Scottish Premiership

The top flight of Scottish football has contained 12 clubs since the 2000–01 season, the longest period without change in the history of the Scottish football league system.[3] During this period the Scottish Premier League, and now the Scottish Premiership, has operated a "split" format. This is used to prevent the need for a 44-game schedule, based on playing each other four times. That format was used in the Scottish Premier Division in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, but it is now too high a number of games in a league season.

A season, which runs from August until May, is divided into two phases. During the first phase, each club plays three games against every other team, either once at home and twice away or vice versa. After this first phase of matches, by which time all clubs have played 33 games, the league splits into two halves - a 'top six' section and a 'bottom six' section. Each club plays a further five matches, one against each of the other five teams in their own section. Points achieved during the first phase of 33 matches are carried forward to the second phase, but the teams compete only within their own sections during the second phase. After the first phase is completed, clubs cannot move out of their own half in the league, even if they achieve more or fewer points than a higher or lower ranked team, respectively.

At the beginning of each season, the SPFL 'predicts' the likely positions of each club in order to produce a fixture schedule that ensures the best possible chance of all clubs playing each other twice at home and twice away. This is known as the league seeding and is based on clubs' performance in the previous season.[4] If the clubs do not finish in the half where they are predicted to finish, then anomalies can be created in the fixture list. Clubs sometimes play another three times at home and once away (or vice versa),[4][5] or a club can end up playing 20 home (or away) games in a season.[6]

The bottom placed Premiership club at the end of the season is relegated, and swaps places with the winner of the Scottish Championship, provided that the winner satisfies Premiership entry criteria. With the creation of the SPFL, promotion and relegation play-offs involving the top flight were introduced for the first time in seventeen years.[3][7] The Premiership club in eleventh place plays the Championship play-off winners over two legs, with the winner earning the right to play in the Scottish Premiership the following season.[8] This enables two clubs to be relegated from the Premiership each season, with two being promoted. Prior to the creation of the Scottish Premiership, only a single club could be relegated each season - with only the second tier champions being promoted. The Scottish Football League had used play-offs amongst its three divisions since 2007.[9]

UEFA country coefficient 2019–20

Rank	Association	Coefficient
12	Austria	32.925
13	Denmark	29.250
14	Scotland	27.875
15	Czech Republic	27.300
16	Cyprus	26.750

UEFA grants European places to the Scottish Football Association, determined by Scotland's position in the UEFA country coefficient rankings. The Scottish Football Association in turn allocate a number of these European places to final Scottish Premiership positions. At the end of the 2019–20 season, Scotland was ranked 14th in Europe – granting them two sides in the UEFA Champions League, one side in the UEFA Europa League, and two sides in the inaugural UEFA Europa Conference League.

For the 2020–21 season, the top placed team in the Scottish Premiership gains qualification to the Champions League third qualifying round, whilst the second placed team enters at the second qualifying round stage. The third and fourth placed teams enter the Europa Conference League at the second qualifying round stage.[10]

Scotland's place in the Europa League third qualifying round is awarded to the winners of the Scottish Cup. Should the winners of that competition have already qualified for European competition, then the fifth placed team also enters the Europa Conference League second qualifying round.

Due to the Europa League group stage spot reserved for the Europa Conference League title holder being vacant in 2021–22, it is expected that the Scottish Cup winners will enter the Europa League play-off round instead, thus guaranteeing at least a Europa Conference League group stage berth if the play-off tie was lost.

The 2017 'Global Sports Salaries Survey' report found a large variation between the wages offered by teams in the Scottish Premiership, with champions Celtic paying an average annual salary of £735,040, per player, whilst traditional rivals Rangers could only pay £329,600 and league runners-up Aberdeen offered £136,382.[11] The lowest salary offered by any of the twelve member clubs was Hamilton's £41,488 – 17 times less than Celtic, whose wages were close to the sum of the other eleven clubs combined.[11]

The report stated that this disparity was the third-greatest from the 18 leagues surveyed, and that the Scottish Premiership offered the third-lowest salaries of those leagues; by contrast, Celtic's opponents in the Champions League that year paid average wages of £6.5m (Paris Saint-Germain) and £5.2m (Bayern Munich), seven times higher than the Scottish club.[11]

As of 2020, Scotland's top-flight league championship has been won 54 times by Rangers and 51 times by Celtic. Nine other clubs have won the remaining 19 championships, with three clubs tied for third place with 4 apiece. The last time the championship was won by a club other than Rangers or Celtic was in 1984–85, by Aberdeen.

