The 2021–22 Scottish Premiership (known as the cinch Premiership for sponsorship reasons) is the ninth and current season of the

Scottish Premiership The Scottish Premiership, known as the cinch Premiership for sponsorship reasons, is the top division of the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL), the league competition for men's professional football clubs in Scotland. The Scottis ...

, the highest division of Scottish football, and the 125th edition overall of the top national league competition, not including one cancelled due to

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Rangers are the defending champions. Twelve teams contest the league:

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), ...

, Celtic, Dundee,

Dundee United Dundee United Football Club is a Scottish professional football club based in the city of Dundee. The club name is usually abbreviated to Dundee United. Formed in 1909, originally as Dundee Hibernian, the club changed to the present name in ...

, Heart of Midlothian, Hibernian, Livingston,

Motherwell Motherwell ( sco, Mitherwall, gd, Tobar na Màthar) is a town and former burgh in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, United Kingdom, south east of Glasgow. It has a population of around 32,120. Historically in the parish of Dalziel and part of Lana ...

, Rangers, Ross County,

St Johnstone St Johnstone Football Club is a professional association football club in Perth, Scotland which is a member of the Scottish Premiership for the 2022–23 season. The club's name is derived from St John's Toun ''aka'' Saint Johnstoun – an ol ...

and St Mirren. The season began on 31 July 2021. In December 2021 the SPFL Board made the decision to bring forward the pre-planned winter break from 4 January to 27 December, due to the Scottish Government imposing a capacity restriction of 500 supporters in light of the increase in

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickl ...

cases. The rule of 5 substitutions per match was also re-introduced (as used the previous season) after the winter break.

Teams

The following teams changed division after the 2020–21 season. Promoted from the

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

* Heart of Midlothian * Dundee Relegated to the

Hamilton Academical Hamilton Academical Football Club, often known as Hamilton Accies, or The Accies, is a Scottish football club from Hamilton, South Lanarkshire who currently compete in the Scottish Championship, having been relegated from the 2020–21 Scottis ...

* Kilmarnock

Stadia and locations

Personnel and kits

Managerial changes

Format

In the initial phase of the season, the 12 teams will play a round-robin tournament whereby each team plays each one of the other teams three times. After 33 games, the league splits into two sections of six teams, with each team playing each other in that section. The league attempts to balance the fixture list so that teams in the same section play each other twice at home and twice away, but sometimes this is impossible. A total of 228 matches will be played, with 38 matches played by each team.

League summary

League table

Positions by round

The table lists the positions of teams after each week of matches. To preserve chronological evolvements, any postponed matches are not included in the round at which they were originally scheduled, but added to the full round they were played immediately afterwards. For example, if a match is scheduled for round 13, but then postponed and played between rounds 16 and 17, it is added to the standings for round 16.

Results

Matches 1–22

Teams play each other twice, once at home and once away.

Matches 23–33

Teams play each other once, either home or away.

Matches 34–38

After 33 matches, the league splits into two sections of six teams i.e. the top six and the bottom six, with the teams playing every other team in their section once (either at home or away). The exact matches are determined by the position of the teams in the league table at the time of the split.

Season statistics

Scoring

Top scorers

Hat-tricks

Most assists

Source:

Clean sheets

Source:

Awards

Premiership play-offs

The quarter-finals will be contested between the third and fourth placed teams in the

Scottish Championship The Scottish Championship, known as the cinch Championship for sponsorship reasons, is the second tier of the Scottish Professional Football League, the league competition for men's professional football clubs in Scotland. The Scottish Champio ...

. The winners will advance to the semi-finals to face the second placed team in the Championship, and the winners of that tie will advance to the final to play-off against the 11th placed team in the Premiership, with the winners securing a place in the 2022–23 Scottish Premiership.

Broadcasting

Live matches (UK and Ireland)

Sky Sports has exclusive rights to the Scottish Premiership and will show up to 48 matches, and the Premiership play-off final. BBC Scotland will broadcast the Premiership quarter-final and semi-final play-off ties. Due to the impact of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

, clubs will continue to stream matches (not broadcast on Sky) to fans on a pay-per-view or "virtual season ticket" basis, whilst capacities in stadia are limited due to social distancing restrictions. Select live matches are being streamed on Paramount Plus.

Highlights

Highlights are broadcast on

BBC Scotland BBC Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: ''BBC Alba'') is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Scotland. It is one of the four BBC national regions, together with the BBC English Regions, BBC Cymru Wales and BBC Northern Irelan ...

's flagship

Sportscene ''Sportscene'' is the name of a range of Scottish sports television programmes produced by BBC Scotland. History ''Sportscenes predecessors were ''Sports Special from Scotland'' and ''Sportsreel'', which was broadcast every Saturday at around 5 ...

programme on both Saturdays and Sundays. Sky Sports also show highlights. Gaelic-language channel

BBC Alba BBC Alba is a Scottish Gaelic-language free-to-air public broadcast television channel jointly owned by the BBC and MG Alba. The channel was launched on 19 September 2008 and is on-air for up to seven hours a day with BBC Radio nan Gàidheal ...

has rights to broadcast repeats in full of 38 Saturday 3pm matches "as live" at 5.30pm. The SPFL also uploads the goals from every Premiership match onto its

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...

channel.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:2021-22 Scottish Premiership Scottish Premiership seasons 1 1

Scot The Scots ( sco, Scots Fowk; gd, Albannaich) are an ethnic group and nation native to Scotland. Historically, they emerged in the early Middle Ages from an amalgamation of two Celtic-speaking peoples, the Picts and Gaels, who founded ...