Celtic and Rangers in the EPL?

[joniebee]

What do you out there feel about the age old question of Celtic and Rangers moving south to the premier league,How would they perform playing top class opposition week in week out,And no longer getting easy walkovers each week.Personally i feel they would do well but they would not have a chance of finishing above the top four,Not a chance.

[RichardL]

What do you out there feel about the age old question of Celtic and Rangers moving south to the premier league,How would they perform playing top class opposition week in week out,And no longer getting easy walkovers each week.Personally i feel they would do well but they would not have a chance of finishing above the top four,Not a chance.
so do we relegate 5 teams or play with 22 teams in the premiership?

If they want to play in England they are welcome to work their way up from the Unibond League if they wish.

[nick4545]

I think it would do a lot of harm to the Scottish Premier League. With no Celtic or Rangers in the league it would be very lacking. Unless you somehow mix the first and second division together or something along those lines. I just think it would be very harmful to the league for sure.

As for Celtic and Rangers in the Barclays Premier League, I think they would both be mid-table teams. I'd say along the lines of Portsmouth, Aston Villa, etc. The home games would be amazing with big clubs coming to Scotland and seeing Celtic & Rangers battling premier league teams week in and week out would be quite the sight. I'm not so sure they'd be as successful as they are in Scotland since a European spot wouldn't be such a easy task.

I really don't ever see it happening. They should have to play in the Coca-Cola Championship for a year or something first just to earn the spot. But the risk of killing scotlands football league isn't worth the risk in my opinion.

[justboy]

Like has already been posted, i think if the Old Firm were to move to England, they should have to work their way up to the Premiership; even if it is just from The Championship.

However, IF they were ever to be in the EPL, i think that they would be mid-table the first season, and after that challenging for Europe and possibly the title. People in England tend to bash both sides becuase they play in Scotland, but when they face English sides in Europe, both Rangers and Celtic tend to do rather well, and i believe over the past 20 years, Scottish sides have a winning record over English teams when they face off in Europe.

One of the major differences between a Man U/Arsenal over a Rangers/Celtic is the amount of money they get for playing in their respective leagues...with the huge cash injection that EPL teams get, top players would go to Rangers or Celtic and they would be able to financially compete with the big 4 in England.

So to answer the question; i think after a year or two, they would be challenging Liverpool and Arsenal for 3rd and 4th, but i do not believe the move will ever happen - and it shouldn't!

[Teso Dos Bichos]

But the risk of killing scotlands football league isn't worth the risk in my opinion.

You are more than welcome to them. The Scottish league system needs a drastic overhaul and if part of that involves removing the bigot brothers then we would be delighted.

[leg_breaker]

Take out the 'bigot brothers' and there's not much left in the SPL. Scots won't suddenly start following their local teams, they'll just watch Celtic and Rangers in England.

I don't think they'd dominate in England or even do well. They'd be on a similar level to Newcastle, Spurs or Everton. I.e. pretty well off financially, but unable to attract or keep the top players due to not being regularly in the Champions League.

[RichardL]

I really don't ever see it happening. They should have to play in the Coca-Cola Championship for a year or something first just to earn the spot. But the risk of killing scotlands football league isn't worth the risk in my opinion.
why should a couple a championship clubs get relegated (repeated for every single division below) for the benefit of Celtic & Rangers?

If it did happen they'd do well. Perhaps not in the first year or two, but they'd be getting premiership tv money, not SPL money. Stick Man Utd in the SPL and they'd be mediocre within a few years.

[sendorange]

They are joke clubs, getting fluke results in Europe is not the same as getting consistent results every week. Certainly talk about them challenging the top 4 is a laugh, Tottenham are better than either of them as well. Their attendances are good, however that is only part of the puzzle and most clubs in England are builing bigger stadiums which will render that moot, few top players are going to be willing to live in a miserable place like Scotland either.

[Pablo Chicago]

Multiple Choice:

A) You're all wasting you breath (figuratively speaking...I mean typing)
B) Every time someone starts a Celtic/Rangers to the Prem thread, a Teddy Bear loses an eye. Please think of the children.
C) Mods. Please move this thread to the "When Hell Freezes Over" Forum
D) All of the above.

