The coronavirus pandemic creates an impossible task for Scottish football administrators - how do we end the season fairly? How can we ensure that no club finds itself in a lower tier than it was hoping to be in at the conclusion of the 2019/20 season? Within the current league structure, there is no right answer to this question.
But what if we restructure? What if we implement a structure where every single club ends up in the highest tier they could possibly have hoped for? Clearly, we cannot do this without enlarging the leagues. A 14 or 16 team top league has been talked about, but this is an uninspiring compromise which fails to satisfy fans who for years have been begging for a structure which gives just two games a season against each team in their league. We should take this opportunity to go further, to tackle the deeper structural problems within our game.
We propose that there should be only one national league - a top tier of 18 clubs. Below this, the second tier would split into Northern and Southern Divisions of a similar size. Our current structure of four national leagues is modelled on the English system, but we have neither enough people nor enough viable professional clubs to sustain this.
In the past decade, Annan Athletic have played 40 matches against Elgin City. This involves a 514-mile round trip for the away club and their supporters. For clubs whose average attendances are in the region of 500, this is a needless expense, with no other purpose than to prop up the current league structure.
There's a reason why local derbies are a thing - the short distances allow for large away crowds and intense atmospheres. It's hard to get excited about travelling 514 miles on a Tuesday night for a mid-table clash against a team you've played three times already in the past year.
With our proposal, no team outside the top tier would play regular league fixtures against clubs at the other end of the country. While some clubs might feel a loss of status by no longer playing in a national league, the top two tiers would contain 54 clubs. Small clubs would suddenly find themselves in the second tier, with the added prestige that would bring.
Small clubs can suddenly start to dream that one good season will take them to the Premier League. We can end the stratification of Scottish football and the inequities it creates. We can provide more opportunities for young Scottish footballers to play at the top level, honing their skills to better serve the national team.
In this document, we will set out how all of this can be achieved, if we dare to take the bold steps required.
We propose that there should be a pyramid of leagues in Scotland, with the Premier League at its apex. Below that there should be a second tier consisting of two leagues. These could be called the Northern and Southern Leagues, or Highland and Lowland Leagues, or anything else that people are happy with. Each of these two leagues would have two feeder leagues below it, giving a third tier of four leagues.
We propose that this would have 18 teams, though 20 would also be a possibility. Each team would play each other team twice, making a total of 34 games each (38 if we go with 20 teams). The bottom three teams would be relegated each season, and would be replaced by the winners of the two second-tier leagues plus the winner of a playoff involving those leagues' 2nd and 3rd placed teams.
A frequently-cited argument against such a large league is that it provides only two Celtic-Rangers derby matches each season compared to the current four, a potential deal-breaker for broadcasters. If four Celtic-Rangers derbies are a must, we can have extra fixtures between teams close to each other in the final standings.
Every season, the teams who finished 1st and 2nd last season play an extra two games against each other, the same with 3rd and 4th, 5th and 6th etc. This would take us to 36 games. We could expand this slightly and make it 1st/2nd/3rd, 4th/5th/6th etc. This would give 38 games a season, and simplify questions around how to split up the newly-promoted teams.
By basing this off of the previous season's standings, we can spread these matches throughout the season and avoid any public safety issues arising from a Celtic-Rangers title decider. This does raise an issue that some teams will have harder fixture lists than others, but as this would provide a slight advantage to the weaker teams it would serve to make the league more competitive. It would also create more top-of-the-table clashes and more relegation six-pointers. More games that matter, fewer games that don't.
In this tier, we have two leagues - for the sake of argument let's call them the North/South divisions. Each league again has 18 or 20 teams. The winner of each league gains automatic promotion, 2nd and 3rd go into a four-team playoff for the final promotion place. As with the Premier League, the bottom three teams are automatically relegated.
This creates a problem for maintaining a constant league size: if a Northern team wins the playoff but three Southern teams get relegated, that's a net gain of two teams in the Southern Division, and a net loss of two in the Northern. This can be resolved in the promotion structure from the leagues below. More on that in the section on Tier Three.
Based on current form, the Southern Division might have Greenock Morton at the top and Albion Rovers at the bottom, while the Northern Division could have Montrose at the top and Huntly at the bottom. Note that the bottom Southern team is currently much higher in the existing pyramid than the bottom Northern team - this reflects the historic bias of the SFL/SPFL towards having more central belt teams with most northern teams competing in the Highland league.
