(not quoting the whole thing just so I don't take up too much space) I get your point, and I've looked at this before. I actually had written more to reply to this point in the first place but didn't post it in the end (was taking too much time!). You could make a franchise league with the following teams: Rangers Celtic Hearts Hibs Aberdeen Dundee Stirlingshire/Perth Fife Ayrshire Renfrewshire Highlands Greater Glasgow Or something like that. It would make a big team out of all the smaller teams in a specific area with the idea of creating a Scottish Super League akin to the set-up of MLS or A-League. The problem is, who's going to be interested? What makes it an interesting competition? What would make people want to become fans of each club? Who would want to watch it on TV? I don't see 12-12-18 as a stop gap to just one bigger league, I see it as a way of helping to create a greater number of stable full-time clubs. And once that happens there can be a bigger top league because relegation wouldn't mean financial doom. If you want a 16 team top league then you need about 25 teams that can properly compete to be in that league, otherwise it becomes a closed shop. Scottish football is in such bad condition that we need to run the risk of killing what we have in pursuit of having more clubs that are slightly closer to the OF. It's not the problem of travelling the distances, it's what those clubs get out of local rivalry. A Fife v Ayrshire match or a Dundee City v Highlands match aren't going to be the draw of a Fife, Dundee, Highland or Ayrshire derby match. I think you miss the basic point: apart from Rangers and Celtic, we essentially are a regional league. There's nothing to be gained out of trying to make a single top league with merged clubs. There aren't a small number of traditionalists holding Scottish football back; these fans are the only people holding the whole thing together! The casual fans are interested in Rangers, Celtic or English/Spanish/CL football. You're not going to turn heads in Fife by making a team called the Fife Flyers. I just can't see how it could be a workable idea.
I think we are actually both closer on a consensus on this subject that either may wish to admit. The thing is, with a franchise set up model (which is what you described and I did a crap job in doing so with the Fife example) in that it is workable, it is sustainable (given the size of Scotland) and even if fan turnout is low initially this can be gradually won over, because football will always be the preferred sport of choice. I wholeheartedly agree that it is the fans that do hold football together, but in it's current guise and with TV such a prominant option of watching better quality elsewhere is what is contributing to killing the game.The current set up is ailing and failing badly, and i can't be ignored. No question it would be a ballsy move to make, and potentially a risky one also, but it has demonstrably worked elsewhere. The only other feasible way I can think of helping to improve the atate of affairs would be a shift to summer football. This way Scottish football can: avoid the shadow of the EPL - at least for a few months Engage with the better weather can capitalize on tourism Sky (or whoever) have a football product to sell to all year long. Which in turn leads to being able to negotiate better TV deals Potential to help more clubs qualify for Europe Better weather could see more casual fans taking in a game as a day out - simply, the prospect of sitting in the sunshine than in the cold of winter may be more enticing to bringing casual fans to grounds Avoids the worst weather so fixtures don't get piled up due to frozen pitches etc The pitches themselves are not completely chewed up. Can even take a 2 week break in July, to co-incide with group stages of WC/Euros. The only club atm that is realistically going to be effected by this last point in terms of playing squad availability is Celtic (and eventually when R*ngers get back to the top tier), which could easily cope with the absence of a couple of players, just as they do when the African Cup of Nations or the Asian Cup is on. If Scotland actually did manage to qualify for a major tournament then perhaps a couple of other clubs might likewise be effected, and I'm sure there would be the option to expand that summer window to 4 weeks to accomodate the nation following the national team. That said, Scotland have not qualified since the SPL came into being in 1998. If summer football helped change the fortunes of the national team and saw them qualifying then this is another plus to be added to the above list.
