St Mirren chairman Stewart Gilmour feels the Scottish Premier League has no option but to undergo a revamp. Radical proposals for a two-tier SPL will be put to all 12 top-flight clubs next Monday, following eight months of meetings by a strategic review group.

The scheme would mean 10 teams in each division of the newly-structured SPL, as well as a 36-game league season and the removal of the controversial league split.

An earlier start date to the season, as well as a winter break, could also be introduced.

"We've come to breaking point," Gilmour, a member of the SPL steering group looking into restructuring the league, told the Daily Record.

"Half-a-dozen clubs outwith the SPL will do well to survive until the end of the season and only make it because of the generosity of individuals on their respective boards of directors.

"That state of affairs can't be allowed to continue.

"This isn't simply about finance and individual clubs. This is about the state of a national preoccupation called Scottish football.

"It's a time when compromises have to be made to stop endangering our clubs."

Gilmour admits he is not a fan of play-offs, but knows they are crucial in terms of generating much-needed cash.

"Why would any club chairman or director like play-offs? They're nerve-wracking," he said.

"But the fans love them and the television companies can't get enough of them. That means they create money for the game."

The Saints chief is also coming around to the idea of a winter break, adding: "Up until a few years ago I would have said I was a winter football guy but not now.

"Why would I take my 12-year-old son out to sit in sub-zero cold when there's an alternative?

"I've got out of the habit of thinking we have always to do things in a certain way, and at a specific time of year, because that was the way it was in my father's day.

"But I know we can't go on as we are doing at the moment. The game's on a downward spiral and we have to devise ways of making it more attractive."