Stephen Halliday: Fresh Rae of light in reconstruction debate

MORTON chairman Douglas Rae has added an interesting twist to the league reconstruction debate which is currently polarising opinion within Scottish football. His call for the League Cup to return to the sectional qualifying format it employed during most of the first 40 years of its existence is certainly worthy of consideration.

For if, as Henry McLeish's Review of Scottish Football recommends, the Scottish Premier League and Scottish Football League are to again become one organisation, the League Cup could prove a valuable tool in achieving the balance of fixtures and finance currently being sought.

It has become clear that the demand from broadcasters, or more specifically from Sky Sports, for four Old Firm games a season is one of the prime reasons the SPL hierarchy claim any move to increase the size of the top flight is not viable.

The return of the League Cup qualifying sections of four teams would offer a ready-made solution. By simply regionalising that stage of the tournament, it could be guaranteed that Celtic and Rangers were in the same section every season. The same could apply to Hibs and Hearts, Dundee and Dundee United and any number of other local derby matches.

As Rae pointed out, a 16-club top flight with teams playing each other just once home and away could then be operated with the 30 league fixtures supplemented by six League Cup sectional games.

Ensuring a maximum financial return for the Old Firm in this manner, after all, is nothing new. In 12 of the first 28 years of the League Cup, Celtic and Rangers found themselves 'drawn' in the same qualifying section, a statistical oddity which allowed them to enjoy the benefits of four Old Firm games a season. This included a spell from 1967 to 1974, just before the new ten-club Premier Division was introduced, when they were in the same group five times out of seven.

It was a period when both clubs excelled in European competition, yet the League Cup fixtures regularly drew crowds in excess of 70,000 at both Celtic Park and Ibrox.

As a way to re-inforce interest in the League Cup and allow Scottish football to enjoy a less claustrophobic top division, Rae's idea surely has some merit.