Tier Three would consist of four leagues - a Northeastern, Northwestern, Southeastern and Southwestern league. The top teams at this level would be teams which are currently below the SPFL League Two, and so it would make sense for these leagues to be administered separately from the top two tiers, and also for each of the four regions to be administered separately from the others. This is covered in more detail in the section on Governance.
The rest of this section deals with some of the slightly complicated mechanics around promotion and relegation and keeping the leagues balanced. For readers not interested in these finer points, this part can be skipped.
As the third tier absorbs teams relegated from, and provides teams for promotion to, the second tier, it has an important function to perform in keeping the league size constant at that level. Each of the Northern and Southern Divisions will have three teams relegated out, one or two teams promoted out, and anywhere between zero and three teams relegated in - meaning they will need anywhere between one and five teams to be promoted in to make up the numbers.
In order to support this, playoffs should be played between the two 1st-placed, the two 2nd-placed, and the two 3rd-placed teams from the leagues that feed into each of the Northern and Southern Divisions. This would result in a ranking from 1st to 6th and allow the appropriate one, two, three, four or five teams to be awarded promotion, depending on what happens between tiers one and two.
Each regional football association would have to design a league structure which can handle the variation that can arise from having anywhere between zero and three teams relegated in, and anywhere between zero and three teams promoted out. This might involve having a league with a variable size, or again having variable promotion requirements from the tier below.
In order to administer the various competitions involved in this new league structure, various organisations would need to exist. The existing administrators of the SFA and SPFL will have an idea of how the finer points of this will be carried out, but here we will set out a high-level overview of the organisations and responsibilities involved.
The Scottish Football Pyramid (SFP) would replace the existing Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL), and would have responsibility for the governance of the top two tiers of league football. At the end of each season, they will relegate three teams each from the Northern and Southern Divisions, and organise promotion playoffs involving the 12 promotion candidates provided by the four regional leagues in the third tier.
In the third tier, the pyramid has four different regions. Each of these would have a regional football association (RFA). Every single club in the pyramid would be a member of one of these RFAs. This means every club has a very clear destination when being relegated from either the first or second tier.
Each RFA has responsibility for administering their own league autonomously, in whatever way they see fit. The only requirement is that they produce 1st, 2nd and 3rd placed teams as promotion candidates at the end of each season, and that they accept between zero and three of those teams back into their league the following season, along with between zero and three relegated teams from above.
Managing the challenges that come with that variability is the responsibility of the RFA. The question of whether there are other tiers below the third in any given region, and the responsibility for administering these leagues, is entirely down to the RFA in question.
While this restructure would not necessitate any change in the structure of the cup competitions, the creation of clear regions might provide some opportunities to create a more interesting ecosystem of cup competitions.
If we have four separate Regional Football Associations (RFAs), and every club is a member of one of these, then we can use this to structure the early rounds of the League Cup. In fact, we can allow each RFA to conduct their own regional cup at the start of the season, providing a winner to then compete in the League Cup proper.
This would give us four regional champions, plus the European qualifiers, who would sit out the regional cups. At present, this would add up to eight teams which would fit nicely into a cup format, but in the event of Scotland gaining an extra European place, the lowest-seeded European qualifier could be required to play a playoff against the winners of their region - or alternatively simply the two lowest-seeded of the nine clubs could play a playoff round.
Conducting the early rounds of the League Cup in this way would provide clubs with a chance of winning some early season silverware, as well as the opportunity to play some local matches in the summer evenings. As the regional cups would be minor trophies, the finals would not need to be played at neutral grounds. This could even be used as an opportunity to experiment with "Davis Cup rules" for home advantage - whoever had home advantage last time the teams met in the competition, they are away this time.
The one time football fans really want to travel to the other side of the country is for a one-off match, to see their team face an opposition they've never met before. Regionalising the early stages of the League Cup might reduce some of these opportunities, and to compensate we could modify the Scottish Cup draw procedures so that in the early rounds (i.e. before the Premier League teams enter), clubs from the same region cannot be drawn together. This would guarantee fans of small clubs an interesting tie in the Scottish Cup, against a club they do not normally face in league or League Cup action.
In 1998, the Scottish Premier League was born. It was supposed to launch Scottish football into a new era of untold wealth and international television audiences.
