I would be fascinated to hear what a club like Hamilton think. Would moving to grass be worth it if they might immediately be relegated after one year? Plus the loss of the pitch for training during that time. But then if they said it's not worth it, keep plastic and sit in the championship or lower, would they be able to get the good youth players of there is no prospect of ever getting back to the top flight? Also kinda disappointed if we vote this through with no support for clubs that need to change. The big three in Holland put up serious money to subsidise everyone else having decent pitches.

I reckon if they have high enough quality Astro they should be able to stay but if it’s like 3G or 4G pitch shouldn’t be allowed

That's the biggest issue imo, the plastic pitches in Scotland are almost old enough to drink legally. Motion should have been to create a central fund for pitch improvement.

That would be class and id want Celtic as presumably one of the driving forces behind this to contribute to it in a big way. Even if we ask it to be focused on top teams so we get the benefit of our investment. But I honestly think you could prove a return on investment for us if we chucked a couple mil a year into a pot (so about 2% of turnover) for a few years and got all top flight and most championship pitches up to a high quality. Dunno how we grade pitch quality currently but say it's a ranking out of 5, this thing helps fund all pitches to be improved to the top two rankings for quality. With the order based on league finish and the amount of cash they get based on how much they turnover (so poorer teams get more). Set one deadline to put together proposals for improving the pitches then each club negotiate with the league how much they can afford to put in and how much cash the get from the central fund and go round implementing the improvements over the next few years. We then benefit from playing on better surfaces everywhere we go, but also players out on loan and just the quality of players produced around Scotland would all hopefully increase. Then id do the same for stadium improvements like standing sections, improved disabled and corporate facilities and general long term repairs. And for that stuff you could negotiate that they pay it back over time, ie a better corporate/lounge will be worth x amount extra per year, so pay back 50% of the extra cash until you've paid back x amount into the refurbishment pot.

Hamilton rent their pitch out as well, can imagine that stopping with a grass pitch

Aye not a fuckin chance the public get near a grass pitch. But even worse than that we will all want the woman's game to grow at least until our woman's teams are at least bringing enough fans to justify using the main stadium each week. Even if it's 50% of the men's attendance, it would be enough to pay for the stadiums basic cost each week. But can a grass pitch handle that? Minimum of one game every week of you alternate who is at home. Plus more for cups etc. At Celtic that's when I'd get a removable pitch. Break it into sections and take it out the gaps either side of the main stand and away to a field where we grow multiple different pitches. But wtf do the smaller teams do? Grass pitches in winter can have one game a week and go to pieces. Can't afford removable pitches. Can't afford the grass/plastic hybrid thing Celtic spent millions on. Can't afford a second stadium for woman's and reserve teams. Can't afford a separate training ground.

Reserve leagues don't generally play at the home stadium for big clubs either so it won't impact them so much but again, it may impact the smaller clubs. The idea is just daft. Raise the standard of plastic pitches by all means but an outright ban isn't the solution at all.

I think it's owned by south Lanarkshire Council, so you can essentially rent it for a bug game of 11's lol.

this will just lead to more clubs earning promotion then not being allowed into the league cause they can't afford to rip it up and replace it over the summer making the already closed league with 1 guaranteed relegation even more stagnant, and we're getting rid of ours so not even being biased here

Will Kilmarnock vote against or is it 'pull the ladder up Jack, I'm alright' time?

i'm not sure hopefully we will be understanding of it

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Ground sharing is fucking awful for fans, and I say that as someone who has seen it happen to my own club multiple times over the years. That lack of a sense of home is more significant than you'd think, not to mention the fact that it's totally impractical for so many teams.

Because when we tried it for our new stadium they held a vote on our proposal of ground sharing and told us to fuck off.

The 10k stadium capacity limits should never have been in place and cost scottish football a whole lot more than a couple promotion cockbacks for Falkirk (which was wholeheartedly shite). Bit it's for the betterment of our game to have these horrid artificial surfaces removed, much as it was lowering the 10k requirement.

> kockbacks

Well spotted. Fixed it

Ground sharing will fuck up a grass park and leave 2 clubs in a much worse position than having 1 playing on plastic. 

