Get rid of some teams in Scotland

[A.T.G 10,773]

Thoughts?

 

[bluewhitevanman 1,619]

Absolutely.  all the league1 and 2 teams should be disbanded with immediate effect and they should go junior and have2 top leagues of 12 and the bottom team of the second league could be relegated to the juniors and if it's a team from the east that gets relegated they go in to the east superleague junior and the top team joins the second league and likewise if it's the west team. 

[BlueAvenger 10,240]

C****c for starters....

[Essandoh 21,208]

If it was going to happen it would have happened 20/30 years ago. The ships been sailed and if anything there's going to be even more teams challenging to get in the professional leagues over the next few decades, East Kilbride being one.

[Inigo 32,526]

Depends what you mean by 'get rid of'. 

Perhaps it would be tidier to just make it 2 top divisions and make everything else part of the regional pyramid, seeing as we only have about 20 pro clubs and everything else is little community outfits. Plough all the cash into the top two divisions and let the rest fend for themselves, and if the local communities can support them and push them for promotion to the top divisions, great, if not, then they don't survive.

[Bigsasasfloppyhair 13,310]

Most definitely.

The country is too small to have 4 leagues.

Something like two leagues of 12-14 teams with a 2 up 2 down and play off for 3rd potential move. 

Saying that they would try n kill sevco again in doing this, because they pure don't need rangers!!

[ZZed 4,510]

2 leagues, top one 16 teams 2nd tier 14 teams. 2 up 2 down. 3 points for a win 1 point each for a score draw, 0 points for a no score draw or loss. 

A season that begins in March and ends in November would be good as well.

[A.T.G 10,773]

1 hour ago, Inigo said:

Depends what you mean by 'get rid of'. 

Perhaps it would be tidier to just make it 2 top divisions and make everything else part of the regional pyramid, seeing as we only have about 20 pro clubs and everything else is little community outfits. Plough all the cash into the top two divisions and let the rest fend for themselves, and if the local communities can support them and push them for promotion to the top divisions, great, if not, then they don't survive.

This, attendances of 400 at some games and then 2000 home fans at Hamilton, these other teams are killing us

[A.T.G 10,773]

18 minutes ago, ZZed said:

2 leagues, top one 16 teams 2nd tier 14 teams. 2 up 2 down. 3 points for a win 1 point each for a score draw, 0 points for a no score draw or loss. 

A season that begins in March and ends in November would be good as well.

I read somewhere we're the most northern league in Europe who play August to May seasons

[AlCapone 7,678]

4 hours ago, A.T.G said:

Thoughts?

 

Why?

[RangersMedia 35,961]

I don't think we need to get rid of them as such - some of these teams have been going just as long as we have and have their own histories, stories, etc - however there should be a full time professional league system, then a pyramid system for the part time teams. Money should be focused towards the professional league. 

Something like a:

12 team Full Time Premier League
12 team Full Time Championship
12 team Part Time National Conference North & 12 team Part Time National Conference South
Then the more regional league pyramids. 

Such a system would probably allow for more regional cup competition as well at a lower level, where teams might have a chance of winning.

To make the changes needed we need the Turkeys to vote for Xmas though. 

[BridgeIsBlue 66,606]

2 leagues of 20.

Tell Sky to stick their TV money.

[Terry Hurlock Loyal 12,133]

3 hours ago, A.T.G said:

I read somewhere we're the most northern league in Europe who play August to May seasons

Our maritime weather is more suitable at this latitude than continental Europe.

[harlands plater 16,975]

Been saying that for years, far too many clubs for the population. 

[Stoorie 1,088]

4 hours ago, Badger said:

I don't think we need to get rid of them as such - some of these teams have been going just as long as we have and have their own histories, stories, etc - however there should be a full time professional league system, then a pyramid system for the part time teams. Money should be focused towards the professional league. 

Something like a:

12 team Full Time Premier League
12 team Full Time Championship
12 team Part Time National Conference North & 12 team Part Time National Conference South
Then the more regional league pyramids. 

Such a system would probably allow for more regional cup competition as well at a lower level, where teams might have a chance of winning.

To make the changes needed we need the Turkeys to vote for Xmas though. 

That would be the ideal set up there Badger, but without doing any research into who are full time with a fan base that could sustain it, or part time clubs who could possibly step up to full time, who gets to decide who goes where?

It certainly won't be our current incumbents at the top.

They can't even decide if a TV deal is good or bad for the lower clubs. They don't care about Scottish footballs lower end. 

 

[Domthenbud 899]

It's far too easy to say "get rid".  It is probable most of the fan base of these clubs are as fanatical about their club as we are to ours. Their team is a huge part of their lives, as it is with us. I agree something needs done. Haven't thought about it much so can't offer a remedy, although some sort of summer footie might increase attendances. My point is if my team was " got rid of" I would be distraught. They DID try and I was. So we must think very deeply about the respective fan bases, as team supporters, before any drastic action, or just thoughts, is taken to their team.

