We've been after this for ages too, and the gov't doesn't want to know.

Celtic FC bring there own stewards, ibrox is vulgar and threatening while tnyecastle is dismal, but safer.

expobill: Celtic FC bring there own stewards, ibrox is vulgar and threatening while tnyecastle is dismal, but safer.

Home fans can stand in pretty much all the SPL grounds if you pick the right area of the ground. Away fans have it much worse as stewards crack down on standing while home fans are allowed to stand virtually next to you (Aberdeen stewards are wanks for this)

Celtic Park is BY FAR the worst ground to go to for being hassled by stewards. Ibrox is slightly better because the police take firmer control and are generally easier to talk to than some jobs worth minimum wage arsehole with a god complex. Tynecastle is the best ground in the country for atmosphere because all the stands are tight to the pitch with the worst McDairmid Park. Tannadice is alright because you can get close to the pitch but the stewards are fussy bastards telling you to sit down all the time.

Anyway Rangers and Celtic away fans tend to stand for 90 minutes anyway and don't get the harsh treatment because there are so many of them and there has hardly been a spate of accidents caused by it.

I've been looking at the pictures of the safety stands. They look fantastic. They convert to seats when needed, they maintain specific seat spaces and numbers to help avoid crowd control issues and provide space and support for standing. It's an elegant solution and to be honest a relief to hear something good come out of the league for a change.

Standing, sitting.......makes no difference. It doesn't change the fact that the SPL is quite simply a rank rotten product, with teams in major financial difficulties, poor quality on the park, and the continuing over-dominance of the Old Firm (despite their own problems). There's barely more than 4 or 5 players in the whole SPL who could hold down a regular first team spot in the English Premiership.

The only way forward for Scottish football is an EXTREMELY radical overhaul of the whole shooting match, including the creation of a small core of full time pro teams (not more than 16) with no fear of relegation, improved revenue sharing, a change in the timing of the league season, and a system that allows teams to nuture and benefit from young talent without having to constantly sell them off to survive. Raising the overall standard of play can't be done overnight, so it would be a big committment, but it would eventually be beneficial to everyone INCLUDING the Old Firm, whose own self-serving asperations are dulled by poor quality competition on a week by week basis.

It'll never happen. The current regimes that rule Scottish football will continue to do no more than tweak the system, presevere with the same old kak that's been tried (and failed) before, and fight among themselves.

Soup_In_A_Basket: Standing, sitting.......makes no difference. It doesn't change the fact that the SPL is quite simply a rank rotten product, with teams in major financial difficulties, poor quality on the park, and the continuing over-dominance of the Old Firm (despite their own problems). There's barely more than 4 or 5 players in the whole SPL who could hold down a regular first team spot in the English Premiership.

The only way forward for Scottish football is an EXTREMELY radical overhaul of the whole shooting match, including the creation of a small core of full time pro teams (not more than 16) with no fear of relegation, improved revenue sharing, a change in the timing of the league season, and a system that allows teams to nuture and benefit from young talent without having to constantly sell them off to survive. Raising the overall standard of play can't be done overnight, so it would be a big committment, but it would eventually be beneficial to everyone INCLUDING the Old Firm, whose own self-serving asperations are dulled by poor quality competition on a week by week basis.

It'll never happen. The current regimes that rule Scottish football will continue to do no more than tweak the system, presevere with the same old kak that's been tried (and failed) before, and fight among themselves.



Yay. You make no coherent points. No relegation means no reason to improve, less excitement and therefore less marketability which leads to less fans and less TV money which leads to poorer players because clubs can't afford to pay them.

There are only about 16 fully pro teams right now, how does getting rid of a side like Montrose or Ayr United do anything for competitive balance in the top league.

A summer season that doesn't cut a massive amount of games is unfeasable. If you propose a 16 team 30 game season the clubs would lose over 25% of home game revenue as well as only 2 Old Firm games, and the other big games like Edinburgh derbies, Aberdeen vs Old Firm and Motherwell vs Kilmarnock. If you want to stick with the current amount of games then if you run from february to november and don't stop for international tournaments where SPL players might be taking part (world cups, euros etc)

Revenue sharing would only work if ALL revenue was shared and it would only amount to the OF subsidising the smaller clubs and artificially inflating wages as happened at the first SPL money boom and actually remove the top quality players from the league. Competitive balance is a big issue for other countries as well with La Liga being the obvious example.

