With the expansion of the league, the league 'split' was introduced to avoid the need for clubs to play 44 fixtures in a season, which would be the case if the quadruple round-robin format of the previous season was followed. Instead, after 33 rounds of matches, by which time all clubs had played each other three times, the league split into a 'top six' and 'bottom six' with clubs only competing against teams within their own section for the final five fixtures. Points achieved during the first phase of 33 matches were carried forward to the second phase but after the first phase was completed, clubs could not move out of their own section in the league, even if they achieved more or fewer points than a higher or lower ranked team, respectively. The new format received widespread criticism from SPL managers.