Warburton issues his plan to save Scottish football
As he approaches the end of his second year in club management former city trader Warbo thinks that a 16 or 18 team top division would increase interest and income to the game!
The current 12 club top division splits in half after three rounds of fixtures giving each club 19 home matches to budget for.
At the start of each season every club knows that a top six finish will bring them two home matches from the best clubs in the county but Warbo wants to reduce that to one visit a season from each of the other top fifteen clubs.
Looking forward to his side’s visit to Morton today the former Watford youth coach said: “I’m sure that when you look at the quality and variety of a product and what appeals, these are the obvious questions. Should we expand the league? I’m sure it’s an idea that will come up.
“I’m not speaking as an expert, just giving my opinion. In my humble opinion, I think [a 16-team top flight] would be viable.”
While offering his thoughts on how to improve Scottish football Warburton steered clear of Financial Fair Play with his own club heading for another financial crisis.
New chairman Dave King’s appeal for 45,000 season ticket sales was ignored by 13,000 fans bringing forward crisis day for the Ibrox club.
Last season Mr King’s club had to rely on a £5m loan from Mike Ashley topped up by three £1.5m loans from the three bears to scrape their way through to the end of the season.
With expenditure in excess of £30m in each of their three seasons no fundamental changes have taken place since the South African based businessman swept to power more than six months ago.
Since Mr King took charge the company has been de-listed from the Alternative Investment Market and has still to produce audited accounts for the year to June 2015 which would seem certain to carry a going concern warning.
Slashing costs by closing down Murray Park and abandoning the clubs extensive and costly academy network would seem the obvious way to reducing costs but under Warbo lucrative contracts have been handed out to a number of journeymen from English football
“I’m looking from a football perspective but some short-term pain for long-term gain could be a very relevant quote here,” the Ibrox boss added in relation to league reconstruction.