Agreed Fran. In fact more specifically, independence for Scotland would mean an automatic perpetual majority in England and Wales for the Tories, which, whatever your politics, would be a bad thing for democracy.
My folks are Scottish but as much as they like the idea of Scotland as an independent nation I'm not sure they beleive it will bring any further benefits, and does anyone in Scotland really like the sound of president Salmond? I still think the main reasons he's calling for this is to make a name for himself in history. Going back to the the original post, I notice how the chairman was careful to avoid saying that Rangers dont want to play any of the small Scottish teams around them but in dismissing Swansea and Saints that's effectively what he's also saying. I also don't see how this European leage will work even though it's been doing the rounds for some years. Does that mean that dedicated fans will be taking flights and booking hotels for nearly all their away games? If the league is the same size as the premiership that's a lot of extra expense. As for Rangers or Celtic succeeding in the PL, who can say. Their moderate success in the champions league, or even the value of their team compared to the english clubs suggests their current teams are not top 5 PL quality, but football can spring surprises, take Montpellier's success in winning the french league title ahead of PSG last year. It's the success of Montpellier that gives me hope that great football is not always about huge clubs with massive budgets.
Pot kettle black. Having lived in england for 10 years, I can say in my experience scottish fans view of our club teams and national side is generally much more realistic than our english counterparts view of theirs'. We know our teams aren't great, either at national or club level, whereas many english people equate the wealth of english football with greatness. As for Celtic being capable of automatic promotion from the championship, I can only say that Southampton managed it with a team that contained two players deemed not good enough for Celtic. Read into that what you will ...
Have you read some of the comments in this thread? One guy reckons Celtic could win the PL after 5 years in it. That's far from realistic. Hooiveld was fantastic for us last season, and Fox was alright, but they're both having an awful time of it in the PL and they're already being deemed by many not to be good enough for us. For the record, I think Jos could have been decent for you if you'd given him more of a chance. As for English people equating the wealth of the game with greatness, we're constantly moaning about our national team and licking the arses of certain Spanish clubs. What's great about our league is the competitiveness. I think it's perfectly realistic to say it's one of the most competitive top divisions in the world, considering most divisions, including yours, seem to have a clearly defined top 2. We have a top 5 or 6, and then everyone else in the league is on a pretty similar level. Also most promoted Championship teams have an excellent chance of staying in the division, which is a testament to our fairly even distribution of wealth (relative to other top divisions).
If Celtic were in the PL for five years, as one of the best supported clubs in europe in europe's richest league, it's not unreasonable to think we'd be able to attract (and most importantly afford) top class players and be able to compete for honours imo. Would we win it? Your guess is as good as mine - and both guesses are completely unproveable (and rather pointless). You've almost made my point for me about arrogance. You now think Hooiveld is good enough for us but not you. Fact is, he was deemed not good enough for Celtic because when he played against decent opposition (in europe) he was clearly out of his depth. Clearly that hasn't changed as he's now struggling in the EPL. He might talk a good game and say he was never given a chance at Celtic - he was and he failed. The whole point was I was replying to someone who doubted whether Celtic would challenge in the championship. I merely pointed out that Hooiveld (and Fox) clearly were good enough for the championship but not good enough for celtic. Regards moaning about the national side, the recent euro championships was the first I can remember in which England weren't touted as potential winners by a decent proportion of the english media. An overdue dose of reality, that we scots faced up to post 1978. And licking the arse of Barca and Real is hardly symptomatic of some great inner modesty. They play better football than any other teams on the planet - by some distance. Your league is not particularly more "competitive" compared to others actually. That's a "fact" spoonfed by SKY not borne out by the reality. Until Man City broke through last season, the previous 16 PL titles were shared between 3 teams. In the same period of time, Serie A was won by 5 different teams, the Bundesliga by 6 teams and (even) la Liga by 4 teams. As for the quality of the teams outside the top five or six - yes they're similar. But so what, most of the SPL teams are of similar (poor) quality to each other?
