League Reconstruction 20/21 season

[craigkillie]

I think reconstruction needs to be voted on quickly, especially if clubs are going to start selling season tickets. How can Hearts, for example, sell season tickets if they don't know what league they'll be playing in next season?

They've already started selling them.

[ftk]

Good luck finding 22 teams to make the step up from non-league or would have suitable stadia to meet SPFL criteria.

It would basically just be made up with lowland and highland league teams along with the junior teams that are joining the pyramid soon. The bottom 2 leagues would only need to meet whatever criteria current lowland and highland leagues have. They wouldn't get much of the prize money either, most of that would go to the top 2 leagues. Would be good to have a proper pyramid like England.

 

 

[Alan Stubbs]

Maybe apart from goons like me chipping in with no more at stake than a bit of potential schadenfreude, Ayr United are becoming the most annoying group of fans on this. Supporters of the team that is 16th in the pyramid all think a 16 team top league is the way to go. Fascinating stuff.

I personally think the current top 6 should be entered into a raffle for the league title. Unless they finish the season on points per game, in which case it should be the top 7.

[Arch Stanton]

Had the current situation happened last season or in the 2017/18 season, after 30 games  Saints would have been relegated.

Lucky white heather.

[ftk]

Maybe apart from goons like me chipping in with no more at stake than a bit of potential schadenfreude, Ayr United are becoming the most annoying group of fans on this. Supporters of the team that is 16th in the pyramid all think a 16 team top league is the way to go. Fascinating stuff.
I personally think the current top 6 should be entered into a raffle for the league title. Unless they finish the season on points per game, in which case it should be the top 7.

I've always wanted a 16 team league. Most leagues in Europe have 16 or 18 or 20 team leagues. Even similar sized countries like Sweden and Norway have 16 team leagues. Playing each other 4 times is boring. 16 team leagues wouldn't have many meaningless games either as 5 or 6 teams at the top would be fighting for Europe or promotion and 5 or 6 teams at the bottom fighting relegation.

[Ric]

8 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

Had the current situation happened last season or in the 2017/18 season, after 30 games  Saints would have been relegated.

Lucky white heather.

Thing is, I reckon while we'd be disappointed, and no doubt try and aim for some compensation but we wouldn't be doing what Budge is.

[stm]

On 17/03/2020 at 18:55, RossBFaeDundee said:

Here's one suggestion someone came up with.

A play off to compete in the Europa League, lolz.  Since that competition began no Scottish team bar Celtic & Rangers have gone past the play-offs / third qualifying round.

[Bohemian]

45 minutes ago, stm said:

A play off to compete in the Europa League, lolz.  Since that competition began no Scottish team bar Celtic & Rangers have gone past the play-offs / third qualifying round.

Don't the Dutch do something like that? 

Edit...  A quick gander would suggest that

1st get CL..

2nd gets CL playoff round 

3rd gets Europa league.

4th to 8th get Europa league playoff.

Also I read a while back that UEFA were making another competition so maybe another European spot or two will come about in a season or two.

 

Edited April 17, 2020 by Bohemian

[Ric]

6 minutes ago, Bohemian said:

Don't the Dutch do something like that?

And the Belgians, in fact I think the Jupiter (?) league is even crazier or it used to be.

 

[Illgresi]

Personally, I'm all for reconstruction of the league system, and I think now is a perfect opportunity to do so. That said, It'd grate with me to my deepest soul, that doing so would avoid the mini-**** being relegated. Anyway, I don't expect many to agree with this, but here we go:

- Two professional leagues of 16
- Two regional leagues of 8 below (there can be further leagues below)
- Top leagues play each other 2 times
- Summer league which starts in March, and finishes with the knockout stages in December
- Get rid of the League Cup

1st Division:

- Splits into top and bottom 8 after 30 games
- Top 8 play a 4rnd knockout tournament for the Championship (1st vs 8th, 2nd vs 7th etc)
- Final on New Year's Day
- Semi-finalists qualify for Europe

- Bottom 8 participate in the transition knockout

2nd Division:

- Splits into top and bottom 8
- Top 8 play a 5rnd knockout tournament with the bottom 8 from 1st Division( 9th in D1 vs 8th in D2...etc)
- 5th rnd winners play in 1st Division next season

- Bottom 8 are split into two groups of 4 geographically

North and South Leagues:

- Play each other 4 times
- 2x Top 4 play 4rnd knockout with the 4 clubs from D2
- The 2 winners are promoted/retain their place

[Bohemian]

26 minutes ago, Ric said:

And the Belgians, in fact I think the Jupiter (?) league is even crazier or it used to be.

 

Dutch league is not that dissimilar to Scotland as in pretty much two teams dominate in Ajax and PSV. Feyenoord have been pretty awful for years. How do they survive with an 18 team league? Are Dutch attendances much higher than ours? They have massive tv deals? They even have plastic pitches ha. 

What I'm Trying to get at is the Dutch seem to do ok with a fairly large league with a couple of big clubs and the rest smaller clubs, why couldn't we?

Edited April 18, 2020 by Bohemian

[Ric]

3 minutes ago, Bohemian said:

Dutch league is not that dissimilar to Scotland as in pretty much two teams dominate in Ajax and PSV. Feyenoord have been pretty awful for years. How do they survive with an 18 team league? Are Dutch attendances much higher than ours? They have massive tv deals? They even have plastic pitches ha. 

What I'm Trying to get at is the Dutch seem to do ok with a fairly large league with big clubs and smaller clubs, why couldn't we?

