Football: Scottish leagues to merge - report

Scottish Football League (SFL) clubs voted on Wednesday to join an expanded Scottish Premier League system, Britain’s domestic Press Association said.

The vote, which was passed by 23 votes for and just six against — Rangers were ineligible to vote as they are only an associate member — brings to an end 123 years of the SFL.

The proposals include a structure with 12 top flight teams and 10 in each of the next three divisions, as well as a new financial redistribution model.

Reconstruction proposals needed a minimum of 22 “yes” votes to push them through but it was not a smooth process, particularly with threats of a breakaway by first division clubs hanging over the process.

SFL chief executive David Longmuir said he was sad at the dissolution of the SFL but felt that it was inevitable.

“We have always embraced the big principles but once you go behind the big principles like governance, distribution and one league body, there were areas of major concerns,” he said.

“But nevertheless a lot of them have seen it for the good of the game and we all accept that Scottish football is better governed under one roof.

“On the 27th June there will be a formalised completion of the process and the first board meeting of the new organisation — the SPFL (Scottish Professional Football League) — will take place that day and at that point a board will be appointed.

“I would imagine that other processes will take place to design the new organisation and resource it.”

SFL president Jim Ballantyne said this was no merger between two separate bodies but a takeover of one by the other.

“It is not a feeling, it is a fact. It is a takeover. We are joining their company, their organisation,” he said.

“They have swallowed us up. We could use nice words about it it, but it is a takeover.

“It is very sad that the Scottish Football League has had to be a casualty but unfortunately we were left with one option.”

Various other proposals had previously been voted on and rejected but the current format has found favour with a majority.

It includes a structure within which the 11th-placed team in the Scottish Premier League play in four-team play-offs with the second to fourth placed finishers of the second tier.

A previous plan that would have seen the top two divisions comprised of 12 teams each, splitting into three divisions of eight teams half-way through the season, had been rejected.