I don't think the franchise set-up is a good move. The market is already taken up by the EPL, and to a lesser extent, CL and Spanish football. Sky know that most people will subscribe for that alone. It might help to consolidate the little that the clubs get through TV money, sponsorship etc, but I think you run the risk of losing the local rivalries and excitment of competition that provides the big attraction for Scottish football fans. I think a 10-16-16 model would be the best way forward, with the long term aim being 16-16-regional. Having strong rivalries between clubs like Ayr and Killie, Morton and St. Mirren, Dundee and Dundee Utd etc, and having competition for league titles, rel/pro and euro places are the things which are going to improve Scottish football. Build up the core fanbases and their passion for their clubs, and build upon the small market rather than instantly trying to create a bigger market where there isn't one (I believe merging of clubs would simply lead to a lack of interest from the hardcore, and the rest wouldn't have their heads turned from the EPL). 10-16-16 would strengthen the 2nd tier and lessen the fear of relegation. It's similar to the 8-8-8, but essentially a 10-8-8 (with a split in the 2nd tier). There would need to be plenty of rel/pro places to keep the 2nd tier being exciting. But the positive aspect of that is being between an exciting 2nd tier and a top tier which is far more prestigious just to be in.In the 90s Dundee Utd and Hibs both played in the 2nd tier, and Motherwell and Aberdeen should have. This was great for the first division and great for those clubs (especially Hibs). I'm not a big fan of the idea of summer football. But I do think that the league season should run from mid-July to the end of May (with play-offs in early June). Have a winter break in pre-xmas December, and finish that first part of the season with the League Cup final. I would also like the OF to move elsewhere. From a footballing point of view we're in between a rock and a hard place. The OF bring in money, because most people decide (for whatever reasons) to support the big 2. This takes fans and potential customers away from club all over the country, but at least brings in some money (for the top flight at least, Rangers and Celtic have meant nothing to Morton for 25 years). But the real downside is that it takes a away competition. it's clear that 2nd place in the SPL is no prize, but imagine the excitment of the SPL clubs if they were all going for the title this season! What I would love is for the top 2 leagues to look something like this in about 15 years time (in no particular order): Top tier: Hibs Hearts Killie Motherwell Aberdeen ICT Ross County St Johnstone Dundee Dundee Utd St Mirren Morton --------------- Partick Thistle Falkirk ---------------- Dunfermline Hamilton 2nd tier: Ayr Livingston ---------------- Raith Rovers Airdrie Utd Dumbarton QotS ---------------- East Kilbride Irvine Meadow Arbroath East Fife Cowdenbeath Brechin ----------------- Clydebank Clyde ------------------ Linthithgow Rose Stirling Albion
^I have looked pretty closely at the youth squads and in 2027/2028 there is no way St. Johnstone finishes below Ross County. I am not sure about the OF leaving Scotland and leaving them with a better league. I think they already sap away fans from the rest of the teams in Scotland and that only becomes a bigger factor (I think) if the perception grows from "they are the two biggest clubs" to "they are the two biggest clubs and they play in a bigger/better league against bigger and better teams." I don't think anyone knows for sure what is the best league structure and the discussion seems to be very fractured and fracturing. Really, what the Scottish game needs is for some club to emerge and win stuff consistently and win back the fans that have leaked out to the OF. A club in that Aberdeen/Hibs/Hearts/Dundee Utd. size that somehow finds a way to challenge/win the SPL and when they get to Europe actually have some level of success. That might seem pretty obvious but it is the one thing that would bring back some real interest and stem the "two clubs in Scotland" mentality. The club would need to have the money to invest in squad and facilities (that is key, because when you get to Europe you really want to reap the financial gains.....Hearts v Spurs draws far more interest than Tyncastle can hold). Does it take a new league structure to get there? I don't know. Can you get there without the OF? I don't know.
