KILMARNOCK, SCOTLAND - MAY 15: Celtic Board members Peter Lawwell and Michael Nicholson during a cinch Premiership match between Kilmarnock and Celtic at Rugby Park, on May 15, 2024, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Craig Foy/SNS Group via Getty Images)
Scottish football is in a dire state. I mean, it absolutely, positively is. It’s in a shit state, it got itself into this shit state, and it can’t seem to get itself out of it.
This week, the SPFL working group is mulling over proposals to alter the composition of the leagues. That’s a bit like me convening a meeting of all my mates to discuss the removal of Peter Lawwell as Celtic chairman.
It doesn’t matter what the feelings around that table are—it’s a waste of everyone’s time to take that discussion seriously.
There is so much grubby self-interest in this game that it makes me sick, and a lot of that stems from our own club and its behaviour—the things it has done in the past and continues to do in the present.
The top flight is a self-protection racket, pure and simple. Worse than that, it’s a badly run self-protection racket.
We have allowed people to run this game who I would not trust to run a bath. We have propped up and promoted pygmies like Neil Doncaster. We have tolerated the most scandalous system of refereeing anywhere in Europe. And by allowing incompetence to run rampant in the governing bodies, we have chained ourselves to dreadful commercial contracts with no end in sight.
As I’ve said repeatedly on this blog, none of this could happen without the connivance of the clubs. None of it would happen unless they were perfectly happy for things to stay exactly as they are. The clubs are the real reason Scottish football is in a mess, and that mess continues to choke the life out of our game.
We need a 10-team league. It’s two fewer games, it abolishes the split, and it eliminates all those meaningless matches that clutter up the fixture list. But it also means we drop two sides, and since this requires a near-unanimous vote, there will never be enough clubs willing to support it.
Once the motion fails, clubs will complain. Our club will be one of the ones that complains. But we are prisoners of a system we helped to build. It is as simple as that. If we’re only now realising that there are consequences to constructing a league for the benefit of the few rather than the many, then that’s just too damn bad.
Celtic has failed to articulate a positive vision for Scottish football. Celtic has failed to lead Scottish football at a time when no one else was capable of stepping up. And because we failed to lead, we are now being swept downriver along with every other club in this country. The people on our board think they’re the Masters of the Universe. But what a universe it is.
I don’t like to talk as if Scottish football is a wasteland, because that sells short the things we’ve achieved as a team and as a club. But the fact is, staying ahead of the chasing pack is no real challenge. There is honour in the way we do it—we don’t game the system, we don’t rack up debts, and we try to play football with a certain style and flair. But the reality of this league being a mess is beyond doubt. Worse, there is no collective will to do anything about it.
For all of us who know that the game here needs change, for all of us who understand how badly it needs reform, it is depressing to realise that we may as well write this off before the vote even takes place. St Johnstone have already said they will not support it, and it won’t take much more opposition to kill the whole thing.
And this is why the SFA and the SPFL executive get away with what they do—because clubs are more interested in short-term survival than long-term benefit.
I don’t even know whether I’m more frustrated at knowing the result of the vote before it even happens, or at the fact that people are going to sit around a table and have a discussion about that vote knowing full well that it will go absolutely nowhere.
There are things that could be getting fixed in this game. There are discussions that could be taking place with a realistic chance of agreement. But those things aren’t being talked about because someone has decided to waste time on a pointless conversation like this. That offends me as much as anything—the sheer waste of time, energy, and effort on something with a foregone conclusion.
It’s not just the vote itself that sums up Scottish football. It’s the fact that the vote is even being debated when everyone in the game knows exactly how it will go. That’s where the real futility lies. It lies in a doomed attempt to try to break through this brick wall. It lies in pretending that enough people even care.
The people running our clubs would rather live in shit than pick up a shovel.
And that’s how we got here in the first place. And it’s why we’ll stay here.
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An 18 team league would be my preference, but clubs won’t agree to playing Us & Sevco only twice a season
Totally agree, 18 or I’d still be happy with 16. Play everyone twice. They have said the reason for this proposal is to reduce fixture congestion.
10 team league playing 4 times is only 2 games less. Make it an 18 team format & you’ll achieve the same. Make it 16 & you’ll remove 6 games from the season if congestion is the real issue.
I would love Scottish football to conform to “normal” league format where everyone plays each other twice home & away.
No need to overcomplicate it
You wonder where you start with Scottish football as there are so many issues that make it all overwhelming.
I prefer the current set up tbh, even with 10 teams, as I dread that we might fail in an expanded set up. We have seen us beaten twice by an horrendous huns team, beaten by Hibs so those are games along with other off days that could cause us to lose the league. It’s like the darts as the top guys dread the short format competitions but the more games comps allow the best to win.
Our governing bodies have been run mostly in history by people from the same club but also Cove Rangers, Alloa, Patrick Thistle et Al. . How the hell do those minnows know how to structure a modern league capable of competing in Europe and International levels, attracting players, attracting meaningful TV and commercial deals, attracting and developing new young blood our game.
We see grossly empty stadiums largely based on GIRUY bigotry so like cup semis etc if you can’t fill your ground open it up to those who can can and who will provide you with money to help you build your own team and a larger fan base.
Money is the biggest problem as in all walks of life in our society kids want fame n big money instantly so no one is going to want to come to Scotland or stay in Scotland with the paltry wages on offer. Even women’s football is attracting much greater interest now than the SPFL ever will I am afraid.
