Could our development team play in England?

Might seem silly to some people, but could a celtic team, ie. our development team, play its way up throught the english leagues in the background of our SPL efforts from our first team? If so, could we potentially 'swap out' our players if they reached say the championship, so that those players would essentially be SPL first teamers for our Scottish feeder team, while we could play our way into the EPL (hopefully).

Just a hypothetical one... And would folk be happy if we did, or would they consider 'uprooting' our history as an insult?

 

Depends on what happens to Rangers TBH. Very well could mean England is our only option.

 

I think there would be a bit of "red tape" in there somewhere. but would be good if allowed

 

Hypothetically yes, its possible. Reality NO. They do not want us there. At all.

 

It won't happen although not strictly impossible.

However I don't see why we couldn't negotiate to get our reserve/development team playing in their reserve leagues at some level. Would be easier, more competitive and more beneficial to the players than organising loads of friendlies.

As far as I'm aware the official reserve "league" is the EPL teams only, but they can decide for themselves if they want to participate. Not all teams choose to do so so there'd be scope for introducing wildcard clubs from lower leagues or in this case a different league, especially if an odd number of teams choose to participate as it would balance the fixture dates.

 

More chance of getting them into the lower leagues in Scotland I think. It was discussed on Clyde 1 a few weeks ago and I personally think it's a good idea, especially if we ended up having a Celtic Development Squad v Rankers 1st team in the 3rd Division....

 

im sure we could get in through the back door just like afc wimbldon have done, there should be no reason why we cant join the conference down in england then work our way up that way, maybe im wrong but just saying its worth looking into.

 

England said they don't want us and we shouldn't start begging and trying to get in the back door. It is not going to happen.

 

we'd have to start at the bottom...right at the bottom of the English lower tiers. we could move players to the dev. squad outside of the window but couldn't move them back until the window reopens.

would much rather us using a feeder club in League 1 or 2 tbh.

 

I remember being drunk about a year ago in my CSC and I just came up with this very idea. Everyone just laughed at me, and said it wouldn't happen. Typically at the time I thought it was a genius idea.

 

Bang on .
They don't want Celtics 1st team so why would they want a 2nd string ,The EPL owes nothing to Celtic regardless of what happens to the huns ,Do you think they might feel sorry for Celtic and take them on ,no chance ,A lot of teams down there fear Celtic as they know how big a club Celtic are ,and if giving the Ammo [Money ] through time they would be a force to be reckoned with .

Dermot Desmond I dare say has tried every avenue to get Celtic in there and he does carry a lot of clout ,but was it 2 years ago now the Teams down there were asked to vote on wether this could maybe happen in the years to come ,and it was kicked out even before it got off the ground ,Really don't see this happening in my lifetime .

 

Never going to happen,have the teams in the epl not already had a few votes and every time its been almost unanimous?

 

Spot on, sadly.

It does make you wonder though, is there some kind of carrot we can dangle them?...I can't think of anything.

 

Totally agree, the EPL would never have us or the R****rs there as with our fan bases and stadium capacity, and the fact we have worldwide supporters groups, we'd have too much financial power over other teams there. A feeder team in England is our best bet, as we would never have a development or first team squad in the English leagues. Would love to see us in the EPL purely to give us the necessary cash to fulfil our sleeping giant potential, but it won't happen in our lifetimes.

 

We can't, sky could. One would assume sky have atleast considered what they will do if/when rankers collapse, they saw fit to put in the small print of atleast four old firm games in the latest SPL sky deal. Probably difficult to do the sums, but one would assume sky can work out how many subscribers to sky sports would likely cancel due to no celtic games to watch and could potentially twist the EPL arm to let us in or face a drop in revenue which in turn would mean less money being paid to EPL teams.

 

if sky said Celtic are going into the epl it would happen, apart from that the fear of us going down their and being as big as man united within 5 -10 years would make every epl team scared of saying yes to us

 

I know that any move to fast track in will be vetoed every time, and in fairness rightly so... If a foreign team tried to parachute into the SPL at the expense of a scottish team then there would be a well deserved backlash... My thought was that if we put a say 10year plan in place to use our youths/development team to come up all the way from the bottom, while our 1st team continued to hopefully dominate up in spl, could it happen... From our point of view we could loan players to this 'other team' with an option to recall... We would already have players/facilities in place, a stadium fit for any promotion, and hopefully a willing fanbase to make this financially viable as a standalone venture... Surely we could coax a few thousand to lesser leaugeu games until we rose to playing better teams in higher leagues... As a slow burner idea, I think this would work...

However, i'd be against any plan that saw us stop contesting in scotland. * league for sure, but it's our league, and where our history is from... Joint assault on both leagues would get my vote...
Also, dont think sky would side for us... They make plenty from both setups as is... Whybother r

 

the only problem is that they'd have to start so low. would filip twardzik benefit from getting crushed by a 20 stone pub player.

 

True, true... I get that... But it seems the only viable route for 'escape' from our current bind... And as for feeder teams... They would always be someone elses team, never our own.

Reserve team in lower league is a good idea, but as they could never make it to spl, they'd be stuck playing rank amateurs as welll... Only in scotland, with no chance of progressing...

This would hopefully only be for a few years... Once we get to english 1st we'd be up against pros...

 

Celtic will never join the EPL. No English club would want us there because they do not need us. And when the Sky money dries up there is more chance of a European Superleague than there is of us heading South. And the chances of us being allowed to have a reserve side work its way up the ranks, whilst out first team dominates Scotland, is even less likely.

But I do agree with the idea of a SPL reserve sides playing in the lower divisions, as the big clubs do in Spain. You say they would be playing rank amateurs but it didn't do Jamie McCarthy and James McArthur any harm playing so many games before finally hitting the SPL and then the EPL.

Remember, Barcalona's reserve side can't be promoted to the same league as the seniors but its players can be called up to the senior squad, meaning winning the league is not important but develping your skills and showing you can fit seamlessly into the Celtic system is. And just imagine how good already talented youngsters like McGeough, Twardzik and Keatings would be if they were playing first-team football from the age of 16.

The league, meanwhile, would benefit as all the players who don't make it with us would, more often than not, sign for other Scottish teams, meaning more clubs could benefit from the Celtic philosophy and the league, as a package, would improve.