How do you solve a problem like the Scottish Premiership?

[PrestersKTID]

2 hours ago, effeffsee_the2nd said:

I agree with what your saying, but in terms of numbers the old firms away game will still get the highest viewers and that's all they're interested in.

more people will watch rangers away to st mirren in a meaningless game than will watch the edinburgh derby, sad but true

Someone posted the games chosen for sky for prem this season. Killie, st johnstone, livi and st mirren had 3 games on sky. 4 games per ground supposedly so they could've had both Saints county and killie united on Wednesday.

Celtic 20, rangers 18 hearts 8 aberdeen hibs 6, dundee united motherwell county 4 and the ones i mentioned above 3.

Sky will stick a west ham vs leicester game on or burnley newcastle as well as games involving their big 6. Yes bigger viewing numbers from larger areas but how you ever going to grow your numbers with the same 4 games a season games which now don't even have away fans so it's not even got that back and forth that they rave about.

 

[Otis Blue]

On 22/05/2023 at 10:52, joewarkfanclub said:

...

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).

Good post @joewarkfanclub ... 

Of course, the voting structure is clearly set up to prevent change and our bigger clubs at least don't want to share the OF related cake, so we're well and truly stuck with what we have.  When the current structure was set up, plenty warned against it on the basis that the voting structure would prevent any future change - but this was ignored, and alas it has come to pass.

Strangely, when I've suggested larger leagues previously, there's been plenty of diddy club fans that have expressed the view that they like the tiny 10 team leagues as there are few meaningless games at the end of the season - so I may be in the minority here and I doubt that we'll get too much help from that quarter either (hope I'm wrong here mind ...).

I remember a season not long back where I think QOS played Dundee 7 times including cups - I'm sure fans of both clubs and the players/managers were sick of the sight of each other.

[CambieBud]

On 28/05/2023 at 13:25, Charles Stiles said:

I'm genuinely amazed that so many diddy fans still haven't realised that the real problem with Scottish football is their own club and their Stockholm Syndrome. It's too late. The chance for genuine change came and went simply because the diddy clubs wanted it that way. Scottish football will never change.

That is simply not true. Aberdeen under Milne stopped genuine change, for reasons no one has ever explained 

[KirkieRR]

2 hours ago, Otis Blue said:

Strangely, when I've suggested larger leagues previously, there's been plenty of diddy club fans that have expressed the view that they like the tiny 10 team leagues as there are few meaningless games at the end of the season - so I may be in the minority here and I doubt that we'll get too much help from that quarter either (hope I'm wrong here mind ...).

See a few pages back where I got serially slapped down for advcating bigger leagues.

[Ranaldo Bairn]

You are welcome to propose your views on this matter, but I think they are simply out of step with what most folk want. The meaningless games argument is one I am fully behind, but also is the fact that falling out the top league of say 18 would be into a complete financial wasteland.

[Sergeant Wilson]

1 hour ago, CambieBud said:

That is simply not true. Aberdeen under Milne stopped genuine change, for reasons no one has ever explained 

Peter Lawwell told Milne he'd tell everybody that he wore a wig if he didn't side with Celtic. Then it fell off anyway, but it was too late.

[Otis Blue]

1 hour ago, Ranaldo Bairn said:

You are welcome to propose your views on this matter, but I think they are simply out of step with what most folk want. The meaningless games argument is one I am fully behind, but also is the fact that falling out the top league of say 18 would be into a complete financial wasteland.

I guess that's the way of it, and I am indeed "out of step".  Trouble is that I'm old enough to remember the bigger leagues and the welcome variety of playing more teams and visiting a wider range of towns/grounds as opposed to the tedium of facing 9 teams 4 times (at least) per season.  However, the status quo does feck all to solve the stagnation in our top league in particular - and it never will.

As for the domination of the OF ... unless we get shot of them, that will never change and a race for 3rd is all that can ever be aspired to.  I'm fully resigned to this.

[Otis Blue]

1 hour ago, KirkieRR said:

See a few pages back where I got serially slapped down for advcating bigger leagues.

I haven't checked back but I'm sure you did - it's been my experience too, sadly.  We're stuck with our lot for good I fear.

[Scary Bear]

2 hours ago, Ranaldo Bairn said:

You are welcome to propose your views on this matter, but I think they are simply out of step with what most folk want. The meaningless games argument is one I am fully behind, but also is the fact that falling out the top league of say 18 would be into a complete financial wasteland.

How is life in the financial wasteland? Both Falkirk and the Pars were there last season.

[Ranaldo Bairn]

It's woeful. Truly woeful.

Incidentally, the phrase you quote is not my own, but one that was said to me in person by a former SFPL club chairman (not of Falkirk).

[Broughty]

Why do people worry about meaningless games , the stress on the teams at the foot of the Premier to avoid the play-off is awful. Top two leagues should have at least 16 teams. Not everything is about Rangers and Celtic who will never be in that position.

[eez-eh]

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.

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.

 

Listened to this earlier and it really stuck out that for almost every question he answered by comparing the SPFL to English football in some way or another.

Depressingly predictable.

[Otis Blue]

1 hour ago, eez-eh said:

Listened to this earlier and it really stuck out that for almost every question he answered by comparing the SPFL to English football in some way or another.

