Scottish Football Without Celts + Gers Options

[drew1952]

Hiya, now far be it from me to start a rumour but down here in Birmingham we have a local radio station called BBC WM, one of the main topics of the football fone in on Wednesday night, run by a guy named Tony Butler {this prog has a listen again feature via the internet by going to the bbc wm website} was that Celtic and Rangers are on their way to play in the so called Premier League 2 supposedly being formed down here. Any opinions? Oh! please don't shoot the messenger.

[Catherine]

Hi Drew and welcome to the boards

If I were you I'd pm GG and ask him if he could put this in the Sports Forum.....this way I bet you'll get lots of interest and replies, I don't think they'll shoot ye either

[fourbytwo]

Never happen son....
Rangers and Celtic do not have enough 'class' players to be able to compete at even the mid-level of the Premier League, and realistically, when you consider that Setanta are now desperate to get out of their deal with the SFA, it proves that the quality in Scottish Football simply is not there.
In order to even live with the lower teams in the English Premier League, both Rangers and Celtic would need to spend AT LEAST £100 million each, on players.....and even with the greatest chest of gold ever spent on a Scottish Football investment......where would this dosh come from...?
Sorry but its 'pie-in-the-sky' time again.....
Sky and Setanta may want us.........but the English certainly do not,.....they are quite happy 'coining-it-in', and would not want any of their jackpot to go beyond Newcastle.....
Just think how popular the 'English' football on TV is up here.....
Even the Second Division matches are as good as anything we can expect North of Carlisle...

[big al]

don't be so sure about it not happening - they said the same about the premier league in england before it happened - the idea of having the two leagues in england solves the problem of the relegation issue and the loss of money that entails - if there are two premier leagues there will be a larger share of the tv cash and less trauma if a club goes down to league 2 in terms of the ability to still generate cash - it might not happen in the next year but it will come at some point - no doubt in my mind about that - although the idea of the european super league or leagues with the top four from each country in the mix is a more appealing idea which has been floated and which might just be more appealing to the market place...

[tamhickey]

I have to agree Al. Football is big business and the more successful the teams, the more money lavished upon them by the major TV companies. I'm sure there are many executives who look at the Old Firm duopoly with their massive fan bases who would love to see them both up against the best that English football has to offer. Setanta's subscriptions would increase massively were this to come to fruition, although, like you, I would much prefer to see some form of European league.
Where I feel the proposal fails however is that it fails the fans. There would only be a hardcore of people who could afford to travel to London on say, a wet miserable Wednesday night in November playing Fulham, West Ham or whoever.
At least if a European league were created the fans could use budget aircraft at much less than it presently costs to travel in this country. Imagine being able to fly to watch a Celtic/Rangers game against Barcelona in Spain? 23 quid return on Ryanair and 6 euros a ticket. That's less than the punters pay here to get to a game and take in the action. And in less time than it takes to travel to Inverness with sunnier climes thrown in!
The European idea wins hands down.