You'd need a mega rich foreign investor. Someone with a more reliable cash flow than Romanov. The problem is, Celtic and Rangers are the closest thing to franchise clubs that we have. Green Monster noted the small distances that you would need to travel to support a 'Fife Flyers' (side note: we should have some sort of competition for the best fictional team names), but the distances needed to be a Rangers or Celtic fan in Fife aren't that great either. And they aren't much different (smaller in many cases) to the travelling distances for fans in the US or Australia. Even without the travelling distances, many fans are content to buy some merchandise and watch games on TV. In a sense we already have 2 franchise clubs that have the vast majority of the market in Scotland (a market that is already squeezed by the EPL). I get you're point that removing to OF, to the English league set-up or to a European type league, would create even bigger clubs out of Rangers and Celtic. But I don't think that it would make much difference; there is already the divide between Rangers/Celtic and the 'local teams'. If anything this would make the line that divides the 2 cleaner. I suppose it comes from my perspective as a Morton fan. The Old Firm have been irrelevant to us for years, they are already the big teams in another league. Morton will always attract fans because we are the alternative to the big clubs. I think it would help clubs like Motherwell, Aberdeen, Hreats etc because they will be a clearer alternative with more to play for. The more going on with the reconstruction of Scottish football than that though. Too many of the clubs that have been in the SPL over the last 10-15 years (who expected far greater income after the boom of the late 90s, but the TV money went to England) now have deep financial problems. And as Dunfermline know all too well right now, relegation is a financial catastrophe. With more money coming the way of the 2nd tier, this will help many clubs continue with a full-time playing staff.
SFL chief executive, David Longmuir, wants Old Firm 'colt teams' in the SFL. This was also part of his plans when they proposed the 16-10-18 set-up last year. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21763900 There will be no support for this among fans of any other team. Interesting that he thinks that there's a good chance of the OF leaving the Scottish league system in the future though.
Don't think there is any real surprise in this move. There is precedent in Spain, where the likes of Real & Barca have sides playing in the lower divisions. So far as Longmuir is oncerned he would see the 'Colt' sides there with the potentail to bring a few more folk along to SFL games - and ob viouosly since the reserve league went out of existence there is precious little football to be played beyond the u/age divisons, where these youngsters can develop against better opposition. It's no great surprise that both sides of the Glasgw divide have been searching for an escape hatch for quite some time. If it was really that close or if RFC were liquidated last year then they could have applied to any league in the world effectively - including starting way down at the bottom in England (whatever is so many tiers below where the Conference is), but they didn't consider it viable so applied to get the old clubs' SPL share, which was erejected, sent to the SFL, sent to Div 3 - and they are lucky that is as far as they had to climb from. There are Junior clubs out there that have aspirations to join the SFL but have been knocked back as it is a closed shop and only on occasions such as what happened last year or when Gretna went tits up where a viod is created that they can consider options regarding including new clubs. There is no real place to go jut yet - and mak my words, if there is it will be to become a partner in an 'Atlantic League' or some other type of spin off rebel league, in which they are a founding member with an equal say, because there is no way that they will continue to jump through the hoops (pardon the pun) of the powers that be in whatever established league there may be, because even if they did allow them to join there would be a tonne of added conditions and concessions which the Glasgow clubs would be obliged to agree to, which, if they had any business sense they would tell whoever was offering them those terms to stick it in their pipe and smoke it. Certainly at Parkhead side anyhow... the old regime at Ipox may've been more receptive though. But I digress... The only other alternative is when the bubble of the EPL finally does burst and there will be a lot of bumhurt clubs down south, because that is what will inevitably be what happens, and then and only then if Sky are desperate enough to have a product to sell and promote then Sky might try to foce the EPL's hand to offer the Gladsgow clubs a chance to join... but again, revert to my earliee point. In the highly unlikely senario I just described evenuating, the condiions and concessions CFC & Sevco would need to make would be just ridiculous. Anyhow, as Longmuir gleans into his magic 8 Ball to predixt the future of Scottish Football sans CFC & Sevco, having the Colt teams remain in Scotland is his insurance policy that there will still a couple of teats left for milking.
this will help http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/scotland/27416968 not sure if this is right place but worthy of discussion
It's a nice idea. As mentioned in the article there must be quite a few people who have looked upon it like that and then bought one as a donation more than anything else. Question is... is it sustainable or is it an advertising gimmick that people are noticing now but may not so next season and so on.
indeed the novelty might wear off at Albion but maybe other clubs might follow suit (Hearts) - see what I did there any effort by the industry to bring the game back to it's roots is a good thing imho
For sure. Couldn't agree more. Certainly hope it takes off. Even if it doesn't it has at least helped Albion Rovers in the short term.