Welsh Premier Chairmen vote for two divisions

The much rumoured split of the Welsh Premier League will happen at the start of the 2010/2011 season. This will match the Scottish Premier Division with clubs playing each other four times (twice at home and twice away). The idea being that the better players will eventually drift to the top division improving the overall quality of the league, hopefully improving the performances of the Welsh clubs in Europe. [The Welsh Premier teams are also looking to move to a summer league which again could help performances in Europe]

I feel this is a positive move. I've always been sceptical of a Welsh league that doesn't feature any clubs from the three biggest cities in Wales (Cardiff, Swansea & Newport) being able to maintain an 18 team league. As a Cardiff City fan I'd love to see the league clubs and the exiled non-league sides get more involved in Welsh football but unfortuantely I don't see any way this could be possible currently.

A couple of ways the Welsh clubs playing in the English system could get more involved are as follows... Cardiff City don't have a reserve side - something that I feel hasn't been helpful at all to the development of fringe players such as Darcy Blake - so Cardiff could create a reserve side and field it in the Welsh League setup. However, I'm not sure how welcome the Welsh Premier clubs would make Cardiff City Reserves. It would surely devalue the competition somewhat to have a reserve sides in a Welsh Premier Division, I also don't think UEFA would be particularly impressed and European qualification for these reserve sides would simply be impossible.

The only other alternative is to set up clubs in the bigger cities of Cardiff, Swansea and Newport and parachute them into the Welsh Premier Division. This thought is almost too terrible to contemplate and stinks of franchising. However, I do feel that Cardiff City and Swansea City may have the support/finances to run a side each in the Welsh league system that is totally separate from their "full" side.

I feel that getting the cities of Cardiff, Swansea and Newport involved in the Welsh Premier League is important to make the league more popular, but we have to be careful not to let the league lose any of its soul. Parachuting clubs into the Premier isn't fair, entering reserve sides into the league devalues the competition and Cardiff City, Swansea City and Newport County will never play in the League of Wales.

Anyway, overall, I feel that the 10 club top division is a positive move. For the record the current clubs who would qualify for the "elite" division are: Llanelli, The New Saints, Rhyl, Port Talbot, Bangor City, Carmarthen Town, Neath Athletic, Haverfordwest County, Welshpool Town and Aberystwyth Town. It would leave Caernarfon Town, once of the English pyramid, in the second flight of Welsh football.