With Falkirk's continuing promotion bid reaching un-paralleled levels of boredom, this Scottish Football fan thinks it’s about time the game in this country got a major over-haul. Below are the details of how he thinks it should be done...
Essentially the proposal is for a 16:16:10 configuration with a feeder leagues to enable movement into Division Two. The argument is set out below.
Premier | First Division | Second Division | Feeders |
ABERDEEN | ST. MIRREN | STRANRAER | |
CELTIC |
| ALBION ROVERS | Highland League |
DUNDEE UTD | QUEEN OF THE SOUTH | COWDENBEATH | East of Scotland (2 divisions) |
DUNDEE | AYR UTD | PETERHEAD | South of Scotland |
RANGERS | ALLOA ATHLETIC | STIRLING ALBION | Junior Leagues (6 regions) |
MOTHERWELL | ARBROATH | GRETNA | |
LIVINGSTON | RAITH ROVERS | MONTROSE | |
PARTICK THISTLE | BRECHIN CITY | QUEENS PARK | |
HIBERNIAN | AIRDRIE | ELGIN CITY | |
HEARTS | FORFAR ATHLETIC | EAST STIRLINGSHIRE | |
KILMARNOCK | DUMBARTON | ||
DUNFERMLINE ATH | STENHOUSEMUIR | ||
FALKIRK | BERWICK | ||
CLYDE | HAMILTON ACCIES | ||
ST. JOHNSTONE | GREENORK MORTON | ||
INVERNESS C.T | EAST FIFE |
Two top leagues of sixteen giving thirty league games a season. This would allow for a less congested fixture list. We would have more time to prepare for Scotland Internationals. More time to help teams competing in UEFA competitions and more time for domestic Cup programmes. Division 2 would essentially be the same as the current third division, which does not need much of a shake up as the final day excitement showed. This maintains a forty two team league structure. Another feature would be the a three up, three down relegation system in all leagues except Division Two where there would be one relegation place only. This would allow for a wider variety of games, with team playing new and different opponents each season. Teams with ambition can progress more quickly through leagues and teams with a lack of will fall by the way side.
Leave the current South of Scotland, East of Scotland, Highland league, and Junior setups alone. Then have winners of Highland, South of Scotland, East of Scotland and a junior representative, play-off to have a candidate for promotion to the Division Two. The relegated team can be fitted into any of these ‘feeder’ leagues dependent upon geographical location.
The junior representative would either come from the junior cup, or a competition which involves the winners of the six regional leagues. Either way it would be up to the SJFA (Scottish Junior Football Association.).
As for governing bodies – scrap the SPL and get back to the SFA and SFL running the senior leagues. The SPL has been a failure, doing nothing than help to send clubs into serious financial debt. We should return to one controlling body with the power over every division of football in the Scottish game. The SFA currently monitors the East of Scotland, South of Scotland and Highland leagues so no change would be needed there. There would be no need to scrap the SJFA; they currently want a certain amount of autonomy anyway, so leave them as they are.
If the SJFA do not want to be a part of new setup then they can run a mini-league with East of Scotland, South of Scotland, and Highland league winners to get the place in national Division Two. As clubs would be able to move between leagues then current junior clubs could if they wanted still get access to the ‘national’ leagues even if the SJFA didn’t want to be a part of it i.e. greater fluidity within the game.
For the good of the game… well, that’s my opinion anyway.
Evenflow and Ally Gray