johnnyk 158 Posted January 11, 2013 Share Posted January 11, 2013 ET today IF the SPL and SFL clubs back proposals for a 12-12-18 league structure, and it is pushed through for the start of next season, it will be an absolute scandal. For it would mean that 39,000 Rangers supporters have bought season tickets to see what has, effectively, been meaningless friendly matches. It will have been a complete and utter waste of their money. If the new set-up comes into being for the start of the 2013/14 campaign, then what Rangers do this season will be irrelevant. The Ibrox club will go into the new 18-team bottom division, along with all the other Third Division clubs, irrespective of what happens on the park. I agreed with Campbell Ogilvie, the SFA president, when he said that clubs must know what they are playing for at the start of the season. Otherwise, what is the point in having a league? Yes, it will still take the same amount of time for Rangers to return to the SPL if league reconstruction happens. But they will end up playing exactly the same teams in the bottom league again next season â?? no matter how many points they win the Third Division by. How does manager Ally McCoist motivate his players for the remaining games of the season if this plan gets the green light? What they do will be unimportant. Why should Ally play promising kids like Fraser Aird, Barrie McKay or Lewis Macleod if they risk a serious injury in a game that does not matter a jot? The Rangers fans have been through hell in the last year or so. But I think that once it was decided they would be playing in the bottom tier in the summer they accepted it, embraced it and got behind their club. They have been nothing short of magnificent. Their backing of the team, home and away, has been extraordinary. They deserve to see their heroes rewarded with something meaningful â?? promotion to a higher league â?? at the end of the season. If the 12-12-18 system gets the go-ahead then they will have been cheated. Why should they go and see their team play in the matches coming up when nothing is at stake? Rangers fans were already deeply disillusioned with how they had been treated by the governing bodies and the other Scottish clubs. This latest development will simply serve to increase their sense of grievance. In the summer, all the SPL and SFL clubs decided, in their wisdom, to place Rangers in the Third Division. Before they reached their decision, they all went to their supporters to ask their opinion. The reason for that was â?? despite what they may have said publicly â?? that they did not want to take responsibility for consigning the Ibrox club to the fourth tier. They were told, in no uncertain terms, that the fans would refuse to buy season tickets unless Rangers went into the Third Division. Essentially, they were threatened. But have the clubs consulted with their fans this time? No, they totally ignored them. Sorry, but the paying public, the lifeblood of the game, need to have their say about something so important to the future of football in this country. I think most fans wanted to see a 16-team top division. They are sick and fed up of seeing their team play the same opponents four times a season. Rangers, too, were not involved in talks about the new league structure because they are only an associate member of the SFL just now. But, surely to goodness, the biggest club in Scotland has to have some sort of input into talks on reconstruction. There has inevitably been speculation about Rangers leaving Scottish football. The Old Firm clubs have been threatening to do this for 25 years or so now. But, with the way football is going, it is something that Fifa and Uefa have to seriously look at now. By all accounts, their attitudes towards cross-border competition is softening. Personally, I would like to see Rangers remain in Scottish football. But I can understand why Charles Green is looking at alternatives when this is forced upon him. It has been pointed out that a similar system to the 12-12-18 has been used in Austria and Switzerland. Well, yes it was. But it was ditched because it didn't work! I fail to see what makes this better than the current set-up. There are far too many unwanted possible scenarios.. Will the satellite broadcasters, ESPN and Sky Sports, go along with it? Will sponsors be impressed? I think it shows Neil Doncaster and Stewart Regan, the SPL and SFA chief executives, are out of touch with a game they are employed to enhance. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTP 0 Posted January 11, 2013 Share Posted January 11, 2013 Liewell's monkeys won't like this. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim1955 12 Posted January 11, 2013 Share Posted January 11, 2013 Liewell's monkeys won't like this. It needed saying however. Any league is won over a season not in the remaining games after an artificial split when points totals are reset to zero. The top team loses all the benefit of a good start to the season, this is simply not fair and I don't care which team is top at at proposed split. It is not fair. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTP 0 Posted January 11, 2013 Share Posted January 11, 2013 It needed saying however. Any league is won over a season not in the remaining games after an artificial split when points totals are reset to zero. The top team loses all the benefit of a good start to the season, this is simply not fair and I don't care which team is top at at proposed split. It is not fair. What Liewell is well aware of is that they can field a third team for 22 games as long as they finish 8th, they can use their best players only for Europe. Then when they are out of Europe and the split happens, they bring the big players back to win a league which will last a few months. Yip Sporting intergrity at it's finest. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calgacus 8 Posted January 11, 2013 Share Posted January 11, 2013 I thought it was only the middle eight who had their points reset to zero. I am under the impression that the top eight keep their points as do the bottom eight. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GovanAllan 0 Posted January 11, 2013 Share Posted January 11, 2013 I thought it was only the middle eight who had their points reset to zero. I am under the impression that the top eight keep their points as do the bottom eight. It is but surely in the name of integrity all the teams should go back to zero, I mean think of the excitement. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
craig 5,195 Posted January 11, 2013 Share Posted January 11, 2013 (edited) When you look at the proposals we tend to look at them from a Rangers perspective... so I kind of tried to look at this from the view of the "whole" and what it would mean come the end of the season... makes for interesting reading... SPL - currently has 12 teams, will remain with 12 teams. The team that finishes bottom presumably gets relegated, which would happen regardless of what happens with the reconstruction. SFL1 - currently has 10 teams, will have 12 teams. One team relegated from SPL and replaced by the SFL 1 team which wins the league. No change there. Again, presumably, due to the increase in size, the bottom 2 will NOT be relegated and the SFL1 will simply promote the top 2 from SFL2 (might be via play-off) to compete in SFL1 (winners in this are the two who dont get relegated plus the two from SFL2 that get promoted). SFL2 - will now become the 3rd, and lowest, tier of Scottish football. Will be a league of 18, so the remainder of the teams left in Scottish football. Just take a wee gander at the above and tell me which of any teams in Scottish football are negatively affected by the proposed reconstruction ? There are only TWO teams out of 42 in the WHOLE of Scottish football who are negatively affected by this. Whomever would otherwise get promoted from SFL3 into SFL2. They are the ONLY teams to lose out. Just look at the promotions and relegations - everything remains as status quo other than teams not being relegated from SFL1 and SFL2...... which is a POSITIVE... The only clubs being negatively impacted are the two teams who would otherwise get promoted from SFL3. On top of all of that..... the teams who finish outside the top 2 in SFL3.... yep, you guessed it.... they actually get a "promotion" too without even warranting it. And I understand that some will say "but we go from the 4th tier of Scottish football to 3rd tier" instead of "we go from the bottom tier to.... well..... the bottom tier" - but if we go to the 3rd tier from the 4th tier.... why should everyone else from SFL3 (who didnt earn a promotion) find themselves in the 3rd tier and effectively get an undeserved promotion ? Anyone else just a touch skeptical that the plans for this "great new world of Scottish football" seem to negatively impact only two teams, at a time when it is pretty much beyond question that one of them WILL be Rangers ? And this is before you get into the lunacy of scrapping points halfway through a season. Yep, the patients really ARE running the Scottish Footballing asylum. Lunacy indeed..... and Regan comes out today and says "I have done more for Scottish football in 3 years than the previous regimes have done in 20" - yes Stewart, you are indeed correct..... but only if your remit is to destry the game north of the border. You are looking more and more like the enemy within to me. Edited January 11, 2013 by craig 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DUDE 0 Posted January 11, 2013 Share Posted January 11, 2013 Great article, hopefully Regan, Lawell and the other muppets will choke on that a bit. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.