At the top 2 x 18 team leagues, the regional pyramid system below it consisting of 3 leagues (north, east and west), and nothing to stop any decent club that wanted to progressing thru it.

Quite like the new LC set up, but I'd bin the seeding.

But real change in Scottish football will only come when they address the disastrous changes that have been made in youth development over the last 20 years.  The academy system thats being used has failed, need to pick the good points from it and adapt them into the older system which produced far greater results

The issue of making things more competitive needs addressed too, some steps need to be taken too redistribute some wealth to make that happen. Competitive football brings out the best in players.

One fresh ruling body, the SFA, with a clear out of the committee system and those who have been part of the failure of the past couple of decades. That includes Malky ‘Judge me on what you see going forward’ Mackay.

The SPFL and the board would go. The much vaunted Ann Budge, who only a couple of months ago joined the Scottish Professional Football League's board, said at the time: "I think 42 senior clubs is too many for Scotland. You're looking at about half that number.” Others in power agreed, forgetting that they are keen to have more teams in the lower leagues, starting with two clubs who keep on showing their fannies to the English leagues.

The Glasgow twins won’t be any part of a solution to Scottish football’s problems: they are the major problem.

Gate sharing should return in some form: football needs two teams to make each game. Prize money more evenly distributed, presently the top sides get a disproportionately large sum.

Hampden should be dumped, international games shared around the country, including the use of Murrayfield.

Three leagues of fourteen each instead of four with 12/10/10/10. Home and away, then a split, 6/8 and home and away again (gives 36/40 games).

Reserve league instead of development league. Reserve teams to include at least 7 under 21 (Scottish?) players.

Referees not allowed to officiate in matches within 15 (?) miles of their home town.

Fixtures chosen for television to be announced at least 3 months in advance (with concessions for the last round after the split). Clubs limited to the amount of home fixtures that can be chosen for television, and Glasgow twins being included in the rota of home teams chosen. If I could, I’d actually limit live TV games to 1 or 2 maximum per club, unless a far, far better deal is secured.

Junior clubs to be part of the pyramid system, no exceptions.

Plenty other things I might suggest, but this would do for starters.

Bulldoze Largs

coaching badges are worthless

West Coast media/bias has f ucked it-the league , the national team, the lot

it would take a good argument to prove me wrong.

Edmond Dantes wrote:

Bulldoze Largs

coaching badges are worthless

West Coast media/bias has f ucked it-the league , the national team, the lot

it would take a good argument to prove me wrong.

 
No-one is more critical of the SFA than myself and they get many many things wrong....but Largs isn't one of them.

Some of the coaches who have taken their A and B Pro-License there include the following (amongst many many others).

Jim McLean
Sir Alex Ferguson
Jock Stein
Walter Smith
Carlos Queiroz
Fabio Capello
Andre Villas-Boas
Eusebio
Jose Mourinho
Arrigo Sacchi

Oh and our very own Ray McKinnon who impressed so much at the courses that the SFA had him running them for a time.

Even Ian Cathro and his laptop got his badges at Largs.

The problem is not the higher level of coaching qualifications which i think in the main is really pretty good, although it's still got a 'for the ex-pro's only' attitude. The issue starts from grassroots and this is where the kids coming through are suffering.

There are too many coaching qualifications in the structure which then waters down the actual coaching process as it's a money making machine for the SFA.

You can do a 1.1 qualification in one day and do next to no coaching but at the end of it you get a qualification to go and take kids coaching 

90% of other sports are now through the UKCC structure and this allows a structured and detailed development pathway for the coaches. the UKCC Level 1 is approx £300 compaired to £45 for the SFA one and lasts for a minimum of three full days with coaching to be delivered and monitored as part of the qualification.
 
go figure that the other sports in the main have a much higher level of coaches working with the kids at a participation level than football.
 

Whoever called this thing "Project Brave" needs a good slap.

Iceland are the benchmark but the simple fact is in Scotland, clubs can't afford to pay to put all coaches through a UEFA Licence and the Government aren't interested in paying for it or for loads of covered artificial pitches all over the country.

Last edited by lifesanocean (21/12/2016 2:53 pm)

Tek wrote:

So,

Almost a decade on from 'Project Brave' where are we?

Has one 'World Class' player been developed in Scotland? - No
Has it improved our options for the National Team? - No. Last night Scotland had to play a 4th choice Ipswich Goalie.
Has it resulted at least in more Scots getting blooded into the Scottish Premiership? - No. 

Again, let's revisit our friends from Iceland.

Who last night beat us for the first time ever, 3-1 at Hampden.

A year ago (today) they also beat England 1-0 at Wembley.

How has a country less than half the population of Glasgow achieved this, and recent progression in big tournaments, when we've consistently failed?

Again, they have truly financed 'Grass roots football' in their country, not just in terms of coaching, but also in terms of accessibilty to play the game for kids. 



They have 30 full sized all-weather pitches and a further 150 smaller all-weather pitches available to play on.

For a population of under 400k.

There are roughly 130 full size pitches in Scotland, but many of these are in a state of disrepair or are still red ash (two of them i can see out of my back door). So, not conjusive to playing the game correctly or being appealing to play on all year round.

We seem to have been having the same conversations about how to improve football in our country since the 80's, it's very depressing.

We have great young players in this country, and we have good coaches too (or have had over the years).

But, we need far more investment at grass roots level.

I'd also go further and put football in the school curriculum as part of P.E.

The Chinese government have done this with Snooker in schools and look at how they are starting to dominate the sport. The American's dominate basketball etc etc.

In this country we take down the goalposts in public parks in the Summer. Literally. A sad metaphor for our ambition.

Give the kids a chance.

I think you nail it when you say, we have been talking about this since the 1980s. Every other nation has walked past us.

I’m going to avoid my usual rant about “jobs for the boys” however, I can’t imagine another  country having so many hangers on with highly suspect educational qualifications at every level.

The words “elite” “academy” and “high performance” are meaningless verbiage, to me. Much of our philosophies are questionable and downright wrong. Let me start with one classic Scottish one : The work ethic. Roughly translated if you devote more hours to a pursuit, you will be rewarded. It’s bullshit. An Italian colleague told me years ago, what matters is the quality of what you do, rather than the time you spend doing it. To use a gym analogy it is much better to do three perfect bench presses than twelve mediocre ones.

For most other nations football is only one part of a players life. They might be studying something, they might play another sport to a high level. If they don’t make it as top footballers there are other options.

I think it is no coincidence that a number of our young players are going abroad. Lewis Ferguson, Max Johnstone and probably Lennon Miller. I suspect that their fathers realised that their own personal development was stunted by not moving abroad. For one thing you HAVE to learn the language. Tourist or intermediate Italian just won’t cut it. Having spent a lot of time in Italy one thing is very obvious - nobody plays the comedian/clown. In short banter does not exist. That is part cultural and partly linguistic.

Getting back to Ian Cathro, are Kris Boyd and Stephen Craigan right (he’s never played the game, therefore he has no credibility) or are Benitez, Espirito Sanchez and Villas Boas right?