Time for a winter break?

And so we come to the first posting of 2010.

Only a few weeks ago, as I was stuck at an airport somewhere in southern Belgium staring out at an empty tarmac, waiting for an airplane that would never come, and facing another long drive home, I was thinking that with the Xmas holiday effectively cancelled, at least I wouldn't have to miss my recommended daily allowance of Scottish football.

Like my own holiday, the weather soon put an end to that.

The sheer number of call-offs since December 19 will give the SPL and the SFL a headache of Hogmenayian proportions - the division Two and Three fixture list was decimated by frozen pitches, while in division One there have been only the three games since Boxing Day. The SPL fared a little better, as you'd expect, but the resulting fixture pile-up across all four divisions - together with the news that most of this weekends upcoming Scottish Cup fixtures are in doubt - will see us through many Monday and Tuesday nights to come.

The inevitable calls for a winter break grew louder throughout this period, but the footballing authorities are refusing to budge. SPL Chief Executive Neil Doncaster, writing in his blog states that the main reasons for this are

"UEFA's own rules prohibiting the scheduling of midweek fixture cards against Champions League or Europa League fixtures. Together with the fixture congestion caused by various cup games and replays, and once every two years a World Cup or European Championships, there just is not the scope to fit a winter break into the fixture calendar."

He's got a point, but that UEFA rule is plain silly, especially as it would only affect at most one or two teams in Scotland. In fact, this season the only team that would have issues here are Celtic, who played two games in December before being eliminated from the Europa League. As for the number of cup games, how about scrapping the League Cup, seen as an extraneous and superfluous tournament by most.

Doncaster is not in favour of winter breaks, but there are a host of other countries that use winter breaks, and for whom the format seems to work just grand.

Denmark, whose league system is similar to that of Scotland, with 44 teams spread across four divisions, starts its league in mid-July, ending in mid-May. The winter break starts at the beginning of December and does not resume again until March when, God willing, the last of the winter weather has passed.

There are additional benefits to having a winter break. According to former Dundee and Celtic midfielder Morten Wieghorst, currently manager of FC Nordsjælland, the winter break has resulted in the standard of Danish football's top Division rising to the point where it rose three places in UEFA's table of European Leagues. Scotland’s own place in that league dropped by three places over the same period.

Similarly, not playing football on wet and muddy pitches should go a long way to prolonging the playing surfaces of clubs across the country and would avoid the sort of problems Motherwell have had in recent years. The Steelmen where fined £20,000 in February of last year after the latest in a long line of call-offs that could be directly attributed to the condition of the pitch at Fir Park. And the SPL will launch an investigation after Falkirk's match against St Johnstone was cancelled earlier this week due to frozen areas of the pitch, despite the fact that Falkirk have under-soil heating installed.

Though, in fairness, the majority of the SPL games where called off not due to frozen pitches, but due to the state of the roads around the ground which says something for the state of our top grounds.

From a safety point of view then, a winter break would also prevent fans from travelling across the country on dangerous roads in wintery weather, while playing games later in the year and  during the early summer might - and I am aware there's no evidence to support this - increase attendances. When the Irish league switched to summer football in 2003, attendances remained pretty much the same, some teams even seeing a small drop, but this was due to the fact that Ireland's two national sports, Hurling and Gaelic Football, start during those months. Scotland has no summer sports to distract the football, so perhaps attendances might not be affected. And, after all, watching Aberdeen struggle against Hamilton might be a whole more bearable in early July than it would be in mid-December, with the cold wind blowing from off the North Sea taking the heat from the half-time meat pie in less than the time it takes your average Aberdeen team to be reduced to 10-men.

Doncaster is right when he says that there's not a lot we can do about the weather and that rather than introducing winter breaks, we should focus on providing quality indoor facilities and all-weather pitches to "to allow players young and old to enjoy their football whatever the weather". But these things cost money, money which most clubs outside (and inside) the SPL don't have. Besides, most kids don't care much for playing football in the pissing rain or driving snow, or for having to make their way through treacherous weather to these fabled swanky indoor facilities.

Doncaster also claims that most supporters don’t want a winter break, but hearing and reading fans reactions - not to mention the odd SPL manager - to another late call-off might suggest there is at least a desire there to investigate the possibilities.

There are plenty of reasons why summer football is not a good idea. For example, every two years either one of the World Cup and European Championships are held during the summer, meaning that teams who have players whose countries are represented in those competitions would be affected (much like Chelsea and Portsmouth will be when the African Cup of Nations kick off later this month).

Or heaven forbid, what if Scotland should ever qualify for a major tournament, what then?

The fact that countries which make use of winter breaks seems to do alright in European tournaments might suggest that all is not as difficult as it seems. As our erstwhile Chief Exec says himself, change is difficult, but until you try, you'll never know.