Why does scottish premier league split

Hibs had ruled themselves out of contention, going down to a defeat at Parkhead, but with Kilmarnock drawing and then trailing to a Gary Harkins inspired Dundee, Aberdeen and Dundee United both only needed a goal in their match at Tannadice to guarantee themselves a place in the top six.

As the minutes ticked by, it started to look increasingly likely that Kilmarnock were going to limp over the line, only for Rory Boulding to pop up right at the death to snatch victory and a top-six finish for United. In an age where football's biggest games are so often turgid and uninspiring, and in a season where few leagues in Europe have given us anything even approaching a title race, we should be glad when we do get a bit of excitement, and it's pleasing to see that the SPL is still capable of serving it up.

Of course, we'd all rather if Motherwell, Dundee United or Inverness Caley Thistle were challenging Celtic for the title, but you'd be naive to think this had ever been a possibility. People have every reason to criticise the SPL, an entity whose very purpose and existence seems questionable, but they deserve credit when something they introduce works out. Enjoy our content? Join our newsletter to get the latest in sports news delivered straight to your inbox!

So what exactly is the Scottish Premiership split and how does it affect clubs like Celtic and Rangers? Goal takes a look at the approach, when it was introduced and how it will work in Simply put, the Scottish Premiership splits into two sections in order to minimise the fixture burden on clubs. Scotland's top division was expanded to include 12 teams from the season on and the split concept was introduced at that time to avoid the need for each team to fulfil 44 games.

Prior to the season, 10 teams competed in the league and they played each other four times - a total of 36 matches. What happens now is that each team plays each other three times, bringing the number of games to 33 and the league is then divided into two six-team sections.

Each team within a particular section plays the other five teams in their section once, bringing the total number of games played in the league season to The idea was inspired by the Swiss Nationalliga now Swiss Super League , which had deployed a split model at the time, before changing format from the season on.

The league is contested by 12 teams which means if they each played the others four times, then it would be a match season for each team. Rather than compete four times against one another, teams play each other a total of three times to make a game season. However, the top-flight then splits into two parts at that point with a top-six and bottom six.

The teams in each part play the other one time making an additional five matches and a grand total of 38 games altogether. The Swiss Super League was apparently the first top-flight football league to use the model.