League Re-Construction

[Honestman1954]

I am just revieing all of the info regarding the current vote by clubs on League reconstruction.  There seems to be an idea of a 'Conference' new league between current League 2 and the Highland/Lowland leagues simply to allow the Premier league 'B' teams a place in the system.  Id like to know peoples views as I am NOT in favour of 'B' teams be part of the league, they should set up their own reserve league.  I would prefer a revised system of Three divisions of 16 teams with the highland/lowland league feeding in, I think four small divisions is pretty poor.

[G_&_T]

Absolutely, 100% opposed to 'B' teams featuring in the pyramid, and agree with you - there should be a reserve league. The only reason certain clubs are trying to introduce the idea, IMHO, is because they eventually want to see them climb up the pyramid. It's a terrible idea and I hate it. 

I want a Premier League consisting of 14 teams, with a 6/8 split at the end of the season. The two lower divisions should each have 16 teams - with a split of 8/8 for the last round of fixtures. Clubs will oppose that as it would mean a smaller share of the prize money, given four clubs would need to be promoted.

There would be two clubs automatically relegated each year, with the third-bottom side facing a play-off. It means automatic promotion for the winners of the Highland and Lowland leagues. It also means plenty of six-pointers after the split, and a lot to play for. 

[Man from the East]

On 17/04/2023 at 17:30, Honestman1954 said:

I am just revieing all of the info regarding the current vote by clubs on League reconstruction.  There seems to be an idea of a 'Conference' new league between current League 2 and the Highland/Lowland leagues simply to allow the Premier league 'B' teams a place in the system.  Id like to know peoples views as I am NOT in favour of 'B' teams be part of the league, they should set up their own reserve league.  I would prefer a revised system of Three divisions of 16 teams with the highland/lowland league feeding in, I think four small divisions is pretty poor.

It’s pretty difficult to reconstruct a league system when you’ve currently got a dozen divisions all operating different policies.

I think the first step is to standardise these divisions into workable / practical unit sizes. Then apply promotion/relegation rules. 
It’s a massive task, and won’t make many friends.

The ‘B’ or reserve teams are here and we are simply going to have to work with them. These clubs are the units that provide our Sport with its main income. No way am I advocating tail wagging dog or vice versa. The realism is that the vast majority of clubs from tier 2 downwards  are not in a very great financial position. Everyone has to support each other. The synergy gives strength. 
 

Unfortunately we can’t rip everything up and start from a clean sheet. We can’t even agree a common Business Plan across the various leagues. There’s probably  lack of professionalism and specialist skills at Board levels across the associations. 
Personally I start with a reorg of each Board, appoint a Commercial Manager to bring in new funding and sponsorship deals. 
Secure the financial side of the sport then redevelop the leagues as  required.

A good commonly agreed Strategic Plan is required at the bottom levels - not a committee of nodding donkeys. 
The aim has to be positive reconstruction, without money and a plan it could easily become league destruction. 
 

[lithgierose]

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid032K3TrwYNfCyiPGmomA4d2PZLWUebPXJVVA5GLDCDq6PV9fzeKx6f7mtZFGb5LqsTl&id=100091955295184

[maz1974]

Petition · We are urging Scottish clubs to vote against the Conference League proposal at the SFA AGM · Change.org

 

Link to the petition in case you don't have facebook to see it

[grazza]

Premier - 12  teams - fine as it is. Top 2 always dominate but split system is good for fight for euro sports and relegation. 

Championship - 12 teams. Use same split as premier. Play offs  if we are to keep current format as premier teams unlikely budge make them 1 legged  but final gets played at a a neutral venue. 2 automatically relegated.10th team goes into play off

League 1 - 12 teams - same as above 

League 2 - 18 teams- 3 automatic relegation and 15th placed team into play offs 

Highland, Western Lowland, Eastern Lowland  - Champs go up, promotion play offs quarters one leg 2nd v 3rd of each league. 3 winners join 15th team from league 2 in semis 2 legged semi's.  Final is neutral venue.  

B teams into the sea 

Play off final day - Get Hampden / Lesser Hampden - carnival atmosphere,. Like how Elite league does in ice hockey at play off finals weekend.  Could have lot of events going on that the casual football fan would maybe go to even if team not there. 

League 2 final - 12pm - lesser Hampden,

Championship final 2.30pm - Hampden, 

League 1 final 5pm lesser Hampden, 

7.30pm  Premiership final - Hampden

 

 

 

Edited May 8, 2023 by grazza

[Merkie84]

I also think 12 -12 -12 -18 , Highland , Eastern , WOS is a good format. 
 

