Recent media reports have suggested the SPFL is considering introducing 'colt' or under-20 sides into the senior league system of Scottish football.  It is claimed that there is an appetite for such a move amongst certain clubs within the Scottish Premiership and that it will aid the development of younger players within the Scottish game.  Fans of lower league clubs do not wish to watch youth sides and do not support such teams being parachuted into the league system.  Lower league sides do not exist to serve supposedly bigger clubs or develop players for them or the national side.  Fans attend matches across the SPFL to watch competitive matches between full sides in a proper league setting; introducing colt sides will dilute the competitiveness of this system and fans will simply walk away from the game.  Scottish football fans are not interested in paying to watch a glorified youth development league run for the benefit of premiership sides.  

The proposition that playing football at this level will suddenly improve the standard of player produced in Scotland seems laughable, and in any case the loan system already provides a mutually beneficial outlet for younger players to gain senior match experience which this proposal would presumably remove.  There is no evidence youth players at premiership clubs would improve their skills by weekly participation in fixtures against SPFL League One or Two opposition and such sides deserve better than being used as cannon fodder for youth development by their larger rivals.  Highland League and Lowland League sides should also not be forced to act as a surrogate for a real youth development strategy.

There are genuine problems in the Scottish game but this proposal does nothing to address the real issues.  Those clubs currently playing in the lower reaches of the Scottish game exist because they have loyal, devoted and long-suffering fans who have a real emotional attachment to their clubs.  These fans have just as much right to watch their sides play real, competitive senior football as fans of the larger clubs.  They do not deserve to be treated as guinea pigs in a misguided attempt to inflate the prospects of the national side and to further aggrandise those clubs already at the top of our game.

Please do not deprive Scottish lower league football of its dignity.  No to colt sides!