[sinner78]

you dont just parachute into the premiership.
The only route to the premiership is to start off at the bottom of the league ladder or its illegal.
The league doesnt need them anyway. Chances of the league allowing them to get rich at the expense of screwing 2 english teams is a billion to one.

[canadianscraggledog]

Its just not going to happen. FIFA does not like it. They want clubs to only play in their own country. It would definitely hurt the SPL, because with the old firm gone, there wouldn't be much to look at.

Hypothetically speaking, if they did play in the EPL, they'd be 5-8th right now, similar to Everton, Tottenham, Newcastle. Maybe a little better in a few years, if they got the EPL $$$$

As an aside Toronto FC had to get FIFA approval to get into the MLS, as Canada just doesn't have a National League and probably won't for a very long time. So they'll end up adding to MLS in the future it seems.

[leg_breaker]

According to the SNP, Britishness is dead anyway, so why would they want a British league?

[fernb8]

They are joke clubs, getting fluke results in Europe is not the same as getting consistent results every week. Certainly talk about them challenging the top 4 is a laugh, Tottenham are better than either of them as well. Their attendances are good, however that is only part of the puzzle and most clubs in England are builing bigger stadiums which will render that moot, few top players are going to be willing to live in a miserable place like Scotland either.

agreed, this is more of a legitimate MLS in the Prem argument. Having to play your best every once in a while is easy. Every week, included midweek away games several hundred miles away... not so easy.

Not going to happen anyway and any future debate should refer to Pablo Chicago's post, which was fecking fantastic BTW

[Edwin Thorne]

The first question is how people would feel about the Scottish leagues and English leagues uniting across all levels. I think you cannot just take the top 2 Scottish teams out and let the Scottish leagues flounder. If people accept the idea of joining together for a better league, the formalities could be worked out. Would it be a postive merger in any way for the English leagues, beyond bringing in 2 more "superclubs?"

FYI, the way to handle the merger would be as follows.

For 1 year only the Top 2 from Colaship advance, along with the RAngers and Celtic inclusion in EPL. This would only result in 2 extra games. There is no way Celtic and Rangers would come in at a lower level given their economic standing in European football.

The other SPL teams and scottish divsion 1 teams would join the 3 relegated clubs from EPL and the colaship remaining. The colaship would be divided into 2 conferences. At the end of the season the winners of each division is promoted along with the winner of a post-season playoff between the next top 4 teams in each conference (2-5). The following year, the 3 relegated teams and the remaining top 10 of each conference make up the new colaship. While the teams finishing in the bottom half form a new division under the colaship.

It would be a difficult 1 year. After the year of reclassification, however, it would be football as usual, except now it would include most of the UK (unless you add Wales in too...then all of UK).

[RichardL]

The first question is how people would feel about the Scottish leagues and English leagues uniting across all levels. I think you cannot just take the top 2 Scottish teams out and let the Scottish leagues flounder. If people accept the idea of joining together for a better league, the formalities could be worked out. Would it be a postive merger in any way for the English leagues, beyond bringing in 2 more "superclubs?"

FYI, the way to handle the merger would be as follows.

For 1 year only the Top 2 from Colaship advance, along with the RAngers and Celtic inclusion in EPL. This would only result in 2 extra games. There is no way Celtic and Rangers would come in at a lower level given their economic standing in European football.

The other SPL teams and scottish divsion 1 teams would join the 3 relegated clubs from EPL and the colaship remaining. The colaship would be divided into 2 conferences. At the end of the season the winners of each division is promoted along with the winner of a post-season playoff between the next top 4 teams in each conference (2-5). The following year, the 3 relegated teams and the remaining top 10 of each conference make up the new colaship. While the teams finishing in the bottom half form a new division under the colaship.

It would be a difficult 1 year. After the year of reclassification, however, it would be football as usual, except now it would include most of the UK (unless you add Wales in too...then all of UK).Sadly most of the Scottish clubs would have very little to gain from it. Pulling in 10,000 a week makes you a strong SPL club, but a weak championship one. Almost all of the SL1 clubs would find themselves in the conference within a few years, and about half of the SPL clubs in League 1 or lower.

English clubs wouldn't benefit either. Other than perhaps the likes of Wigan who could do with a couple of extra clubs to bring 5000 fans to their stadiums, no English club would benefit at all. The only benefit would be to Rangers and Celtic, and there doesn't seem much point knackering things up just for them.