Prem is fine as it is,as outside the title, as seen this year, lots to play for. 
 

Championship is ridiculously exciting as witnessed this year. Regularly the most exciting leave in Scottish football, so don’t mess about with it too much.  A little extra breathing space for clubs not to drop to league 1 and extra opportunity for the best part time clubs to go up against full time teams. The split means a couple of extra teams to play against and some teams only played 3 times a season so provides a little more variety of fixtures. The 4 times a season fixtures are against closest rivals so the extra fixtures are interesting come end of the season. 
 

League 1 - top part time teams not in the championship. A little bit of prestige to be in that league for teams of that stature. 
 

League 2 - lowest national league. Successful current highland and lowland teams with the current league 2 teams. Could be a good league. Also the increase in size allows for automatic promotion and relegation. 
 

Highland is fine as is and should be interesting in years to come once midland teams start getting licences and promoted. 
 

Due to population, I think lowland league is not the right fit. I can understand why it was initially proposed, but in hindsight, should have just went with East and west.  Disband it, get the B teams in the sea, and put current lowland teams into east and WOS and bump those up to level 5 . 
 

A way to convince current SPFL teams to agree to it could be an amnesty on relegation to tier 5 for 5 years. Increase in the teams in leagues above league 2 will see more  opportunities for promotion from league 2 and from tier 5  . League 2 could slowly increase annually from 10-12-14-16-18 with champions automatically promoted from HFL and LL each season. 

So teams currently in league 2 would have 5 years (or more if promoted to league 1) without having to worry about relegation to tier 5. Plenty of time to get their house in order and time to soften the impact of relegation to that level. If after that they get relegated they can’t have too many complaints. 

[lithgierose]

1 hour ago, Merkie84 said:

I also think 12 -12 -12 -18 , Highland , Eastern , WOS is a good format. 
 

Prem is fine as it is,as outside the title, as seen this year, lots to play for. 
 

Championship is ridiculously exciting as witnessed this year. Regularly the most exciting leave in Scottish football, so don’t mess about with it too much.  A little extra breathing space for clubs not to drop to league 1 and extra opportunity for the best part time clubs to go up against full time teams. The split means a couple of extra teams to play against and some teams only played 3 times a season so provides a little more variety of fixtures. The 4 times a season fixtures are against closest rivals so the extra fixtures are interesting come end of the season. 
 

League 1 - top part time teams not in the championship. A little bit of prestige to be in that league for teams of that stature. 
 

League 2 - lowest national league. Successful current highland and lowland teams with the current league 2 teams. Could be a good league. Also the increase in size allows for automatic promotion and relegation. 
 

Highland is fine as is and should be interesting in years to come once midland teams start getting licences and promoted. 
 

Due to population, I think lowland league is not the right fit. I can understand why it was initially proposed, but in hindsight, should have just went with East and west.  Disband it, get the B teams in the sea, and put current lowland teams into east and WOS and bump those up to level 5 . 
 

A way to convince current SPFL teams to agree to it could be an amnesty on relegation to tier 5 for 5 years. Increase in the teams in leagues above league 2 will see more  opportunities for promotion from league 2 and from tier 5  . League 2 could slowly increase annually from 10-12-14-16-18 with champions automatically promoted from HFL and LL each season. 

So teams currently in league 2 would have 5 years (or more if promoted to league 1) without having to worry about relegation to tier 5. Plenty of time to get their house in order and time to soften the impact of relegation to that level. If after that they get relegated they can’t have too many complaints. 

How many years has the pyramid been in existence? 

[PossilYM]

6 minutes ago, lithgierose said:

How many years has the pyramid been in existence? 

Less than 10 years allowing for Covid.

[ftk]

10-16-16

I would have a top league of 10 teams play each other 4 times. Let Sky have their 4 old firm games.

Below that 2 leagues of 16. Play each other twice, 30 games. 1 up from championship with playoff for 2nd, 3rd and 4th and 2nd bottom of Premiership.

Then revamp the challenge cup to Champions League format to create another 6 games guaranteed. Final played on same day as Scottish Cup Final 12pm ko. (Obviously only if no lower league teams qualify for Scottish Cup final). 

This would mainly keep all the bigger city teams in the top league, best larger town teams in championship, and best part time teams in league 1. 

NO COLT TEAMS ANYWHERE.

 

[Stag Nation]

4 hours ago, Merkie84 said:

Due to population, I think lowland league is not the right fit. I can understand why it was initially proposed, but in hindsight, should have just went with East and west.  Disband it, get the B teams in the sea, and put current lowland teams into east and WOS and bump those up to level 5 . 
 

