Reheated SPL has unappetising look

THE SPL's latest flirtation with proposed reconstruction is said to favour an increase to 14 teams that will retain the end-of-season split, but eliminate the fixtures imbalance that often disfigures the present set-up.

Any suggestion of an increase in membership raises two obvious, probably insurmountable, obstacles.

The first is that the original, streamlined Premier Division came into existence in 1975 not because the old, 18-team league yielded too many meaningless games, but an excess of one-sided - and, therefore, unattractive - matches. The prospect of even more ugliness than we have at present should bring a collective shudder.

The second, and much more immediately relevant certainty in the current economic climate is that another two feeders would be invited to a table that is already looking a long way from sumptuous.