As you may or may not know, former First Minister of Scotland Henry McLeish (who is an ex-footballer himself) is currently leading a government and SFA backed review into the state of football in Scotland. His latest installment of the report is to be published by the end of the year, but little nuggets of information are beginning to leak out...
The latest revelation comes in the wake of McLeish's former club East Fife announcing ambitious plans to move to a new stadium. This news has shocked the club's fans, coming out of the blue and already seeming to be at an advanced stage, with plans already drawn up. The question is, why all of a sudden, when their current ground is of a decent standard (built as recently as 1998)?
The answer looks to be the re-emergence of SPL2. Club chairman Sid Columbine stated at the weekend that the plan is now "imminent", and could be in place as soon as the 2011/12 season to tie in with the anticipated 14 team SPL. Basically, the SPL2 would consist of 10 teams, and have stringent entry requirements - at least 3000 seats and such, trying to ensure the continued existance of historically full-time clubs like Airdrie, Clyde and Livingston while removing Cowdenbeath and others from the equation.
According to Columbine (interviewed on Radio Scotland AFAIK), the SFL would then retain Divisions 2 and 3 underneath, which would officially become "non-league", and relegation to a new regional Division 4 North/South level similar to down south would be introduced for clubs looking to work their way up the pyramid - expect Spartans and Cove Rangers to be among them.
So, why the move for East Fife? Well, this new stadium would meet these entry requirements, and it boils down to a simple choice for the club - stay at Bayview, build a new stand and be £500,000 in debt (with assets of £2m) or move to a new stadium with no debt & assets of £4.5m. The reason for such a difference? Turns out that their current home is on prime house development land, and they would be gifted the land for the new site by the housebuilder that wants the plot.
Logistically, the idea is that Scotland cannot support more than 24 full-time clubs, and this plan would allow those that are to gain more sponsorship money at the expense of smaller part-time outfits, while not excluding sides from progressing up the ladder to avoid boredom setting in. Irn-Bru would retain sponsorship of the SPL2, and the CIS Cup would essentially become the SPL Cup.
Thoughts? Can't decide whether I'm in favour of this particular approach...something badly needs to change, and I like the idea of integrating new sides into the league setup, but there may be a damaging monopoly set that makes it nigh on impossible for 2nd Division sides to survive when promoted to SPL2. Hmm...
The latest revelation comes in the wake of McLeish's former club East Fife announcing ambitious plans to move to a new stadium. This news has shocked the club's fans, coming out of the blue and already seeming to be at an advanced stage, with plans already drawn up. The question is, why all of a sudden, when their current ground is of a decent standard (built as recently as 1998)?
The answer looks to be the re-emergence of SPL2. Club chairman Sid Columbine stated at the weekend that the plan is now "imminent", and could be in place as soon as the 2011/12 season to tie in with the anticipated 14 team SPL. Basically, the SPL2 would consist of 10 teams, and have stringent entry requirements - at least 3000 seats and such, trying to ensure the continued existance of historically full-time clubs like Airdrie, Clyde and Livingston while removing Cowdenbeath and others from the equation.
According to Columbine (interviewed on Radio Scotland AFAIK), the SFL would then retain Divisions 2 and 3 underneath, which would officially become "non-league", and relegation to a new regional Division 4 North/South level similar to down south would be introduced for clubs looking to work their way up the pyramid - expect Spartans and Cove Rangers to be among them.
So, why the move for East Fife? Well, this new stadium would meet these entry requirements, and it boils down to a simple choice for the club - stay at Bayview, build a new stand and be £500,000 in debt (with assets of £2m) or move to a new stadium with no debt & assets of £4.5m. The reason for such a difference? Turns out that their current home is on prime house development land, and they would be gifted the land for the new site by the housebuilder that wants the plot.
Logistically, the idea is that Scotland cannot support more than 24 full-time clubs, and this plan would allow those that are to gain more sponsorship money at the expense of smaller part-time outfits, while not excluding sides from progressing up the ladder to avoid boredom setting in. Irn-Bru would retain sponsorship of the SPL2, and the CIS Cup would essentially become the SPL Cup.
Thoughts? Can't decide whether I'm in favour of this particular approach...something badly needs to change, and I like the idea of integrating new sides into the league setup, but there may be a damaging monopoly set that makes it nigh on impossible for 2nd Division sides to survive when promoted to SPL2. Hmm...