A way to convince current SPFL teams to agree to it could be an amnesty on relegation to tier 5 for 5 years. Increase in the teams in leagues above league 2 will see more  opportunities for promotion from league 2 and from tier 5  . League 2 could slowly increase annually from 10-12-14-16-18 with champions automatically promoted from HFL and LL each season. 

 

But you disbanded the LL in the previous paragraph.

[Merkie84]

33 minutes ago, Stag Nation said:

But you disbanded the LL in the previous paragraph.

Keep lowland until  league 2 has increased to 18 then go HFL, Eos , WOS

[mick90]

`B` teams are essential throughout the `pyramid` as a means of improving the standard of all players, as well as, essential growth of clubs into the much stronger units Scotland needs. Scottish talent has fallen away sharply over decades, simply because young people cant get decent training and competition .. decline of juniors/non-leagure, with SFA and SPFL also gerrymanderin g the `pyramid` to prevent competition and access ... where Scotland is worst in Europe. I have absolutely no doubt that `reserves` in the main leagues will happen before very long.

Edited May 26, 2023 by mick90

[Spyro]

1 hour ago, mick90 said:

`B` teams are essential throughout the `pyramid` as a means of improving the standard of all players, as well as, essential growth of clubs into the much stronger units Scotland needs. Scottish talent has fallen away sharply over decades, simply because young people cant get decent training and competition .. decline of juniors/non-leagure, with SFA and SPFL also gerrymanderin g the `pyramid` to prevent competition and access ... where Scotland is worst in Europe. I have absolutely no doubt that `reserves` in the main leagues will happen before very long.

He's actually completely lost it now! I really can't tell if this is written in irony or not....

[lithgierose]

12 minutes ago, Spyro said:

He's actually completely lost it now! I really can't tell if this is written in irony or not....

The p***ks p***k is back

[Andy groundhopper]

Maybe a division below spfl2 made up of say 12 HL/LL/WoS clubs who have licenses - but make it a guaranteed 2 up to the spfl. I realise that the bottom 3 clubs could confuse things - say all 3 are Highland clubs, not clever enough to have the answer. 

[Marten]

1 hour ago, Andy groundhopper said:

Maybe a division below spfl2 made up of say 12 HL/LL/WoS clubs who have licenses - but make it a guaranteed 2 up to the spfl. I realise that the bottom 3 clubs could confuse things - say all 3 are Highland clubs, not clever enough to have the answer. 

I don't think any new national division is needed, regionalisation shouldn't start even lower than tier 5.

[G_&_T]

I agree with @Marten. In fact I would take it further and have only the top two divisions of the SPFL on a national level.

I would then have three regional SPFL divisions below that:

Highland, East and West, would probably be the best. By creating more derbies and less travel, this should help boost crowds.

The problem with league reconstruction, though, is that accepting more teams into the SPFL will result in smaller payments. That is a big problem, as most clubs will simply not vote for it. I'm sure I read somewhere that the relegated club from the bottom league gets £60k as a parachute payment, whereas the Highland champions get £5k. 

[Boo Khaki]

If we're going regional, then there should definitely be an Angus Superleague featuring all the wee lower-league clubs in the area, like Forfar, Brechin, Montrose, Dundee United etc

[Cyclizine]

On 29/05/2023 at 15:24, G_&_T said:

I agree with @Marten. In fact I would take it further and have only the top two divisions of the SPFL on a national level.

I would then have three regional SPFL divisions below that:

Highland, East and West, would probably be the best. By creating more derbies and less travel, this should help boost crowds.

The problem with league reconstruction, though, is that accepting more teams into the SPFL will result in smaller payments. That is a big problem, as most clubs will simply not vote for it. I'm sure I read somewhere that the relegated club from the bottom league gets £60k as a parachute payment, whereas the Highland champions get £5k. 

There's no appetite for regionalisation at the third tier. Scotland is a small country and doesn't lend itself particularly well to regionalisation, since most clubs are based at most an hour or two apart in the Central Belt. The arguments about derbies and travel have never shown any actual evidence, if fact someone showed a couple of years ago (I can't find the post) that if you regionalised Leagues 1 and 2 into North/South, as an example, there'd be little to no significant change in travel as you'll still end up with clubs in the peripheries regardless. Clubs in League 1 and 2 aren't clamouring for regionalisation, if they thought it would be financially viable, they'd be pushing for it, but they aren't. The national leagues as they are I personally think are fine. Only the League 2 relegation issue really needs sorted.