[Guest]

Definitely. 

Most lower league teams are stagnant at best. Leaching off bigger clubs without a hope of winning anything ever and even of they did they wouldn't try.

They're dragging the whole game down in this country. Force them to amalgamate or let them rot.

No point in in the national game suffering because of teams with 200 fans and no desire apart from to scrape by simply existing

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Domthenbud said:

It's far too easy to say "get rid".  It is probable most of the fan base of these clubs are as fanatical about their club as we are to ours. Their team is a huge part of their lives, as it is with us. I agree something needs done. Haven't thought about it much so can't offer a remedy, although some sort of summer footie might increase attendances. My point is if my team was " got rid of" I would be distraught. They DID try and I was. So we must think very deeply about the respective fan bases, as team supporters, before any drastic action, or just thoughts, is taken to their team.

Just because a small group are fanatical doesn't mean the system is sustainable

[Domthenbud 899]

23 minutes ago, Willis said:

Just because a small group are fanatical doesn't mean the system is sustainable

Cannot disagree. However these same fans might argue that their individual clubs are sustainable. My main point is that people are the lifeblood of the game, esp in Scotland, where access to media/marketing money is limited. Fans need and deserve to be part of the equation.

[RangersMedia 35,961]

The system isn't sustainable, but as said these teams have their own histories and fans that love the team just as much as we love Rangers. 

We don't need to get rid of them as such, but structure the league in such a way that we have less professional clubs. These wee teams can still exist within the football pyramid, but not as professional teams and any team in the professional set up would have to maintain ambition and standards to remain within the professional set up. A team not within the professional set up, but with any ambition or investment the pyramid will allow them to be promoted into the professional set up. 

Premier League
|
Championship
/   \
Conference North   Conference South
/  |  \                        /  |  \
North - N.East - Fife/Central   West - East - South

Focus the money and energy into the Professional set up (Premier League/Championship), and let the semi professional set up live within their means. 

Allow professional teams that meet specific criteria, with regards to youth set up and finances, to be allowed to enter 'B' teams into the Conference levels.

[AlCapone 7,678]

Can someone actually explain how getting rid of clubs will make the game better? It really is a piss poor lazy argument.

[Domthenbud 899]

2 minutes ago, AlCapone said:

Can someone actually explain how getting rid of clubs will make the game better? It really is a piss poor lazy argument.

I agree. Lose the club, lose the fans whether it be 100, 200 or 1000. Fan bases live for their clubs.

[AlCapone 7,678]

Just now, Domthenbud said:

I agree. Lose the club, lose the fans whether it be 100, 200 or 1000. Fan bases live for their clubs.

Spot on, let's make the game better by driving away fans. I believe the bottom 20 clubs take around £1 million from the central pot of funds between them. If they disappeared then that would mean the top division would generate an extra £80k a year each....... that will frighten the shit out of barcelona. 

[RangersMedia 35,961]

£80,000 would be a lot to a club like Queen of the South or Morton. That pays, for example, for 3x full time youth coaches - that in turn helps the standard of player coming through.

It's about driving up the standard. It would take well over a decade, but in order to get any momentum you need to start a wheel turning.

I fail to see how by focussing more money to the top, towards the clubs with ambition and prepared to invest in infrastruture, wouldn't slowly help the standard of the game in Scotland - the current set up offers little penalty for a lack of ambition or mediocrity. You couldn't even be relegated out of division 3 until recently.

I'm fairly sure we have more professional clubs per capita than any major footballing country in the world.  England has 1 pro club per 600k people, Germany 1 per 1.4m, Holland 1 per 300k, Scotland 1 per 120k people.

We don't have much jam, and we're spreading it very thinly over a lot of bread - the reason we do this appears historical and ultimately based on a model that worked in a completely different era many decades ago. We can't even change it such is the way votes are structured.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Domthenbud said:

Cannot disagree. However these same fans might argue that their individual clubs are sustainable. My main point is that people are the lifeblood of the game, esp in Scotland, where access to media/marketing money is limited. Fans need and deserve to be part of the equation.

We need to focus on the game as a whole, we're falling further ans further behind the rest just to help some diddy teams. 

They're not sustainable they're stagnant at best as I said, the club's stay alive because money leaks down they'd be out of business otherwise.

Teams like Peterhead etc have no place in the professional set up it just embarrasses all of Scottish football.

If these fans are the lifeblood they should invest in their teams and run them properly instead of expecting expecting a handout just to scrape by another year holding everyone back.

We went down the leagues and all it did was save some clubs from dying none of them have prospered because they don't have the fan base to keep them going.

It makes zero sense having teams with 250 fans in the same set up as the SPFL they should send the third division teams and the bottom half of the second division to the junior leagues where they belong