Ignoring the financial suicide of the summer season the Scottish authorities have made radical changes to the league in the past, the most recent example is the introduction of the split which was copied by around 1/3 of European leagues. The SPL is a much better league than it gets credit for and is constantly dragged down because of the proximity to the EPL but compared to other countries with similar populations we do well.

Faddy,

So, everything's rosy in the world of Scottish football? I'll bear this in mind when all our club sides are once again dumped out of Europe by the end of August next season (and unable to get back in on legal grounds), and when our coefficient falls so low that our champion club needs to go through 3 rounds of qualifying just to get to the group stages of the CL.

If you enjoy watching what's on the park week in week out, good luck to you. I'm certainly not alone though in thinking that the SPL is crap, and being in close proximity to the EPL has nothing to do with it. I certainly don't consider varying the size of the league every few years between 10 and 12 teams, or adding a few weeks winter break are radical steps that are going to improve things.

There really are no short term solutions to the problem (for those of us who believe there IS a problem that is!) but in order to change, some very much bolder measures are going to have to be introduced. But you needent worry, as Scottish football doesn't have the guts to do that.

Who cares if you start in July. The early start to the season was good this year and got rid of a winter midweek match. Unfortunately UEFA are shafting middling leagues. Only the top 15 leagues play less than 3 qualifying rounds in the champions league and outside the top 12 you still play two so it isn't that big a deal unless you think the SPL should be in the top 12.

As far as european performances go Hearts performed to their co-efficient, Dundee United got the hardest possible draw, Rangers were terrible and Celtic got screwed by Sion and getting a bad seed in a good group when they should've been a 2 seed (they should've beaten Sion regardless but that is another matter)

In the last few years every club has pretty much match their co-efficient ranking and 3 years ago we had a team in the Europa league final, and in fact two in the last decade. in fact no other country outside the top 7 leagues has one team making the final of either main competition.

The SPL is the 26th best supported sports league in the world (16th best in football) by average attendance. Scotland isn't anywhere near being one of the twenty largest countries in the world so I think we do quite well.

Compare the SPL to Sweden, Croatia, Romania, Austria and Czech Republic and we have been ranked along side these much bigger countries for some time and exceeded them in performance. The SPL could do with a relegation playoff between 11th and 2nd in the first division but the drop in revenue outside the SPL is a real stumbling block and would see SPL chairmen as turkies voting for christmas.

Scotland is in somewhat a unique position regarding TV. Our national broadcasters BBC Scotland and STV can't afford the SPL TV rights (which have been extended and increased in value when most other TV deals are decreasing see:The Championship) so we are beholden to English centric channels who don't see the SPL as the main product so maximising TV revenue is hard when the SPL is essentially expendable to the main TV companies.

Next year will be a telling year for Scottish football in Europe. We have an extra European slot (which actually hinders the overall co-efficient) but gives both Rangers and Celtic two chances to get into the Europa league groups, possibly qualify from that and have a run late into the competition. Old Firm failures in the last couple of years coupled with the removal of Aberdeen's good europe run has left us exposed in terms of co-efficient.

Dundee United got a team rated almost equally in co-efficient and had been given heavy investment over the last year. There was no possible harder draw for a seeded team. Even if they had won in the second round they still weren't seeded for the next round so it might have been a short lived run anyway.

Hearts could have drawn Roma or Sevilla who had higher co-efficients but being unseeded it would always have been a tough match, so the lesser Scottish teams were unlucky in the draw.

You have to give Romania credit for getting points and i think the UEFA co-efficient system is fair. What is unfair is the babying of the big leagues who have wrecked qualifying because they want to play in friendly tournaments or money spinning tours. The six auto Europa League places are another step by UEFA to placate the big leagues.

What's worse about the Sion mess is that now UEFA have hijacked the issue and effectively threatened to kick out Basel, who've done nothing wrong at all, in favour of a team that never got farked through someone else's doing in the first place.

Make Sion and the Swiss FA pay compensation through the nose and leave it at that.