Is this the best time for SPFL to push for an 18 team top league???

[Sket 13,610]

St Johnny?

 

 

Fuck off. 

[glasgow argyle 1,093]

no chance of 18 team league, for reasons previously mentioned, above.

i have always wanted a 14 team league,  any more is not competitive enough.

i would still have split for the top 6 which gives top 6 a total of 36 games. 

giving the bigger clubs more chance in Europe and providing players for International teams.

the bottom 8 would actually play a total of 40 games giving increased revenue. 

i would have 2 up and 2 down helping to avoid meaningless end of season games.

also a one off play off between team no.12 in top league v team no.3 in division below.

its all about opinions

.

 

[Corky True Legend 2,682]

47 minutes ago, reallyruff said:

Whether there are enough quality teams isn't the issue (I believe the championship this season has amply demonstrated that there are), the issue is whether an expanded league is financially sustainable. Fewer old firm games, fewer visits from the old firm for each team and even, dare I say it,  disinterest from our own fanbase in seeing the Ayr's and Raith's as opposed to another Sheep or Hearts game. The impact on TV audiences would also be hurtful and consequently damage the TV deal.

It would only be financially sustainable if the money was shared out on a different basis. Both Rangers and C****c either have to give up money or the competition will never improve. I can remember when Dundee, Hearts Aberdeen and Kilmarnock had a seriou chance of winning the league on a regular basis. In these days, all gate money was split 50/50.

[Johnstone Burgh 1,642]

We should have at least a 16 team league, 2 divisions then the rest regional with a fully open pyramid system. Won't ever happen but the way Scottish football is right now is absolutely brutal, change is certainly required. 

[110 steps 282]

The TV money is all about the Rangers!

[Da Kool Blue 139]

3 hours ago, Jimbeamjunior said:

nope, never happen, 18 team league potentially has 10 teams all with heehaw to play for by end of january, no chance the fans will go watch that shite and TV wont exactly pay money to screen glorified friendlies

That's always going to be the case in Scottish football regardless of the number of teams in the league, you could have 8 teams and there would still be meaningless games. 

[Brubear 2,927]

3 hours ago, Jimbeamjunior said:

nope, never happen, 18 team league potentially has 10 teams all with heehaw to play for by end of january, no chance the fans will go watch that shite and TV wont exactly pay money to screen glorified friendlies

I am old enough to remember when the league had 18 teams before and as you say too many meaningless games after new year. That is exactly why the 12 and 10 team league format was introduced. Also TV will not want to give up on 4 OF games per season. The only positive back then was that OF games had more meaning due to being less common.

[SeparateEntityMyArse 53,815]

Sportingintegritymyarse 

[KingKirk 25,695]

watch it happen if hibs fail to get promotion

[j1mgg 3,766]

16 team with 1st and 2nd getting Europe, 3,4,5,6 playoff for this euro spot

 

15, 16 relegated, 11,12,13,14 go into a playoff for relegation.

[Bellshill_Bear 1,105]

Never want an 18 league now. It is my preference but in order to contain sporting integrity I don't want to give any other clubs a way up that wouldn't have been there in the first place.

call it spiteful 

[1NachoNovo 840]

It doesn't really matter what corrupt shite they come up with now. Whatever structure it is, we will be at the top of it anyway and the rest will still be hating.

55 is coming soon and it will be sweet as fuck, regardless of what shite they try 

It must be killing them knowing they are back in the shadows fighting for the scraps 

[GrandSuckMaster 1,775]

3 hours ago, Marky. said:

I think playing the tims 4 times in one season is the absolute main reason the league gets as much money as it does.

Drop that to two and the interest is lost even more-so than it currently is.

lol, pretending you haven't read the other posts then making the same pint, typical Marky. "RMs Official Scout" made me laugh out loud.

[siddiqi_drinker 14,635]

Two leagues of 16 and one of 10 would cover the 42 (if my math is correct) teams in the SPFL

Keep a similar play off structure as in place at the moment.

Teams founded on sectarian values start each season with a 9 point penalty, that should make the three plastic paddy sides even more paranoid.

[Strathaven_Loyal 125]

Maybe a 16 team league. Play every team twice and still keep the split, meaning 37 games. That wouldn't be such an issue with Sky as there'd only be one less Old Firm than there is now (provided we both finish top half obviously). The only issue would be deciding who gets to play at home twice as I'm sure neither us or them would want to concede that. Could have the bottom 2 automatically relegated with the 14th placed team playing off against 3rd in the championship. I kind of liked the idea of a play off between 3rd and 6th place for the Europa League spot as well, but the more I think about it it would be messy due to the place given to the Scottish Cup winners. It would mean probably having to schedule the games in for after the cup final and with the European qualifiers happening in July the teams playing for it really wouldn't get much of a summer break. 

[TMB 14,167]

5 hours ago, RyanMac said:

I'd rather go down the route of getting rid of clubs from the top level game, a country our size can't sustain the amount of teams we have. It would be better to cut the pool and concentrate on the teams left, bigger slice of the same pie. 

