SPFL 10-team reconstruction verdict: Self-interest set to rule again

The reality was always more prosaic. Like most things in Scottish football the split was a political trade-off. A price the biggest clubs felt they had to pay when Celtic, Rangers and eight others broke away from the now defunct Scottish Football League to form the Scottish Premier League (SPL) in 1998.  

To secure the agreement of the teams left behind, the SPL reluctantly agreed to expand the competition to 12 teams by 2000. 

Where a 10-team league was neat and uncomplicated, a dozen proved problematic. If teams continued to play each other four times, twice home and twice away, they’d be forced to play a gruelling 44 fixtures. 

The creative solution was an improvised top-six split limiting the number of league games to 38. 

While some teams would finish up playing an uneven number of home and away fixtures the pros of a contrived compromise outnumbered the cons. Four Celtic and Rangers games a season would be preserved for the benefit of broadcast partner Sky Sports and, with a fair wind, there might be the added attraction of derbies from Edinburgh and Dundee as well. The chances of a cut-throat exciting end to the season increased. More so in the bottom six than the top, it should be said. 

It’s too early to write the obituaries for the split just yet. Proposals to reshape the Scottish league structure rarely find the common ground needed to push them through. For the first time since the Covid season of April 2020, however, the issue is back on the SPFL agenda. 

The SFA’s Pyramid Working Group have learned of proposals from the league’s Competitions Working Group for a return to a 10-team Premiership, where each team play the 36 games a season instead of 38. Should a change of rules be voted through in time for next season – 2026/27 is more realistic – the split would go the same way as away goals in Europe. 

While supporter surveys repeatedly show support for a 14 or 16-team league the SPFL believe there’s a discrepancy between what fans say they want and the size of league they will actually pay for. How much broadcasters might pay for a bigger top tier - with fewer city derbies – is another concern. 

To that end the notion of a 10-team Premiership, a 10-team Championship and a larger third tier of 16 teams or more has gained momentum. 

The Highland League have also submitted a discussion document proposing that tier five of the pyramid – the Highland and Lowland Leagues - be replaced with three new regional leagues based on geography; the north, east and west. There is no suggestion – as yet - of Premiership B teams coming into the conversation. 

The main catalyst for change is the expansion of UEFA club competitions. Increasing the number of games played in the Champions and Europa Leagues from six to eight has chipped away at the number of free dates available in the footballing calendar for postponed or rearranged fixtures. The abolition of the January winter break eased some of the pressure, but failed to make a meaningful difference.  

Read more:

All the details as SPFL plot return to 10-team Scottish Premiership with no top-six split

Chairman of Stenhousemuir for six years – a club director for 12 – Iain McMenemy served for two years on the league’s Competitions Working Group before standing down from the Warriors board last summer.  

"Fixturing is a huge problem," says McMenemy. "Every summer the SPFL brings out a skeleton, an XL document sheet, which basically has a start date to the season – bound by the rules -and an end date – bound by the same. 

"Blocked off after that are all the dates where you can’t schedule a domestic fixture because of all the European competitions or international weeks or whatever there might be. 

"That tells you how many available Saturdays and midweeks you have ahead and for the Premiership clubs the numbers just don’t work. There is nowhere near enough available dates. 

"So I get the pressure to reduce the number of fixtures. Especially if we’re looking at more expansion of UEFA competitions before the next television cycle. There will only be more pressure on the Premiership calendar and I can see that they probably need to do something." 

McMenemy has long suspected that reconstruction to the Scottish leagues would only happen when it suited certain teams. Two in particular. 

"I can understand people suspecting that Celtic and Rangers will benefit most from this because they are almost guaranteed to be in those European competitions. But some of the other clubs in the Premiership, like Aberdeen and Hearts, have taken part in the group stages recently and they stand to benefit as well. 

"So there are half-a-dozen clubs who will be favourable towards change. The issue will come with clubs which tend to be in the bottom half of the Premiership. The clubs who drop out of a 12-team Premiership stand to go from earning well over £1million to six figures in the second tier."

Any formal resolution put to clubs by the Competitions Working Group would require the backing of 11 of the 12 Premiership clubs, eight out of 10 Championship teams and 15 of the 20 teams in Leagues One and Two to pass. 

Albion Rovers, Berwick Rangers, Brechin City, Cowdenbeath and East Stirlingshire have all plunged into the Lowland or Highland Leagues in recent times, swapping the safety net of the SPFL distribution model for a largely unfunded fifth tier of the pyramid. To make change more attractive to lower league chairmen the SPFL propose to offer a softer landing for community clubs threatened with relegation from League Two in future. 

"Reconstruction came up with a vengeance during covid," adds McMenemy. 

"Everyone wanted to save our own members during the pandemic.  

"When push came to shove it couldn’t be done. We just could not find a way to do it because of clubs protecting their interests across all levels. 

"You can be sure that will be the driving force again now…"