When the ballot involving top-flight clubs in Scotland comes up in the following week, St Mirren has threatened to vote against the reconstruction of the league. The proposal will be put in front of a 12 Scottish premier league clubs, and is designed to merge the Scottish football league, and introduce a 12-12-18 structure.
The Paisley Club has stated that after studying the Articles of association, structure and shareholders agreement, The St Mirren Board Members have declined to support the motion set up in the proposal, which will be tabled on Monday.
The joining of the Senior Football League, and the Scottish League, into a single organisation is supported by the Saints Chiefs. Despite their perceived support for this proposal, they have expressed disdain at some of the terms which the SPL leaders want to put into place before the start of the next season.
A case in point is the proposal to split up the two divisions at the top of the league into 3 groups, with eight teams. These concerns are not just shared by the Saints Chiefs, but also by fans and coaching staff, who were included in the deliberations.
Although they support the proposal to have a new league structure, a single governing body, and a new model of distribution is one that is well thought out. But the way that the proposal is presented will not have the desired effect of promoting Scottish football.
The proposal outlays plans to have teams play 22 games before splitting into 3 groups of 8 teams. However, the middle 8 will lose all the points that they had won in the first round, and this will serve to demoralise players, and affect the game. The system has been tried in other countries and rejected for this reason. The fans would also have to get rid of their season tickets, a fact that will not go down well with them.