Over the last twelve months, a new crisis in Scottish football has seemingly come along every other week. From the penalty decision that was covered up by the referees’ association to the horrible sectarian behaviour of a small group of so-called fans during Old Firm games, Hearts’ 5-0 defeat at home to Tottenham Hotspur in the Europa League and the lack of initial progression into the group stages of European competition, it’s not been a happy time for football north of the border.
The wider media has only paid attention to Scottish football when the stories haven’t been the most positive and while in other industries any publicity can be described as good publicity, it’s not the same with football. Stories that don’t show the league in a particularly good light tend to keep people at home and watching from afar.
As fans of where Scottish football used to be, we’re keen to see it get back to the levels of past glories. We’re desperate for it to rise from the rut that it is stuck in, so that when teams travel south of the border for future European ties they can be seen as more than equal opponents and on a wide scale, so that more British teams can challenge on a continental level.
You see, all is not lost in the Scottish Premier League. The games can’t quite boast the big names of the English Premier League, Serie A or La Liga but there is still bags of entertainment to be found. During the last round of fixtures the three games played on Saturday (none of which featured Rangers, Celtic or Hearts) produced fifteen goals. At a very simple level that’s exciting. And there are still players of quality and purpose being produced in the Scottish leagues. In January, Sol Bamba was marshalling the defence of Hibernian; over the last five weeks, he has been at the heart of Leicester City’s back four. Sven Goran-Erikkson, even after splashing millions of pounds during the summer on a vast array of internationals, has entrusted Bamba to help his Championship side push towards promotion.
It’s not all bad; but it does need to change. Thankfully, we’re not in the business of just pointing out problems and expecting someone else to pick up the slack. We’ve got a plan.
Take away relegation and introduce play-offs for the Scottish Premier League trophy.
Call them franchise teams. Call them SPL licences. Call them contracts. We can brand it and sell it however you please; but the idea is simple. Take away the possibility of unexpectedly dropping from the top flight and allow clubs three, five or seven years at a time to plan. Rather than adjusting and bending budgets on a year-by-year basis; generally boosted or deflated by a half-decent summer of recruitment, we want to make it easier for clubs to speculate positively and install proper long-term plans.
It’s not unreasonable to suggest that the majority of clubs preparing for the SPL season this summer set their first aim for the season at securing safety. Outside of the two Old Firm clubs as well as possibly Hearts and Dundee United at a stretch, everyone else spent June and July making sure they were better prepared than two other teams in the league. Transfer figures, wage offers and contract lengths are all affected by the idea that a team could go down. Decisions are made, budgets are tightened and pennies are counted with safety outlined as the first priority.
You could point at Hearts sacking their manager Jim Jefferies after a winless run of 14 league games that stretched back into the tail-end of last season as a sign that not even the side that finished comfortably third are immune to the drop. Of course, Jefferies’ situation has probably as much to do with the Hearts owner Vladimir Romanov and his many whims as it does with the on-the-field problems in his side.
Let’s get rid of that worry and allow clubs to plan numerous seasons at a time. Cut down the need for knee-jerk reactions or rash appointments that ultimately harm the long-term future of the club and players. Let’s allow a manager to bring in a host of young players, safe in the knowledge that he’ll be able to aid their development and not be out of a job if he struggles for points as he implements a new system in the team. We can do away the need for a snap judgement in the middle of December just so that a new manager can have the January transfer window to start the whole process again.
Now, there is no suggestion here that we are simply giving teams a reprieve from the harsh realities of football and making their lives easy. In return for their SPL licences, they’d be expected to do their fair bit for Scottish football. Commit money into the game. Commit time into developing more coaches. Commit themselves into improving the infrastructure of the whole game. The specifics need work but as long as they cover assurances over playing budgets, stadium enhancement and players development; everything should go pretty well.
As long as they pass the relevant checks, they get in – up to a maximum of sixteen teams. Get everyone playing each other twice and the rebuilding can begin.
Yes I did say sixteen teams and I did say playing each other twice.
And no, I’m not short-sighted enough to expect the television revenue to stay the same without four Old Firm games in the season. Do you remember those play-offs I mentioned? Yeah, they are going to help us out.
The four Old Firm games are the big money draws in the Scottish Premier League. They are the games that can be leaned on to up the money offered by Sky Sports and ESPN; and they help the rest of the league keep their heads above water. To solve that, we’re borrowing the play-off system already used in Australia’s A-League to decide the overall Scottish Premier League winners.
It was six years ago when a side other than Celtic or Rangers last finished in the top two. Over the next two or three seasons that’s unlikely to change. As reward for finishing the league season in first and second place, Rangers and Celtic get to compete over two-legs for a place in the “SPL Grand Final”.
While they are battling for the outright spot in the season decider, the teams that finished in third, fourth, fifth and sixth (last season Hearts, Dundee United, Kilmarnock and Motherwell) compete in a mini-tournament. The winners of said tournament then clash with the losers of the top two play-off for the second spot in the SPL Grand Final.
It could even lead to a fifth Old Firm game of the season, sure – but it’d be the biggest game of the season. Fill Murrayfield or Hampden Park and rest the whole season on 90 minutes. Scottish football suddenly has a showpiece match attracting huge attention for all the right reasons. If things go to plan, teams from outside of the Old Firm would start qualifying for the centrepiece game and no doubt, history can be made.
Did I just save Scottish football? No. It’s for people more important than me to work out how logistical it all is. But it’s better than sitting around and calling it rubbish.
Tags: A-League, Celtic, Hearts, Rangers, Scottish Premier League
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Interesting, but unfortunately, I don’t think you have the answer to the seemingly imponderable question of how to mend the SPL. There are a few possibly surmountable flaws in your plan, but the major one is that the title will effectively be decided by a “Cup Final”, which in itself will render the earlier Old Firm clashes in the season, potentially meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Assuming that the two of them always end up as the top two, which is likely to be the case. Good try though!
Alex, I see where you are coming from but over the last five seasons - only once has the Old Firm side who won the most points over the four games between them gone on to win the league title. The Old Firm games don’t have much of a bearing on the outcome of the season as it is, it’s actually comes down to how they both do against everyone else.
With a Cup Final deciding matters; it actually gives the game a huge amount of significance and presumably, at least for the first few years, that would be Celtic and Rangers facing off.
Not sure I completely agree with the format of the playoffs that you suggest but I actually think that there is some merit to providing the none Glasgow clubs with a degree of stability that would eventually enable them to compete on a more equal footing.