If Celtic or Rangers were in the Premier League, they would have the potentiel to grow into one of the big clubs of the league, thanks to fanbase and other things. However, unless they are taken over by rich owners (a la Man City, Chelsea etc) it would be slow, and they would not acheive this until after 10-15 years. At the moment, neither would be near the top half of the league and would most likely be a yoyo side between the EPL and the Championship, champions league or not. Many championship sides would give SPL sides a run for their money, and almost every premier league side would challenge for the SPL title.
Simply because he refers to league matters, and so the debate here has become about the quality of the existing Premier League and Scottish leagues.
I haven't read through the entire thread recently, so yes, that may be true. I'll leave the interpretation to you.
No, you would not win it. You wouldn't have nearly as much money as City or Chelsea, and you wouldn't have the foundations that United have thanks to 20+ years of excellent management. You also wouldn't have the reputation. The best players in Europe would much rather move to United, City, Chelsea, Arsenal or even Liverpool than Celtic. You'd also be struggling to qualify for the Champions League and that would have a detrimental effect on your club. I think you'd be around Everton or Tottenham's level. I don't think Saints are better than Celtic, but the teams we face in the league are better. Hooiveld would have an easier time against Aberdeen's strikeforce than Man Utd's. Considering he had an excellent season against the likes of West Ham, Birmingham, etc. I think he'd be decent against most SPL sides, though obviously he's not good enough for CL matches. There's nothing arrogant about that. I'm not talking about how it's been in the last 16 years (a number you've strategically picked to enforce your argument), I'm talking about how it is now. La Liga is between Barca and Real, Bundesliga is between Bayern and Dortmund, and Juventus are back into their familiar role of dominating Serie A, though to be fair Italy has been very competitive of late. Pointing to how Valencia and Deportivo have won La Liga this century is very misleading, as there is no way either of them will challenge for the title now or any time soon. They've been screwed over by the unfair system that they have for organising TV rights, which is very similar to the way it works in Scotland. We don't have that level of bias in the PL.
Why did you pick 16 years instead of 17....or did you want to leave Blackburn rovers out? So in 17 years we have 5 different winners then.?..........
What you think might happen in the highly unlikely event of Celtic moving to the EPL is no more "correct" than what I think might happen. If Celtic were to enter the EPL, a multi-gazillionaire "might" invest in Celtic and outspend every team in the universe or Glasgow "might" be destroyed by a tsunami ... As I said, it's all completely unproveable and rather pointless. So you're saying he could handle the SPL? Quite probably. But we don't want players who can handle Aberdeen but are shown up when they step up in class. We want better players. Rightly or wrongly, our ambitions are beyond merely competing in scotland - we want to be able to compete in europe (incidentally, that's not the same as saying we expect to challenge for the CL or anything like that - not embarrassing ourselves in the group stages will be fine for now ) Of course I picked the 16 years to illustrate my point - but the point remains. Make it 17, or ten or 5 years if you want. The EPL is not more competitive than other major leagues in europe. To illustrate the point, if you want to focus on the most recent times then the distance between first and third in England last season was 19 points. Very similar to the Bundesliga (17 points) and Serie A (20 points). Admittedly Real and Barca have steamed ahead of the competition in La Liga in recent seasons - but it could reasonably be argued they're miles ahead of virtually everyone in europe. Most seasons, with the notable exception of 2007-2008 when the top 3 were separate by 4 points, it has been a two-way battle for the title in the PL. The so-called "top 6" might make it sound like there's a six-way challenge for the title, but the reality is that's media-led hype and has NEVER happened in premiership history. Look, I'm very happy to admit that the PL is an exciting league, with good teams and some great players. Equally the SPL is quite dull and of much lower quality. But the PL is overhyped as a result of the huge coverage, and it seems to me that a lot of people buy into the hype unquestioningly. Other leagues really are as good, as exciting and as competitive.
