Thompson needs room at the top with his team on the outside looking in
STEPHEN THOMPSON admits one season in the Ladbrokes Championship has convinced him the Scottish top flight should be expanded to welcome a clutch of second-tier clubs.
The Dundee United chairman believes Ray McKinnon’s team and their current promotion rivals have precious little quality ground to make up on clubs in a congested Premiership bottom six.
Thompson would have voted against a 16-team set-up in the past and he’s sure, despite Hearts, Rangers, Hibs and United playing outwith the elite in the past three seasons, that enough top-flight chairman remain entrenched in that view.
However, the harsh financial realities of United’s relegation twinned with the experience of tackling decent Championship rivals for a quick return to the top division has altered the Tannadice chairman’s thinking.
He said: ‘My view on a bigger league would be different now. And I’d imagine Rod Petrie’s view would be different, too. We did have, at one point, a proposal on the table for two leagues of 12 becoming three leagues of eight, which was quite radical.
‘I would have supported it if it had gone to a formal vote but it didn’t get that far because we knew it was going to be blocked. The same thing could happen again — two clubs could block any change and it would be the clubs more likely to be down the bottom.
‘I was on the SPL board at the time of the last reconstruction and establishing the current play-off set-up. We all know it’s heavily weighted in favour of the Premiership side but that was the only way we could get it through.
‘It was that or nothing. But I don’t think you realise what relegation is like until you’ve gone through it. My views now would be different because of what we’ve been through. So something like a 16-team league? I probably would have voted against it in the past. Now? I think the fans would like to see something different.’
A form slump since the turn of the year has dragged United down from title challengers to play-off contenders. Now they must jostle for pole position with Falkirk and Morton ahead of a potentially heavy post-season slate that ultimately favours the fresher Premiership team in the Final.
‘There are so many games, you can be playing Wednesday-Saturday, Tuesday-Saturday,’ said Thompson. ‘Would you change the play-offs? Probably. There is a proposal now to play one-off games in the first two rounds. But, for now, going up is still a possibility and it’s obviously what we want.
‘If we actually did get back up, because of the way we’ve had to structure things, we’re actually in quite a good place for the long term.
‘But it’s about getting out of this league — and it doesn’t really matter how we do it.’
Thompson negotiated a deal with American-based fan Alastair Borthwick to inject £300,000 to safeguard the immediate future but is no closer to fielding an offer to sell up and please his many detractors.
Thompson said: ‘I take nothing out the club now. I haven’t done for a year. I only did it for three years. How do I live? You end up remortgaging your house. One of the problems inherited is when we sold Morning, Noon and Night, everybody saw this £26.7million figure and thinks that’s what we got.
‘We got a fraction of that after the bank and investors got paid back, so the family wealth isn’t what people think. That’s basically gone. It has never been put in the public domain but a very profitable business was sold for the sake of this club, to save it.’