FINAL WHISTLE: Ian Bell

Witless hyperbole won its battle, no doubt, when they came up with the European Champions League. A perfectly good and generally exciting cup competition was replaced by a contest in which only a minority of the entrants are domestic champions. Something to do with money, I believe.

It devalued the "brand", of course. It gave the audience a tournament that is 90% tedious. It did GBH to the language. Still, no-one ever suggested a Champions League2. That kind of thinking only occurs in a certain small country still clinging to the idea that it has a viable football industry.

No doubt I'm being unfair. No doubt matters of nomenclature have yet to be settled. But if anything annoys me more than the notion of an SPL2 it's that text message working title: SPL2.

Scotland currently has a league containing a bare dozen clubs that we are still pleased to call premier. Were it not for two of those clubs - who would rather not be involved in the thing - even radio might find its patience tested. The brilliant answer to the problem, somewhat delayed? Twenty-two clubs, and two divisions, each "premier".

Does this also have something to do with money, self-interest, and previous failures? Do bankers?

When the Scottish Premier League gets away with its cunning plan, as it will, the second tier in the brave new world will probably acquire a fancy name. I'm betting on "the Championship (Not)". No Serie B for the SPL. It's like flogging a Super Extra-Platinum-Plus Exclusive Members Only credit card that costs as much as any other bit of dubious plastic. And ruins you.

The Scottish Football League will have little say in the matter. That would be like asking your old granny to see off a gang of muggers with her string bag. The SFL's member clubs may have voted 22 to eight in the spring of 2007 to tell the SPL to chase itself. But if eight eventually become 10, those 10 cannot be stopped.

To practicalities, then. So the SPL gains its new recruits from among the perennial "promotion chasers". So the total required - we will return to reasons shortly - is 22. These have to be split 10/12, presuming that the "elite" clubs will be less numerous than the rest ("elite2"). How does that sound?

To put it otherwise: how is the existing SPL configured? One dozen clubs fall into four categories: the Old Firm, the Europe Hopefuls, the Safe and Happy, and the Relegation Battlers. A few move up or down, slightly, now and then, but the laws of nature are not altered. The single late-summer novelty is the Relegation Battler briefly granted the temporary classification Fresh Meat.

Exciting, ain't it? Granting that there is nothing to be done, barring the intervention of the gods of English football, about the dominance of the Old Firm - even when they are (as now) at their worst - what's the heart of the problem? Mindless repetition, surely.

Quite how SPL Ein/Zwei would resolve this problem baffles me. Quite why sponsors or the fabled dispensers of TV money would be thrilled escapes me. And why anyone believes that fans would be better served is entirely mysterious.

They do want to serve the fans better, don't they? Lex Gold, executive chairman of the SPL did say that the aim is to "enhance and strengthen the senior professional game in Scotland", did he not?

Let's meet the reformers half-way, in any case. Most agree that the existing structure of the SPL is unsatisfactory. (We also know that fiddling around with leagues has been a Scottish habit for years, but let that pass). The difference of opinion, surely, is over the choice between a two-league format or a simple expansion of the existing top division. Why not, in an agreed year, just forget relegation and promote four, or even six, of the top SFL sides?

It would not be a league to set the imagination ablaze, or even smouldering slightly, but it would be less tedious than the present arrangement. Those famous upsets would be more likely. A few more fans might have a few more reasons to live in hope. The 10/12 notion would merely rearrange the deckchairs to make a certain minority more comfortable.

Which brings us, perhaps, to the format proposed, and justifications thereof, if any. The idea that it could lead the way to a "pyramid" system, so called, seems to me wishful. The base, if you will, is unlikely ever to be able to support such a thing. So who finds a 22-team SPL, uneasily divided, a congenial notion?

Incumbents, I'd have thought, plus those who regard an SPL place as their station in life. The former, most of them, will assume a continuing residence in the top division. But not all of the latter could count on elevation to a 16 or 18-team league. If there is such a thing as a self-interested compromise, the two-division idea is it.

I could be wrong about that. I'll lay money, though, that a 10/12 SPL will not work, for the single reason that neither league will amount to a proper - as in interesting - league.

Money will find its level, sooner or later. When that happens, Scottish football will be defined thus: the Old Firm entertaining English audiences, the best of the other pros, and numerous part-timers. SPL2 is not a useful working title, far less an answer. And the drawing board can always stand a return visit.