'Alarming trend' leads to Challenge Cup and loan changes

Airdrieonians beat Welsh side The New Saints to lift the Challenge Cup last season

Scottish Premiership B teams will be included in a new Challenge Cup league format next season.

Rules over loans for Scottish players between 16 and 21 will also be changed in an attempt to tackle an "alarming trend of young players getting less and less game time".

The new "Cooperation System" between the Scottish Football Association and Scottish Professional Football League has been approved by clubs following consultation that followed the publication of the former's "Transition Report" last year.

SFA chief football officer Andy Gould and head of men's elite strategy Chris Docherty had sought to establish trends in successful player development from across the world in compiling their report.

Chief executive Ian Maxwell described it as "a significant step forward in enhancing first-team opportunities for the most talented young players in Scotland".

He said the report "brought home not only the alarming trend of young players getting less and less game time" but also "included a series of practical solutions that have been proven to have worked in leagues across the world".

Next season, there will be a greater flexibility to domestic loans quotas whereby players aged 16-21 eligible to represent Scotland national teams who join a lower-league club will be able to move between the two clubs throughout the season to increase playing time.

Meanwhile, there will be a change to the straight knockout format to the Challenge Cup, currently called the SPFL Trust Trophy, which has featured Premiership B teams since 2019.

Further details of the new "league phase format" have yet to be announced, but Maxwell added: "We look forward to seeing young Scottish players given a platform to fulfil their undoubted potential with greater opportunity."

SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster hoped the changes would help others follow in the footsteps of Motherwell's Lennon Miller and Kilmarnock's David Watson, midfielders who have in recent seasons become first-team regulars with their Premiership clubs while in their teens.

"Our new Challenge Cup format will provide more opportunities for young Scottish players to progress than any previous competition set-up," he said.