Sportscene, unfortunately.
 

Let the licence payers in Northern Ireland, and Wales, help support their own League and stop helping to fund the EPL like the Scots. And I am sure there are many Scots living in Engerland who would like to watch Sportscene where teams have more revenue provided by the BBC to the detriment of the EPL. Each Home Nation should have an equal percentage distribution of licence money to be spent pro-rata to help improve the Leagues in NI, Scotland and Wales and not to help the EPL.

Remember that TV rights in Engerland also generate £100M per CLUB per season besides the BBC money.

[Monkey Tennis]

5 hours ago, HibeeJibee said:

 

That was the motivation behind moving away from 18-20 in 1975. In particular the desire was for a Premier Division playing four times so they moved to 10-14-14. In the first year the 14s only played twice, with the season being filled-out by a Spring Cup, but crowds in it were terrible so the following year the 14s moved to playing thrice. 

That's interesting stuff.  

I hadn't realised that there was a season of only 26 League games as recently as that.

I just took a look and I see that Queens' League season finished on the 28th Feb - that's still winter for God's sake.

I take it the unsuccessful spring cup involved sections?  We played Clyde, Clydebank and Raith, all home and away, winning only once.  Did it become knockout after that?  Who won it and presumably still holds the title?

[Jacksgranda]

10 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

That's interesting stuff.  

I hadn't realised that there was a season of only 26 League games as recently as that.

I just took a look and I see that Queens' League season finished on the 28th Feb - that's still winter for God's sake.

I take it the unsuccessful spring cup involved sections?  We played Clyde, Clydebank and Raith, all home and away, winning only once.  Did it become knockout after that?  Who won it and presumably still holds the title?

Was it not Airdrie?

[HibeeJibee]

There were 7 sections of 4 clubs each, playing home-and-away. Top 2 in each section plus the 2 best third place teams qualified for Last 16 - i.e. you played 6 games and only 12 out of 28 clubs were eliminated . Then the knockout stages were 2-legged . SFs were played at Love Street and Firhill. Airdrie beat Clydebank aet in the Final at Firhill, before only 6,000.

Apparently the trophy was never engraved. I don't know if Airdrie have it or if it was recycled. Before it had even had finished it was seen as a disaster - it needed to be a big success, to compensate for dropping from 34 or 38 games to 26 - so it was scrapped and playing thrice for 39 games was adopted.