 

[Poetry_In_Blue 1,043]

I was wondering if the OP was actually Thompson!

Anyway it's a NO from me I hope these teams that get relegated (like Dundee Utd) stay down for a long time and teams like Raith that are already down stay down for a long time.

If I had a choice of teams going up or staying down I would prefer Kilmarnock to stay up and the other rot in hell, even though Kilmarnock didn't actually vote for us to stay up they abstained from voting not that it made any difference with all those other shitty clubs voting us down.

[WilliamFyfe 1,438]

I'd rather see a bigger league so we play the teams less

Id rather see one home and away game. 

[Bristoe1872 2,563]

8 hours ago, THE_MIGHTY_BEARS said:

An 18 or 20 team league would be great for Rangers and Scottish football in the long-term.  If it's the best thing for everyone then it should be welcomed by everyone.  Fighting against it because you don't want to see Hibs gain any sort of short-term benefit is a sad positon to take and we really need to move on from that.  For Scottish football to recover we need all the big teams back in the same league with 20 teams to avoid repition.  If we can then renegotiate the TV deal from Sky and spread the wealth around our game will start to benefit, and so will we.

Absolutely not. In the interests of "sporting integrity" Scumdee Hibs and Hivs the club that vanished for a year but still claims a SC won by the old Hivs must come up by merit. I can't speak for all Rangers fans but I cannot see to many supporting either of those scummy clubs getting a helping hand. And personally I hope they both rot in the lower leagues for years. These are clubs who's support would have rather have their own clubs go bust than vote for us. Fu*k them. And I can't understand ANY Ger who would propose bailing them out.

[K.A.I 36,183]

I'd rather have 2x divisions of 20

SPL 1 and SPL 2 if you want.

It's OK saying there will be a lot of meaningless games - but you get that anyway!

Think of the incentive for the second league to maybe get their act together and get to the top league.

The obvious problem is the other teams in the top flight sacrificing an additional 4 Old Firm league games in total. Which they won't do if they don't have to.

 

 

[RFC55 109,207]

The current system is baws tbh.

We've played hibs around 14 times in 2 seasons. That's fucking madness.

3iar season we played the taigs 7 times. We need a freshness as the current setup is shit.

In Holland they play 34 games. Top 2 win the league and get CL qualification and 3rd and 4th Europa.  The next 4 then play off for the last remaining place.

They have 2 teams straight down and again the next bottom side enter a playoff with teams from the lower league.

Better than this shite of playing the same team 7 times if you've got a cup replay 

[RFC55 109,207]

1 hour ago, K.A.I said:

I'd rather have 2x divisions of 20

SPL 1 and SPL 2 if you want.

It's OK saying there will be a lot of meaningless games - but you get that anyway!

Think of the incentive for the second league to maybe get their act together and get to the top league.

The obvious problem is the other teams in the top flight sacrificing an additional 4 Old Firm league games in total. Which they won't do if they don't have to.

 

 

There's been no league games against them for 4 year now. I'd a thought any real desire for change would've came before now sadly.

The guys in charge ain't brave enough to think outside the box.  Theyve got the 4 games back and it's the only way they know how to sell it 

[glasgow argyle 1,093]

10 hours ago, Strathaven_Loyal said:

Maybe a 16 team league. Play every team twice and still keep the split, meaning 37 games. That wouldn't be such an issue with Sky as there'd only be one less Old Firm than there is now (provided we both finish top half obviously). The only issue would be deciding who gets to play at home twice as I'm sure neither us or them would want to concede that. Could have the bottom 2 automatically relegated with the 14th placed team playing off against 3rd in the championship. I kind of liked the idea of a play off between 3rd and 6th place for the Europa League spot as well, but the more I think about it it would be messy due to the place given to the Scottish Cup winners. It would mean probably having to schedule the games in for after the cup final and with the European qualifiers happening in July the teams playing for it really wouldn't get much of a summer break. 

anything which gives an imbalance of fixtures is totally wrong I.M.O.

as you point out, what if we are level pegging with State Aid F.C. just before the split, and the 3rd O.F. game is "awarded" to Porkheid, would we be happy? of course we would not.

we had this before with "oh we had an extra game away at Pittodrie" etc. during previous splits

so this scenario should never be allowed to happen again.

any split must have the same number of games home and away

[Sam English Loyal 945]

Top division of 18 clubs worked well enough for donkey's years. Always going to be meaningless games. The English seem to do alright with their 20 team top division. 

There is the exact same debate about the NI league. Except it's not a debate because every supporter in the country wants to go back to a 16 strong league. 

[DeanMK 4,670]

If they spent as much time nurturing young Scottish talent as they did at proposing new league structures our game wouldn't be in as a bad a state as it is now. I'm glad we're taking the steps towards having a good youth academy. Hopefully other clubs take notice and start producing some money making footballers. Although Dundee United will probably just sell all theirs to Celtic again.