Top-flight clubs may pull their reserves
LESS than a year after its inception, the SPFL Reserve League faces an uncertain future as a number of Premiership clubs consider pulling out this summer.
Introduced in place of the Development League in 2018, the Reserve League was designed to enhance the pathway of young players towards first-team football.
Yet after a frustrating campaign, several top-flight clubs, including Celtic and Rangers, are reviewing their options ahead of next season.
The two Glasgow clubs failed with a proposal to introduce Colt teams into the league system earlier this year, with an overwhelming majority of League One and League Two clubs voting against the proposal.
Both teams, in common with a number of other Premiership sides including Aberdeen and Hibernian, believe increased exposure to first-team football is the best route to development.
The resurrection of the Reserve League was designed to better bridge the gap but has failed to consistently provide the hoped-for mix of experience and youth within matches.
Key gripes among clubs include an uneven fixture list in which the main league of 18 play each other only once, with no home and away balance to the 17-game programme.
Even more problematic has been the variation in standard with some matches developing into walkovers.
Speaking to Sportsmail, one prominent youth chief said: ‘We have not made any concrete plans for next season but whatever we decide has to be the best plan for developing our young players.
‘The Reserve League has been inconsistent but there is no quick fix here. As things stand, we don’t know how many players we will loan out for next season and indeed whether we will be in a position to enter a reserve team.’
While there is no movement towards an alternative league system, several clubs are investigating the possibility of building an alternative programme of fixtures for next season.
In 2016, Rangers elected to take a year out from the Development League with academy head Craig Mulholland instead setting up a series of challenge matches against continental opposition.
Rangers came back into the fold when the league opted to resurrect the Reserve League but the set-up has led to a dissatisfying experience for most of the top-flight clubs.
Speaking two years ago, Mulholland spoke of his desire to broaden Rangers’ horizons at youth level, saying: ‘We need to be radical because we have to accept we haven’t, as a country, produced players of a level that we want to produce.
‘We think this initiative will be a success but in a year’s time we might think differently. If it works then we have to look at Scotland as a whole at how can we build it in for every club.’