More Shenanigans From Our Imperial Masters @SPFL

[jagsfan57]

as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know.
You are Donald Rumsfeld and I claim my £5

Certainly, last season we didn’t know Covid. This season we did, but apart from delaying the start for leagues below premiership, there was no planning on how to complete the season if it was curtailed again.

[Jack Burton]

Why do leagues have to be national at the lower levels? Why add to an already precarious cost-base?

This topic has been done to death. Regionalising league 1 & 2 makes very little difference to the amount of miles travelled.

The majority of clubs are in and around the Central belt but you have outliers like Peterhead, Stranraer etc.

For my own club Clyde all you would be doing is swapping trips to Cove and Peterhead with Annan and Stranraer.

[The Ghost of B A R P]

1 hour ago, Jack Burton said:

This topic has been done to death. Regionalising league 1 & 2 makes very little difference to the amount of miles travelled.

The majority of clubs are in and around the Central belt but you have outliers like Peterhead, Stranraer etc.

For my own club Clyde all you would be doing is swapping trips to Cove and Peterhead with Annan and Stranraer.

That’s not what was being suggested...

[invergowrie arab]

9 hours ago, The Ghost of B A R P said:

Why do leagues have to be national at the lower levels? Why add to an already precarious cost-base?

Because clubs want it.

What's your evidence that clubs at Tier 5 are at teetering on the brink?

How much more would it cost Brora to hire a coach to take them to Linlithgow as opposed to Fort William? How much more for East Kilbride to go to Formartine as opposed to Berwick?

[Proudtobeabairn]

Its not as though introducing a National Conference style league would be creating new teams.  These teams already exist in the Highland and Lowland leagues so the 'Scotland couldn't support a 5th league' arguments are just nonsense.  It would just be a tweak to the format

[Sergeant Wilson]

58 minutes ago, Proudtobeabairn said:

Its not as though introducing a National Conference style league would be creating new teams.  These teams already exist in the Highland and Lowland leagues so the 'Scotland couldn't support a 5th league' arguments are just nonsense.  It would just be a tweak to the format

The new division would have to be funded from somewhere, that'll take money and resources from a central point, either the SFA or the SPFL. It would also compete for sponsorship that might have been available to clubs in the division a above.

Apart from that, hiving off the best non-league teams in to a national conference would weaken the divisions below.

[Gordon EF]

12 hours ago, The Ghost of B A R P said:

Why do leagues have to be national at the lower levels? Why add to an already precarious cost-base?

Well they are so the question is, why shouldn't they be?

Tell me how much you think clubs would save, on average, if tiers 3 and 4 were regionalised?

[craigkillie]

1 hour ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

The new division would have to be funded from somewhere, that'll take money and resources from a central point, either the SFA or the SPFL. It would also compete for sponsorship that might have been available to clubs in the division a above.

Apart from that, hiving off the best non-league teams in to a national conference would weaken the divisions below.

I'm not saying I necessarily support another national league, but why would it require different sources of funding to what these clubs already get in the leagues below? And why would weakening the divisions below be a problem? You'd be pushing them down from Tier 5 to Tier 6, so you'd expect clubs at a lower level to be somewhat weaker.

I think if there was a genuine will for this then there is a lot of scope for a hybrid model here, a 12 team division with 6 clubs from the Highlands and 6 from the Lowlands, where you play each team in your own region four times (20 games) and each team in the other region once (12 games). It would allow there to be a single division, but would reduce the long journeys slightly. Obviously it has the downside that perhaps one team would have "easier" fixtures than the other, but there are ways around that.

 

[The Ghost of B A R P]

14 hours ago, invergowrie arab said:

Because clubs want it.

What's your evidence that clubs at Tier 5 are at teetering on the brink?

How much more would it cost Brora to hire a coach to take them to Linlithgow as opposed to Fort William? How much more for East Kilbride to go to Formartine as opposed to Berwick?

 

11 hours ago, Gordon EF said:

Well they are so the question is, why shouldn't they be?

Tell me how much you think clubs would save, on average, if tiers 3 and 4 were regionalised?