Depressingly predictable.

I guess if you look at it from Doncaster's point of view he's naturally going to want to keep the vast majority of the SPFL viewing public happy and onside.  A wee web search just now (not sure how accurate or not) suggests that around 5 years ago (date of the study) of the total Scottish attendances, 36% were at Celtic and 27% at Rangers (smaller stadium) - ie 63% of the attendees at Scottish games were OF supporters (with of course many thousands more OF that don't physically attend, view on TV etc).  That's what drives the media and sponsor income.  So he's never going to seriously listen to anything the diddy club fans say.  We're just "pond life" as far as he's concerned, albeit pond life that's necessary so that the OF can have the pretence of pseudo-competition and opponents to thrash.

Our only hope is that one day UEFA finally creates its nirvana of pan-European super leagues with mega-sponsorship that pulls together/attracts all of the "mega-clubs" from each nation and leaves the remnants in each national league with lesser value but more competitive leagues.  I'm not holding my breath though.

[Aim Here]

1 hour ago, Otis Blue said:

around 5 years ago (date of the study) of the total Scottish attendances, 36% were at Celtic and 27% at Rangers (smaller stadium) - ie 63% of the attendees at Scottish games were OF supporters (with of course many thousands more OF that don't physically attend, view on TV etc).

This season's figures have the average OF attendance totalling at about 107,000 out of a Scottish football average of 243,000; or only about 44%. Still top-heavy, of course, but not quite as egregious as you make out.

[Charles Stiles]

9 hours ago, CambieBud said:

That is simply not true. Aberdeen under Milne stopped genuine change, for reasons no one has ever explained 

It simply is. You need to have a refresher course on the events of 2012, the ones that led to the 11-1 vote still being of such major significance to Scottish football.

 

I'd still like to know why there was only one vote on the 11-1 despite them having 4 years to do it in. Unless it was time barred I see no reason for it not being voted on each year. 

[kennie makevin]

Encouraging to see more people calling out the nonsense of this hysterical 'we can't have meaningless games' argument. All this crazed desire to have every game 'mean something' does is create fear and tension, stifle creative, expansive football and discourage the gradual introduction of promising young players. It certainly does not improve the quality of Scottish football.  

 

 

[Fuctifano]

Apologies if any of this done before, for obvious reasons only started poking my nose in this forum in last week and probably poking it back out by Sunday evening. 

With the Conference League coming in, I think there are now 10+ top flight divisions in Europe which have a playoff for the last European spot, including leagues with a split. In this case the team(s) finishing top of the bottom half get to take part in this as well though they are typically disadvantaged by having to play more games in the playoff and / or be away from home

These would cut down 'meaningless' games in a bigger league (though e.g Austria run this format with a 12 team league at the moment)

There are also leagues (Czechia and Bulgaria) which have a 3 way split in a league of 16 which you could use to keep the 4 OF games a season without playing a silly amount of games

Though as said none of it will fix the duopoly beyond a European Super League , but even then the colt teams will be railroaded into the Scottish pyramid so they can still see their teams win most weeks.

[DoingThe42]

1 hour ago, kennie makevin said:

Encouraging to see more people calling out the nonsense of this hysterical 'we can't have meaningless games' argument. All this crazed desire to have every game 'mean something' does is create fear and tension, stifle creative, expansive football and discourage the gradual introduction of promising young players. It certainly does not improve the quality of Scottish football.  

 

 

But what does improving the quality look like? Where can we reasonably expect Scottish football to be, given the huge financial disparities between big leagues and small leagues now, and the crushing presence of the Old Firm?

Then we need to weight up whether the level of improvement we can expect is worth the removal of lots of excitement from the season. I've been watching all the SPFL leagues this season and they've all been exciting with a big choice of meaningful games to go to every week. If we're going to remove that, there needs to be a really good reason to remove it.

And is it a given that bigger leagues would improve our young players? Switzerland and Denmark have small leagues, but produce players no bother and go to big tournaments regularly and do quite well in them. Why do we need a big league to do it?

I'd certainly go to fewer games per season if there was less to play for. I'm not paying to watch an exhibition.

Edited May 31, 2023 by DoingThe42

[kennie makevin]

"A really good reason to remove it" ? The Scottish top flight is stale, tedious, predictable garbage.......that good enough for you ?  And it's a direct result of playing every one else four times a season and the stress and fear of failure which comes with artificially created 'meaningful games'. 

[DoingThe42]

16 minutes ago, kennie makevin said:

"A really good reason to remove it" ? The Scottish top flight is stale, tedious, predictable garbage.......that good enough for you ?  And it's a direct result of playing every one else four times a season and the stress and fear of failure which comes with artificially created 'meaningful games'. 

It's only tedious in terms of the Old Firm and everyone else. The rest of the league is competitive on every level, all the way through the divisions.

Would it be less tedious if the top flight had 18 teams in it with the Old Firm still miles ahead and most teams with little to play for from about February onwards?

I don't see why. Would people really be thrilled by the prospect of watching their team play a couple of months worth of meaningless matches (at thirty quid a pop!) because they were playing more teams?

I just don't see that.

Edited May 31, 2023 by DoingThe42