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SFA scramble for Diet reboot of SPFL

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Many years ago, less than one after Armageddon as it were, there was talk of a complete change of the entire Football pyramid, of course, one club became angered that its promotion would become meaningless and demanded to be promoted 2 tiers, the plan failed and hasn’t been heard of again since.

Now in The Sun we have seen a reboot of this document with a few new details, this time we are to go to a 14 team league which then turns into a 16 team before settling back to a 14 at the end of the season, only to revert back to a 16 team league again the next season.

Confused? Well I will explain it plainly for you, Hearts are set to be relegated and this simply won’t do, Budge has made her hollow legal threats and the lodgers have come up with a document so ridiculous that it is completely unprecedented across Football’s 200 plus associations.

Screenshots of this madness below

For starters, there would be 2 extra games, whilst still having a winter break, but that is just half the madness, the idea that top 2 Championship teams be promoted at the halfway stage of the season would essentially render the Championship itself meaningless for the run-in.

Instead of a battle til last league fixture, 40% of matches would be played out to determine who was relegated and with the ‘winner’ being the 3rd best team in the League and coming away with a hollow title and a playoff chance to attempt to go up.

Not to say the damage this will do to the teams stuck in midtable but in the second tier, what the hell is the point of playing 14 games with no chance of creeping into the European places?

The teams that will populate the lower echelons will have their points scrapped and essentially play a 14 game league whereby all have an equal threat for relegation, if you miss the top 8 by a point, instead of fighting to climb to 4th, you will be joined by 2 teams from another League and be expected to start over to maintain your premiership status.

This disruptive method is all about saving the Premiership status of Hearts, if Hamilton was in the last place you could bet that these restructures wouldn’t be going on.

This is an attempt to pander to establishment self-interest, it has nothing to do with the advancement of Scottish Football.

This will make the bottom half of the Premiership both unfair and boring, it will decapitate the Championship and make Football after January farcical.

All to save Hearts, a club itself going bankrupt whilst it searches for new talent whilst attempting to prune the wages of those it lured their not on the promise of tradition, Europe, trophies or anything else but money.

Celtic must block these ridiculous attempts.

If there was to be a 14 team league then so be it, there are 42 clubs in Scotland, 3 x 14 = 42 so it’s a neat number.

Have 14 in the Premiership and play them home and away, after those 26 games, split the league into two leagues of 7.

This would mean that in both the top and bottom there would be 12 matches and two byes per team, this would be played home and away, meaning that every team would get 2 free game days a season.

These could be used for clubs still in Europe or in domestic cup games to provide a break, not 2 extra games on top of these fixtures.

Better that there be flexibility than this rigid stupidity, the SFA can’t even reschedule Sevco’s match against St. Johnstone, how are they going to cram in 2 extra rounds?

As for who makes up the 13th and 14th teams, well only sporting integrity will do.

Play the season out to its end and see who occupies those positions, relegate the bottom team, promote the top Championship club and then have 2nd 3rd and 4th playoff with the 11th placed SPFL team home and away with the winners joining the 14 team league.

But 14 teams isn’t about sporting integrity, it is about maintaining a rotten football club in a rotten football association.

If you think I am wrong, ask yourself if it were St. Mirren, Ross County or Hamilton were where Hearts lie, would the league be completely restructured for their good?

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