The Scottish Premiership Restructure Proposal: a Broken Solution | OneFootball

The SPFL has announced plans to restructure the Premiership and one proposal is so bad that supporters thought it was an April Fool’s Day joke.

The current structure

The Scottish Premiership has followed a 12-team structure since the start of the century. Teams face off against each other three times before the league splits in half. The top six teams then play each other once more and so do the bottom six teams.

The obvious flaw with this format is having to play the same team up to four times in a league season. With the possibility of meeting them twice more in the cup competitions, it really is overkill.

However, having Celtic and Rangers clash at least four times a season is important to Sky Sports, the Premiership’s main UK broadcaster. They have made it clear from their fixture selections over the years that the Glasgow heavyweights are far more important to them than other Scottish clubs.

The 10-team format

The proposed league format to have dominated most of the headlines is the 10-team Premiership. The reason for this is because it’s absolute garbage and that’s me being generous!

It’s like changing a cracked lightbulb with one which is already blown, yet expecting to receive light from it.

Firstly, it has been put forward to ease fixture congestion, but teams will only play two fewer matches anyway. Cutting a couple of games may help a little, but it won’t help a lot in the grand scheme of things.

Plus, Celtic and Rangers are the main teams being helped here as they’re the ones competing in Europe, usually with one other Scottish team in the UEFA Conference League.

Yet, they have far greater budgets than their domestic competitors. If the Glasgow duo have to field weakened teams in some league fixtures to rest players, then so be it, their players are still worth more.

The second issue

Secondly, it worsens what most supporters see as the league’s biggest problem. Instead of having to play some teams four times, every team would play against each other four times.

This may keep the nation’s biggest derby a regular fixture, but let’s be honest, if Livingston get promoted, no one wants to have to play them four times. No supporters and a plastic pitch, they’re one of the worst away days you’ll experience.

The extended league

A 14 and 16-team top flight are also being considered and these are certainly more popular with supporters.

With Queen’s Park defeating Rangers in the Scottish Cup this season and Falkirk causing Celtic a scare in the League Cup quarter-final before a few late goals, there is evidence to suggest the gap in quality between the Premiership and Championship is not an issue.

However, a 14-team league would cause problems after the split because teams in the bottom half would likely have to play more matches than the top half teams.

Distributing finances is another issue which could cause problems with an extended league, while having 16 teams would mean fewer Glasgow derbies, which could anger Sky Sports.

Conclusion

Every solution comes with its own problem, but if the SPFL is to change the structure of the league, it has to get bigger, not smaller. It would mean more fixtures against different teams and will get more Scottish youngsters playing at a higher level.

Keeping the current format is also an option and while it’s not perfect either, it’s no worse than the 10-team proposal.