Not at Palmerston.
Not at Palmerston.
Certainly not for the season just completed but hopefully next season with Partick Thistle back in the Scottish Championship.
albertz thats the reason scottish football has never moved forwards with league reconstructions to allow a bigger topflight ,all clubs are intersted in scotland is there to see in your comment ,praying on the bigger clubs bringing big supports to away games ,in other words greed ,if scottish football is to move forward it needs to take this stumbling block away from the clubs ,clubs should be made rely on there own supporters ,ie we will use queens here, at our home games we should only get the gate receipts for our own home fans and whoever we are playing gets the money for there own fans ,this way when it comes to negotiating a bigger topflight ,you wont get the topflight clubs outside the oldfirm trying to keep it a closed shop relying on the old firm supporters cash take that away from them then thay cant use that greed to dictate there vote .
Francis, can you not see that your logic is seriously flawed? If we were to follow your example, - then Rangers and Celtic would become even bigger, - if that were possible!
At the present time, - we have two massive fish in a tiny pond with a couple of others who are of reasonable size. Taking that fishing analogy a little further, - if you were to catch any of the other teams, - you might as well throw them all back.
What is urgently required, is to first of all enlarge the pond (of the SPL) and then to redistribute the food as much as possible to allow the others to grow, - so that they can at least survive.
That is a sustainable model and one that should be adopted, - but sadly through the greed that you quite rightly refer to, - we will probably never see it until it is too late.
thats where scottish football is massively flawed, that way of thinking that its ok to just keep milking the bigger teams for cash ,its become that ridiculous killie give up 3 stands for the old firm milking it ,now no wonder these clubs keep the spl more or less a 12 team closed shop ,i think its only fair that every club takes in what thay make from there own fans through the gates ,yes a few teams will reap better rewards from it ,which should in turn see scottish clubs progress further in europe to give us as a nation a better standing in the football world ,theres too much of the self preservation factor through scottish clubs ,which seriously holds back scotland as a footballing nation ,we need to look further than our own clubs pockets to make things better .so theres no way the clubs outside the oldfirm hibs and hearts will ever accept change without taking this self preservation tonic away from them .
Last edited by Francis_begbie_HFC; 22-05-2018 at 08:38 PM.
I'm afraid I'll have to leave it at that Francis and beg to differ, - unless you are proposing that Celtic and Rangers leave the Scottish League to play in some European super league?
If that were the case, then the Scottish league will simply collapse, - because whether we like it or not major sponsorship is dependent upon the Old Firm.
However, - simply preserving the status quo of the SPL in its present format is economically unviable, because due to the law of diminishing returns, it is witnessing a year on year reduction in profits which is of course unsustainable.
Within the Scottish model, an increase in the size of the SPL will increase sponsorship potential, - and clearly given the fan base of for example Dundee Utd, Dunfermline, Partick and Falkirk, there is a real requirement to raise the number of teams to 16, thus genuinely boosting the coffers of the existing SPL clubs.
To be honest, - I cannot see why the SPL cannot see that carrot? The drudgery of playing each other 4 times a year in league matches and perhaps twice more in cup games has lost any appeal, - and the sooner they make the SPL a 16 team league the better, - playing each other just once a year at home (and away)
Killie only give two stands to Celtic and Rangers and those are the two behind the goals.