Forres Mechanics manager Steven MacDonald believes the Breedon Highland League should consider permitting five substitutes.
This season sides in the Scottish Premiership, Championship, League One and League Two are all allowed to make five changes during a game.
The same number of alterations can also be made in Scottish Cup, League Cup and Challenge Cup ties.
Can-Cans boss MacDonald reckons the positives outweigh the negatives when it comes to five subs.
He said: “To me it doesn’t make mathematical sense that we’re allowed seven subs on the bench but can only use three of them.
“The top four leagues in Scotland are allowed to use five subs so why not the Highland League?
“As a manager at a part-time level, you expect most weeks to be without several players for various reasons so you do need a bigger squad.
“From a welfare point of view, it makes sense because you can replace players that are fatigued or have knocks.
“From a mental wellbeing perspective, it involves more of your players getting game time which keeps more of them happy and the squad more together.
“It would give you greater cover during a game and could possibly help introduce more youngsters into the league.
“It could help with injury prevention by being able to take guys off who are struggling rather than asking them to soldier on.
“Five subs would also allow managers to make more tactical changes in a game.”
Positives outweigh the negatives for MacDonald
Some would argue that having five subs rather than three favours the better-resourced clubs who are able to carry bigger squads.
But MacDonald doesn’t believe those sides would have a greater advantage if a change was made.
He added: “If you look at some of the top sides of recent times like Brora and Buckie they’ve had success with smaller squads where they’ve had quality over quantity.
“In my opinion, I don’t necessarily think the bigger clubs with more resources would be stronger as a result of being able to use five subs because they tend to trust the quality they have more.
“If you’re looking for negatives from a financial point of view clubs might have to pay out more in win bonuses but I suppose you would have to budget for that if there was a rule change.
“You could argue more subs at the end of a game allows for more time-wasting but that’s for a referee to control.
“Overall weighing up the positives and negatives I think there’s a far greater argument for saying it’s something we should look at it.
“It’s probably not possible this season but I think it’s definitely something the Highland League should be looking to bring in.”
