Our football teams contest two types of football competitions. These are league and knockout cup competitions; the SPL, the Scottish (SFA) cup and the League cup.

My idea is that our clubs play a different format, like the world cup finals, or the Champions League.

Maybe for the League cup or the Scottish Cup? But then why not for the SPL? Not all of them though.

Maybe it could be geographically organised, so (West Scotland, South Scotland, East Scotland (Hooray!), and North Scotland play within each other. Then the winners, and/or the runners up go through to a knockout tournament.
Or it could be seeded so there would be, in the League Cup for instance, 10 groups of 4- or something, with the top 2 teams goin into the next round. Then like the World Cup, knockout until the final.

Except it lasts like a World cup, so maybe we could play early and it would last Two weeks, a month or something.


I reckon that would be might be exciting. Wee tournaments like that are fun. I used to play rugby, we played in loads that lasted a weekend.
And we all loved the Tennants Sixes, didn't we? It was, and still is, more fun than the League Cup.

Just think if the OhLED Phurrym both failed to get out of the group stages. Magic.

this what the old league cup sections looked like some great game and some really bad can remember games like these from 1974

http://www.statto.com/football/stats/scotl...2/results/pr-g3

I never knew that. How did they select the teams, Aberdeen and Kilmarnock are pretty far apart.

How come they stopped it.

So it went from August till November, did they play the league in between as well?

I like the way the Magners league works. Everyone plays everyone home and away during the season then the top 4 teams go into the semis with the top seeded team choosing the venue for the final. I suppose you could do similar with the top 8/16 aswell

I like the league cup back then hearts would play 6 games home and away
with in 21 days don't no why they scrapped the system

A fisrt step to improve the game, is increase the size of the Permier League.
Does anyone on here really want to see us playing St Mirren et al four times a season?

The old league cup set up with the groups of four in the first stage proper was quite good in my opinion, but then again I liked the Texaco Cup!!!!

No. St Mirren twice is enough. (it is bad when it comes to Jan-March when sometimes you have postponed SPL matches, League cup, Scottish cup and maybe a replay. What *beep*!

Unfortunately the clubs are the ones that are blocking changing the sysytem.

In Brazil do they not play a sysytem like was mentioned above, they play a league then at the end of that they have a mini league for the title?
We need more actual competition in Scottish Footbal.
Or like in USA where they have two conferences which at the end of the season one time from each play to be Champions.



You never know maybe the Grusome Twosome will be so bad that other teams just win! (Maybe Hearts?)

I just can't see where a challenge to the O.F. is going to come from mate. We are a long way back from Celtic and Rangers.
Hibs and Dundee Utd are the same. Now and again we put one over on them, but the big two sail on, year after year.
We had a great chance a few years back when Vlad first appeared but he blew it...BIG TIME.
Don't know when if ever we will get another chance. Certainly not next season with the squad as it currently stands.

If it goes to a knockout after the league is over, anyone could win it. Say we do what they do in rugby, 1st place plays 3rd, 2nd place plays 4th, you said yourself "now and again we put one over on them". If we were able to hold on to take the 3rd spot like we usually do, we'd get rangers in the semis (not impossible to beat) and celtic get united, there would be absolutely nothing stopping us, or united, or any other team for that matter (except maybe hibs, who would choke at the last) making it. This in turn would cause the OF to lose out on sponsorship money, merchandising etc if theyre not winning every year and would eventually mean we'd all have similar quality players and theyd have to rely on youth etc like the rest of us. Any format that makes the league unpredictable is worth a try IMO.

i don't like the playoff system for winning the league. a straight forward league system gives you the best result. ie the best team wins the league. the above system could see a team 40 points behind the leaders in 4th go on to win the league. hardly fair. holland tried a system for european qualification which couldhave seen 10th place teams qualify and 2nd place miss out

and we have the cups for knockout competition.

we should have a straight forward league, but as kimura suggests (as does every one in scottish football except a few greedy clubs) it should have more teams, less games and no gimmicks like mid season splits. throw a winter break and more promotion/relegation into that and i'd be happy!!

A good, old fashioned, proper league? That works for me.

However, I'd like to see a few changes on the pitch, like the abolition of offside at the halfway line (maybe only the penalty area/extended line) and a need to keep a couple of players in the other half at all times to stretch the game and make more space (rather than the 18 players in one penalty area at a corner).

The Portugese setup would be perfect for Scotland.

League 16 teams, play twice h & a, 30 games a season.

FA Cup is knockout.

League Cup Portuguese league cup saw changes in its format since the debut season in order to increase the number of matches and also incomes for both clubs and league. For the 2010-11 season, the approved format is the following:

• First Round: Liga de Honra teams separated into 4 groups of 4 teams each with each team playing 3 games. Top two will advance to next round.
• Second Round: Two-legged matches between the 8 First Round survivors, the 2 Liga ZON Sagres promoted teams and 6 worst from previous season Liga Sagres.
• Third Round: 4 groups of 4 teams each, containing the winners of second round and 8 top-placed teams in previous season Liga Sagres. Group winners advance.
• Knockout: Both semi-finals and final are one-legged fixtures. Linkage

The portugal system seems to be one that would be a good example.

Ihave wikipediaedEuropena countries with similar populations to Scotland.

Moldova 4,434,547
They have just moved from 12 to 14 teams, from the UEFA website. I think last season they played 33 matches, so three times a season. Seems as bonkers as ours.



Denmark 5,368,854

Slovakia 5,422,366

Croatia 4,490,751

Ireland 4,234,925

Finland 5,302,545

Norway 4,743,193

All this info from Wikipedia.
This is the UEFA coefficients http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_coeffici...gue_coefficient