Responding to both posts at once...

First thing to say, again, is that I'm not advocating regionalising the current tiers 3 and 4: I was responding to a suggestion of a fifth national tier, for which I can see no justification at all, other than some irrelevant notion of 'prestige'.

The main problem for me is that each tier is already too small; once you fix that (e.g. moving to leagues of 16), you then need to address how many tiers can or should be national. For me, as I've said, that's a straight choice between two or three: the former, although radical, would still include the current L1 (32 clubs); the latter would mean bringing a few more teams into the SPFL (to take it up to 48). Personally, I'd go for two, but there's no reason for it not to come down to, as Invergowrie Arab puts it, 'what clubs want'.

The issues that might determine at what point it makes sense to go regional are partly to do with costs; travel does cost and there are scenarios that would mean a high number of long-distance trips, sometimes midweek, for clubs like Brechin or Peterhead. There's also the issue of away fans to consider, from the economic standpoint of the clubs and the fans themselves.

The most difficult issue, though, is the incompatibility of long-distance travel, especially midweek, in leagues that are predominantly (L1) or almost completely (L2) part-time. For guys whose main employment is not football to be arranging time off work to cart themselves around the country for midweek fixtures is problematic and unnecessary.

How much 'professional football' can a country sustain?

Germany, with millions of registered players, goes regional after tier 3; so does France, probably the biggest producer of top-class footballers in Europe.

Aye, but they're big countries... Well, so does Belgium. So does the Netherlands (also with a huge number of registered players per head of population). Czech Republic after tier 2. Same for Portugal.

This isn't intended to be doctrinaire or dismissive of 'smaller' clubs in an eejity-Budgy way (my club, Morton, are at the very, very bottom end of sustainable full-time football just about anywhere in Europe). It's an attempt to question why things have been done the way they've been done... and whether there might be a better way, which will maybe address some of the problems of 'decline' Scottish football has encountered over the past [insert number} years.

 

[jagsfan57]

Responding to both posts at once...
First thing to say, again, is that I'm not advocating regionalising the current tiers 3 and 4: I was responding to a suggestion of a fifth national tier, for which I can see no justification at all, other than some irrelevant notion of 'prestige'.
The main problem for me is that each tier is already too small; once you fix that (e.g. moving to leagues of 16), you then need to address how many tiers can or should be national. For me, as I've said, that's a straight choice between two or three: the former, although radical, would still include the current L1 (32 clubs); the latter would mean bringing a few more teams into the SPFL (to take it up to 48). Personally, I'd go for two, but there's no reason for it not to come down to, as Invergowrie Arab puts it, 'what clubs want'.
The issues that might determine at what point it makes sense to go regional are partly to do with costs; travel does cost and there are scenarios that would mean a high number of long-distance trips, sometimes midweek, for clubs like Brechin or Peterhead. There's also the issue of away fans to consider, from the economic standpoint of the clubs and the fans themselves.
The most difficult issue, though, is the incompatibility of long-distance travel, especially midweek, in leagues that are predominantly (L1) or almost completely (L2) part-time. For guys whose main employment is not football to be arranging time off work to cart themselves around the country for midweek fixtures is problematic and unnecessary.
How much 'professional football' can a country sustain?
Germany, with millions of registered players, goes regional after tier 3; so does France, probably the biggest producer of top-class footballers in Europe.
Aye, but they're big countries... Well, so does Belgium. So does the Netherlands (also with a huge number of registered players per head of population). Czech Republic after tier 2. Same for Portugal.
This isn't intended to be doctrinaire or dismissive of 'smaller' clubs in an eejity-Budgy way (my club, Morton, are at the very, very bottom end of sustainable full-time football just about anywhere in Europe). It's an attempt to question why things have been done the way they've been done... and whether there might be a better way, which will maybe address some of the problems of 'decline' Scottish football has encountered over the past [insert number} years.
 

You know we used to only have 38 professional clubs split into 2 divisions of 18 and 20 and all the other leagues were regionalised. In the 70’s was the 1st restructuring of Scottish football when the leagues went to 10-14-14. It still baffles me why the top league voted for 8 to be relegated in one season.

