Future League Reconstruction

[Dunning1874]

Sorry to detract from this highly entertaining meltdown but I'm thinking about what could actually have a chance of passing in the future if we were to move away from 12-10-10-10 (which is certainly better all round than anything involving 14 team leagues). All with the caveat that reconstruction isn't forced on us anyway by some kind of mass liquidation/abeyance of clubs before we can actually play again.

There's no appetite among the top flight clubs for a larger division to get any vote through, 14 team leagues are invariably messier than 12 and if we were to go to 16 or 18 you're going to have too big a gulf between the first and second tiers which will mean anyone being relegated falling into a financial wasteland. Therefore a larger top flight is a non-starter, but there is a recognition that the second tier becoming a financial basket case isn't in the interests of top flight clubs either as they need a credible division to drop into on relegation. Regardless of your view on whether it's down to clubs wasting their increased prize money since the creation of the SPFL or the structure making it too difficult for these clubs to be sustainable, it's a fact that the majority of full-time clubs in the Championship are making eye-watering losses.

There's also been talk from lower league clubs that there is a desire for larger leagues and a move away from playing each other four times, rather than this being exclusively brought up by fans. So why not expand the lower leagues while leaving the Premiership as it is?

If you were to switch to an 18 team second tier there's something in that for everyone. Fans who want a larger league and only playing each other twice get a chance to see it, with no need for a split or fixture imbalance. With a 34 game season clubs are only dropping one home gate rather than more than that. Rearranging the spread of prize money to avoid a huge drop off within one division is considerably easier within an expanded Championship than an expanded Premiership.

Current Championship clubs would see a reduction in travelling supports by replacing one game against the bigger sides with a game against smaller clubs, but the trade off there is that they're in less of a pressure cooker of a league. Having an 18 team league with three automatic relegation places wouldn't remove any threat for clubs of that stature and make relegation impossible - Dunfermline and Ayr finished in the equivalent 29th and 30th places overall five years ago - but making it less cut-throat than the current situation where two bad results put you in a relegation battle will allow a bit of long term planning on the part of these clubs which can only encourage sustainability, rather than clubs feeling such a dire need to launch money at journeymen to stave off the always impending short-term danger. With that more stable division, relegated Premiership clubs are coming down into less of a shitshow.

The more successful part-time clubs like Alloa could have a credible chance to properly stabilise themselves as a second tier club rather than knowing that yo-yoing back down a tier is inevitable every few seasons and every League 1 and 2 club would know that getting there and staying there is a realistic ambition. It could possibly give a platform to a club like Airdrie to stabilise and grow in stature and getting to that division could be achievable long term goal for many clubs below the SPFL as well.

I know people will say it's too big a league as it will have meaningless games but I really think that's a misconception. In a 34 game season clubs only have the same opportunity to build a gap to other clubs as in 34 games in any other size of league - you're not going to have 5 or 6 clubs with their seasons over by December, as with every league you'll have maybe two or three clubs who are a comfortable distance from relegation while falling behind the top clubs but knowing that a sustained run of form either way could put them into one group, with one or the other only actually becoming mathematically impossible with three or four games to go.

The only major stumbling block I can see is how you manage promotion/relegation between the first and second tier. You could have 2nd-5th getting into a playoff and that's providing enough places at the top to keep things interesting, but can you really only have one club going up from an 18 team league if the winner of a playoff from 2nd to 5th then had to play 11th as well? Can't see much likelihood of Premiership clubs ever making it an automatic place, even for the sake of increasing their chances of promotion if they were to go down, but I'd still say even without that the positives would outweigh the negatives.

What you do with the 12 left for tier 3 below that is another issue. Ideally you'd have another 18 there with three automatic relegation places introduced (HL & LL champions going up with a playoff between their runners-up) to get the pyramid properly moving, and adding more clubs so it's not guaranteeing relegation for one of them may be what gets current League Two clubs to accept the introduction of automatic playoffs, but adding another six clubs to the SPFL would obviously mean more prize money needs to be found again.

Edited May 10, 2020 by Dunning1874

[the philosopher]

What about 12, 18 and regionalise below that ?

[Sparticus]

12-12-12-12 would be perfect.

Opens up to the most ambitious current non league teams and a bit breathing space for current SPFL teams.

Change to a fairer semis and final playoffs at the top leagues.

They'd have to agree a different money split though.I'm not confident that can happen in Scottish football at the moment.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

There will be no reconstruction in the next 5 years, maybe longer.

[Dunning1874]

22 minutes ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

There will be no reconstruction in the next 5 years, maybe longer.

Knowing that clubs are nowhere near any kind of consensus just now we know that nothing is going to be agreed before the 20/21 season starts, even if that isn't until 2021. You can't announce a reconstruction for the following season after the season starts rather than making clear what clubs are playing for at the outset, so assuming reconstruction isn't forced sooner by widespread abeyance or liquidation of clubs, that means you're looking at 22/23 for any change to actually be in place and that's only if clubs can agree before 21/22 starts. If the world has some degree of normality by then there'll be a November/December World Cup in 2022 playing havoc with the calendar as well so it's definitely unlikely that we see any change in the next couple of years.

[RandomGuy.]

Big issue in an 18 team second division would be financial. Top flights club wont want to see relegation hit them even worse in the pocket.

Top flight sides would be swapping 19 home games, with 3/4/5 against OF sides, for 17 home games, and only one against the bigger sides in that division.