I think Scottish Football is already dead, it is certainly a joke down here where people will either turn it off in pubs or keep it on for a laugh. They are not interested that their 5000 fan club are only attracting our players and decent TV money etc because of geo of geography, they just see themselves as superior to anything the Sweaties can do. Scottish football is an even bigger joke in Europe where our bigger teams keep losing in the first round to minnows.
It is a sorry state of affairs so as you say why bother even discuss it as the people who can nchange it do not want to. Where do you start?
Excellent post daviebhoy, couldn’t agree more , Scottish football is turning into a joke down here,I’ve said it for years now one outside of Scotland cares how many times Celtic or sevco or any other Scottish side win the league,they see it as Mickey mouse and a 1 horse race at present,so unless Scottish teams do better in Europe it’s the only way the Scottish game will get any credibility,rightly or wrongly,the EPL is only better because of the vast amounts of money chucked at it ,where realistically only 4 out of 24 can win the league,but look at the money the likes of Burnley and Brighton recieve they are classed as big teams because they are in the EPL, even though they’re grounds are lucky if they have 20,000 seater capacity,I remember years ago when Brighton and Hove Albion and Burnley etc were diddy teams look at them now.and all because the EPL struck out and got good deals with sky TV and BBC ITV etc where the numpties running Scottish football settled for peanuts.in the SPFL if you win the league I think you get about 3 million in the EPL if you come last and get relegated it’s 100 million,hence the disparity between Scottish and English football but the arrogant English never takes this monetary disparity into account when ridiculing Scottish football.
Cheers Iven. If nothing else shows that football is about money the it is the Championship play off where a team can finish in sixth place, miles behind the winners but actually pick more £ms due to it being a tv spectacle. Ab mental
Yep – Absolutely Lads…
I now use the money that I used to purchase a season ticket at Celtic with to have two boozy weekends in England at the unfashionable club that I like down there…
And unfashionable club or not (and they are) well even their townsfolks mock Scottish Football to the core, not so much as a club like say Dumbarton getting a few hundred every other Saturday from a catatchment area of around 40,000 folks but the utterly tragic fact that no other club out with Celtic, ‘Rangers’ (deceased c. 2012) and Sevco have won the title in FORTY BLOODY YEARS…
I can’t argue – It is indeed utterly tragic !
It’s run intae the ground. And the very fact that, for a ‘premier’ league, we still have plastic pitches is a sad joke. Never mind tho, we still have wee nyaff martindale’s Livingston games tae look forward tae again next season. The worst team tae watch EVER, in Scottish football history imo.
What a shower of miserable looking fuckers in that photo!
Money doesn’t guarantee happiness.
Probably taken when it was a disaster type Champions League Group Stage Qualifier v Cluj Maribor, or Ferencravos…
Where ‘Daddy’ Lawwell ‘thought’ that hecwas good at poker only he absolutely fuckin well WAS’NT !
EDIT = * he was – and not hecwas as it reads…
No wonder a lot of the kids down my way are running about in Real Madrid , Barca, Spurs, Man City and Liverpool tops. We’re heading for Irish league status and Celtic need to jump ship pronto.
The English think every other league is a diddy league and theirs is the best in the world, yawn.
Our league could go to 14 teams, play each other twice, then split into top 6, bottom 8 and play twice more so the tv companies get their 4 Glasgow derby’s, we reduce our games by 2.
I agree with both Willie and Jay. An 18 club league is the way to go, but it will never happen as everything nowadays is all just down to money. Why do Celtic and The Rangers have to play every team 4 times a season? Oh! I have just said, money. Football like everything else today is just all down to greed.
Very good point Micheal !
I’d go for 16. Play each other twice gives us 30 league games and reduces burnout factor and most shit games in midweek. I would have said reduces injuries but the extra four will mean more hammer throwers. Less games could attract better players as a lot of players won’t come here to play the amount of games we have.
16 and fewer games/season is the smart move. Easier to fit the European games and the increasing international breaks.
The 4 newbies will start as hammer throwers, but evolve over time. More importantly the Hearts/Hibs/Aberdeen etc will change their style pretty sharpish if they see a load of teams as beatable as we see most of the league. May take 10 years, but we would see a shift in focus of what type of players we have and how we play the game.
Sorry James, what we absolutely don’t need is a return to a 10 team league. We should be aiming for a league size where we play each team twice. That’s the only outcome that will drag the rest of the teams up and improve the football overall. A 10 team league suits us for winning every year, or 10/11 years.
But I don’t want that. I want to win in a more competitive league. I want teams to see more of their games as winnable, so the style of football changes. This rot of 12 or 10 teams encourages hoofball and everything that Scottish football is criticised for. If they want to make a change great, but make the right change.
And accept that for 5 years we will have crap teams and that’ll be a bit annoying l, but they’ll improve by being in the top league.
Get this backwards looking sky sports approved nonsense so far to eff.
Sky television has killed Scottish football, We are in an impossible situation we live in a country that is only a country in the eyes of the Footballing World. Politically we are recognised throughout the World as a region not a country, and that won’t change until the Scottish people grow a pair. The National broadcaster treats us as a region and in most things we live in the shadow of our large neighbour England that has 11 times our population. Scottish football has been shafted by the TV companies including the so called National broadcaster for years now, What’s the answer? I don’t know, 10, 12, 14, 16, or 18 is just like moving the deck chairs on the Titanic.
The only wee chink of light is UEFA’S new format of the European Tournaments , which might eventually lead to a pyramid system of European Leagues sometime in the distant future. As an auld guy wae auld fashioned values, I know it’s not PC these days, but if any of my bhoys or ghirls were running about with any English teams shirt on, it’s a boot up the backside they would have got.