WE MAY well see the new Scottish Professional Football League inaugurated in time for the 2013-2014 season kicking-off in August - the demand is there from the clubs, apparently. Mind you, with the uncertainty hanging over the futures of Hearts, Dunfermline and the team which won SFL3 in 2012-13, I fear to rush towards the new set-up might hasten Scottish football's progress towards towards Armageddon.
Certainly, if I was the Chairman of a current SFL1 club, I wouldn't be hurrying towards the apparent riches being offered by the SPL - 2014-15 would seem to me a better season in which to kick-off the great new future for the game up here - which will almost certainly turn out to be the same-old same-old.
For a strart, there will seemingly be, within the new SPFL a place for all 42 of the existing SPL and SFL clubs - bad move: we already have too-many league clubs in Scotland, not to mention too-many divisions.
I would ask this question, in reality, are the 19 bottom full-member clubs in the SFL, clubs ultimately administered by the SFA's Professional Game Board, any more professional than the top Highland, East of Scotland and Junior clubs ultimately administered by the SFA's Community Game Board? I think not.
Clubs such as Auchinleck Talbot and Linlithgow Rose - who will contest next month's Emirates Scottish Junior Cup Final have, I would suggest, just as big budgets, just as good players and are just as well-run as the lesser SFL3 clubs, and some in SFL2.
I cannot speak for the Highland League clubs, but, given the manner in which Inverness CT and Ross County rose through the ranks to SPL status, I will not be surprised if others from that league, or the likes of Spartans and Preston Athletic from the East of Scotland League, do not emulate their success, once the long-awaited pyramid system, which we understand will be a part of the new look, is established.
I would like to think some junior clubs will also rise through the ranks, but, the mind-set in the juniors is slightly different. When the SJFA re-organised into the current three regions set-up, there was, particularly in my own county of Ayrshire, some initial resistance - Ardrossan Winton Rovers beating Saltcoats Victoria (and vice versa) mattered - Ardrossan beating Thorniewood United, naw, not the same interest. (I use these clubs for example only, no direct knowledge or opinion should be read into the last sentence).
But, in spite of the doubts and doubters, the amalgamation between the Ayrshire and Central Leagues in the West and the Lothians, Fife and Stirlingshire and Angus Leagues in the East went ahead. The smaller teams have pretty much carried on as before, but, if you ask those fanatics who run the bigger, more-successful clubs, you will find converts to the regional leagues.
One near-neighbour of mine, who is Glenafton Athletic to the core, admits: "I had my doubts about it, I wasn't in favour, but, I'm converted, it's the best thing which has happened to Junior football in my lifetime."
Hopefully, opening-up a way to the top for the ambitious junior clubs will be good for Scottish Football as a whole as regionalisation has been for the junior clubs.
EXCEPT - will the junior clubs buy-in? Just as there are those senior clubs which have formed Scottish football's wagging tail for so-many years, content to exist on 250 hardy enthusiasts, plus the odd good home Cup draw with a "big" club and the occasional "lottery win" of either of the Old Firm clubs, there are junior clubs happy to be the biggest fish in their local goldfish bowl and not at all interested in scaling the heights.
However, if some of the bigger, better-run junior sides do decide to attack the higher levels of the pyramid, then the face of Scottish football will change, and quickly too.
To make the new look better, fairer and more-interesting, I would suggest:
The SPFL should at first contain no more than 20-24 clubs: all should be full-time, have SPL-compliant stadia and instead of two divisions with promotion and relegation, we look at some sort of North American-style 'conference' set-up.
Below the SPFL, Scottish football should be: part-time, organised in regional groupings and, to encourage youth development, there should be a limit on the nuimber of players in each squad who are over-23 (or maybe over-25).
Let's face it, if a player hasn't made it into a truly professional club and league by that age - he's never going to - let him play for fun in the amateur leagues, to give some other youngster a chance.
The SPFL should operate a salary cap and have a cap on the number of players any club can have in its squad. I would suggest that players too-old for the Under-20 league but still under-23 should be loaned out to Regional League clubs, but could be brought back when needed - rather as happens in Scottish rugby.
The salary cap and the cap on squad sizes would make it a fairer league; it would encourage home-bred players - I simply refuse to believe we don't have Scottish players who, given the right encouragement, couldn't be as good as the imports in the current SPL.
simply making SFL1 into SPLF2 isn't the answer; staying with SPL and SFL isn't the answer. We need radical change if Scottish football is to survive and prosper.
Is the will there?
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