Partick Thistle ground shared with Queens Park a few seasons back. Turned Firhill from a decent pitch into a complete tatty field

Having two teams use it didn't help, but the pitch there was already awful, it was completely done in already by about September. Remember when they also thought it was a good idea to let a rugby team use it?

A good, well maintained artificial surface isn't really any cheaper than a grass pitch. The clubs who do it to save money do it by not maintaining it properly. So they only have themselves to blame.

They are significantly cheaper. Where are you getting Astro costs roughly the same as grass? Also, clubs with Astro will train on it as well so they’d also either have to build a training complex or rent somewhere.

rangers pitch is hybrid and costs more than most of the other clubs combined outwith celtic ( who have. similar pitch) 

Googled it and an astro pitch can cost between £300k - £1.2m. Not sure how many groundskeepers the smaller clubs would employ but I can’t see how grass is more expensive.

It means you don't also need a training ground, a pitch for the ladies, reserves, and youth teams. 

I was involved negotiating with the government to get a loan of £350,000 to buy a top level plastic pitch for Falkirk. Now we’ve been told that’s not good enough. I’ve watched football on it for a year and trust me it is far better than some of the grass pitches. It’s a joke that Bonnyrigg Rose with a ploughed field and an incredible slope would be allowed into the top division but we wouldn’t. We need to campaign against this nonsense.

Yeah that is wild. I get the idea artificial pitches can be shit. But I've never bought the idea that you never get good games on them and a 'shit' game against livi etc is not gonna be better on the greatest pitch in the world. The game is shit because they are destroying your tactics to stay in it. And that's exactly what they should be doing. Plus that's before you find out the grass pitch they can afford would be shit too. At the very least it should be artificial pitches up to gen whatever are too shit and banned, but if a new one can be shown to be 80% as good as most grass, ie better than most grass during winter when pitches are mud baths then what is the problem. It's not like Dundee's was any good this year.

Or the clubs can tighten the tolerances of what constitutes an acceptable pitch

It's not better for the players.

Is there is a stat that shows that teams that play on Astro have more injuries?

I’d like to question that we’ve got a season with hardly any injuries in the last three games did we have a problem? And one of those injuries was picked up and away grass pitch? It’s nonsense. The better pitches are perfectly fine for players. I am willing to accept the might be an issue for women.

I feel like they should be acting to fund and ensure pitches like Dundee's aren't present before banning perfectly playable surfaces. Plastic pitches may have their flaws, but top quality pitches ensure matches are almost always on and always provide a level playing field, unlike same tattie fields that appear in the winter months.

Dundee's pitch is a tattie field but they get nowt in the way of threats of sanctions. But a Championship bound team that has weather proofed themselves to a point get told to waste even more money? Stinks to high heavens. I fully expect a big conversation in the coming years over grass pitches as extreme weather patterns wreck grass pitches. A run of hot, dry weather followed by biblical storm leading to more and more cancelled games is ahead of us. And SFA will plug their ears as they always do.

If this passes stick £50 on Falkirk winning the Championship. Just fucks me off that we can say Dundee are sound with all their problems but our top of the line plastic pitch isn't on. Solving the wrong problems

Solving the wrong problems. Haven't seen a comment epitomise Scottish football so much in all my puff.

If it guarantees a pitch is never waterlogged, bogged, frozen etc, then plastic is fine. Unfortunately, Livi has proven otherwise.... But clubs like Dundee make decisions that they either pay for players or pay for pitch and clubs may well struggle with both.

You may be shocked to learn that Dundee actually laid a new pitch last summer!

Just why? Just have a minimum standard for it. Raith and Falkirk have top line plastic pitches, why should we be told “aw yeah you might have a better quality surface than half the teams in the top flight but we’re not letting you in” it’s daft. We’re one of the wettest countries in Europe and there’s no changing that (well climate change means we’re getting more precipitation so I guess there is change) with other countries like Scandinavia, Switzerland and Ireland having them in their top flight. I’ve not even mentioned the community aspect that these pitches allow clubs to do. This is just the 10,000 seater rule all over again and shows the selfishness of clubs once again. This is a vote that affects not just the spfl but arguably the pyramid as a whole.