[Gordon EF]

5 hours ago, The Ghost of B A R P said:

This isn't intended to be doctrinaire or dismissive of 'smaller' clubs in an eejity-Budgy way (my club, Morton, are at the very, very bottom end of sustainable full-time football just about anywhere in Europe). It's an attempt to question why things have been done the way they've been done... and whether there might be a better way, which will maybe address some of the problems of 'decline' Scottish football has encountered over the past [insert number} years.

 

The problem is though, because of Scotland's geography, the vast majority of clubs in the current tiers 3 and 4 are in the central belt. So take East Fife. Somehow it's going to make East Fife players improve enough that it will have a knock on effect on the national team by saving them trips to Cove and Peterhead by putting them in a League One North with, eh, Cove, Peterhead, and Elgin?

The only part time SPFL clubs who travel long distances regularly are the clubs at the relative geographical extremes of the country. You can't stop that by regionalising because there are not and will never be enough teams from outside central Scotland to not make the likes of Elgin, Annan, Peterhead and Stranraer travel relatively long distances.

The top part-time clubs in Scotland travel less than the equivalent clubs in England do because the vast majority of the Scottish population live in a relatively very small area.

[Sergeant Wilson]

5 hours ago, jagsfan57 said:

 

You know we used to only have 38 professional clubs split into 2 divisions of 18 and 20 and all the other leagues were regionalised. In the 70’s was the 1st restructuring of Scottish football when the leagues went to 10-14-14. It still baffles me why the top league voted for 8 to be relegated in one season.

 

Because, at the time, the big 10, didn't want the other 8. I don't remember what the voting criteria was, but there would have been support from the top  6 second division clubs who were promoted. That would amount to 16 of 38, a few more in favour and they would be over the line for a majority.

[Ranaldo Bairn]

Didn't they go to 10 because the 18 was terminally boring?

Leaving aside the woeful nature of having 1 team win it for 9 years in a row (or 8, whatever it was at the time) it was a wasteland of meaningless fixtures and the drop down into the purgatory below was horrendous.

[The Ghost of B A R P]

17 hours ago, jagsfan57 said:

 

You know we used to only have 38 professional clubs split into 2 divisions of 18 and 20 and all the other leagues were regionalised. In the 70’s was the 1st restructuring of Scottish football when the leagues went to 10-14-14. It still baffles me why the top league voted for 8 to be relegated in one season.

 

Yep, those leagues were probably too big... but going too far the other way was the worst thing that ever happened to Scottish football: small leagues, playing each other four times, most teams petrified of relegation, a terrible environment for bringing through young players. More or less where we still are.

15 hours ago, Gordon EF said:

The problem is though, because of Scotland's geography, the vast majority of clubs in the current tiers 3 and 4 are in the central belt. So take East Fife. Somehow it's going to make East Fife players improve enough that it will have a knock on effect on the national team by saving them trips to Cove and Peterhead by putting them in a League One North with, eh, Cove, Peterhead, and Elgin?

The only part time SPFL clubs who travel long distances regularly are the clubs at the relative geographical extremes of the country. You can't stop that by regionalising because there are not and will never be enough teams from outside central Scotland to not make the likes of Elgin, Annan, Peterhead and Stranraer travel relatively long distances.

The top part-time clubs in Scotland travel less than the equivalent clubs in England do because the vast majority of the Scottish population live in a relatively very small area.

Yes, for most clubs it won't make that much of a difference (and there's an understandable tendency to see it from the perspective of your own team). But it's not just the outliers that have to travel; everybody else has to travel to them.

If, say, Stranraer and Brechin have the infrastructure, support, and ambition to be in the top 32 clubs in the country, then they play each other; but it's only in a world ruled by tradition that they have to play each other (and if one is in L1 and the other in L2, they don't play each other anyway...).

