Could you afford them but thats the point i made, please stick on topic and stop trying to divert the point. Theres a number of reason why Hull in the SPL would not be able to compete finacially: 1) The cost of travel for away games 2) Would your fans pay current season ticket prices for what you say is a"poorer" league, The KC stadium capcity is 25,000 if i'm not mistaken, with season tickets say around 300-400, you do the maths 3) You get 2-3 million winning the SPL, how much do you get again for winning the championship again? 4) The Celtic board have tapped into worldwide markets becuase Celtic has a worldwide fan base, thats were Celtics revenue comes from, can the same be said about Hull? How much do you generate comercially? 5) TV Revenue Just because you have a championship team now does not mean you would be able to have one if you joined the SPL, or do you think you'll still get Englsih TV money? Thats the reality of competing in the SPL i'm afraid, something you don't seem to include in your assumptions
One of the supposed toughest EPL fixtures is against a team who didnt win a single Champions League match last season and finished bottom of their group. Indeed they havent qualified from their group in 2 years. And I dont care if they were in a group with Dortmund and Madrid, Ajax are no world beaters.
Slightly O/T but I wish Scottish football could sort itself out and become genuinely competitive rather than just a 2 team (currently 1) competition. It would be far better for football as a whole across the UK and Ireland at both club and international levels, and even better if homegrown players from each league could count in the other (I know it couldn't but how good would that be). Sadly I can't see it happening any time soon, as others pointed out its very elitist with Celtic, rangers and the SFA, and they quiver in the face of anything that represents competition. Maybe with Rangers current plight and having to experience the dark gruesome depths of nothingness for themselves, they maybe more in favour of helping an approach to reform the whole system for the better, but with that complete berk Charles Green in charge, I won't hold my breath.
Septic had the team that most considered the best on the planet and took 4 points off them. The vast majority of media here wrote off Dortmund before the group started.
Better quality leagues undoubtedly. But like the SPL, the champions of Serie A, the PL, the Bundesliga and La Liga all won their titles by some distance this year. Man Utd had wrapped up the PL before Celtic had won the SPL. And Bayern won the Bundesliga by 25 points ffs. But that's neither here nor there. The CL and europa league are and should be open to teams from all leagues in europe. the fact that we're a big team in a small league means that we get there more often than not, albeit with the handicap of having to go through multiple qualifying rounds. How is that unfair? I could reasonably argue that it's far more unfair that we have to go through 3 qualifying rounds to get to the CL next season despite being champions of our league and having qualified for the last 16 last season, whilst Bayer Leverkusen, a team that finished 3rd in their league 26 points behind Bayern and who were knocked out the europa league by a team we knocked out the CL, should go straight into the group stages of next seasons "Champions" league. Eh? What's your point? The SPL is a weak league, we know that and haven't argued otherwise. Does that mean scottish teams should be barred from playing in european competitions?
Sorry Admiral, but isn't how they choose qualifying rounds to do with the world/european ranking of the National team, plus the records of each countries' entrants over a given period of years and that will not change for years to come - given how badly Scotland are performing generally
No is soley to do with how the teams competing in Europe do in each competion. Nothing to do with the national team. The only thing Keeping Scotlands champions league place alive at the moment is Celtic. Last seasons run in the CL by Celtic will raise Celtics Coefficent in the next 3 seasons, what we really need is another Scottish team to at least make the EL group stages to help us out and build on it from there, sadly that doesn't look like happening, although to be fair to Hearts, the last two seasons, they got to the EL play-off and on both occasion's got unwinable ties against Spurs and Liverpool
We must be a big club now, we're attracting a wider range of trolls from other clubs. I remember when we were **** and just had attention from Leicester. Was that added to the history thread?? C88, the difference between those other leagues you seem to like to compare to the SPL, from a who wins perspective is, this coming season you can't with any certainty say who will win the EPL or the others for example, but you can 100% say with no shadow of a doubt say that Celtic will "win" the SPL. The other teams play against decent opposition, and are properly tested almost all season long, the only challenging games Celtic gets are in the CL.
Hope that isn't directed at me as i havn't compared the SPl to any other league, i've just corrected the fact that anybody saying Hull would easily get a CL spot the SPl is mistaken due to the finanaces available in the SPL are a fraction of what Hull currently get so basing the current HUll team in the SPl is not a feasible comparison. Anyway I agree to a degree with you, becuase realalistically how many teams can win the EPL? 3 i would say and i think Chelsea will win it next year quite easily (only 5 separate teams have ever won it, one of them being Blackburn. La Liga only two teams can win the league there, Bundesliga I would say again only 3 teams could win that, since 2000 bayern Munich have won it 9 times, One more than Celtic & Man U in the same time period, so not as unpredictable as you would have us believe. Although for the short term future you can only see Celtic winning the SPL, but over the last decade it was a 2 horse race, just like most other leagues across Europe, with other clubs showing the same sort of dominance, although not always by a distance
He was honestly on our board more than any of our posters. He was ****ing obsessed. I'd love to know what he's up to nowadays, no doubt jousting with the footballing might of Accrington and Fleetwood. Actually I wouldnt love to know... And good call on Stagmad too, god he was a bellend.
All this. The fact is that celtic (and rangers in previous seasons) on the whole do pretty decently in europe considering the financial disparity between our league and the bigger ones. Obviously we have our shockers in europe too but between us we've reached the last 16 of the CL 5 times and 2 UEFA Cup/Europa league finals in the last 10 years. Compared to teams from similarly weak leagues, that record measures up pretty well.
You won't find a City fan saying we're any more prestigious than any other PL side, and in fact many will tell you that some Championship sides are 'bigger' than us due to the nonsensical 'history' factor, we're hardly going over the top. We just realise that like any sane player, Hooper would want to come and play in the PL. It's not even a debate this. If someone offers enough, they'll get him, if they don't then he'll have to stay. If we're the only club that offers enough it'll be here that he comes. The player is a great striker playing well below his level.
Just you wait, those teams from Gibraltar will be smashing the European scene from here on in. Seriously though, they'll have to let the Aland Islands, Greenland, Jersey and the Vatican City compete too otherwise it won't be fair. Anybody got any family from Gibraltar? I don't think you'd have too much trouble getting into their national team and for 90 minutes you'd be playing some of the best players in the world. Must be a dream come true for their inhabitants.
