Our clubs should be exploring options as to how the league system can retain broad interest throughout the season, argues Richard Giulianotti, who explains why we should be looking towards the South American model

So here we are again. Exactly midway through another season of Scottish football, and our championship's destination is virtually predetermined once more. In a nutshell, we have what economists would call a crisis in Scottish football's ''uncertainty of outcome'', and it is easy enough to review the major symptoms.

The underlying problem pivots on the economic inequalities between clubs. Since the Rangers revolution of 1986, pure market principles have effectively determined club success. The Bosman ruling is the coup de grace here, enriching top professionals, but preventing poorer clubs from retaining their best players.

Key aspects of our league system exacerbate this situation. Clubs play each other four times rather than twice to decide the championship, stifling the unpredictability of opponents. The transfer market is not closed at the start of the season, thus ensuring the wealthiest clubs can sign new players during the championship's critical period.

Nor does the general format of Scottish (or most European) football conform to the competitive framework of new sports leagues in North America and Australia. There is no salary cap to reduce playing inequalities due to differences in club budgets. There is no reverse draft system, compensating the least successful clubs by giving them some top youth players.

Moreover, our current league system seems to damage the long-term interests of Scottish players and our national side. Few young Scottish players have strong career prospects with the top clubs. Most Scottish players are employed at other clubs and are quickly socialised into low expectations. English and continental leagues offer few alternative opportunities. Instead, most Scottish players ply their trade with the dread of year-long relegation clouding their imagination. The SFA's own think-tank found that players were deeply dissatisfied with how they played the game.

Scotland's clubs can, of course, accept our league set-up as it stands, but that is short-term thinking. Football's growing Europeanisation means fundamental changes will be thrust upon them in any case, with the Old Firm probably scaling down their interest in the national championship.

Our clubs should be exploring options as to how our league system can retain broad interest throughout the season. With that in mind, I'd like to advance one alternative framework for contesting the league championship.

The major change would see our season altered to produce an ''opening'' and a ''closing'' championship. Each championship would see the teams in each division play one another twice.

The ultimate winners would emerge from a ''grand final'' play-off between the holders of the opening and closing championships. No such finale would be required if the same side won both tournaments. The bottom side in each championship would be relegated, to be replaced by the top side in the first division.

The remaining issues are rather more negotiable. UEFA Cup qualification could fall automatically to the grand-final losers. If available, another spot would go to the next team with highest end-of-season points count. We could also retain the relegation play-off match at the end of each championship. Relegation might last for only half the season, and so should not induce the financial and professional fear that it does now.

Most Latin American nations have contested a two-championship season since the early 1990s. Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Peru all play to this system, while Brazil also has a multiple league system. And let's not jest at their footballing quality. Brazil and Argentina speak for themselves. Uruguay's players are in worldwide demand; more than 400 currently play abroad. Paraguay have excelled in recent years and were unlucky to lose last June to France, the eventual World Champions. We know all about Peru.

A double championship would have some natural benefits. It would help to increase the uncertainty of outcome surrounding our league championship. The Old Firm (particularly Rangers) would get a better run for their money.

It would encourage the self-belief of aspiring clubs, who struggle to sustain a season-long challenge but might manage to stay the course over 18 matches. In the past decade, Aberdeen, Motherwell, Hearts, and Kilmarnock have mounted spirited provincial challenges with little infrastructural encouragement or real reward. This system would give them a greater chance of success, and nourish the belief that they could build on any initial triumphs.

Meanwhile, for clubs who start badly but can avoid relegation, the remaining games would afford a good opportunity to prepare for the next championship. Currently, many league teams play a long series of meaningless matches after the halfway or two-thirds stage to the season.

Clubs threatened with relegation can have a bad championship brought to an early conclusion, so that they can regroup for the new one. Promoted clubs have an early chance to try out their opening successes against bigger company. The new model might also reward rising small clubs. A season of double promotion might be aspired to by the likes of Ross County.

The climax to the opening championship would fall before or during Christmas. It could provide a shot in the arm to mid-December matches when attendances usually dip. It would generate interest from England and the Continent, as the Scottish tournament climaxes while other nations are still far from the finishing line. It would render the game more attractive to television viewers with a less-than-passionate commitment to any specific Scottish side. It might also allow us to drop an increasingly devalued League Cup competition.

The break between championships might allow the Scotland team to play some fixtures in southern Europe. If the weather is atrocious, the start of the closing championship could be put back a week. The resulting midweek fixtures should still encourage spectator interest as the new championship gets underway.

In Argentina, the double-championship has had some real benefits. Smaller clubs like Velez Sarsfield, Gimnasia de La Plata, and Lanus have challenged the traditional big clubs by winning at least one short championship. Velez Sarsfield's early successes were the springboard for further triumphs, improving the competitive health and aesthetic quality of the Argentinian game.

What I'm suggesting is not necessarily intended to revolutionise the Scottish game. But it does seek to hold the interest of Scottish football fans beyond the new year. To do that, we need to shake up a club caste system rooted in economic inequalities.

n Dr Richard Giulianotti is a lecturer in sociology at Aberdeen University. His book, Football: a sociology of the global game, will be published next year by Polity Press.