SPL chief suggests winter break

There are strong signals coming from Scottish Premier League chief executive Neil Doncaster that a reintroduction of a winter break to the SPL will happen.

The cold snap in Scotland has caused havoc with fixtures recently. The last eight scheduled matches in the SPL have been postponed and doubts surround some of this weekend's fixtures, particularly Motherwell's trip to Dundee United.

There have been calls from all quarters for summer football but Doncaster prefers an earlier start to the season with a break in January.

“There is a lot of misinformation going around about the idea of a summer season,” Doncaster said.

“There are only three leagues within the top 25 in Europe who have a summer-based season and one of those is I think returning to a winter-based season.

“If we were going to a summer-based season, then you would be having the climax to your season round about now, which would be far from ideal.

“There are a lot of people who believe that an earlier start to the season might be worth looking at, and that could create the scope to create a winter break.”