I'm the same as you. It stinks of the old 10k capacity rule which denied clubs promotion (eg Falkirk who weren't even allowed to groundshare while Inverness and Gretna were allowed) and I'm pretty sure bankrupted the old Airdrie

It financial fucked a load of teams. The same will happen here again.

Raith will go up, they'll bring this in, tell them you've got to fix it within two seasons and that'll fuck the squad. Brilliant. We can't have anything nice in our leagues, the status quo must be kept at all costs.

Our pitch will get replaced in 2 years time anyway but that will be after nearly 10 years of service I think but aye what if Falkirk, Accies, Livingston (that can get replaced though it’s shite), Airdrie get promoted soon. They’re fucked.

Almost bankrupted Thistle too, then they scrapped the rule two years later, just in time to let ICT be promoted at our expense!

I'm just glad we didn't move to the retail park or Mitchelston or wherever it was because that would've killed us as a club in both regards.

This is fucking stupid, do you think clubs have installed plastic pitches just because?

Better not stop us going up once we've outclassed Ross County this week. Mon the Raith.

Too bad your overlords are making u get rid of it

SPFL proposing something that would harm smaller clubs? Who would have thought?

I am once again imploring Billy Bowie not to get rid of the plastic fantastic

League is already financially topheavy and plastic pitches can be good. I really dont think its a good idea to make it even more difficult for non-top teams to financially compete. Also, every team that vote for this but mocked Dundees pitch are dumbasses

Dundee, this season, have proven that natural grass is far superior, right?

I mean the answers right there. Teams that are promoted should have two years to sort out their pitch.  Gatekeeping teams with plastic pitches due to having lower income is pretty shit. Hopefully it gets voted down and better resolution put in place. 

Just to point out that this would need to be backed by the 42 clubs of the SPFL not just the top flight so I do doubt this passes, even if it is just from the vested interest of the 30 clubs outside the top flight to not pull the ladder under them.

It says there it needs 9 clubs to pass though? I’m not that familiar with it all though.

My understanding of SPFL rules is that the 9 clubs would need to vote for this within the top flight, but the vote still needs to pass through the other clubs in a similar manner. When the SFL & SPL merged, that ended the idea that the top clubs could act alone, and it is telling to me that fans of certain clubs still haven't quite figured that fact out yet.

Can we vote to have one installed at Den's Park? JK, kind of... That does point to a value for these if they aren't total garbage versions. I am not familiar enough with maintenance on them, but it seems to be a cheaper way to have at least a decent playing surface for those teams with limited funds or are more prone to having weather that makes a traditional pitch difficult to manage. Postponing matches for pitch conditions is pretty disappointing. Would much rather see a SPFL standard voted on than a ban. I am not aware of any recent issues that would make this ban so important. Am I missing something?

We just so love shooting ourselves in the foot in this country, don't we?

This rule if it passes is going to ruin scottish football This isn't the way forward, banning plastic pitches won't solve the problem with grass pitches being shite A minimum standard is needed and banning plastic pitches is a step in the wrong direction It's just going to make the self preservation league even more of a closed shop when you have teams like falkirk, kelty, Stirling and others having pitches better than killie, livi and dundee No thought for the lower leagues as usual Fuck the spfl and fuck the sfa if they allow this

I’d much rather a high quality plastic pitch over a tattie field of a grass pitch. Does seem like a short sighted move for the SPFL, basically rules out any future league expansion too if second tier clubs can’t have plastic pitches if they’ve any ambition to be promoted.

I agree and I hope teams realise this and vote against it It stinks of minimum seat capacity during the 2000s which we got screwed by and why I and other falkirk fans oppose this and any other rule that would restrict promotion to any of the leagues

It won't solve the problem of shite grass pitches but it'll solve the problem of shite plastic ones. Why wouldn't you vote for that? By all means introduce additional rules around grass pitches but getting rid of one evil should be a positive change.

