2017–18 Scottish Premiership


The 2017–18 Scottish Premiership was the fifth season of the Scottish Premiership, the highest division of Scottish football. The fixtures were published on 23 June 2017. The season began on 5 August 2017. Celtic were the defending champions.
Twelve teams contested the league: Aberdeen, Celtic, Dundee, Hamilton Academical, Heart of Midlothian, Hibernian, Kilmarnock, Motherwell, Partick Thistle, Rangers, Ross County and St Johnstone.
The season's average attendance was 15,932, the highest level since 2006–07.
On 29 April 2018, Celtic won their seventh consecutive title and 49th overall after a 5-0 win at home to Rangers.

Teams

The following teams have changed division since the 2016–17 season.

To Premiership

Promoted from Scottish Championship

From Premiership

Relegated to Scottish Championship

Personnel and kits

TeamManagerCaptainKit manufacturerShirt sponsor
Aberdeensortname|Derek|McInnes

Managerial changes

TeamOutgoing managerManner of departureDate of vacancyPosition in tableIncoming managerDate of appointment
Dundeesortname|Neil|McCann

Format

Basic

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.

Prize money

In April 2018, the SPFL confirmed the prize money to be allocated to the league members at the conclusion of the competitions. The Premiership winners would receive £3.176 million, with a total pot of £24.5m to be distributed across the four divisions.

League summary

Positions by round

The table lists the positions of teams after each week of matches. In order to preserve chronological progress, 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 matchday 13, but then postponed and played between days 16 and 17, it will be added to the standings for day 16.
Leader – Qualification to Champions League first qualifying round
Qualification to Europa League first qualifying round
Qualification to Premiership play-off final
Relegation to 2018–19 Scottish Championship

Team \ Round1234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829303132333435363738
Team \ Round
Celtic12121111111111111111111111111111111111
Aberdeen34312222222222233322223322333332332222
Rangers46654353334444322233332233222223223333
Hibernian23566646675333444444444444444444444444
Kilmarnock8910101112121211111111101010108886767777655555555555
Heart of Midlothian128788777757767766555555555566666666666
Motherwell911875565443555555678886666777787777777
St Johnstone61233434566676677767678888988878888888
Dundee712121112998891012121211910111010101010999891010101010910999
Hamilton Academical1154478899109898889999999101011111099999109101010
Partick Thistle1010111210111111121212101111121212121211121111111110101111111112121111111111
Ross County57999101010108898991111101112111212121212121212121211111212121212

Source:

Results

Matches 1–22

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

Matches 23–33

Teams play every other team once.

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. The exact matches are determined by the position of the teams in the league table at the time of the split.

Season statistics

Top scorers

RankPlayerClubGoals
1

Discipline

Player

Yellow cards
RankPlayerClubCards
1
Red cards

Club

Yellow cards
RankClubCards
1Heart of Midlothian86
2Hamilton Academical82
3Rangers81
Red cards
RankClubCards
1Hamilton Academical9
2Heart of Midlothian5
2Motherwell5
2Rangers5
5St Johnstone4

Attendances

These are the average attendances of the teams.

Premiership play-offs

The quarter-final was contested between the third and fourth-placed teams in the Scottish Championship, with the winners advancing to the semi-final to face the second-placed Championship side. The last remaining Championship team played off against the eleventh-placed Premiership team in the final, with the winners securing the last place in the 2018–19 Scottish Premiership.

Final

Second leg

Livingston were promoted to the Premiership.

Broadcasting

Live Matches

The SPFL permitted Sky Sports and BT Sport to show up to six live home matches between the broadcasters from each club - although this was only four for Rangers and Celtic. Sky Sports and BT Sport's deals allowed them to broadcast 30 games each. The deal roughly provided £21m to SPFL per season.

Highlights

Sky Sports held the rights to Saturday night highlights - however, they did not broadcast a dedicated programme and instead merely showed the goals of the Premiership matches on Sky Sports News in their Goals Express programme primarily focused on goals from the English Football League. Gaelic-language channel BBC Alba had the rights to broadcast the repeat in full of 38 Saturday 3pm matches "as live" at 5.30pm. The main Premiership highlights programme was BBC Scotland's Sportscene programme, hosted on Sundays, which showed in depth highlights of all six Premiership matches every weekend. STV showed the goals from the weekend matches on Monday nights during the Sport section of their News at Six programme as well as during their weeknight football-debate show on STV2. The SPFL also uploaded the goals from every Premiership match onto its YouTube channel, available from 6pm on a Sunday for UK and Ireland viewers and 10pm on a Saturday for those worldwide.