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Lowland League Catch Up


MichaelJayPark

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The boys an absolute clown but I’m sure he’s enjoying his 15 minutes of fame. They’re missing the shire pound and his arse is collapsing at the thought of being a bottom half Lowland league team. It’s going to be a glorious day when it comes.

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What the current situation with LL and L2 clubs shows is that self-interest and hypocrisy is absolutely not the preserve of relatively bigger clubs. it filters down to all levels.

You'll have championship clubs bemoaning the closed shop nature of the Premier whilst not wanting to share the spoils of the second tier with too many part time clubs. Teams at the top end of League 1 who'll happily jettison Clyde, Peterhead and Forfar for a reconstruction that promotes them and League 2 clubs who'll seek to limit their odds of relegation into the Lowland League.

I think a big lesson is, don't imagine your level or your club is immune from that just because the 'injustice' from the level above seems to hit you a little bit harder.

For all I'm a big fan of the LL and how they've developed, George Fraser's comments about promotion into the LL were naive at best and disingenuous at worst. If football can be played, great, play offs can go ahead. If not, well Stranraer will win the SoSFL and it'll be an automatic promotion situation between Bo'ness and VoL. There is no tough decision for the LL to make here.

The solution is absolutely to make transitions between the levels in Scottish football smoother both in a practical sense and a financial one. When we have a situation where relegation from the Premier to Championship, Championship to L1, L1 to L2 and L2 to LL is seen as financially catastrophic, clubs get scared and will do all they can to stop that happening. This is partly the fault of clubs who're willing to gamble to getting straight back up - like Raith and Falkirk have - instead of readjusting to smaller incomes.

But L2 to LL is a terrifying prospect, largely because it so so god damn difficult to get out of. In all the years of the play-offs, only one team has managed it. You've got to win a league just to get a 25% chance. That has to change. It is extremely difficult but in a weird way, once we move to automatic promotion, L2 clubs will probably feel a bit calmer about it.

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Just in reference to the above, Falkirk are fine financially and I'd be surprised if our wages/turnover ratio is much worse than any other club in L1. We can spend more in absolute terms than other clubs at that level cause of the size of our home gates.

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10 hours ago, Marten said:

Really interesting interview indeed. I second the criticism against him by posters above, so no reason to state that again. But he does have a point about the hypocricy of the Premiership clubs keeping an excessive % of income to themselves whist expecting them to deliver exactly the reconstruction the Premiership clubs want.

The Premiership clubs generate almost all of the income for the SPFL through their TV deal and sponsorship - they already subsidise the rest of Scottish football to some extent, which is how it should be. The total payout to the 30 lower league clubs under the SPFL is something like 3 times as much as it was under the SFL.

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2 hours ago, craigkillie said:

The Premiership clubs generate almost all of the income for the SPFL through their TV deal and sponsorship - they already subsidise the rest of Scottish football to some extent, which is how it should be. The total payout to the 30 lower league clubs under the SPFL is something like 3 times as much as it was under the SFL.

This.

I don't mean to sound like a dick but League One and Two clubs should be grateful with what they're currently getting. The final winners of the First Division in 2012-13 received £69,500 in Prize Money.  United this season are going to receive approximately £600,000. Next season that figure (assuming no reconstruction) was due to be nearing £750,000.  The big issue with Prize Monies, relates to the fact that one club (Celtic) receives 13.25% of all SPFL Prize Money, which 4% more (over £1m) than the second placed club. In percentage terms it's the biggest gulf in prize money of any European league between 1st and 2nd. If they brought that figure down to around 10% then that would find a lot of the money to bring in two new clubs to League Two and be able to raise the 13th and 14th placed clubs' earnings significantly (should the Prem expand) . However, no way will Celtic (or Rangers) ever vote for that.

Having just listened to the pod, I can totally understand why Mozza doesn't go all Paxman on him, Scottish football is a small place and there's no real reason to piss off Chairman for a soundbite. But I echo all the criticisms above about him not really answering questions.

Edited by ArabAuslander
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2 hours ago, craigkillie said:

The Premiership clubs generate almost all of the income for the SPFL through their TV deal and sponsorship - they already subsidise the rest of Scottish football to some extent, which is how it should be. The total payout to the 30 lower league clubs under the SPFL is something like 3 times as much as it was under the SFL.