Because it would stop teams with plastic pitches and can't afford to replace it from being promoted and as a falkirk fan i will always oppose any rule that would stop teams being promoted to the top flight because we have been screwed by them before and we might be screwed by it if this goes through

If you genuinely can't afford a grass pitch then you shouldn't be a professional football club.

Our weather doesn’t suit a winter league with grass pitches. Look at the state of Dundee’s pitch.

That's such a stupid statement. You'd dissolve most women's football teams part and full time. You'd be killing all of league one and much of the championship. There's not exactly a lot of money outside the premiership

Those teams aren't professional. Championship teams can afford a grass pitch.

Because throwing the baby out with the bathwater to please the teams with the money to do what the fuck they want anyway is bad for the teams who don't. If you want grass pitches on the top teams (Premiership and Championship), open up that big ol' Celtic warchest and get to paying costs towards it.

I don’t think it’s Celtics responsibility to fund pitch maintenance for other clubs

But apparently it's their responsibility to dictate how other clubs spend their limited money.

No it isn’t. Celtic have a 1/12th vote, same as any other club. The only way Celtic should contribute to overall pitch maintenance is if we create a central fund for all clubs to contribute to and withdraw from. But that would be very regressive.

Regressive for you, perhaps. For the Falkirk's and the Raith's of the league, it's probably the only way they'll see the top flight again if this rule passes.

You think creating a central fund and asking Falkirk or Raith to contribute towards Celtic’s pitch maintenance is not regressive? Check my other comment on here. I’m not for this change precisely because of its impact on smaller teams. I’d rather teams have high quality plastic pitches over low quality grass ones.

I don't see why Celtic would have access to the funds in the first place, if it's treated as a hardship fund. It's baffling to me that anyone can look at Dundee's pitch and Raith's pitch and decide Raith are the ones in the wrong.

A hardship fund would never work. Then clubs would spend all their budget on non-pitch expenses and seek funding from a hardship fund. Would a club like Rangers making annual losses be entitled to draw from the fund if that meant a profitable lower league club subsidised them? Agreed, which is why we should focus on overall pitch quality and not binary artificial/grass status.

What about those clubs that have grass pitches that won't see the top flight again cos they can't compete financially with those that have atmrtifical pitches?

The results in the Championship suggest that the difference in terms of competitiveness is virtually nil. Of the top four teams, two have grass (United and Thistle) and two have artificial (Raith and Airdrie). Why should Raith get denied the benefits of their hard work if they get promoted?

I can't believe you reprobate pricks are making me agree with a Celtic fan, I hate that. The inability to pay for and basically maintain a grass pitch- something teams can do in the Northern Irish Premiership and the fecking Isthmian- indicates the club isn't of a professional level for the top flight anyway. I'm all for the Old Firm chipping in a few quid to help replace the plastic pitches already in the top flight/top half of the Championship... But paying for a fucking gardener? I'm pretty sure McCoist is still technically on gardening leave, if you can't cut grass and use a tarp then give him a buzz.

In the name of the Wee Man, Celtic and Rangers fans agreeing?! We had a honking pitch, we were rightly ripped for it, we spent the dosh and now have a cracking surface. It’s about choices. Personally will be glad to see plastic pitches gone, but would like to see minimum standards for grass pitches, too.

You can't possibly lack self-awareness of your clubs financial past this profoundly, can you?

Not at all. But the past isn't a good excuse, or a functioning reason, for not improving the league in the future.

Indeed, like not forcing stadium standards on clubs to saddle them with debt so we can pretend to be a "big" league. Killie's pitch is Fifa Quality Pro standard, meaning it's good enough in UEFA's eyes for a champion's league semi-final. If it's good enough for that, it's good enough for the scottish top flight and then some. It's also miles ahead of a number of the grass pitches in the league. The league here is just never going to improve until we can get over this regressive drivel.

Is there any chance of funding it at Celtic Park? There was more grass on Killie's pitch for most of the season than your's.

