League Reconstruction

[wokinginashearerwonderland]

On 02/04/2025 at 15:45, OrlandoDon said:

Means little but I’d love to see a 16 team league playing each other twice, two relegated and 3rd bottom in a playoff. It’s so stale playing the same teams x number of times a year. I don’t like the product.
30 league games allows for an autumn league cup as we have, I like the format, plus it means the league is not as congested. We play way too much with cups, Europe, internationals etc. quantity over quality at present.

also means little, but if we care about the future of Scottish football a 16 team league allows for the odd game to play some youth, not totally meaningless games.

would also like to see the old firm gtf and play elsewhere. Nobody else has the money, fan base, and global appeal that I think ridding ourselves of the ugly sisters would help our league. Would be much more open and interesting.

I might be in the minority but I like our current league of 12.  38 games for a season seems about right and I think the split works very well and have never understood the argument by people who think otherwise.  This season is maybe slightly different but usually when the league splits everyone has something to play for.  If you are say 10th at the split, you get the opportunity to play those around you rather than having to play less winnable games against those higher up the league.  Those in the top six are normally battling each other for Europe so you can get some competitive last games and theoretically the top couple should be battling for the title.

The main issue is of course that unless something massively changes, we are unlikely to have a new title winner any time soon but a bigger league would make no difference to that.  Personally, I don't think playing Motherwell and Hibs twice instead of four times and replacing that with two games each against Falkirk and Ayr United would make the league any better at all.  As for the idea of playing young players, that is totally counterproductive because that in itself creates meaningless games if no one is particularly bothered about the result other than giving a few young guys a run out.

21 hours ago, tlg1903 said:

Whilst the ugly sisters are in the mix a 16, or bigger, team league will never happen.  

Pains me to say it but we need them.  The TV deal would not happen without them and the other clubs need them to boost revenue when they host them.  Distribution of TV and prize money more fairly is the best solution to making our game more competitive.  You are starting to see it happen in England.  For years the big clubs nicked players from the smaller ones because the smaller clubs had to sell.  Nowadays the smaller EPL clubs get millions from the TV deals, the disparity between top and middle tier clubs is less therefore you are seeing clubs like Forest, Villa and Brighton shake up the natural order. 

The other option to making a more competitive league would be to have a compulsory amount of Scottish players in the starting line up.  If you stated that six players in each side had to be Scottish, you would instantly cut the gap between the top two clubs and the rest.  Of course it will never happen.

 

[DantheDon]

2 hours ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

The other option to making a more competitive league would be to have a compulsory amount of Scottish players in the starting line up.  If you stated that six players in each side had to be Scottish, you would instantly cut the gap between the top two clubs and the rest.  Of course it will never happen.

You make some good points, but I disagree with this one. What would happen is that the old firm would buy up all the decent Scottish talent and sign anyone half decent on pre-contracts. They already do to some extent (see Conner Barron, Lyall Cameron etc). The only thing this would do is force teams like ourselves to blood young players whether they are ready or not actually weakening us. Add to this the real problem that most Scottish teams are having retaining there best youngsters due to clubs down south poaching them and I could only see this widening the gap between us and the old firm. 

[wokinginashearerwonderland]

46 minutes ago, DantheDon said:

You make some good points, but I disagree with this one. What would happen is that the old firm would buy up all the decent Scottish talent and sign anyone half decent on pre-contracts. They already do to some extent (see Conner Barron, Lyall Cameron etc). The only thing this would do is force teams like ourselves to blood young players whether they are ready or not actually weakening us. Add to this the real problem that most Scottish teams are having retaining there best youngsters due to clubs down south poaching them and I could only see this widening the gap between us and the old firm. 

I see the abolition of the three foreigner rule as the point at which our league started to become ridiculously uncompetitive as far as the title is concerned.  Historically the old firm always bought up the best players from the other scottish clubs and that will always happen, Dundee are never going to be able to hold onto a player that Rangers want to sign but the gap between the glasgow clubs and the rest was never un-bridgeable like it is now.  

[RicoS321]

2 hours ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

I see the abolition of the three foreigner rule as the point at which our league started to become ridiculously uncompetitive as far as the title is concerned.  Historically the old firm always bought up the best players from the other scottish clubs and that will always happen, Dundee are never going to be able to hold onto a player that Rangers want to sign but the gap between the glasgow clubs and the rest was never un-bridgeable like it is now.  

I mean, that had something to do with it, but the £20+ million windfall for entry into Europe was certainly more significant. The wage bill went from being twice as big, to between 6 and 8 times as big. Although I liked the three foreigner rule, and would be happy for it to return.