How do you solve a problem like the Scottish Premiership?

[TheScarf]

15 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

I think it’s a myth that a bigger league = more competitive. 

If you’re serious about making it more competitive then you have to address the fundamental issue of financial disparity. 

Indeed. If it’s one 42 team league Celtic and Rangers are still finishing first and second for the next 30 odd years. 
 

It would just be nice not to play the same teams 17 times a season. 

[Guest]

36 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

Indeed. If it’s one 42 team league Celtic and Rangers are still finishing first and second for the next 30 odd years. 
 

It would just be nice not to play the same teams 17 times a season. 

Without advocating bigger divisions; I was keeping a sideways eye on the Big Rose's progression and it felt like over the Christmas and New Year Period they were playing Annan and Rovers every other week.

The consensus appears to be; it's all Celt/Gers fault.

Which to be fair it probably is. Without knowing the gaps in other countries league's, the difference financially, fan base and just sheer size  between them and the rest means it is highly unlikely that the other teams will ever bridge that gap. It could maybe be liveable with if they didn't come with all the extra baggage and it was just about the football. But it isn't so does everyone just have to accept it and get on with it. Would appear so.

Anyhow no b teams in the pyramid ever.

[RandomGuy.]

49 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

Indeed. If it’s one 42 team league Celtic and Rangers are still finishing first and second for the next 30 odd years. 
 

It would just be nice not to play the same teams 17 times a season. 

This is my main complaint about the league size, if you spend any length of time in the top flight (unsure how the other 3 tiers are for it) it feels like you just play the same 13/14 sides endlessly. So little variation in who comes up.

Ideally you either more relegation/promotion spots, and/or take money from the top flight and give it to the lower tiers to "bridge the gap" and make everything a lot more likely to change. But clubs would never vote for that and it would still likely see the same thing happening.

[pozbaird]

Said it before, but there’s only one way another Scottish club will win the top flight, and it is if a mentally deranged Arab group or American corporate sports group decided to buy a club here and do ‘a Man City’ on them. Why any uber-rich individual or group would do that is frankly beyond me. They’d be better buying a Sunderland, Sheffield Wednesday, or West Brom, and going full mad mental towards the EPL, with the worldwide attention that would garner.

Ain’t happening. Can’t see a Motherwell store opening in Bahrain or New York anytime soon, and plans announced for Fir Park to be developed into a 50,000 seater state-of-the-art cathedral of football. We’re stuck. Third spot is really top spot. The big two Glasgow uglies are untouchable. Sad, but true.

Edited May 19, 2023 by pozbaird

[Shadow Play]

48 minutes ago, pozbaird said:

Said it before, but there’s only one way another Scottish club will win the top flight, and it is if a mentally deranged Arab group or American corporate sports group decided to buy a club here and do ‘a Man City’ on them. Why any uber-rich individual or group would do that is frankly beyond me. They’d be better buying a Sunderland, Sheffield Wednesday, or West Brom, and going full mad mental towards the EPL, with the worldwide attention that would garner.

Ain’t happening. Can’t see a Motherwell store opening in Bahrain or New York anytime soon, and plans announced for Fir Park to be developed into a 50,000 seater state-of-the-art cathedral of football. We’re stuck. Third spot is really top spot. The big two Glasgow uglies are untouchable. Sad, but true.

Is chairman of United not a super rich American?  When Ogren took over the club United fans appeared so impressed with his promised investment there were  chants of “USA, USA, USA….” at one or two of their games.   I’ve not looked at the league table recently so I’m not sure how that’s worked out this season.

[pozbaird]

7 minutes ago, Shadow Play said:

Is chairman of United not a super rich American?  When Ogren took over the club United fans appeared so impressed with his promised investment there were  chants of “USA, USA, USA….” at one or two of their games.   I’ve not looked at the league table recently so I’m not sure how that’s worked out this season.

No idea of his wealth, maybe it’s ‘off the radar’. Whatever he’s worth, he hasn’t re-developed Tannadice into a Dundonian Etihad, nor has he signed Earling Haaland and went for Jose Mourinho over Jim Goodwin.

