The furore over the post-split fixtures,
once an annual farrago, has returned with a vengeance this year and many are
blaming Sevco.
No I bow to no one in my distaste for that
club, but it must be said, the issue over the fixtures is not their fault. The
fault rather lies with the system itself, which is an affront to the very
principle on which a league season should be based – that every club plays an
identical set of fixtures.
The whole point of having a league
competition is to establish which team is best over the course of the season.
No one disputes that in a cup competition the winners may have benefited from a
large slice of luck in winning it. A favourable draw, rivals being knocked out
in earlier rounds, a fortuitous bounce of the ball; it’s all part of the drama
of the cup. But that’s not how a league season should be decided. League
winners should be indisputably the best team over the course of the season.
Every placing should reflect that – second should have shown over the season
that they were better than third, third better than fourth etc.
The gap between first and second has for
most of this century been substantial and it has usually been Celtic. After the
introduction of the split in 2000/01, the now defunct Rangers won the title
four times and their biggest winning margin was 6 points, while Celtic’s
winning margins most seasons was in double figures. In a season with a very
tight margin of victory, it can reasonably be said that the Championship may
have gone to another time were it not for the vagaries of the split giving the
champions a third home match against particular opponents.
That won’t be the case this season, but
with a three-way fight for second place, “Rangers” have undoubtedly been handed
an advantage over Aberdeen and Hibernian with a third home match against two of
the other top six sides.
I’ll reiterate, this is *not* Sevco’s
fault. It’s the system. A system that sacrifices the principle that every team
should play an identical set of fixtures for a money-driven one that every team
should be guaranteed 19 home matches, even if that means their nearest rivals
having to play them away from home three times over the course of the season.
The split as it stands makes it impossible
for every team to play an identical set of fixtures. Even if the 19 home game
guarantee was scrapped, some teams will still have played more difficult away
matches than others.
Something very simple needs to happen. The
split needs to go.
Simple enough to decide upon, but it would
lead to some difficult decisions to be made regarding the size of the league.
The clubs were determined that the top flight should be made up of more than 10
clubs, which used to give us a 36 match season.
The split was introduced because the clubs
decided that a 44 match season was too much. It enables a 12 team top flight,
but only a 38 match season.
My solution would be to expand the top
flight to 16 clubs, giving a 30 match season. With everyone playing each other
once home and away, that means 15 home matches for everyone. I would also
reintroduce the group stages of the League Cup, giving everyone a guaranteed 36
games, with a guaranteed 18 home matches. The groups could be seeded to have as
far as possible a team from each division in every group. This would mean six
lucky teams outside the top flight having a home match v either Celtic or “Rangers,”
spreading the wealth around.
The common objections to this would be that
there are not enough “decent” teams in Scotland to support such a large top
flight, and that there would be too many meaningless games. Meaningless in that
there will be a sizeable group of clubs in the middle of the league under no
threat of relegation and with no chance of troubling the business end, and too
many matches that are foregone conclusions.
My answer to that is that that could
actually be a *good* thing for the game in Scotland.
Since the creation of a top ten in 1975,
the top-flight in Scotland has been a cut-throat league. Probably less than
half the league is not in a fight for survival, and clubs in mid-table know
that a couple of bad results could see them mired in a dog-fight to avoid
relegation.
This is not good for the development of
players. Clubs can’t afford to take chances on young players. They can’t afford
to try out new formations or ideas. They have to fight for every point and that
means playing it safe against each other and parking the bus when they play
Celtic or one of the Rangers clubs.
At the top end of the table, before the
liquidation of Rangers, the imperative for the top two was to win every game.
One slip up could cost you the title. So the same thing applied to Celtic and
the former Rangers – few opportunities to blood young players, every game an
absolute pressure-cooker.
Maybe a bigger top-flight with more “meaningless”
games would actually be a good thing. With an 18 team top flight until 1974, we
had Celtic win the European Cup and the now defunct Rangers the now defunct
European Cup Winners Cup. Scottish teams continued to do reasonably well in
Europe till the late 80’s, with Aberdeen winning the ECWC in 1983 and Dundee
Utd reaching the UEFA Cup final in 1987.
Looking at those Aberdeen and Dundee Utd
sides, is it any coincidence that so many of their most influential players
emerged as youngsters on the cusp of the introduction of the ten-team Premier
Division? Willie Miller, Gordon Strachan, Doug Rougvie, Paul Hegarty, David
Narey, Paul Sturrock, all made their debuts in the 2-3 years before the Premier
Division began.
Is it any coincidence that just as that
cohort reached the end of their playing days that Scotland suddenly stopped producing
teams capable of progressing in Europe? Sure we’ve had the odd exception like Celtic’s
UEFA Cup final appearance in 2003 and Rangers’ in 2008, but those were done
through massive, unsustainable spending. Celtic went through years of self-imposed
austerity even before Seville, while Rangers went bust.
A sixteen team top-flight with a League Cup
group stages would guarantee every team 18 home matches per season and I would
argue would facilitate better development of young players. Teams at the top of
the league would have more matches where they would feel able to try out
younger players against opposition who have little chance of beating them,
while mid-table teams would not have the fear of relegation that prevents them
from doing so too.
This won’t be to everyone’s liking, but the
present system has late us down. There are many reasons why Scotland has
stopped producing players in the numbers it once did, I don’t think for a
minute the small top-flight is the only reason for it, but it must be a major
contributing factor. We’ve all known the reserve team wunderkind who is touted as the next big thing, who gets at most a
handful of opportunities then drifts down the divisions. They get so few opportunities
to impress, usually against seasoned pros fighting for their survival in the top
division, and if they don’t produce the goods right away they are written off.
But my main objection to the current set up
is that it is not fair. It doesn’t give every team an identical set of fixtures
and this year, that will have a huge impact on 2nd-4th
place. That’s not Sevco’s fault. It’s not even a system set up to benefit “Rangers.”
It’s just a stupid way to organise a league.
Whatever happens, the split has got to go.
