Welsh and Scottish Teams joining English Leagues (and vice versa)

So now we have a Welsh team back in the top flight of English football, perhaps its time to ask whether Rangers and Celtic want to take the jaunt across the border? They won't be the first to do so - Ask Gretna F.C., a Scotland based team that played in England until 2002.

Just what is the justification (either way) for including or excluding the two top Scottish teams from what is considered the strongest/most competitive/predictable (delete to taste) league in Europe?

Given that the borders have long since been muddied (Berwick Rangers and The New Saints are both based in England but play in Scotland and Wales respectively) simple geography can't be the only reason, else Swansea, Cardiff, Wrexham and Newport would be playing in the Welsh league...

Does anyone think its time (with the Olympics approaching) that we could have a single UK league? Would this be beneficial to football in the United Kingdom? Or are we really better off with the current confusing system of fragmented FA's?

Your opinions?

 

100,000 loyal fans willing to travel to away games and make the home games feel like visits to the Ali Sami Yen Stadi?

Rangers and Celtic could certainly compete in the Premier League at least as well as any of the midtable teams (Fulham, Sunderland, West Brom). You could easily have said 'What can any Welsh team offer the English leagues?' and the answer would have almost certainly been even less than the scots could...

So you've not really answered the question about the justification of keeping Rangers and Celtic out of the English Premier League...

 

One issue with a unified UK league is that, to be brutal about it, the League of Wales and Scottish Division 3 would be a stage below the Conference.

Whilst it is right to argue Celtic would justify a place in the Premier League (I would've said the Old Firm, if not for Rangers' current financial issues that could be a stumbling block/a stick for the FA to beat them with), the rest of the SPL would either be trading water between the middle of the Championship and the bottom third of League One, not least because (Pittodrie aside) the majority of them have stadiums with a capacity barely over 20,000 - and many with capacities way below that. And that's assuming they could fill those week in, week out.

 

the welsh team you talk about being in the prem as been in the football league for 100 years, we're not somebody who's just joined for the riches. if scottish clubs wanted to join i would'nt be against it, but start at the bottom and work your way up like everyone else has had to.

 

First of all, don't get me wrong. I have a good knowledge of just how long Swansea, Cardiff etc. have been members of the English Football League System. I know that it isn't an argument about money.

What I'm trying to get a conversation going about really stems from the Olympics 2012 and the UK Football team, at least to some extent.

Scotland's league hasn't had a new champion team since Aberdeen in the 1980's. Celtic and Rangers (debts aside) can simply strangle any other teams financially. Its a very uneven playing field, even when looking at the Premiership, with the cartel of Chelsea and United (plus Arsenal, Citeh, Liverpool and Spurs).

The usual reasons of geography simply don't make sense, given that there are already Welsh teams in the English Leagues, English teams in the Welsh and Scottish leagues, and there had been a Scottish team in the English League. With all the mixing, isn't it time, at least to think about it anyway - a leagues amalgamation?

 

the OF can offer a premium calibre of club by its fan base and stadia. Unlike (from the top of my head) Stoke, Swansy, Sunderland, Wolves, Fulham, Villa, Wigan, Bolton, Blackburn to name a good few. Let's face facts here the forementioned clubs are just there to make up the numbers and when playing each other they are as mouth watering as a pint of sand

 

but would scottish clubs start at the bottom like everyone else had to? no they wont they just want in the big time straight away.

 

The 2 scotch teams of Rangers and Celtic are not good enough for the Prem

 

Whiskey teams? Where's scotchland? I tell you what the OF are currently better than the bottom 8 teams in the epl. And that's with a 20th of what the EPL failures get for getting relegated. The OF would make that "****e bar 5" league entertaining for once.

 

I don't get this "good enough for the Premier League" nonsense. There's been plenty of clubs in Premier League history that couldn't produce the goods on the pitch, but we never hear how any of Derby, Watford, Leicester, Ipswich, Sunderland or Forest aren't good enough, do we? The old Firm would also have much larger crowds than the likes of Wigan or Blackburn, and more atmosphere than Arsenal.

The main issue with the Old Firm, of course, is the sectarian chants would do more damage to the FA pretending there's no racism in English football than John Terry ever could.

