The Idea

Bored of the regular Scottish league format? Want to retain the commercial allure of 4 Celtic and Rangers games per season but introduce more teams, less pressure on middling teams and therefore more opportunity for youth? This fantasy scenario aims to address those desires with a unique and intriguing format that ensures the fans get there fill of the big fixtures and healthy dose of variety of opposition – all whilst reducing the number of league games per season.

League Format & Fixture Rules

The Scottish Leagues have been restructured to remove League 1 and League 2; only the Championship and the Premier League are retained – with 20 teams per division.
The regular league rules see the 20 teams divided into 4 groups of 5 which are sorted on league position from the previous season (Last year’s champions and runners-up are Pot A; the newly promoted teams are Pot D). Each Pot plays the other teams within it twice home and twice away (hence the leagues best teams based on performance play each other 4 times a season). Pot A teams will play Pot B teams once at home and once away – Pot C teams will play Pot D teams once home and away also. Pot A teams will play Pot C and Pot D teams once either Home or Away depending on ranking. This results in a league season in which each team plays 18 times at home and 18 times away, with more fixtures against the strongest opposition.
The intended fixture outcomes are:

• 4 regular league fixtures for Celtic and Rangers, assuming they both finish in the top 5 league positions each season.
• A bigger league with more lower reputation teams, increasing opportunities to field less experienced players and thus promote a better quality of youth talent.
• Wider spread share of the available TV earnings throughout the teams in Scottish football.
• Assuming a Celtic, Rangers 1st 2nd league finish, the lowest ranked/newly promoted teams will have a balance of one home or one away fixture against each of these teams per season.

The league format and fixtures rules are replicated within the Championship division.

Premier League Relegation Rules

To ensure a freshness of team in the division – 3 teams are automatically relegated from the top division each season, there is no relegation playoff to allow a team to save themselves as in the real world. With a top division of 20 teams, this rotation of teams is refreshing. The Aberdeens, Hearts, Hibernians etc of Scottish football who regularly oppose increased numbers of relegation spots in the league – should fear this prospect much less and thus enjoy increased opportunity to field the products of there youth setup.

Championship Promotion & Playoffs

Taking inspiration from the English Championship league rules, the Champions and next runners-up enjoy automatic promotion to the higher league. Following this is far more attractive English playoff format which sees the next 4 runners up compete to qualify for a Playoff final match played in the national stadium.

Championship Relegation Rules and the Scottish Football Pyramid

Scottish Football gave itself a much needed shot in the arm of freshness when it introduced a pathway for the grassroots into the professional league setup – this has been retained in the scenario. The existing league 2 relegation rules have been retained and therefore the bottom placed team enter a 2-legged playoff with the qualifying team from the Highland-lowland leagues setup.

This scenario format is well paired with some edits to your favourite team to encourage increased emphasis on youth development.

****UPDATED****
With compliments to jreid666 and their original uploading for the Scottish Pyramid 2024/25 database (https://www.fmscout.com/a-fm24-scottish-pyramid-2024-25.html); I have now amended this scenario by building on that edit to include the wider Scottish Football pyramid - in there existing league formats. Hopefully this addresses those comments which expressed a desire for the full pyramid.