THE men in charge of the Scottish Premier League couldn't have looked more pleased with themselves if they'd just successfully herded cats.

If anything, cats might have been easier to control than the leaders of the 12 clubs who reached consensus yesterday after talks on league reform which began when Methuselah was still at school.

If anything demonstrated how difficult it is for them to agree on anything, it was the obvious pleasure they took from unanimously supporting changes which will make such a limited difference to supporters' actual experience next season. The assorted alterations agreed in principle yesterday were positive, welcome and overdue, but if this was cherry-picking the fruit is small. If this was the end of the latest phase of discussions on "league reconstruction" they have concluded with no change to the size of the top division, its end-of-season split, or teams playing each other four times in a season. There was a breakthrough yesterday, some steps in the right direction, but no-one could have felt an irresistible urge to pop any champagne corks.

"It's been like going shopping with your daughters, it takes forever and a time to get shoes," said Ralph Topping, the SPL chairman after around five hours of talks at Hampden resulted in consensus. "We've been in and out the shoe shop a number of times. We've gone in today and managed to get the right colour of shoes, the right size of shoe and everybody is quite happy."

The SPL's problem is that it has 12 equal shareholders, but there are enormous differences in the wealth, priorities and economies of scale within those dozen clubs. Celtic and Ross County, for example, have everything in common and nothing. The web of self-interest and anxiety which informs the SPL chairmen's decision-making amounts to a handbrake being put on any attempt to implement even cosmetic, never mind radical, change.

Topping's full-time job is as chief executive of William Hill plc. There, deals can sail through. "I've dealt with some very complex transactions in the last six months. We bought a partner out for £450m and we bought a business in Australia for £450m. That was done in a the blink of an eye compared with some of the things happening here. This is a difficult organisation to point in the same direction. Normally we would go straight to a boardroom vote for ratification, but we're dealing with football and that can be slow and ponderous at times."

That was putting it mildly. Glaciers move faster. So where is Scottish football after yesterday? If the agreement in principle is ratified by the SPL and the Scottish Football League – and surely it must be? – both will cease to exist to be replaced by something likely called the Scottish Professional Football League. The SPL will end as an entity after 15 years and the Scottish League after 123. That streamlining is overdue. A rule book and articles of association have been drawn up over recent weeks. An 11-1 voting requirement for issues affecting top flight clubs will be retained.

The play-offs will provide end-of-season stimulus for the bottom of the SPL and top of the First Division, helping to maintain competitiveness even in those years when one club becomes detached. That, too, is long overdue, although it will have little effect for most of the top division clubs. From the end of the 2014-15 season the team which finishes bottom of the fourth tier will face a play-off with a non-league team as a pyramid structure begins.

The most significant change is the financial distribution model which will transform the income of the First Division clubs, eroding the discrepancy between them and those in the SPL. This should remove the infamous "financial armageddon" experienced by any relegated club. Instead of the First Division champions receiving around £70,000 they'd get around £380,000. The prize money for all of the top eight in the SPL would be reduced so that it could be shared through the second tier. With a single body, the annual £2m payment from the SPL to the SFL would go into the main pot and so would the SFL's £1m television income for Rangers games.

Positions have changed repeatedly during this wearisome saga, consensus has been achieved and lost. We were told there could no cherry-picking of the "good" parts without the extra television money which could be raised by splitting two top tiers of 12 into three mini-leagues of eight. It turns out they could do it after all. The country's sheer exasperation with it all must have helped bang heads together yesterday. "It would be stupid for us to look back and say 'the SPL didn't work' and not look at some of the positives which came out of being in the SPL," said Topping. "We've had some success in Europe, with Celtic and Rangers getting to finals since the SPL has been around. We've had the famous 'helicopter Sundays'."

In fact, the SPL will have few mourners and a rebirth will dilute its toxicity. Its clubs reached a consensus yesterday which was not driven by a compulsion to look after No.1. After 15 years, there is a first time for everything.