While that bright future has scarcely materialised for our clubs, Scottish football fans have come to remember 1998 much more clearly as the year when the men's national team competed in a major tournament finals for the last time in at least two generations of footballers. Barry Ferguson, James McFadden, Darren Fletcher and so many others have all come and gone without once having the opportunity to compete on a major stage internationally.
Could it be that our grand plan to enrich a few of our clubs by excluding the rest, has restricted opportunities for young Scottish players to compete at the highest level our leagues can muster? We talk a lot about elite pathways, but elite footballers do not always emerge in their early teens. Our most successful player of this generation was playing at amateur side Queen's Park as a 19-year-old. 18 teams instead of 12 playing at the top level would provide 50% more opportunities for Scottish players to gain experience at this level.
Under the current structure, each team plays every other team in the league four times a season. This becomes repetitive and dull for fans, and fans overwhelmingly want larger leagues with only two games a season against each team. This structure satisifes that demand, providing fans with increased variety and less repetition.
Outside of the top tier, the regionalisation of the leagues will provide more local fixtures for smaller clubs; reducing travel costs and enhancing gate receipts through increased away supports. Clubs are more likely to compete in the same league as their local rivals, providing regular derby matches which capture the imagination of their communities.
Scottish football is currently stratified in several different tiers. With our proposal, a club like Arbroath might find themselves in the same league as Huntly. Their supporters might balk at this idea - after all, they are at present a much bigger club than Huntly. But is there really such a difference? Are Arbroath three tiers above Huntly because they are a much better team, or are they a much better team because they are three tiers higher?
The current structure restricts opportunities to play at a high level to only a small number of clubs. It creates a hierarchy and inequality that reduces competition, creates repetition and sucks the life out of the sport.
If clubs which are currently separated by multiple layers of promotion and relegation were to suddenly find themselves in the same league, there would doubtless be a wide gulf in quality to begin with, but over time the better players would be spread around more clubs, with more novice players gaining the opportunity to play alongside and learn from them.
Suppose we were to put this structure in place for the 2020/21 season, based off of the current standings in the SPFL (and Highland League). What would that look like?
The following teams would compete in the new Premier League, in addition to the existing 12 Premiership clubs:
If the decision was made to include extra matches between teams who finished close to each other in the previous season, then there could be an extra two matches between each pair of teams in the following sets of three:
If we assume that the final league table ends up the same as their present standing, then Ayr United, Arbroath and Dunfermline would be automatically relegated. Arbroath would go into the Northern League for the following season, while Ayr United and Dunfermline would go into the Southern League.
The inaugural season of the Southern League would be contested between the following 18 clubs:
If the final league table reflected the current standings, then Greenock Morton would gain automatic promotion as champions, while Alloa Athletic and Queen of the South would go into a promotion playoff. Annan Athletic, Stenhousemuir and Albion Rovers would be relegated.
The following clubs would be placed in the new Northern League:
If the final league table ended up in that order, then Montrose would be automatically promoted as champions, while Peterhead and Forfar Athletic would go into a promotion playoff. Wick Academy, Deveronvale and Huntly would be relegated.
This would be contested between Alloa Athletic and Queen of the South from the Southern League, and Peterhead and Forfar Athletic from the Northern League. We might expect this to be won by Alloa Athletic, as the team currently highest in the SPFL table. In this case both the Northern and Southern Leagues would need three teams to be promoted in from below, as they would each have had the same number of teams relegated in as promoted out.
No playoff would be required between 1st-placed teams and 3rd-placed teams from the third tier. It is an open question whether this means they would be cancelled, or if they would be played in advance in any case just in case they are needed. The 2nd-placed teams from the two Northern Leagues and from the two Southern Leagues would play each other to determine who should be promoted into the second tier.
This document is not meant to set in stone how a restructured Scottish fooball pyramid would have to look. Many questions are left open, such as:
The intention of the document is to demonstrate that these competing interests can be accomodated if we are willing to think creatively. We can provide the benefits of larger leagues and greater variety of matches, while still satisfying the requirements of broadcasters. We can eradicate the needless cost of small clubs travelling the length of the country for relatively unimportant league games.
The real question that remains is this: can the clubs agree to a bold and ambitious transformation along these lines? We believe that they can, as we believe there is something in here for everyone:
We hope that this document will be read and seriously considered by the decision-makers on the boards of clubs across the country, that every idea put forward here will spark a thousand more, and that we can move forward into a new decade with genuine ambition for what Scottish football can become. In these difficult and uncertain times, we must be creative. We owe it to the future of the sport we all love.