Problem with attendances is they are massively shifted due to the OF.  I don't think the Eredivisie (and I'd need to check) have such a disparity of say, 60,000 fans and maybe 2500 a the other end of the scale. I could be wildly off with that, they might very well do.

[Sinner-to-Saint]

1 minute ago, Bohemian said:

Dutch league is not that dissimilar to Scotland as in pretty much two teams dominate in Ajax and PSV. Feyenoord have been pretty awful for years. How do they survive with an 18 team league? Are Dutch attendances much higher than ours? They have massive tv deals? They even have plastic pitches ha. 

What I'm Trying to get at is the Dutch seem to do ok with a fairly large league with smaller clubs why couldn't we?

Aside from fewer Old Firm games, the big problem appears to be that Premiership clubs are fearful of being relegated into a very low quality second tier. How many full-time teams can Scotland realistically sustain? I believe the only part-time Championship club at the moment is Alloa, but if there was an 18 team Premiership then the second tier would include some very small clubs.

[Bohemian]

4 minutes ago, Ric said:

Problem with attendances is they are massively shifted due to the OF.  I don't think the Eredivisie (and I'd need to check) have such a disparity of say, 60,000 fans and maybe 2500 a the other end of the scale. I could be wildly off with that, they might very well do.

Yeah I dont know much about the Dutch league other than it's pretty much Ajax or PSV winning it every year, but I'd imagine their attendances compared to say Den Haag or FC Emmen would be similar to the OF v Killie and St Johnstone. Maybe not. Probably best to have a deeper look at their set up.

[Jeffo]

2 hours ago, The Reverend said:

I think reconstruction needs to be voted on quickly, especially if clubs are going to start selling season tickets. How can Hearts, for example, sell season tickets if they don't know what league they'll be playing in next season?

c***s like me who buy out of sentimentality and don’t give two fucks about this nonsense don’t care. Buying regardless.

Same people who would buy if we were playing in the highland league.

Matters not a jot

Edited April 18, 2020 by Jeffo

[Bohemian]

8 minutes ago, The Reverend said:

Aside from fewer Old Firm games, the big problem appears to be that Premiership clubs are fearful of being relegated into a very low quality second tier. How many full-time teams can Scotland realistically sustain? I believe the only part-time Championship club at the moment is Alloa, but if there was an 18 team Premiership then the second tier would include some very small clubs.

Hollands second tier looks fairly weak too with lots of reserve teams from the bigger clubs in there. Yes it's a kick in the balls to get relegated, try not to get relegated I suppose ha. 

[Bohemian]

A quick question too, not been following the last day or two.  Has a deadline been set for reconstruction so at least we know what we are getting next season?  Have they at least got a date to say here this is what we have come up with.

Edited April 18, 2020 by Bohemian

[Sinner-to-Saint]

9 minutes ago, Jeffo said:

c***s like me who buy out of sentimentality and don’t give two fucks about this nonsense don’t care. Buying regardless.

Same people who would buy if we were playing in the highland league.

Matters not a jot

Aye, I know exactly how you feel. I have upped my donation to SMISA and I'm offering to buy my girlfriend's son, a Rangers supporter, a juvenile season ticket, in addition to the two I'm already buying.

There are people who genuinely buy season tickets because they offer better value, though.

Edited April 18, 2020 by The Reverend

[Jeffo]

championship was my best season watching Hearts. As someone who goes home and away knowing I don’t have to go to shiteholes like Kilmarnock, Motherwell, Paisley & Glasgow is refreshing.

Rather stay home in Kirkcaldy

[San Starko Rover]

No one runs Scottish football down as well as our own fans and other than a few loudmouths you’ll meet down south no one gives a shit if we have 10 teams 14 teams or 20 teams. All you ever see on social media is Rangers fans constantly on about the “blue pound” and how every club needs their money, the sad thing is they’re right reading through this. Half the clubs and fans are desperate to keep things as they are to get one extra visit from Old Firm fans most claim to despise.

What’s wrong with our leagues is we allow 2 teams to dictate what’s best for them and the rest desperately beg for the scraps, even the 11-1 voting system we somehow allowed them to have and once we finally had the chance to bin it we didn’t (cheers Aberdeen). These two will probably dominate our league no matter what we do and they’d drop the rest like a hot potato if the EPL or Atlantic League came calling.

We have fantastic attendances for our population and better than many countries bigger than us. We’ve 42 teams playing nationally and what 20 out of our top 22 teams who average over 1000 every game, how many European countries outside the big few manage that? Sky/BT pay an an absolute pittance and use our games as filler are they really going to drop the deal that much over the two less bigot-fests in a larger league, surely they’d be bigger games if they’re less frequent.

I used to watch Wycombe Wanderers when I lived down there and not once did I hear a fan want the leagues made smaller as it was a meaningless season in the English lower leagues of 24 teams. Mid table seasons were for rebuilding the team.

Big leagues or small leagues the sooner our clubs wean themselves off relying on the Old firm to fill the coffers the better. I doubt we’ll see any meaningful change due to the attitude of self interest (including my club) but we should really use this lull as a chance to change things and run out leagues for all the teams not just 2.

For me small leagues have less dead rubbers but they also see the same clubs yo-yo up and down between leagues as you’ve normally got to be champions to get up as playoff is against the division above team, playing the same teams over and over is dull and the fact we can meet 10+ times a season is ridiculous even the Old Firm games seem to be constant with league and cups.

My preference is larger leagues of 18 (16 is too few games to drop to) with 3 down and 2 up plus (4 team playoff) are there meaningless games, yes of course but it’s not the same teams every season in those spots. I think a short term pain is worth it if we could then actually market our leagues as being about more than 4 games a season.

However nothing will change.