Good players tend to move from small clubs to bigger clubs??? Dalglish, Macari, Nicholas, McClair, Lambert, DiCanio.....spring to mind!!! Apoligies, just remembered another one....Boruc
If I might butt into the debate and make my opinion felt that I think it is a great shame that the best players don't stick with smaller clubs. How on Earth can a smaller club, with big ambitions, become a bigger club, if the great players who they nurture and churn out on a conveyor belt [you see where I'm going here], don't stick with their parent club..? All that effort, all that organisation, just comes back to the smaller club in pound notes, which makes their bank balance stay in the black, but their ambition is limited by it. I know a smaller club is ultimately going to lose a star player to a bigger club, under the present rules, but if those star players occasionally stuck with their parent club, they would possibly be reaping the ultimate reward of growing with their parent club towards great success. An example is Oxlade-Chamberlain, who chose to skip off early, but could have stayed 12/24 months and become one of the stars of an emerging club. That appeals to some people - being a bigger fish in a smaller pond, albeit one that is getting bigger. Southampton FC's ambition is not well known outside of Saints supporters, and actually, it isn't totally believed by Saints supporters themselves, despite the riches of the Liebherrs and the ability of the Chairman who carries the dream, because the intentions are far above anything that generations of Saints supporters have known before. The present incumbents of the club intend nothing less than for it to become a competitor within Champions League football. All the footballers who have so far been attracted to Saints are aware of the ambition, and indeed some will play a huge role in getting there, if it is not derailed. If the intentions go through, SFC is going to change dramatically over the next seasons and there may come a time when Southampton FC may be judged bigger than some so-called traditionally big clubs. One can only operate on tradition and reputation for so long, as Liverpool didn't find out many years ago, but the reality is true. Food for thought.
The Rangers chairman is (trying to) play to the crowd. If a Euro super-league was formed tomorrow, Rangers, in their current state, would be about as likely to join it as Brechin City. As for a Euro super-league, why do you need it when you've got the Champions League already? I'm pretty sure that the like of Man U and Arsenal are quite with the TV money they get from the Premiership *and* the TV money they get from the Champion's League. Why would they want to ruin that arrangement? Arsenal fans desperate to play Celtic. Sure they are, as long as it's in the Champion's League. Otherwise, if Celtic, Rangers or any other club think they're too good for the Scottish Leagues, they can resign from the SPL, start at the bottom of the English Leagues and work you way up into the Premiership, the same way Swansea (who were too good for the domestic Welsh Leagues) did.
Rangers don't have to, the SPL kicked them out. They preferred the challenge which is the SFL Div 3. If they had aspirations of playing in the English leagues this was there chance.
I think Swansea and Cardiff were given the chance to play in the English leagues when the WFL was formed because they were already in it. I'm not sure any 'foreign' team can just ask to join our leagues.
Strewth Rangers have just gone broke and by all accounts were lucky to even actually to keep their name. Now Am I right in saying they reckon they could waltz into the EPL with Celtic and dominate that League? Guys what ever you are on I want some.......... You guys would have to spend quite a bit of money before you could even challenge for a top 6 place. Teams like Saints and Swansea may seem to you to be push overs......as you will find we are not. Granted we have not started well and we seem to be struggling but come on down and find out just how hard it is to play PL teams week in week out. See how quickly your players leave you because they can command better wages at another club. In the English league you would not be anything special you would just be another big club ready for the taking. Trust me you would not find it anywhere as easy as in Scotland. You would be getting a thumping every now and again just like the other teams do. There isn't the fear factor in the English league and most are capable of putting a few past the best. We also love over confidence too......oh don't we just.........
And let's not forget that they're currently sitting in 4th, and lost 1-0 to East Stirling last weekend. What makes that man think they should be playing teams like Arsenal is beyond me.