Biggest home win

Rangers 8–0 Hamilton Academical, 8 November 2020[25]

Biggest away win

Dundee 0–7 Aberdeen, 31 March 2017

Most goals in a game

Hibernian 5–5 Rangers, 13 May 2018

Most points in a season

106; Celtic, 2016–17[26]

Fewest points in a season

21; Dundee, 2018–19

Most wins in a season

34; Celtic, 2016–17[26]

Fewest wins in a season

5; Dundee, 2018–19[note 2]

Most draws in a season

15, Dundee, 2015–16

Fewest draws in a season

3, St Mirren, 2014–15

Most defeats in a season

27, Dundee, 2018–19

Fewest defeats in a season

0; Celtic, 2016–17[26]

Most goals scored in a season

106; Celtic, 2016–17[26]

Fewest goals scored in a season

28; Hamilton Academical, 2018–19[note 3]

Most goals conceded in a season

78, Dundee, 2018–19

Fewest goals conceded in a season

17; Celtic, 2014–15

Fastest goal

Kris Boyd, for Kilmarnock against Ross County, 10 seconds, 28 January 2017 [27]

Highest transfer fee paid

Odsonne Édouard, from Paris Saint-Germain to Celtic, £9 million, 15 June 2018[28]

Highest transfer fee received

Kieran Tierney, from Celtic to Arsenal, £25 million, 8 August 2019[29]

Most hat-tricks

Liam Boyce and Leigh Griffiths, 4 each

Youngest player

Dean Campbell, for Aberdeen v Celtic, 16 years and 54 days[30]

Youngest goalscorer

Jack Aitchison, for Celtic v Motherwell, 16 years and 71 days[31]

As of matches played on 7 February 2021

Leigh Griffiths, the Scottish Premiership's all-time top goalscorer

Scotland international Leigh Griffiths is the top goalscorer in the Scottish Premiership era with 89 goals, all for Celtic, followed by Aberdeen's Adam Rooney with 66. Kris Boyd, Kris Doolan, Billy McKay, Odsonne Edouard, Niall McGinn, Alfredo Morelos and Liam Boyce are the only other players to reach 50 goals since the establishment of the Scottish Premiership.

Rank	Player	Club(s)[note 4]	Apps.	Goals	A/G
1	Leigh Griffiths[note 5]	Celtic (2014–)	164	89	1.84
2	Adam Rooney[note 5]	Aberdeen (2014–2018)	151	66	2.29
3	Odsonne Édouard	Celtic (2017–)	100	58	1.72
4	Kris Boyd[note 5]	Kilmarnock (2013–2014; 2015–2019)	145	55	2.64
=	Billy Mckay[note 5]	Inverness Caledonian Thistle (2013–2015; 2016–2017) Dundee United (2015–2016) Ross County (2017–2018; 2019–)	178	55	3.24
6	Kris Doolan	Partick Thistle (2013–2018)	176	54	3.26
7	Alfredo Morelos	Rangers (2017–)	112	51	2.20
=	Niall McGinn[note 5]	Aberdeen (2013–2017; 2018–)	223	51	4.37
9	Liam Boyce	Ross County (2014–2017) Heart of Midlothian (2020)	107	50	2.14
10	Steve MacLean[note 5]	St Johnstone (2013–2018) Heart of Midlothian (2018–2020)	176	46	3.83
=	James Forrest[note 5]	Celtic (2013–)	185	46	4.02

Italics denotes players still playing professional football,
Bold denotes players still playing in the Scottish Premiership.