The Old Firm and to a lesser extent the big city clubs generate the Tv income and subsidise Scottish football.  Killie and St Mirren are hardly box office - but also get another freebie via UEFA solidarity payments 

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1 hour ago, Cowden Cowboy said:

The Old Firm and to a lesser extent the big city clubs generate the Tv income and subsidise Scottish football.  Killie and St Mirren are hardly box office - but also get another freebie via UEFA solidarity payments 

Those clubs may well generate the income, but the likes of Killie and St Mirren are on TV 4/5/6 times per season as part of the deal. The clubs in the bottom two tiers are never on TV and generate next to no income for the SPFL, yet still receive a chunk of that money. The Championship clubs are on TV, but even the money they are paid out vastly outstrips the amount that their deal with BBC generates.

There's nothing wrong with that, and I'm absolutely not arguing that those clubs shouldn't receive the prize money, but I am pointing out that the Stenhousemuir chairman is failing to consider where the money actually comes from.

That's even before his frankly offensive use of the word "apartheid" to describe it on the BBC website.

Edited by craigkillie
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11 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

Those clubs may well generate the income, but the likes of Killie and St Mirren are on TV 4/5/6 times per season as part of the deal. The clubs in the bottom two tiers are never on TV and generate next to no income for the SPFL, yet still receive a chunk of that money. The Championship clubs are on TV, but even the money they are paid out vastly outstrips the amount that their deal with BBC generates.

There's nothing wrong with that, and I'm absolutely not arguing that those clubs shouldn't receive the prize money, but I am pointing out that the Stenhousemuir chairman is failing to consider where the money actually comes from.

That's even before his frankly offensive use of the word "apartheid" to describe it on the BBC website.

Yes you are footballs equivalent of the extras.  The point about money really is that there is no evidence that premier clubs spend this wisely so maybe investing more at grass roots levels might drive up overall standards.  For example I have always been an advocate of the pyramid - when it was set up I believed there were two key things 1. That all the best clubs outwith the SPfl were in there in Tier 5.  2.  That the Premier clubs should have taken less prize money and given at least £100k per annum to both HL/LL so that they had prize money with ‘affiliated League status’ which I hoped they would grow via attracting sponsorship.  On 1 we are slowly getting there and 2 never got anywhere.  You don’t concentrate all your investment at the top end if you want a healthy game overall 

Edited by Cowden Cowboy
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5 hours ago, Marshmallo said:

Just in reference to the above, Falkirk are fine financially and I'd be surprised if our wages/turnover ratio is much worse than any other club in L1. We can spend more in absolute terms than other clubs at that level cause of the size of our home gates.

True. I hesitated about putting including Falkirk in that. If Falkirk are in a sustainable wages / turnover position for League 1 then fair enough.

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  • 1 month later...
On 19/06/2020 at 08:11, Marshmallo said:

I hope that data company paid you well 👎

We neither pay or get paid for any podcasts we do.

Yes, we spoke to Nicola and Brian recently due to their involvement with PlayerData.  The fact that Nicola is current Rangers Women's goalkeeping coach and Brian is at Greenock Morton was the main reason I had them on. However, PlayerData as mentioned is used by a few clubs/players at this level.

If it helps other clubs or players with their performance, I have no issues raising awareness of it. 👍

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1 hour ago, RampantFM said:

We neither pay or get paid for any podcasts we do.

Yes, we spoke to Nicola and Brian recently due to their involvement with PlayerData.  The fact that Nicola is current Rangers Women's goalkeeping coach and Brian is at Greenock Morton was the main reason I had them on. However, PlayerData as mentioned is used by a few clubs/players at this level.

If it helps other clubs or players with their performance, I have no issues raising awareness of it. 👍

Nicola's was fair enough. Brian Maclean's was a glorified informercial.

You lot do great work and I listen to every episode. Felt that one was a bit off. 

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Listened to a few discussions,good and bad as you'd expect when people voice opinions. Always try to be unbiased as I don't personally know how some clubs work,or their financial status etc. Found the LL to be a decent standard in the games I've seen, would-be nice to get a guaranteed champions promotion in the future.

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