How has the demotion of Rangers affected football attendances in Scotland? This is the question football economics guru Stefan Szymanski poses in his excellent blog.
How has the demotion of Rangers affected football attendances in Scotland? This is the question football economics guru Stefan Szymanski poses in his excellent blog.
Rangers have not suffered as their attendances are 2.7 per cent up. Third division clubs have also benefitted, although the effect is limited by their capacities. The real losers are the teams who were in the Scottish Premier League last year who are projected to see a 10 per cent fall in attendances. Szymanski suspects that ticket prices may have been reduced as well.
Szymanski argues that there may have been smarter ways to punish Rangers which would have been of more benefit to other clubs.
Scottish Football League clubs have agreed a plan to restructure the leagues from the 2014-15 season into one of 16 clubs, one of 10 clubs (to be called the Championship) and one of 16 clubs (to be called the first division). If the plan is to progress, it will need the agreement of the Scottish Premier League and the Scottish Football Association.
One can see the rationale for having quite a large bottom league for relatively small part-time clubs who would be in the non-league system in England. Quite what the rationale for the thin middle league might be is less clear. Leading clubs might also think that the top league contains too many clubs and an alternative arrangement might be 12 clubs in the top flight and 14 in the division below.
Clearly there are many conflicting interests at stake. What is uncertain is whether this rearrangement of the leagues will really resolve the fundamental challenges facing Scottish football or whether doing something is seen to better than doing nothing.