For example St Johnstone would swap 19 home games, including potentially 2 each against Celtic, Rangers and Dundee United, for 17 home games, which consists of only 1 big game against Dundee, and trading another home tie against them for a home game against Clyde.

In the current system we get relegated and get more home games, and more home games against bigger away supports.

Rightly or wrongly I cant see our board thinking that's a better plan. Income drops upon relegation too much as it is.

I dont think I've worded this very clearly at all.

Edited May 10, 2020 by RandomGuy.

[Radford]

I think if you got support for an 18-team second tier, you'd maybe be more likely to see the top league return to 10 teams. 

The bottom two clubs receive over £2 million in prize money, you could take that down a league and the Premiership clubs would be no worse off. That £2 million would then be added to prize pot of the teams ranked 13 to 28 and it no longer becomes the daunting hell hole it is at the moment.

[the west curve]

5 minutes ago, Radford said:

I think if you got support for an 18-team second tier, you'd maybe be more likely to see the top league return to 10 teams. 

The bottom two clubs receive over £2 million in prize money, you could take that down a league and the Premiership clubs would be no worse off. That £2 million would then be added to prize pot of the teams ranked 13 to 28 and it no longer becomes the daunting hell hole it is at the moment.

The 10 ream top league was too boring hence why it was ditched. 
 

 

[PauloPerth]

I like the prospect of seeing a bigger variety of teams and more away grounds to visit in an 18 team league, but overall I don't think it'd be an improvement. 

For all the talk of monotony in playing each other 4 times a season, it's still the same matches most of us look forward to is it not?  For example, if Saints were in the top six of the championship, it would be games against teams around us in the league; Utd, Dunfermline,  Dundee, Hearts etc that would be the ones I'd look forward to, whereas replacing half of those fixtures with games against the top eight from league one, once the novelty of visiting new grounds the first season had worn of, wouldn't be nearly as attractive.

There'd be a heck of a lot of dead rubbers as well, and clubs drifting along in mid-table for many years. The great thing about our league set up outwith the top league, is there's very few clubs with nothing to play for towards the end of each season. Surely that's what we want in professional sport, something at stake?

We've been fortunate over the last decade in making top six a lot, chasing a European place etc,  but the previous two seasons to this saw us finish 8th then 7th, well safe from relegation, and quite a few of the last 6-8 matches against others with nothing at stake, felt almost like pre-season at times.

Our league set up is far from perfect, but i think reconstruction has to provide a long term improvement, and i can't see many options that offer that.  I genuinely think it's probably as good as we can get unless we can manage to rid ourselves of Celtic and Rangers and make it a proper sporting competition, which sadly doesn't look likely anytime soon.

American style end of season play-offs and World Scottish League MegaBall Title Final for the Premiership crown would be the one top league improvement I'd go for.

[Gorgie greatness]

6 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

Quite frankly its hilarious either way.

You’ll no be saying that when your chairman brown envelopes granny budge

[RandomGuy.]

Losing to a shoosher in extra time, because your dog has started having a mental turn and ripped the controller out your hand by dragging on the charging wire, is absolutely awful.

Currently 1 win, 1 loss today. 

A huge surprise.

[PauloPerth]

6 minutes ago, Gorgie greatness said:

You’ll no be saying that when your chairman brown envelopes granny budge

I'll be honest, i had to look that one up..

 

[Andy groundhopper]

Maybe in some distant universe there will be born some new fangled 'Super League' where the OF can go with teams from smaller countries, so long as travelling is allowed. Then reconstruction can begin or be discarded altogether, just an idea

[The DA]

1 hour ago, ali_91 said:

The biggest issue in the pyramid is the play off for promotion to the 4th tier. It should at the very minimum be automatic relegation and a play off between the HL and the LL to see who gets promoted. 
 

I think that the utopia that people are searching for doesn’t exist, and 12 is the optimum number for the top flight. 

Out of interest, how does that relegation work?  Does the bottom team join whichever league has lost a club through promotion?

[Sergeant Wilson]

1 minute ago, The DA said:

Out of interest, how does that relegation work?  Does the bottom team join whichever league has lost a club through promotion?

No, they should go in to the one that serves their geographical location.

[The DA]

3 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

No, they should go in to the one that serves their geographical location.

Could that mean that the regional leagues starts to get out of balance?  Odd number of teams?

[Sergeant Wilson]

7 minutes ago, The DA said:

Could that mean that the regional leagues starts to get out of balance?  Odd number of teams?

Yes, unless they can adjust feeders divisions below them. Brechin are disputing where they, theoretically, go. Geographically they should go HL, but they'd rather go to LL.

Edited May 10, 2020 by Sergeant Wilson

[FairWeatherFan]

47 minutes ago, The DA said:

Could that mean that the regional leagues starts to get out of balance?  Odd number of teams?

The Lowland League would relegate an extra side to maintain 16 teams in their league.

The Highland League has no leagues below it, so would take up to 20 teams before splitting into divisions.

The Highland League this year was at an odd number (17) due to Cove Rangers getting promoted with no replacement.

[BFTD]

5 hours ago, Andy groundhopper said:

Maybe in some distant universe there will be born some new fangled 'Super League' where the OF can go with teams from smaller countries, so long as travelling is allowed. Then reconstruction can begin or be discarded altogether, just an idea

Sadly, that's...

[ArabFC]

22 hours ago, the west curve said:

The 10 ream top league was too boring hence why it was ditched. 

There is a finite number of teams in Scotland - if that's boring, well that's just how it is.

When United were relegated, I didn't think, oh great, now we get to play Morton, Alloa and Falkirk.