The split fixtures have finally been announced and it’s pretty interesting to say the least. With Celtic needing just one win to be crowned once again as Scottish Champions we have been handed TWO consecutive away games in our quest for consecutive titles.
Hearts at Tynecastle and theRangers at Ibrox. The toughest away tests we could have been handed with maybe the exception of Aberdeen at this moment in time.
It was obvious we were going to be facing an away game first, but two? That’s a bit unfair, not the challenge we face on the park, but more on the supporter front. We will have to settle for having just 1400 supporters at Tynecastle and it’s going be even less when we go there next season with the away allocation for Celtic getting cut to just 600. Back to this season and after the trip to Tynecastle we will have zilch at Ibrox in terms of an away support.
The SPFL could have started us at Ibrox and then a home tie against St Mirren for instance, or away at Hibs and home to St Mirren. At least more of a fair and balanced chance for supporters to celebrate a title being clinched, but no it hasn’t worked out like that. It’s the SPFL of course, so it’s not surprising.
This top six split has been an enigma since it was introduced at the start of the century. It does nothing to enhance our game in my opinion and I’m sure the majority of Scottish football supporters feel the same.
I mean the seventh placed side can finish on more points than the sixth placed side. That’s bonkers. It also means that one club can three home games against another side in that season, it’s unbalanced and unfair, for example Aberdeen will have made three visits to Celtic Park come the end of the season, while we’ve only visited Pittodrie once.
Is that fair on Barry Robson’s side when they are going for third place and already have tough tasks ahead in visiting Ibrox and Tynecastle? No it’s not, it could be costly when the season comes to a conclusion. Especially with the financial offers on reward for finishing 3rd place.
In my opinion the split should be binned and the league restructured to accommodate more teams. Ie 14, 16 or even 18 clubs. A home and away fixture for each club. Fair and Square. It’s not that complicated. Anything’s better than the sham we have in place presently.
And outside the top six, the gap between the bottom six and the Championship clubs doesn’t seem too great, as you can see from the two Scottish Cup semi-finalists on Saturday. Inverness Caley Thistle aren’t even top of the Championship and Falkirk are second in League One behind winners Dunfermline.
Both these League One sides are historically important clubs within Scottish football and Championship sides Dundee, Queen’s Park, Patrick Thistle and even Ayr United all have Premiership aspirations.
Just a thought. What do you think?
JustAnOrdinaryBhoy – follow on Twitter @ordinarybhoy
SOME INTERESTING ALTERNATIVES…
And here’s an idea. The SWPL1 introduced a split this season, the first year that the women’s game has fallen within the SPFL’s remit. The top six split into two groups with the top six playing each other home and away. The guarantees no similar situation to the one facing Aberdeen this season in the Scottish Premiership with three visits to Celtic Park.
If this is the solution that the SPFL have found for the women’s game at the first time of asking, why is it not appropriate for the men’s game? It guarantees the four Glasgow derbies required to keep Sky Sports interested and it could allow a few extra clubs to join the league with the top six splitting to play home and away after each side has had a home and away match against all other teams ahead of the split. This would then allow the bottom section of the split to have additional games, which would generate additional revenue for these clubs.
One of the barriers to reform has always been self interest and the wish for clubs to have the money spinning home fixtures against the Glasgow giants. Yet the trend these days is to restrict the number of away supporters from Celtic and theRangers and that has for example happened this season at St Mirren, Kilmarnock, Dundee United, Hearts and elsewhere.
And for the Glasgow Derby itself we have got to the ludicrous position were we have no away fans as a result of theRangers decision to reduce Celtic’s allocation at Ibrox after a campaign from their supporters following a series of painful home defeats at Ibrox. (A solution for this would be for the Scottish FA and the SPFL to get together and say to the two clubs, sort this out by the start of the season because if you don’t we’ll make you play the four league games next season at Hampden with 50/50 split of tickets. Then a compromise agreement would be reached by the two boards in about five minutes!
So the days of wanting the away revenue from travelling supporters seem to have declined and that presents a huge opportunity for change.
Get rid of the TV Companies.
Each club should have its own TV – like Celtic TV.
Then the TV companies don’t tell the SPFL what to do and we don’t have to do their bidding.
Scotland really is a backward country run by losers.