The sort of investment that would see a Dundee United, Motherwell or even Aberdeen, win the title and make Scotland have a ‘big three’ certainly isn’t the Ogren kind. It’s the Newcastle United kind that would be required. Pure mad mental levels frankly.

Edited May 19, 2023 by pozbaird

[Raidernation]

There is no way to stop this, but when the gossip is rancit are going to sign “xxxx” for millions (especially a failed EPL player) just to highlight how much more spending power they have than everyone else in Scotland.

See “Jack Butarse” to sign for a team that can’t pay their bills but will cost more than the rest of the SPL clubs spend in total all year (minus the victim/underdog club)

[Otis Blue]

Just looked at the Premiership table, and it's depressing and embarrassing viewing as ever ...

A humungous 34 point gap between 2nd and 3rd.

1st and 2nd with enormous positive goal differences of 77 and 53, whereas the only other teams to have a positive goal difference have a paltry +6 and +1 with every other team negative (due to the drubbings from the top two).

Basically (as we all know), the league's a joke and the only true competition is for 3rd place.

In a perfect parallel universe, the only solution would be a new 40 team league structure without the uglies, but in our sadly constrained wee universe this is impossible and so its what we are depressingly stuck with.  Our only hope is that somehow in the not too distant future, a format of European leagues will come to pass and will attract (financially) the two uglies away from our leagues leaving a competitive (and less distasteful) league behind them.

Edit - not sure how I've included the table twice, apologies - not sufficiently digitally clever to solve that!

 

 

Edited May 21, 2023 by Otis Blue

[joewarkfanclub]

As others have said above, familiarity is the biggest barrier to improving the Scottish game.

We play each other way too many times so every manager and player knows the other teams players and tactics inside out and fans get bored of the same old, same old.

Scotland could easily support 2 leagues of 20 playing each other home and away. A total of 38 games, same as we have now. 

That would allow for proper relegation and promotion and proper play offs instead of the self protecting nonsense that we see now and could be supported by the pyramid structure.

You could argue that it would result in lots of meaningless games in the middle of the table come the end of the season, but we are crying out for a system that takes away the incredible pressure on mangagers to avoid the drop, that prevents them from giving young players the exposure to first team football that would develop them (which cant be replicated playing in a geremandered 5th tier).

There would also need to be re-distribution of revenue and going back to sharing the gate money would encourage away fans to get back to going to other grounds, knowing that their club will get the benefit of their support.

Of course none of this will happen as our entire tv deal is based on 4 Glasgow Derbies every season and the big 2 will never agree to giving away any of the pot because they arent really interested in competition.

Edited May 22, 2023 by joewarkfanclub

[ahemps]

Just listened to Doncaster on the POF podcast. He has no intention of looking at the gulf that exists in Scottish football. He mentioned that lots of leagues have dominant teams and it is just the way it is. He doesn't even see it as an issue and seemed surprised that people see that domination by the same 1-2 teams is a problem where he sees it as the norm.

To be fair to him he touched on the TV deal and how they had discussed it with other TV companies but nobody else was interested so basically Sky was the only option.

He was asked about promoting the whole game and not just the OF but again his answers are very discouraging.

When the people in charge of the game see the inequality as a good thing then there is absolutely no hope. 

Another nail in the coffin for me.

 

[VincentGuerin]

19 minutes ago, ahemps said:

Just listened to Doncaster on the POF podcast. He has no intention of looking at the gulf that exists in Scottish football. He mentioned that lots of leagues have dominant teams and it is just the way it is. He doesn't even see it as an issue and seemed surprised that people see that domination by the same 1-2 teams is a problem where he sees it as the norm.

To be fair to him he touched on the TV deal and how they had discussed it with other TV companies but nobody else was interested so basically Sky was the only option.

He was asked about promoting the whole game and not just the OF but again his answers are very discouraging.

When the people in charge of the game see the inequality as a good thing then there is absolutely no hope. 

Another nail in the coffin for me.

 

Heard it too.

I'm not as bothered by the money side of the tv deal as some people seem to be. I think a lot of people are kidding themselves about what the potential value of a Scottish tv deal can be without basically selling all the games. On that, I think he has a fair point. I'd rather we keep more games on a Saturday at 3pm than get more money to do the A-League thing of televising every game and having them right across the weekend every week.

