The team finishing top after the regular league games must win the league. None of this Americanisation pish.
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Whoever accumulates the most points over the league season should always be the Champions.
A play off would be farcical , can you imagine a team won the league by 20-30 points and then lost out in the playoff final to a dodgy last minute decision?
Exactly. Splitting gate receipts helps the teams that get poor home gates. We are not in that category.
Prize money rewards teams based on merit. What we need is to get someone in charge at SPFL who can get a decent TV deal.
Imo I have seen as many gash matches from England as Scotland on Sky and BT, so we should spend a bit more time talking up our football rather than doing it down.
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Until we only play each other twice no one will get near them. You have a chance of beating them maybe once. If thats the case its how you do against the rest that will define your season. Currently the chances are they beat you the other three times. Youre 6 points behind before facing anyone else. When Rangers get their act together they might get closer but we are all just making up the numbers as we have done for donkeys. Its a case of by how many for them rather than if.
There's only one future for Scottish football - kill the cancer.
Bye bye OF to anywhere at all and have a Scottish League and cup and euro qualification that any of 6-8 teams could claim every season.
Punters would watch, therefore TV would cover, therefore sponsors would support.
There's no other way.
All to true!!!!
Only problem is if Scottish Football received a £100 million pay day from SKY the SFA and SPFL would make sure most of the money made its way to the big two from Glasgow?
Last time it was Setanta money and it tore Scottish Football apart and that rift is still felt today!!!
Fixing Scottish Football is a Glasgow thing, they've been doing it for YEARS!!!!!!!
Really?! I'd be extremely surprised. No way are they 3 years or less away from winning the league, not unless they turn to old habits and break the bank again which admittedly isn't out with the realms of possibility as their nightmare of celtic getting 10 in a row draws closer. As much as I hate to admit it, nobody will be in touching distance of celtic anytime soon.
I mentioned this on another thread last week, but one of the biggest problems with celtic is them hoovering up every bit of talent from other clubs in this country. They poach any talent but still bleat on about how theres lack of competition for them in this country. Riordan being the biggest example of ruined talent at celtic. Scott Allan another one, who i'm still convinced celtic only bought to get it right up the huns. I pray Cummings or McGinn don't end up there, far too much talent to be wasted warming the bench at celtic. As good a player as they both are, they aren't good enough for starting 11 at celtic IMO. Maybe in time but not now.
Franchise the Scottish game, pool the gate money, strips and TV money. I think the American NFL model would be good with the bottom teams getting the pick of the best talent
I think that, once they've done 10 in a row, which seems likely, Celtic's support will get bored if Rangers fail to become a threat, as their fates drop they might 'drift' back towards the pack.
Alternatively, Leicester won the EPL. A team other than Celtic winning the SPL is not impossible by any means. Particularly if they inadvertently have another Delia esque manager next.
As for the league is a whole, down south, for all its publicity, everyone from Everton down aren't exactly miles apart. We aren't the only league with a dominant team / a couple teams well clear of the rest. It's not an issue for me, I don't really care who wins the league, unless it's us!
Definitely the case.
Rangers are miles behind Celtic in financial terms and short of adopting a 'money no object' approach will come nowhere near Celtic. And they will not be allowed to spend big as no-one will lend them cash and it isn't going to come from the Lying King.
Rangers have enough trouble beating Aberdeen as things stand and but for incompetence by Cathro might have struggled to finish ahead of Hearts.
These posts appear quite regularly on this forum and my view still stays the same.
England don't need any Scottish teams and won't want it - would mean other teams get less money and would also mean Celtic having to start at the bottom of the English pyramid. Teams like Leeds and Sheffield have been trying for years to get back into the top league - they would never allow it.
Here is the problem - greed and not seeing the bigger picture in Scotland.
Celtic and Sevco are a victim of their own success. They do need competition and each other to generate interest and give the league and games a meaning. You can see the Celtic fans buzzing this season after hammering the Huns so many times this season to win the league.
What needs to happen starts from the people running the game in this county.
Less old firm bias.
16 team league
Play each team x2 a season. - home and away - stadiums would sell out more often.
TV money and voting rights need to be fairer
National stadium - get away from the Celtic and Sevco end nonsense and build a decent stadium to host finals - like Cardiff.
Things like salary caps / split gate receipts are never going to happen.
Rodgers is comfortable here - wins league - gets praise - gets champions league etc - but the key for me is how he performs in the champions league as go out in qualifiers or fail in group stage / Europa league and are they really improving ?
I don't see how a sixteen team league would improve matters.
Clubs will have four fewer home games, which means less income. For Hibs, that is compounded by replacing full houses against Hearts, Celtc and Sevco with a few hundred fans from Hamilton, Ross County or Morton. The TV money will also be less as there will be four fewer rounds of fixtures and far fewer attractive games to show (the TV companies prefer Old Firm matches and Edinburgh derbies to Celtc vs Dundee or Hibs vs Partick). All that adds up to a substantial cut in income which will reduce the ability of Scottish clubs to compete with England (Championship/League One) for players so our best youngsters will leave even sooner to stagnate on benches down South rather than be paid less to play in meaningless mid-table games in March.
Some of those problems could be eased with an 18 or even 20 team league to provide more fixtures but I don't believe that would make it more competitive. The best chance for anyone to compete with Celtc is to have a good side that takes six to nine points from them, which gives some leeway for the inevitable slips against weaker teams as Hibs are far more likely to drop points against Morton or Dunfermline that Celtc are. Ideally we'd have four or five teams who are all competitive with each other at the top of the table, which would prevent any one team sustaining any period of dominance.
On that basis I was in favour of the rejected proposal for two leagues of twelve splitting into three leagues of eight, so that the teams you played four times were teams at your own level and the games would all mean something. It would also have made for a more fluid promotion/relegation area which would be better than the current cliff edge and rigged play offs. I don't deny that there were flaws, but any league structure does.
Take this season as an example... why should Aberdeen, a team who finished 30 points behind first place, deserve to win the title on the back of a one-off game?
Likewise why should Celtic, who have finished top at a canter and are unbeaten domestically, deserve to potentially lose it in such a way? And why on earth would they agree to it?
If Hibs had a fluke season, 'done a Leicester' and won the league we'd be spewing if we had to play a second place team and lost it all.
Nor to me the first time I encountered it. It's only when I had experienced over a couple of seasons I realised the benefits. Every season is exciting right till the end, very few meaningless games and a season ending grand final show piece match.
Over there it's the league they are selling first and foremost and the interest they generate in that is by making the competition close every year. They have salary caps, drafts and sanctions for teams who consistently under perform.
It's not perfect but it is a well marketed product.
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Sevco will one day take the next step and win it for the first time but it won't be when Brendan Rodgers is still at Celtic. Tic' supporting friends expect him to stay until they do 10 "in a row" and if he does the gap will be huge. Sevco are currently a very poor side and if the Caveman hadn't been hounded out then I think Hearts would have finished 3rd.