Blair warns of potential for pre-split fixture congestion

SPFL secretary Iain Blair has struck a note of caution over potential pre-split fixture congestion as he prepares to unveil the 2018/19 schedule.

The slate for all four Ladbrokes-sponsored divisions will be announced on Friday, featuring a few tweaks to the traditional Scottish football calendar.

The first obvious alteration sees the Betfred Cup second round moved from a midweek date to Saturday, August 18.

That shunts a top-flight round of games off that weekend, creating a staggered start to the Premiership season that will have a knock-on effect.

Scotland’s four European competition participants — Celtic, Aberdeen, Rangers and Hibernian — come into the League Cup at that knockout phase, held in an August midweek for the last two years.

However, UEFA organising their revamped qualifying rounds on every midweek that month leaves no room for any of that quartet — if still in Europe — to play in the Betfred on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.

With the Betfred semi-finals (October 27, 28) and final (December 2) organised on weekends when there is a Premiership card, teams involved in the last four will face a league backlog.

If any of them are also playing European group-stage football in midweek, then the chances of a successful catch-up could go deep into a season which once again features a winter break.

‘You’ve got two league matches, Betfred Cup second round, two league matches then an international break, so it’s a bit of a stuttering start,’ explained Blair.

‘There is potential for a congestion issue here. If Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen or Hibs get into the group stages of Europe they will then be playing every midweek.

‘Their players will be away on international duties and let’s say they get to the last four of the Betfred Cup then into the final, then they’ve two postponements of league games to be fitted in.

‘We can fit one in before Christmas. And there’s another midweek towards the end of January but that could involve cup postponements or replays. There are no other free dates before the split.

‘When we get to the spring of next year, if we’ve had a bad winter we could have some interesting challenges in fitting in games pre-split.’

At the end of the campaign, there will be no midweek block of games as a feature of the final week of the top-flight season.

That is because Easter falls late on Sunday, April 21 — a natural slot for the William Hill Scottish Cup semi-finals — and the SFA did not want those games clashing with the festivities. Instead, the semis will be held over the previous weekend, leaving the league with five weekends to fill before the Scottish Cup final on Saturday, May 25.

‘There is an issue, locally, in terms of Hampden with a few churches very close by the stadium who have made strong representations on previous occasions,’ said Blair.

‘The other issue is they have a belief that having fixtures on Easter weekend has an impact on crowds, particularly the Sunday fixture.’