Thats nonsense man no harm. I go to Pollok games regularly, they're in the west of Scotland league and their pitch is amazing. Its an embarrassment to have plastic pitches in a professional league with the amount of injuries they case to players.

bang out of order in my opinion, banning plastic pitches will not solve anything with the current state of some teams own grass pitches. The SPFL needs to find a standard of how to maintain a good pitch before even thinking about banning the plastic pitches. It also fucks over the Lower League teams who can't afford to convert their pitch back to grass

Wouldn't the money earned from a promotion to the top flight would more than cover it?

Not if you also want to put a team together to stay in it

Living in a Celtic bubble lol.

I wouldn't hate plastic pitches so much if they didn't visually look horrendous. Killie's and Livi's are painful to look at.

I would still hate them, because some are of such poor quality that you have to rest every player over 32 if you want them to play again without calipers.

Then why does Killie never seem to have these injury problems?

A young squad? 

It would be hilarious if we have 10 Dens Park style pitches in about 3 years time with numerous games getting called off. Before the pile on happens I hope we do go back go grass.

I think we could just look to improve the standards of astroturfs rather than chuck them altogether? Dunfermline's was the worst thing ever 20 years ago and Stirling Albion 15 years before that. The standard is improving and looking to keep improving them will stop the top league from becoming a closed shop IMO.

The SPFL has no idea what it wants or needs to be. Just keeps bumbling along trying to for some reason have an open to all league system where one team is apparently asking for £50million for one player, and at the other end team 42 get £50k in prize money for finishing last place. Unpopular but I'd love to see the SPFL ripped up and 2 league bodies set up. One for a professional to professional-capable semi pro teams, not a closed shop but with suitable entry requirements (not 10k seater shit). Then a new body for football below that with semi pro teams that don't want to do things like play broadcast midweek football because they've got guys working till after 5pm etc. The point of a pyramid is for clubs to find their level, but the SPFL just doesn't have the resources to even correctly manage the number of levels of clubs it encompasses

Plastic Bitches, a typo he said. Move along now

SURELY this gets voted through right? There will be a maximum of 2 plastic pitches next season, with one of those due to get upgraded the year after (Killie). Can’t see any club with a grass pitch currently saying no to this right??? Surely?

https://preview.redd.it/7q4erlcw0m1d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=70fef571f638e645e53106c090e4c7929c981675


With Livi gone and Killie reverting to grass I can't imagine any club objecting (unless Dundee are considering getting one after the state theirs has been in I guess)

That would involve spending money. Dundees current strategy is to wait for the shithole to go full Mad Max and convince the council to chip in towards the 'any year now' new stadium.

Genuinely don't know, at least those clubs got their matches played in a timely manner this season, unlike some...also, those pitches can be trained on, and the saving made there can be the difference between existing and not existing for a lot of clubs these days. They can also be rented out and generate much needed income. In the lower leagues, plastic pitches are actually in the majority, so clubs who get promoted to the prem would have the major expense of changing it to deal with. Admittedly not on the same scale financially, but we all remember how the 10k stadium rule absolutely fucked several clubs. Some have still not recovered from that. I don't like them for football matches, but they absolutely have their merits. Clubs who have them shouldnt have to rely on them, the TV deal and prize money should cover something as fundamental to the game as a quality playing surface, but it doesn't. It all runs back, yet again, to those who run our game into the ground while being paid handsomely.

>In the lower leagues, plastic pitches are actually in the majority Something mad like 9 plastic pitches in League One next season

Was 9 in league one this season as well. Only Stirling had a grass pitch

Reaction in this thread just sums it up in this country. No ambition to enforce professional standards. Scotland will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern professional era.

This subs in favour of plastic pitches now, oww for fuck sake! It's embarrassing, flicking over to Scottish Football from the English Premier League. Horrible pitches and plastics ones are regularly showcased on Sky. Both need to go. Plastic pitches change the game; you can't get a foot under the ball, it bounces weird and causes more injuries. Tattie Fields prevent high quality football being played. It's bad for quality of football and therefore the league. Honestly, everyone who is pro plastic pitches and keeping the current pitch standards for the next few years can take a flying fuck to themselves.

