The very future of Scottish club football succeeding in the long term rests on 2 things happening.
1/ Celtic and Rangers REMAINING within Scottish football and not joining English domestic football [like Cardiff and Swansea have done].
This is because if they did leave, whilst it would be great for the Celtic and Rangers themselves, it would severely limit interest in Scottish football and put Scottish football in the category of the Welsh league - A largely forgotten footballing backwater.
2/ Other clubs, proud and long running old clubs, in Scotland, with great tradition, actually MERGING [ie Hearts/Hibs, Dundee Utd/Dundee, Aberdeen/Inverness/Ross County/The North etc].
This is because Celtic and Rangers need to be challenged more robustly and many of these 'provincial' clubs are also struggling financially*, so they need to pool resources and work together and not forever live in the shadow.
Many pundits on Sky Sports say, in rugby, oh don't the Irish 'clubs' do well in the Heineken Cup, well we do kinda - but technically we enter our provinces [Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connacht]. If we entered our clubs [Ballymena, Clontarf, Cork Constitution etc.] we'd be little in the way of challenge. But pragmatism has its place in professional sport, I feel. Even the Irish, an island of stubborn idealists, know that!
* I appreciate Rangers have financially crumbled too recently, but I'm expecting them to bounce back.
The Future of Scottish Football...
posted on 6/2/14
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posted on 6/2/14
There's was a seperate issue though - they both wanted to gain entry to the league and didn't think they would be able to.
If we take the two Dundee teams, we are clubs with massive histories within the league system. We've both been champions of this country, both won cup competitions and both had big impacts on European competitions. Dundee is one of only a handful of cities to provide two clubs who have reached the semi finals of the European Cup/Champions League.
Why should we give up our history just because folk think it would make things more interesting?
If we're flipping this around, who is to say that Rangers and Celtic shouldn't merge so as to make them capable of challenging on the European front, since that's primarily where your interests lie (certainly in Celtic's case at the moment)?
posted on 6/2/14
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posted on 6/2/14
Smid, but then I guess the question is that even all these teams merged, would they be that much better off? At best you might get a club that's around the same size as United or Dundee. At best.
posted on 6/2/14
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posted on 6/2/14
Maybe another idea, is to see merchandise/ticket sales etc. as Scottish Premiership money essentially rather than individual club money. So If someone, somewhere, bought a ticket or jersey or programme for Celtic, Rangers, Arbroath, Hibs etc. that money would ALL be evenly distributed amongst the clubs rather than remain with the club whose jersey/programme/ or ticket it was??? The Old Firm would despise that idea though probably...whilst it would damage Celtic and Rangers financially long term, jeopardising European hopes, maybe these hopes would increase with a more competitive league - maybe to it could be used as 'a carrot' for possible mergers [non-merging clubs could have reduced pot or something].
posted on 6/2/14
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posted on 6/2/14
The Ireland international eligible [non-overseas] rugby players in the Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connacht squads are essentially owned by the IRFU. If you buy a ticket for a provincial game - the money goes to the IRFU.
The IRFU even can put restrictions on 'their' players playing for the provinces and also put pressure on them to play x amount of games in this position or that. It's a very top down system. The provinces can then, and generally do, stop their players playing for the clubs they started out with [Ballymena, Cork Constitution, Clontarf etc.]. There's a chain of command from International Team to Provinces to then Clubs.
In football, we don't seem to see this sort of thing. There's no great loyalty towards 'The League' and whilst most people want a successful international team - they can live without it easily enough if it doesn't happen! It's treated as a bit of an indulgence or pipe dream really - something put on the long finger...
posted on 6/2/14
This old argument
Instead of asking clubs who have been about for over a century to disappear to suit you, why don't you make it illegal for people outside of Glasgow to get into the home end at the gruesome twosome
After all the football clubs have been around longer than the glory hunting hordes.
If the thousands of people from places like Ayr, Kilmarnock, Paisley and Motherwell showed a bit of pride in their home towns and supported those teams there wouldn't be a problem now would there??
But unfortunately people are not very loyal as was proved in the 80's and Scottish are some of the least loyal if you look through the history books, people up here that wear Man U and Chelsea tops (and now Man City ) or even worse dress their offspring up them should be ashamed of themselves
Just my opinion like.............
posted on 6/2/14
If they did leave it would be great for Celtic and Rangers themselves.
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Really!! How??
You will be starting at the bottom of where ever you go, and given that OF struggled to get fans through the gates when there was a slight threat to their dominance in the 80's.
You've got to remember 90% of your fanbase has no idea how to cope with defeat, FFS your bad enough getting spoon fed trophies every year