Let’s Extend The SPL And Reduce Number Of Games

Hearts ARE in the top six. Don’t believe me? Just take a wee look to your right at the league table…..see? We’re above Aberdeen now – I knew the league would come to its senses eventually!

Seriously though, errors on Vital Football’s SPL table calculations aside, the league split really is a bit of a mockery isn’t it? I always felt that it was a worthwhile exercise trying something to freshen up our game (and credit to those who came up with the split idea for sticking their necks out and putting it into practice), but I really don’t see what value it has actually added to our game on the whole.

I appreciate that this year it’s perhaps a little different in terms of the championship race, as it’s now become pretty close at the top and all of the top sides are going to play each other in the run-in (which is good), but how often has this been the case since the split was introduced? I think this has probably been the first time that anything at the top end of the table hasn’t pretty much been decided before it actually happened, although feel free to correct me if I’m wrong there.

But regardless of the answer to that last question, I do think the time has come for another fresh approach to be taken, but the suggestion I’d have has absolutely no chance of coming to fruition if TV continues to dominate football the way that it does currently.

I would back any proposals to extend the league out to either 14 or 16 teams, whereby everyone would play each other only twice. This way I feel it would allow more clubs to become established in the top league (over a period of time – it wouldn’t happen immediately), and there would also be less fear of relegation which would allow players and managers to relax and express themselves more freely. This should (theoretically) result in more ambitious and attractive football being played in the league by most of the teams, which would surely be a nice change from the ‘ten across the defence’ tactic we often see being employed by opposition at the homes of the big clubs on a weekly basis?

I also think that the ‘novelty factor’ of games involving Old Firm clubs (or even Hibs, Hearts or Aberdeen for the smaller clubs in the SPL) has all but disappeared. There are several teams around the country who now consider games against the big clubs to be the ones they’d rather not attend. There are a number of reasons for this of course: knowing they’ll probably lose is one, the fact it will be live on TV is another, and we also have the nasty side of society that travelling Rangers and Celtic fans tend to bring to various towns and cities around the country being another problem.

However I would also add ‘apathy’ to that list. People are frankly bored seeing the same teams and players against each other. Let’s face it, if Hearts were to draw say Kilmarnock in both cup competitions and end up being in the same section of the league as them at the split (and unfortunately they have this time!), then fans of both clubs would have to watch the same two teams playing against each other six times in the same season…….and that’s not even catering for a potential Scottish Cup replay! Is this really the sort of scenario we want in our game? I don’t think so, and we’ve seen exactly the effect that such a fixture backlog can have on a season when someone progresses in all competitions like Rangers have this year – all of the controversy surrounding the extension of the league last week would have been avoided had there been fewer fixtures to begin with in the SPL.

I appreciate that having another four or six teams from the First Division in the SPL may not seem like a particularly glamourous proposition for most people, but what this would do is reduce the number of times that fans would be seeing the same teams. Just think – I know there are a whole host of reasons (listed above) for a Dunfermline fan not wanting to go to a home game against say Rangers, but if it was going to be the only chance they’d get to see this fixture all season, then they would surely give it a lot more consideration than they do currently? Especially if the league ended up being a lot more ‘open’ than normal as a result of the new structure, which is something that could well happen.

I’m certainly not saying that this idea isn’t one that has its flaws, as it most certainly does, but I really do think something has to be done to breathe new life into the SPL competition. Why not give the smaller clubs the opportunity to join the so-called ‘big boys’ and let’s see how many of them sink or swim. I’m quite sure that many of them have the potential to be as big as some of those already in the league if not bigger (Dundee, Dunfermline and Partick Thistle certainly have the potential fanbase), and by being in a league that allows them a lot more leeway than the current set-up can only assist in them establishing themselves in the top flight. Then, as a result of continuing to be in the top flight over a period of time, the money they would receive as a result of this would allow them to prosper into something that would have perhaps been inconceivable just a few years earlier. Again though, this IS all theory!

As mentioned above though, given the influence that the media have on football these days, I think this idea is a pretty certain non-starter. The TV people are only interested in money – and and they want it now, not in a few years time. That means having the big teams playing against each other as often as they can get away with, and this is generally what’s happening now. And as a result, the rich get richer……