Clubs in the Scottish top flight typically enjoy 16 to 17 home games before the season splits, with a minimum of two and a maximum of three additional home fixtures afterward. Ideally, by season’s end, each team aims for 19 home games. However, this is often more of a hope than a guarantee, and for the second consecutive season, an imbalance has emerged.
The Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) endeavors to foresee which clubs will finish in the top six and which will land in the bottom half when compiling the season’s initial fixtures. This strategy is aimed at minimizing the disruption of uneven home-game allocations. However, this year, the newly promoted Falkirk has exceeded expectations, currently holding the sixth spot on the table.
As a result, Falkirk will play 20 home games while Livingston will only have 18. While this disparity is far from ideal, the SPFL has opted for this allocation to limit the spread of imbalance across the league. With Falkirk trailing Hibernian by five points, the extra home game is unlikely to substantially impact their aspirations for European qualification. Meanwhile, for Livingston, the reduction in home games carries little weight, as they are teetering on the brink of relegation.
Interestingly, this 20-18 scenario has occurred in nearly half of the seasons in Scotland’s top football league, illustrating a recurring challenge in fixture planning.
