We all know, only too well, at the start of each season that our top domestic leauge is going to be won by one of two clubs which rather takes much of the fun out of it for everyone else as well as almost certainly reducing crowds, sponsorship income and TV revenue.
That's unfortunately been the case for twenty years now since the brief dominance of the " New Firm" of Aberden and Dundee United in the early to mid eighties when these north east clubs could still aspire to entice the odd player from the top league in England and when Aberdeen's budget for players was about 70% of Rangers or Celtic's instead of about 25% as it is now.
All in all it's difficult to see how clubs are ever going to compete on anything like a level playing field again. So why not contrive to make the playing field at least a little less uneven ?
American sports try to prevent long term domination by one or two teams by the draft system whereby the poorest team from the season before have first picks on promising new players, Rugby League have the salary cap which was introduced partly to stop Wigan winning everything in sight and has been successful in that regard.
For various reasons it would probably not be possible or even desirable for either of these systems to be applied to the SPL but why not a handicap system effectively giving the poorer or previously less successful clubs a bt of a start ?
Horse racing, golf and a number of other sports have long since operated handicap systems with great success.
One simple, probably too simple, system would be to give the tean promoted from the first division 12 points before a ball was kicked with the team that finished 11th the season before starting on 11 pointa and so on with last sasons runners up stating on 1 and the reigning champions starting out with zero points.
That way teams might just be tempted to have a real go at the Old Firm thus improving their competitive edge and every supporter of every team would have an interest in the league for much longer into the season.
We all know, only too well, at the start of each season that our top domestic leauge is going to be won by one of two clubs which rather takes much of the fun out of it for everyone else as well as almost certainly reducing crowds, sponsorship income and TV revenue.
That's unfortunately been the case for twenty years now since the brief dominance of the " New Firm" of Aberden and Dundee United in the early to mid eighties when these north east clubs could still aspire to entice the odd player from the top league in England and when Aberdeen's budget for players was about 70% of Rangers or Celtic's instead of about 25% as it is now.
All in all it's difficult to see how clubs are ever going to compete on anything like a level playing field again. So why not contrive to make the playing field at least a little less uneven ?
American sports try to prevent long term domination by one or two teams by the draft system whereby the poorest team from the season before have first picks on promising new players, Rugby League have the salary cap which was introduced partly to stop Wigan winning everything in sight and has been successful in that regard.
For various reasons it would probably not be possible or even desirable for either of these systems to be applied to the SPL but why not a handicap system effectively giving the poorer or previously less successful clubs a bt of a start ?
Horse racing, golf and a number of other sports have long since operated handicap systems with great success.
One simple, probably too simple, system would be to give the tean promoted from the first division 12 points before a ball was kicked with the team that finished 11th the season before starting on 11 pointa and so on with last sasons runners up stating on 1 and the reigning champions starting out with zero points.
That way teams might just be tempted to have a real go at the Old Firm thus improving their competitive edge and every supporter of every team would have an interest in the league for much longer into the season.