He was really weak on the issue of promoting the whole league, though. Just took that Sky will basically only show the Old Firm as a given. He made the point about them wanting to keep games at certain grounds back to not miss the title being won. Ok, fine. But that doesn't explain why it's the Old Firm every week or why the other high-profile games in the division featuring big crowds and meaningful games are not shown, or how we've got to the stage where our tv 'partner' doesn't televise our relegation battle, top six battle, or European battle.

Disappointing that the massive hole in his answer wasn't pointed out. I like the PoF podcast, but I think someone more savvy on Scottish football would have had him on toast for that one.

Edited May 26, 2023 by VincentGuerin

[Dons_1988]

Is that the price of football podcast?

[VincentGuerin]

5 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

Is that the price of football podcast?

Yes. New edition this morning.

[Molotov]

Doncaster should have been bombed out of Scottish football by now.
He has been in post for 10 years and I’m not sure exactly what he has done to improve our game. 

What’s his annual salary? Waste of a wage.

[VincentGuerin]

4 minutes ago, Molotov said:

Doncaster should have been bombed out of Scottish football by now.
He has been in post for 10 years and I’m not sure exactly what he has done to improve our game. 

What’s his annual salary? Waste of a wage.

It's not his job to improve the game. It's his job to take abuse for the clubs.

[Molotov]

2 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:

It's not his job to improve the game. It's his job to take abuse for the clubs.

Huh? 

[VincentGuerin]

6 minutes ago, Molotov said:

Huh? 

That's what he does. The clubs make the decisions in Scottish fitba. That's what the SPFL is. It's the clubs.

He takes abuse for them. He's a lightning rod.

If the clubs decide tomorrow that SPFL TV is the future and Sky are c***s, then Doncaster will be on Radio Scotland calling Sky c***s next week. That's his job.

Edited May 26, 2023 by VincentGuerin

[Dons_1988]

2 minutes ago, Molotov said:

Huh? 

He’s a lightning rod. The clubs are in charge of this agenda. 

The clubs do not want to put their name to a system of status quo and ambition being eeking a small amount more money out of sky for showing old firm games. 

[ahemps]

2 hours ago, VincentGuerin said:

He was really weak on the issue of promoting the whole league, though. Just took that Sky will basically only show the Old Firm as a given. He made the point about them wanting to keep games at certain grounds back to not miss the title being won. Ok, fine. But that doesn't explain why it's the Old Firm every week or why the other high-profile games in the division featuring big crowds and meaningful games are not shown, or how we've got to the stage where our tv 'partner' doesn't televise our relegation battle, top six battle, or European battle.

Disappointing that the massive hole in his answer wasn't pointed out. I like the PoF podcast, but I think someone more savvy on Scottish football would have had him on toast for that one.

Yeah they let him off the hook quite a bit but then they are not fans of non OF teams and likely appreciated him coming on their POD. I like Kevin and Kieran too and it is not on them to push him but a person with more knowledge of Scottish football who doesn't fawn over the OF could have picked him apart.

[derektaylor84]

On 26/05/2023 at 10:17, ahemps said:

Just listened to Doncaster on the POF podcast. He has no intention of looking at the gulf that exists in Scottish football. He mentioned that lots of leagues have dominant teams and it is just the way it is. He doesn't even see it as an issue and seemed surprised that people see that domination by the same 1-2 teams is a problem where he sees it as the norm.

To be fair to him he touched on the TV deal and how they had discussed it with other TV companies but nobody else was interested so basically Sky was the only option.

He was asked about promoting the whole game and not just the OF but again his answers are very discouraging.

 

I emailed in the question about promoting the league other than for 2 teams. The bit they didn’t read out was about Sky always picking Celtic & Rangers away games which are usually one sided games that casual viewers will quickly turn off. That leads to not being able to show meaningful matches in the bottom 6 at the end of the season due to the 4 live matches per stadium. He didn’t answer the question (and many others on show), saying about the great coverage of the final day of the SWPL season, which was decent, but if it was say Hearts, Hibs and Spartans going for the title on final game would Sky follow the car with the trophy. 
 

www.youtube.com/@DerekTaylor84