A bigger league set up is not the solution to our woes. It runs much deeper than that…
Calls for League Reconstruction getting louder
There’s recently been calls for a shake up of our football landscape in the shape of a bigger league set up, with an 18 team Premier League the most popular option amongst supporters, mostly from those connected to clubs outside the big two.
We’ve become something of a backwater in European football, or indeed we’ve been viewed as such for a very long time, something that is hard to argue against when you look at our record on the European stage, occasionally outwith the big two.
This can easily be explained in three reasons and not having a bigger league set up isn’t one of them. Something that those with intentions of improving our game just don’t understand.
Scottish Football’s main issues
Reason one is down to us not holding the financial power of the other leagues due to our unattractiveness to the outside world, which holds us back in terms of lucrative broadcasting deals. This in turn makes clubs charge outrageous ticket prices that don’t appeal to the working class supporter base that football is built on.
That has negative implications in more ways than one. Firstly it prices the ordinary man and woman out of the equation. The life and soul of the game, and it denies the club the chance to attract a new generation of supporters.
Secondly, it doesn’t look good for our football when games are played in front of near empty stadia. Surely a more reasonable affordable pricing system would benefit the club and see a lot more faces come through the turnstiles, and in turn pack those stands? It’s a win-win situation for clubs.
A neglectful attitude at grassroots and youth development level
That is down to our neglectful attitude at grassroots level, and I include our own club in that as our recent record of nurturing young talent is shocking truth be told. But it’s the same all over the country as clubs ignore their responsibility to the future stars of the game, with the governing body also highly complicit for not investing in more facilities and coaches at grassroots level.
Reason three is down to the product on the park. The quality of football on offer in our game is sub-standard at best. Yes a few teams try to play the game the right way, but the overwhelming majority still adopt the tactics that were common place in the 1980s. Managed by dinosaurs who still believe in implementing the kick and rush style of football, just lump it up the park and hope for the best, complete with a side full of hammer throwers whose main objective is just to stop the opposition playing.
Scottish football’s problems run much deeper
All those reasons are holding us back from making our football more competitive and attractive, not the size of our league. Is bringing the likes of Falkirk, Ayr, Livingston, Partick Thistle, Queen’s Park, and Raith Rovers Into the top flight going to dramatically improve our game and make it more appealing? No it won’t, our problems run much deeper than that.
Maybe an 18 team reserve league is where we should start
Maybe an 18 team reserve league should be a starting point will all the clubs with aspirations to play in the Scottish Premiership having to do their bit to develop the game via the next generation. Remember when Celtic were able to win the European Cup with players all from the greater Glasgow area if you include Saltcoats in that. Too many Scottish clubs neglect player development – we don’t even have a reserve league for heaven’s sake. Sorting that is the first step towards a solution.
Just an Ordinary Bhoy
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Good points. I watch my kid playing and grassroots level support is non existent. Remember how Germany reinvented their game, after 2000 and 2004…I took the following from espn but I know there was a book called Das ReBoot, which went into all this. Perhaps someone should lend a copy to the SFA, SPL and Scottish Govt….probably too ambitious for them but we’re crying out for this. HH
“More important, though, were the changes at macro-level. As early as 1998, forward-thinking men at the German Football Association had begun to overhaul youth development, having come to realise that a lack of specialised, competent coaching was proving detrimental to the nation’s talents.
As a stop-gap measure, the FA set up a 121 regional centres in remote areas where otherwise overlooked youngsters could at least enjoy one weekly session under a highly-qualified coach and, perhaps, be spotted by a big club. Two years later, every Bundesliga club agreed to build youth academies”