CIS cup may introduce group stage.

[Joe]

A report released yesterday suggested that the CIS cup could possible introduce a group stage consisting of SPL 1 and two teams.

Good idea, bad idea?

[HibeeJibee]

'Scottish League is out of date'
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'Chick Young's view'
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'Smith critiscises report about SFL'
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an an audio interview with SFL President:
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To summarise:
- many SFL First Division clubs want to remain full-time but fanbase and income insufficient, debt too high
- see smaller clubs as detracting from their 'big'(?) clubs
- see SPL as a pot-of-gold-at-end-of-rainbow come financial-get-out-of-jail-card
- report commissioned for the break-away clubs, comparing SFL with Conference, claims SFL old-fashioned, inefficient, and clumsy. Now while I agree there is no need for a President getting £100k a year, and 14 staff seems a lot compared to 4 at Conference, we must remember (a) the SFL has 2 cups to run, one of them a national cup; (b) there are far more full-time sides in the SFL; (c) the Conference is only 2 levels; (d) the FA is responsible for discipline and much of the registration procedure in the Conference; (e) the SFL has a greater income than the Conference.

The entire SPL1 and SPL2 plans are a bad idea. In brief:
(a) SFL First Division becomes SPL2, so nothing changes BUT
(b) clubs like Airdrie, Livingston and Dundee want more money that doesn't exist. But they are going bust so they must find money from somewhere. So they claim an SPL2 would include live TV coverage. And a massive new SPL sponshorship deal. For the same matches as we have at the moment......
(c) to play in SPL2 would require a 3,000 seater stadium, no standing, and clubs would have to run a full-time reserve and full-time Under-19 team
(d) the SPL would have their own cup, the SPL Cup, which would include groups and knock-out. Because Hibs being in a group with say St Mirren, Hamilton and Ross County is of course going to generate massive amounts of national interest......
(e) the remaining 20 SFL clubs would be left in the lurch, with promotion by condition into SPL2 for their champion, and a play-off place. But they would have to play the Challenge Cup and the League Cup amongst themselves. Airdrie and Livingston wish to forcibly regionalise the 'rump' SFL as 2 regions of 10 (because this would marginalise them, less media coverage, less likely to get a sponsorship deal).

I am not against reconstruction. I am not against clubs trying to maximise their incomes. I am against 22 'new' SPL clubs - including Hibs - deliberately trying to kill off the other league clubs to 'steal' what little income and media attention they have. I tell you this as a matter of fact - if there are 22 league clubs in Scotland, Scottish football will wither on the vine. If you kill the grassroots, the grass will die as well in time.

In the words of the great Scottish patriot Alexander Fletcher of Saltoun:
"I knew a very wise man once, so much of Sir Christopher’s sentiment, that he believed if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation."
I haven't supported my local team Berwick Rangers all my life to have some cowards in their offices at Hampden decide that my team isn't 'good' enough, that our fans aren't 'good' enough, to grace the same league as them. What of Queen's Park? What of Stirling? What of Forfar? These clubs have done more in their histories than Livingston or Airdrie United. I sincerely hope, for the future of our national game, that we should not resign ourselves to making the ballads, while others make the laws - while selfishness spells the ruin of our local teams. I hope that our club, Hibernian FC, proves to have the mettle of men and stands up for the rights of the smaller clubs WHO STAND EQUAL WITH US IN MEMBERSHIP OF THE SCOTTISH FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION, THE SECOND OLDEST FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION ON THIS EARTH, A PROUD INSTITUTION OF OUR NATION - SHARING A PRIDE OF EQUAL MERIT WITH THE SFL, THE SECOND OLDEST FOOTBALL LEAGUE IN THE WORLD. If instead we support these sops in their SPL2 then we are not men at all, but rather sickening cowards, and cowards who do not deserve the name history granted us.