President George Manson expects the subject of colts teams joining the Breedon Highland League to come up in the future.
It has been announced that Rangers, Celtic and Hearts will field colts sides in the Lowland League next season following discussions between the clubs, the league, the SFA and the SPFL.
One of the reasons for the move is to help the development of young players between the ages of 17 and 21 which in turn should benefit the national team in the years ahead.
Rangers and Celtic played as guest clubs in the Lowland League last season and the idea will be reviewed again next summer by the SFA’s pyramid working group.
A stipulation of the agreement is that the Gers, Hoops and Jambos have to field a minimum of seven players who are eligible to play for Scotland in their starting line-up for each game.
The guest clubs are also believed to be paying £40,000 each for entry into the Lowland League.
‘We’re happy to listen’
Although there has not been talk of something similar happening in the north of Scotland, Highland League chief Manson believes the subject will be raised in the future.
He said: “I think it will be discussed in the north at some point.
“There has been moves to try to get them (colts teams) into the pyramid somewhere and there is to be a review of the current pyramid structure.
“It’s a subject we’ll face up to when the time comes and it would appear to work in a lot of other countries.
“The point behind it is for the good of the national team and that should be a priority for us all.
“When the sides play in the Lowland League they need to have seven players in their side eligible to play for Scotland which is good because the point of it is to try to develop Scottish players.
“But until we have a concrete proposal of some kind it’s difficult to formulate an opinion, in principal right now we wouldn’t be against it.
“There are other issues because any club that was interested in doing it would need to meet the financial burden completing a full league programme.
“We’re happy to listen to what people have to say and cooperate where we can, that’s the nature of our league.”
In the summer of 2019 the prospect of Inverness Caley Thistle fielding a colts team in the Highland League was mooted following Cove Rangers’ promotion to the SPFL.
However, that didn’t materialise and Manson added: “That never really got off the ground, but it could have worked because we had an odd number of teams at that time.
“We would have been quite receptive, but the way it was presented wasn’t very good.”