Watching Hearts, Hibs, Dundee Utd, and Dundee scuffle around in the second tier in a country the size of Scotland (putting the banterous wonder of it all to one side) is just absurd. If Hearts are pish enough to finish 12th, their fans will be in uproar, they bag the manger, and they move on; it makes no sense, though, for that to get you relegated.

Even a club like Dunfermline might expect to get relegated from a 16-team league at some point; but near permanent exile from the top division, in a country this size, is weird.

Then you've got Falkirk and Thistle scuffling about in the third tier; again, massively enjoyable on one level... totally absurd on another (and Morton, Ayr, Raith, and even Dunfermline have been down there in recent years).

And the point about player development is a 'long-game' point; you either believe that the environment players come into and develop in matters, or you don't. I think the current environment is really poor (see above: playing each other four times, ever-present threat of relegation, therefore no financial stability); and that two professional leagues of 16 teams, possibly with a third tier with 'affiliate' status, would be much better in the long run.

[Won't go into the comparison with England, because it's a completely different - and almost unique - football/economic environment; one of things the people running Scottish football get consistently wrong is... looking to England for comparisons.]

[jagsfan57]

6 hours ago, The Ghost of B A R P said:

Yep, those leagues were probably too big... but going too far the other way was the worst thing that ever happened to Scottish football: small leagues, playing each other four times, most teams petrified of relegation, a terrible environment for bringing through young players. More or less where we still are.

Yes, for most clubs it won't make that much of a difference (and there's an understandable tendency to see it from the perspective of your own team). But it's not just the outliers that have to travel; everybody else has to travel to them.

If, say, Stranraer and Brechin have the infrastructure, support, and ambition to be in the top 32 clubs in the country, then they play each other; but it's only in a world ruled by tradition that they have to play each other (and if one is in L1 and the other in L2, they don't play each other anyway...).

Watching Hearts, Hibs, Dundee Utd, and Dundee scuffle around in the second tier in a country the size of Scotland (putting the banterous wonder of it all to one side) is just absurd. If Hearts are pish enough to finish 12th, their fans will be in uproar, they bag the manger, and they move on; it makes no sense, though, for that to get you relegated.

Even a club like Dunfermline might expect to get relegated from a 16-team league at some point; but near permanent exile from the top division, in a country this size, is weird.

Then you've got Falkirk and Thistle scuffling about in the third tier; again, massively enjoyable on one level... totally absurd on another (and Morton, Ayr, Raith, and even Dunfermline have been down there in recent years).

And the point about player development is a 'long-game' point; you either believe that the environment players come into and develop in matters, or you don't. I think the current environment is really poor (see above: playing each other four times, ever-present threat of relegation, therefore no financial stability); and that two professional leagues of 16 teams, possibly with a third tier with 'affiliate' status, would be much better in the long run.

[Won't go into the comparison with England, because it's a completely different - and almost unique - football/economic environment; one of things the people running Scottish football get consistently wrong is... looking to England for comparisons.]

,Think that 7 of the championship clubs have been in league 1 in the last 10 years

[Gordon EF]

7 hours ago, The Ghost of B A R P said:

Yes, for most clubs it won't make that much of a difference (and there's an understandable tendency to see it from the perspective of your own team). But it's not just the outliers that have to travel; everybody else has to travel to them.

I'm no saying it's bad for East Fife therefore I don't like it. Substitute East Fife for any tier 3/4 club in the stretch of central Scotland from Ayrshire up to Angus. That's 75% of Leagues One and Two. For most of those clubs, regionalising makes almost no difference to travelling cost and for some, depending on the make up of the leagues they're in, it would actually result in more travelling. If your argument for regionalising Leagues One and Two is travel cost, it's been conclusively proven many times to be a very poor argument.

 

Quote

If, say, Stranraer and Brechin have the infrastructure, support, and ambition to be in the top 32 clubs in the country, then they play each other; but it's only in a world ruled by tradition that they have to play each other (and if one is in L1 and the other in L2, they don't play each other anyway...).

Watching Hearts, Hibs, Dundee Utd, and Dundee scuffle around in the second tier in a country the size of Scotland (putting the banterous wonder of it all to one side) is just absurd. If Hearts are pish enough to finish 12th, their fans will be in uproar, they bag the manger, and they move on; it makes no sense, though, for that to get you relegated.

