Scottish Premier League

Region: Scotland
Teams: 12
Founded: 1998

The Scottish Premier League is the leading domestic league in Scotland and is the northern territory’s answer to the Premiership. The SPL enjoys excellent support from the Scottish populace, boasting the highest per capita following of any domestic league in Europe. The Scottish Premier League is best known for the enduring dominance of the ‘Old Firm’ comprising Glaswegian rivals Celtic and Rangers.

Split League format
The Scottish Premier League features the 12 elite clubs in Scotland. The league features a unique split format. After the initial 33 games, where each club plays the other at least three times, the league is split into a top 6 and bottom 6, according to their initial performances and points tally. A further five games, per club, are contested against teams in their half of the division, increasing the total games per season to 38.

This format, however, has had to endure a fair amount of criticism as it can result in a team placed 7th having more points than a team placed 6th, simply because the final five games are generally a lot easier to contest.

League seedings

Another feature unique to the Scottish Premier League, is the seeding of clubs at the beginning of each season, when the SPL ‘predicts’ where each club is likely to land up on the points table according to previous performances. The seeding is implemented in an attempt to guarantee that all clubs play each other twice at home and twice away.

This seeding process, however, is not without its problems. If a club predicted to finish in the top 6 finishes in the bottom half instead, it could end up playing more games away than at home and vice versa.

The 12 clubs are ranked according to points (3 for a win and 1 for a draw) and the team with the most points at the end of the season are crowned champions. However in the case of a points tie, goal difference and then goals scored are the deciders.

At the end of the season, that runs from August to the following May each year, the team finishing at the bottom of the Scottish Premiership table is relegated to the Scottish First Division whereas the top performer in the first division is promoted to Scottish Premiership.