With support for the UK as a union in general seemingly diminishing by the year, it doesn't come across as a great idea anyway.

[three lions]

What do you out there feel about the age old question of Celtic and Rangers moving south to the premier league,How would they perform playing top class opposition week in week out,And no longer getting easy walkovers each week.Personally i feel they would do well but they would not have a chance of finishing above the top four,Not a chance.

1st of all, it will never happen. Second, they should have to start from the lowest league and work their way up like all the other teams...Thirdly, it really wouldn't benefit both sides as they would not have much of a chance of ever making the Champions League, which they can presently make pretty much every season, because if they were to make it to the Premiership, they would be a mid to lower half team imo...

[Alex1975]

If Rangers and Celtic were to leave the SPL I would rather them leave to a new type of Super League. There are a few leagues just around where the same teams generally dominate year in year out.

I'd rather see a league with Olympic Lyon, Olympic Marseilles, PSG (I know there are better teams in France but PSG because of the population of Paris)Benfica, Sporting, Porto, Rangers, Celtic, Ajax, PSV, Feyenoord, A new Dublin Franchise, A new Belfast Franshise, A new Cardiff franchise (Or get some more investment for Cardiff City), Anderlecht, 1 other Belgian team, 2 Swiss Teams, possibly Hearts and a 4th French team.

This would give each team 38 league games plus a cup component. The Cup would have a first round of 12 teams (The 6 European qualifiers plus the 7th and 8th placed teams in the league the year before would get a bye into Round 2) 12 teams would divide into 6 teams. Add the teams that finished 3rd-8th the year before for round 2 which would bring it up to 12 teams again this would divide into 6 teams again with the top 2 teams from the season before coming into the Cup at the 3rd Round/Quarter Final stage.

All the clubs could still remain in their own league but use reserve players which would make the games within their own leagues more competitive.

Top 3 teams in the league qualify for the Champions League. The 4th and 5th placed team plus Cup Winner or 6th placed team (If the Cup winner also finishes in the top 5 of the league) qualify for UEFA Cup. Reserve teams excluded from qualifying for European Comps from their own National Comps.

[RichardL]

.Thirdly, it really wouldn't benefit both sides as they would not have much of a chance of ever making the Champions League,...they would be a mid to lower half team imo
so you really think clubs with 50,000/60,000 fans every week, with vast fan bases, plus now getting their hands on the vast amounts of tv cash, wouldn't have an advantage over the likes of Middlesbrough? With the TV cash they'd easily be the 5th & 6th richest teams in the premiership from the outset, and would almost certainly see their worldwide fan bases grow (beyond the ex-pat community).

[leg_breaker]

I'd rather see a league with Olympic Lyon, Olympic Marseilles, PSG (I know there are better teams in France but PSG because of the population of Paris)Benfica, Sporting, Porto, Rangers, Celtic, Ajax, PSV, Feyenoord, A new Dublin Franchise, A new Belfast Franshise, A new Cardiff franchise (Or get some more investment for Cardiff City), Anderlecht, 1 other Belgian team, 2 Swiss Teams, possibly Hearts and a 4th French team.

Why would Lyon, Benfica, PSV and Porto give up automatic Champions League football every season, as well as endless league titles? The big teams in small leagues have a sweet deal. They get to play Europe's top teams every year without even earning it, and they get to win countless trophies against nobodies with 5,000 fans. They wouldn't give that up to sit mid-table in the Western-European Pub League.

[leg_breaker]

so you really think clubs with 50,000/60,000 fans every week, with vast fan bases, plus now getting their hands on the vast amounts of tv cash, wouldn't have an advantage over the likes of Middlesbrough? With the TV cash they'd easily be the 5th & 6th richest teams in the premiership from the outset, and would almost certainly see their worldwide fan bases grow (beyond the ex-pat community).

Their crowds would make them no better really than Newcastle or Spurs. They'd also lose out on Champions League football which could arguably cost them as much as they'd gain from being in the Premiership.

I don't think their fanbase would grow, as most of it comes from dominating the SPL. Old Firm fans are used to winning league titles every other season, they wouldn't put up with sitting mid-table, they'd lose all the bandwagoners.