Even a club like Dunfermline might expect to get relegated from a 16-team league at some point; but near permanent exile from the top division, in a country this size, is weird.

Then you've got Falkirk and Thistle scuffling about in the third tier; again, massively enjoyable on one level... totally absurd on another (and Morton, Ayr, Raith, and even Dunfermline have been down there in recent years).

I've no real idea what kind of point you're making when you say stuff like 'a club like Hearts being at tier 2 is ridiculous' or 'it's weird for Dunfermline to be permanently exiled from tier 1' despite the fact that they have been in tier 1 numerous times in the current structure.

I'm not against changing the structure and I'm not against bigger leagues, I'm for them. I'm making a specific point that there isn't really much argument for regionalising the current tier 3/4 based on travelling cost and certainly not on development of the national team. The first is intuitive but has been disproved multiple times, the second is just baws-oot wild.

 

Quote

And the point about player development is a 'long-game' point; you either believe that the environment players come into and develop in matters, or you don't. I think the current environment is really poor (see above: playing each other four times, ever-present threat of relegation, therefore no financial stability); and that two professional leagues of 16 teams, possibly with a third tier with 'affiliate' status, would be much better in the long run.

[Won't go into the comparison with England, because it's a completely different - and almost unique - football/economic environment; one of things the people running Scottish football get consistently wrong is... looking to England for comparisons.]

Again, I'm not against changing the structure to include bigger leagues. I absolutely don't think tinkering with the structure of largely semi-professional leagues is going to have much impact on the national team. The vast majority of NT players never even play at these levels. We absolutely shouldn't be going into league reconstruction with the aim of improving the national team. It makes very little sense.

I used a comparison because that's exactly what you did. Compare Scotland to larger countries with different geographies when arguing for regionalisation to come in earlier in the league structure. the fundamentally ridiculous argument of "Well Germany regionalise at tier x and Germany are good at football right?"

[The Moonster]

8 hours ago, The Ghost of B A R P said:

Watching Hearts, Hibs, Dundee Utd, and Dundee scuffle around in the second tier in a country the size of Scotland (putting the banterous wonder of it all to one side) is just absurd. If Hearts are pish enough to finish 12th, their fans will be in uproar, they bag the manger, and they move on; it makes no sense, though, for that to get you relegated.

Even a club like Dunfermline might expect to get relegated from a 16-team league at some point; but near permanent exile from the top division, in a country this size, is weird.

Then you've got Falkirk and Thistle scuffling about in the third tier; again, massively enjoyable on one level... totally absurd on another (and Morton, Ayr, Raith, and even Dunfermline have been down there in recent years).

lol, what are you talking about mate?

[Ranaldo Bairn]

1 hour ago, The Moonster said:

lol, what are you talking about mate?

Smacks of "disallow relegation for certain clubs deemed big enough because reasons", doesn't it?

[The Moonster]

9 minutes ago, Ranaldo Bairn said:

Smacks of "disallow relegation for certain clubs deemed big enough because reasons", doesn't it?

Probably doesn't want his own club fucking around in the bottom tier. Again. 

[craigkillie]

Just to be clear, here's what it would look like if you divided the current League 1 and League 2 sides along regional lines. Probably a decent reduction in travelling for the sides in the south, but you'd still have Edinburgh City heading down to Stranraer and Annan. You'd then have Stenhousemuir and Stirling Albion massively increasing their travelling distance by having to head north for every away game and no longer having nearby matches against the likes of Clyde, Falkirk, Edinburgh City or either of the Glasgow clubs.

North

Brechin City
Cove Rangers
Cowdenbeath
East Fife
Elgin City
Forfar Athletic
Montrose
Peterhead
Stirling Albion
Stenhousemuir

South

Airdrie
Albion Rovers
Annan Athletic
Clyde
Dumbarton
Edinburgh City
Falkirk
Partick Thistle
Queen's Park
Stranraer