Although there are more than a few people in Scotland who will spend time watching the English Premier League and supporting one of the clubs that plays its games in it, many Scottish people are fiercely loyal to the Scottish top-flight. Although it technically formed in 2013, its history goes back a lot further than that on account of the fact that it was formed when the Scottish Premier League and the Scottish Football League merged to create the Scottish Professional Football League.
The Premiership is, as the name suggests, the top-flight of Scottish football and operates a system of promotion and relegation with the Championship.
A Brief History of the Scottish Top-Flight
If you want to know about top-flight football in Scotland then you’ve got to go all the way back to 1890. That was when the Scottish decided to form their own league in order to combat the number of Scottish players who left the country to play for professional teams in England.
The Scottish Football Association formed the Scottish Football League on the 30th of April 1890 after the Secretary of Renton wrote to 13 other clubs about the necessity to create it. In the end the following 11 clubs joined:
- Abercorn
- Cambuslang
- Celtic
- Cowlairs
- Dumbarton
- Heart of Midlothian
- Rangers
- Renton
- St Mirren
- Third Lanark
- Vale of Leven
The league was so successful that in 1893 there proved to be a need to add a second league, created by including the clubs that had previously been in the Scottish Football Alliance. A third tier was added to the Scottish Football League in 1923, with numerous slight changes to the structure of the SFL over the years that followed.
One of the biggest changes came in 1994 when it became four divisions with ten teams in each, whilst three points for a win began to be awarded. The decision to do that restructure was taken because of the attempt of some clubs to form a breakaway Super League two years earlier.
The Scottish Premier League & the Premiership
At the start of September 1997, it was decided by the clubs that were in the Premier Division in Scotland to leave the Scottish Football League and setup the Scottish Premier League, which mirrored what had happened in England earlier in the decade. The hope of the top clubs was that they would be able to keep more of the revenue that they generated, which would in turn allow them to compete with English clubs for players; at least that was the theory.
The split took place in 1998, with SPL clubs keeping their commercial revenues, with the exception of an annual payment to the Scottish Football League and parachute payments to relegated clubs.
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By the late 2000s, Scottish football was contemplating another change in its structure. This was largely driven by the fact that teams were struggling in international competitions, with English revenues hugely outgrowing those being achieved in Scotland. Henry McLeish, the former First Minister of Scotland, led a review into the game and his report was published in 2010.
It said that Scottish football would be better placed having a single league body, whilst the top-flight should be reduced to ten teams. Talks about a change continued, with a merger between the Premier League and Football League agreed in 2013.
The Current Premiership System
The Scottish Premiership was launched for the 2013-2014 season, with 12 teams playing in the division. In spite of there only being 12 teams rather than 20, as in the English Premier League, each side still plays 38 games across the course of a season. That is thanks to the structure in place, which can seem quite complicated to those on the outside looking in.
The split is there in order to stop teams having to play 44 games during a season, which would happen if they needed to play one another four times in a season. That happened in Scotland in the 1980s and 1990s, but is now considered to be too many matches.
🗣️ “No, it’s not fair”
Philippe Clement says the current Scottish Premiership split, where some teams will play more home than away games against certain teams, needs looked at. #BBCFootball pic.twitter.com/NWMJxWD2TV
— BBC Sport Scotland (@BBCSportScot) April 26, 2024
The season runs from August to May and is split into two parts. In the first part, each club plays three matches against all of the other clubs, either twice at home and once away or the other way around.
At the end of the first set of matches, each club will have played 33 times, with the league being split into the Top Six and Bottom Six. Each side then plays another five matches, which is once against each team in their section, with the points that the clubs earned during the first section being carried forward into the second. Once the teams have been split into the sections, they cannot move out of the one that they’re in.
The SPFL uses a system of ‘seeding’ before a ball has been kicked, which predicts where each club will finish. This allows the best chance for each team to play each other twice at home and twice away, but it doesn’t always work out as planned.
How Promotion & Relegation Works
The team that ends up with the most points wins the Premiership. If needed, what the goal difference is between teams and how many goals were scored can be used to separate sides. The club that finishes at the very bottom of the Premiership is relegated, swapping places in the respective leagues with the winner of the Scottish Championship.
The Premiership side that finishes 11th, meanwhile, enters into a play-off against the team that finishes second in the Championship, playing over two legs and giving the winner the right to play in the Premiership the following season.
Prior to the creation of the Premiership, Scottish football only allowed for one club to be relegated and one promoted, but the current system allows for two to go down and two to come up. Those being promoted need to meet the requirements for life in the Scottish Premiership, of course.