Scottish Premiership League reconfiguration: The final game play-off
League reconfiguration is a talking point that just doesn’t go away, and while many believe something needs to change to make Scottish football better, nobody can agree with a solution that actually is better.
There are a few barriers to league reconfiguration:
1.The SPFL wants to guarantee 4 Old Firm matches each season. They are by far the most viewed and contribute heavily to the tv deal.
2. Adding teams may add games, which means teams must keep larger squads on stretched budgets, it also potentially harms the chances of teams progressing further in Europe.
3. Having fewer games means a drop in match-day revenue which is vital for the teams not receiving European money.
4. Other structures can make the league less fair by having some teams play more games than others (eg. A14 team league with a 6-8 split), allowing some teams to have more home games than their rivals or, having a confusing multi-split system like Belgium.
In the absence of being able to find a suitable solution sticking with 12 teams may be best, but there have been recent reports of the SPFL considering a 10 team top flight instead.
I don’t believe reducing the number of teams is the answer, and ideally the Premiership would have more teams. One big issue with the Scottish Premiership is the real chance that established mid table clubs may gain entry to Europe and then fail to compete in the league due to the increased workload and face relegation. Does the risk of relegation outweigh the rewards of investing in the squad to compete in two competitions? This is the calculation teams must make. This season shows how difficult it has been for the sides outside of the Old Firm. Hearts secured group stage football and had a dreadful first half of the season domestically even though they strengthened their squad and increased its size. Kilmarnock have been struggling and St. Mirren have been treading water, but neither even had group stage football.
Removing relegation is obviously not the answer, a team that is relegated deserves it, but adding more teams can lessen the threat of being relegated after investing in squad improvement to compete in Europe and domestically. Ultimately we want a stronger league and teams need to be able to take the risk to invest in their squad without fearing they may be left with a large squad and high wages playing in the Championship. All of this must be within reason of course, the threat of relegation is always there if a team isn’t good enough.
The Final round play-off
So is there a solution to the 4 restrictions outlined above? I am throwing out the idea of a 16 team league with a final round play-off. I believe this works with 3 of the 4 restrictions and can also meet the 4th if it is well highlighted on the table.
With 16 teams in the league each team would play each other twice, resulting in 30 games. The league would then split in two with 8 teams in each half. Each team would then play each other once bringing the total number of games up to 37. Now this structure faces the same issue highlighted above, some teams would play more home games than their rivals, but my solution to this is a final round play off game. Each team would be paired up with the team above or below them and compete for that position (depending on their points total).
So 1st would play 2nd, 3rd would play 4th and so on. The team that was at home in their post-split fixture would then be away for the play off match. Three points would be available for the match, but those points only affect the two positions being fought over in that match. For example if 1st place was 2 points ahead of 2nd place then the title is on the line in this final fixture, either 1st place goes on to win the title with a win or a draw or 2nd place moves ahead by 1 point. If 3rd place was one point behind 2nd place then 3rd place cannot overtake the 2nd place, this team is simply playing to defend their 3rd place in the league (assuming 4th place is within 3 points of them anyway).
This format is not perfect, there may be many ‘dead rubbers’ on the last day (though this is the case anyway) and the final league table might look a bit confusing to people not familiar with the last round play off idea. It is however a way to maintain a 38 game season, secure the high probability of 4 Old Firm Games each season (and basically guarantee 3) and can perhaps add excitement to the final day. It may even be an effective marketing tool for the SPFL.
Using the final positions from last season (and assuming the top 4 in last season’s Championship were in the Premiership), this is how things would have looked. Incidentally all bar two of these fixtures would have been dead rubbers based on their points totals, but that may have been different with a 16 team league.
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