Originally Posted by carnoch04:
“The Third Division title has already been won with all the games up to now being played as competitive matches. There is no need to mess with next season. Having a season where the team finishing in 33rd place is promoted above the team finishing 24th is ridiculous. The best way to get to 12,12,18 is to do it for the start of next season and avoid a season of friendlies or over-promoting the Div Three winners.”
But having a system with the winners of the SFL3 this season have no reward compared to finishing last in terms of their division next season is even more ridiculous.
And anyway the winners of SFL3 would have to playoff against SFL2 teams in the system I produced, with the higher your league placing, the less games you would have to play to get into the 2nd tier.
In terms of over promoting the SFL3 winners, in affect all the clubs in SFL3 would be getting promoted anyway, as the system is reduced from 4 to 3 tiers. What you are doing is letting the SFL3 winners have the opportunity to be promoted one tier above the level that all the other SFL3 teams will be in.
When in England the conference north and conference south in non league football was introduced a system of a one off format of matches was introduced to ensure that teams not only could go from the old level 7 to a (slightly higher standard) new level 7, but also go into a new level 6. In affect going two divisions higher than their old league. No one complained that if a team won these matches they were "over promoted" because they had to win football matches to do this.