Scottish Premier League’s chief executive Neil Doncaster has described the proposed shake-up to its structure as being good for all of the clubs in the country.
| “We need something fairly radical to totally overhaul the game in Scotland and improve things, particularly matters financial – not merely for their league but for all 42 clubs” – SPL’s Neil Doncaster |
The twelve clubs will assemble next Monday to consider the latest proposal for a ten-team top division with a further ten clubs in the second tier.
Those new suggestions would add a play-off for the side finishing second bottom as well as automatic relegation for whoever finishes bottom, while also including arrangements aimed at easing the financial blow to clubs dropping down to the second level – and a proposal to turn the Second and Third Divisions into regional leagues.
“There will be nothing imposed on anyone. Indeed, we don’t have the ability to do so,” Doncaster told BBC Scotland. “So anything that we have in mind will be on the basis of proper consultation with everyone and, if there is an invitation to SFL clubs to come on board, they will have to make up their own mind if it is in their best interests or not.
“We need something fairly radical to totally overhaul the game in Scotland and improve things, particularly matters financial – not merely for their league but for all 42 clubs,” he continued. “There are some fundamental problems with Scottish football at the moment.
“One of them is that there’s a staleness about the top division and, by moving to a system of a 10-team top division and 10-team second division but with more teams passing up and down between the two divisions, we hope that that staleness will be removed and that there will be a freshness about the new set-up.
“The other fundamental problem we’ve got is that, when clubs are relegated at present from the top tier, they face financial Armageddon,” Doncaster added. “And we think it is important for the whole of Scottish football that clubs are protected from that and the money in the second tier of Scottish football is beefed up so that clubs are relegated, they are relegated to a far better environment than they are at the moment.”
