By Andrew Warshaw
June 28 – A new dawn has finally broken for Scottish football after the Scottish Premier League and the Scottish Football League finally agreed to merge – but it took 16 hours of painstaking last-ditch talks bring about a deal.
The new league structure will remain a top flight of 12 and three lower divisions of 10 clubs each. Crucially, however, there will now be play-offs between the divisions and a more equitable distribution model.
The birth of the newly titled Scottish Professional Football League came after months of to-ing and fro-ing between the two bodies in a bid to restructure the game and make it more competitive, with various other blueprints for change thrown out for one reason or another.
After a deal was finally rubber-stamped, the six club representatives for the inaugural nine-person SPFL board was elected. The three top-flight members are Celtic director Eric Riley, Dundee United chairman Stephen Thompson and Aberdeen managing director Duncan Fraser.
The First Division have two representatives – Hamilton Accies chairman Les Gray and Alloa chairman Mike Mulraney. The remaining 20 clubs from the Second and Third Divisions have just one representative, Bill Darroch of Stenhousemuir.
They will be joined by a yet-to-be-appointed chairman, chief executive and one independent non-executive director. The four divisions in the SPFL are likely to be rebranded as the Premiership, Championship, League One and League Two when a title sponsor will also be sought.
It has been anticipated that Thursday’s meeting would simply ratify the outcome of the SFL general meeting vote two weeks earlier, which approved the move to a unified body by a 23-6 margin but more details about SPL finances and due diligence were suddenly requested by the lower-league clubs.
“Everyone has approached it in a positive and professional manner and it’s right that everyone took their time to make sure they got the fine detail right,” said Hibernian chairman Rod Petrie.
“Here we are in agreement and all the clubs can go forward in a positive vein now. From a supporters’ point of view, they probably don’t see a lot of change. But for the management of the game and the way we organise ourselves, it will streamline the way things are done. Hopefully, we can all get behind some new initiatives for the game to help things going forward on the pitch. We now have 42 clubs agreed on a way forward and that’s got to be a positive stance for Scottish football.”
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