 

Of course we should have a UK league and a UK national side too, the only stumblings blocks to this are all the parochial bastards who live so far in the past they actually think these nations are different from each other, when in reality Scots are closer in every way to (English) Northerners than Northerners are to Southerners and Wales, whatever the Welsh say, has basically just been another English county for many hundreds of years.
You can claim your assemblies/parliaments give you autonomy, but you've been part of the UK for a bloody long time and even before that, you all had closer ties to England in every way than anywhere else (a few viking centuries aside).
I will never understand why people want to differentiate themselves so much, especially in these modern times when the world is shrinking and moving together so quickly, it's not as if there are any real cutural differences between any of us, like I previously alluded to, there are more difference between English regions than there are between England, Scotland, NI and Wales.

The only other stumbling block would be setting up the leagues themselves, it would be unfair to parachute any club to a high level, but it would equally be a bit of a joke having Rangers/Celtic starting at the bottom of the pyramid, so sadly things will never change and outdated attitudes will keep us all apart.
Personally, I do think that even in the modern game, where cash is king, Rangers and Celtic would take just a few years to compete near the very top of the PL, as I'm pretty sure that with a guaranteed £40m per year from tv revenue it wouldn't take long before someone who has billions would spot just what an investment these clubs would be.

 

Bollo has a good point - the PL is a bit predictable - you can almost pick the teams that'll finish in the top 4 right back on 31st August. The rest are, with apologies if anyone is offended, midtable makeweights and yoyo clubs.

Since we already have welsh teams in the league I see nationality or geography to be no barrier to the OF's entry into the PL.

If the will was present, would it not be possible to 'shute the OF teams into the PL for the first season and have two seasons of two up, three down? There is no question in my mind that the level of football played by the OF is at least good enough for top half of the PL.

The other question is what would happen with the other teams in the Scottish Leagues? By far and away, the OF are the big beasts in the park - would the other teams benefit from their removal in respect of qualification for Europe (you have the negative effect of removing the financial draw to sponsors of the Scottish Leagues of the OF - true). Would football in general north of the border benefit in terms of development in the remaining teams?

 

The main issue is the non-OF stadiums in the SPL have, by and large, Championship-level capacities (the largest non-OF stadium is Pittodrie with a capacity of 22,000) - removing the OF may make the league more competitive, but with stadiums ranging between 22,000 and 7,700 in this season's SPL and no guarantee of bumper gates, the whole league would be operating on a shoestring. There's also the worry that, if the OF were in the Premier League, they'd have even more resources to lure the better prospects coming through north of the border, which would affect every other club - yet with less money due to the OF's departure, clubs would be more reliant on youngsters.

 

I think that there are certainly financial concerns, and these may well filter through in terms of teams relying on young players, but that in and of itself is perhaps not a bad thing, as at the moment, there are a lot of EU-based journeymen littering the teams - a clearout of these may benefit Scottish football in the medium-to-long term.

Regards the luring of top youngsters to the OF, its no different to what happens now, perhaps its actually worse at the moment, with the PL sides able to outbid the OF for that talent. Whichever way you play it, young talent isn't playing in the Scottish leagues, its playing in the reserves sides in the PL.

I believe that in terms of what is best for Scottish football in general, the removal of the OF would improve the competitiveness of the leagues. Players wouldn't simply be looking at a paycheck from non-OF teams, but the possibility of playing in Europe regularly or being part of a league winning team - something that hasn't happened since Alex Ferguson took the title with Aberdeen. Ambition might again become a factor.

 

There is a piece in this months' WSC about Celtic's top prospect Islam Feruz being snaffled by Chelsea for a pittance despite being in Neil Lennon's plans for this season, and if the Old Firm were to join the Premier League there would be a risk of this becoming a more regular occurance - it's not the first time a Premier League club, especially Chelsea, have helped themselves to prospects from clubs lower down the food chain than they are for a small fee. This could have a knock-on effect with the Old Firm doing likewise to the academies at Hibs, Hearts, Motherwell and Aberdeen.

As for basing the league on youngsters, whilst that would benefit Scotland in the long-term, how many clubs have academies of a good standard? Other than the Old Firm and maybe Motherwell, I doubt any of their academies compete with the top Premier League clubs, or for that matter Championship clubs like Southampton and Leeds.

As for the League of Wales, the Unibond League beckons for their teams. The attendances are a joke, and Mark Delaney remains the only LoW player to feature in the Premier League.

 

LoW might be able to come in around the regional level (Conference North, Conference South) as a solution.

What to do about the Scottish Premier league teams is much more of a problem, as they play at a better level.

But the overall problem would be that both leagues would lose their European slots and I can't see those teams agreeing to that. It would be intolerable to the clubs and to the fans...

So going back to the original point, what are the real blocking factors to the OF joining the English League?