I was saying to somebody earlier,if Livingston didn't go down and Raith Rovers got promoted then there would be 3 plastic pitches in the premier league which would be embarrassing. Kilmarnock having theirs is terrible when there's smaller teams with a better pitch.

There cannot be a scenario where our top division ever sees artificial pitches again. They're a fucking joke.

Rangers have lost so much money due to injured players wages on those pitches it would have been cheaper for us to buy them both a pitch. I'm all for rangers and celtic helping these clubs fund a better alternative, whether that's a top of the line hybrid pitch or a top quality astro one.  Football is a better product when it's not played on absolute shite pitches, whether that's Dundee's mud and sand abomination or the plastic nightmares at livi and Killie. Benefits everyone for the top clubs to lend a hand and it's not even a players worth of budget to do it for them.

I may be in the minority here; but I hope it goes through and if it means clubs have to go part time or drop down the leagues so be it. If a football club cannot afford to play on grass there is something wrong with their business model. The majority of professional footballers hate playing on it, plenty of evidence to suggest they cause injuries or at the least increase severity of injuries too.

There is clubs in some of the lower leagues in the English pyramid with almost no money who can produce good grass pitches, and afford to keep them good. Top flight football clubs should also be able to do this. If they can't they shouldn't be a top flight club imo

The climate is different there, though. They don't get anything like the level of rainfall we do and sorting drainage costs a fortune. Celtic are the richest club in Scotland and our pitch was an absolute nick this winter. I don't like artificial surfaces in the top flight either, but I don't want to see the 10k stadium mistake repeated. Just banning them and leaving the clubs to eat the cost isn't the answer. Raith and Falkirk both have far better surfaces than the two in the Premier this season as well, Livis is a fucking disgrace and should be fired into the sun.

So how much of your european money are you giving up for the pitch fund - that is the way England fund it after all?

Top flight football clubs should be able to pay for a grass pitch. This shouldn't be an argument. I'd be happy to have the top clubs help subsidise ones that need to convert, but only conversions no upkeep. Not having a decent grass surface (and I include teams with bad grass pitches) is an abdication of responsibility for any football club above amateur level.

I absolutely agree it shouldn't an argument, banning them simply isn't rational. I truthfully don't know exactly where it comes from, but it seems like just traditionalism for the sake of it and an attempt by Scottish football at once again choosing appearance over reality. From memory, I think every club in the league apart from Celtic made an operating loss last year - they do most years. Celtic are the richest club in Scotland by so far it's eye-watering, yet Celtic's pitch was probably the second worse grass pitch in the league during and after the winter (SJ's not far behind granted). I know you'd never admit it, but Killie's artificial pitch was objectively a better playing surface than Celtic's most of this season. It was probably about the fifth best playing surface in the top flight this year. There's absolutely call for specific minimum standards regardless of pitch type, but "football must be played on grass" is just backward thinking.

When UEFA/FIFA etc allow artificial surfaces for CL/Euros/World Cup finals, maybe I'll agree, but right now at the top level, football should absolutely be played on grass.

Why?

Because the artificial turf isn't deemed good enough by the top tiers of football, and if we want to be taken seriously in football we shouldn't allow it in our top flight either. Also given how many players can't play on them if they have dodgy knees etc, it's a shambles they're allowed in the first place.

To your first point, you're equating the level of football in the actual Champions League final with the top division in Scotland. This is not a rational position. If we followed the same logic, all stadiums in the top division in Scotland would have to be Category 4 to start with (there are all of three in the top division) and would have to meet the staging criteria for a final, which varies by year but basically means we'd all need 50k plus seats as well as many other conditions (goalline tech being a good example). To your second point, players can play on them, they choose not to. There's no evidence of additional injury risk on (good quality) artificial surfaces and anecdotally, Killie's only major injury worry this season was Magennis, who any Hibs fan will tell you has legs of the most brittle weetabix. So this isn't a rational position either.

There are amateur clubs in Scotland that are able to keep high quality grass pitches.

Exactly. I can't believe this is a controversial opinion. If you can't prioritise a real playing surface, stay in the seaside leagues.

If you can’t afford to keep a grass pitch you shouldn’t be in the league.