Celtic need the EPL soon.

Who are you trying to kid, the SPL is exactly the same, in the sense that money comes first.

I agree that we should still stay in Scotland though.

 

Can we? Because to me this just sounds like a fairytale.

What if things don't go to plan, we are not guarenteed safety. There are maybe 6-8 very rich teams in the premiership. And even if we did catchup with them in terms of cash, this doesn't mean we will do well in the league. All you have to do is look at arsenal or tottenham. They pile millions and get nothing in return (trophy wise)

And again lets get back to reality are you really trying to tell me were bigger than united or Liverpool, because as much as i'd love to agree with you, we haven't won the champions league 5 or even 3 times have we?

You say we have no European success under the current circumstances, but at least were in one every year and who knows we might even win the Europa, we most likely won't but who knows. Look at Rangers they got to the final, quite impressive for an SPL team.

 

just step back and think for a minute. the only thing that makes the premiership what it is is the SKY MONEY.

SKY WOULD LOVE CELTIC AND RANGERS TO JOIN THE PREMIERSHIP.

the only thing stopping us is opposition from ALL SCOTTISH teams and all relegation fraught premiership teams.

celtic have an estimated fan base of over 10 million. one of the biggest premiership teams right now, chelsea, has no history and half of its fan base has just defected to man city. WIGAN???? WHO THE * IS WIGAN. DUNDEE IS DOUBLE THE SIZE OF WIGAN. WHAT RIGHT DO THEY HAVE TO SPEND 10 MILLION ON A PLAYER?????????? THEY HAVE NO * HISTORY OR FANS!!!!!!! imagine how many real american celtic fans etc would pay sky to watch celtic. the only way for that to happen is for us to join the premiership or a european league.

sooner or later it WILL happen. but the thing we need is a european league, not the premiership. the premiership is only floating on sky money. if you are a true celtic fan you will not want to watch the old firm buff up the premiership and helping ENGLISH (* save the queen....no???) football, but celtic joining the elite in europe and finally getting the glory that is long overdue.

 

As a little side note, I would like to compliment the quality of a vast majority of the posts in this thread, for some well thought out arguements, both for & against a potential move away from the SPL.

This shows the capacity we have as a group when debating this subject, without simply spiralling into a stream of slurs slung back and forth. Regardless of which view you hold, I would like to commend the many contributors, who have made this thread a most fascinating insight, and deserve credit accordingly. It is most refreshing, and would like to see this standard employed more often.

Kudos to you all !

 

There's lots of reasons why SPL can't "be like the EPL or even better in 20 years" not least of which is marketability.
The best SPL can do is Eredivisie.

 

I would prefer the Atlantic League option rather than the EPL, imagine having to submit to the London based executives, no way they're going to support the Old Firm against England's finest.

Take our chances with, Porto, Sporting Lisbon, Benfica Ajax, Feyenoord, PSV, Anderlecht, Stanard Leige, AIK, Rosenberg , etc before we get involved with the English !!!

The money generated from these countries TV stations might not match SKY, but it would certainly be a lot more than we currently receive.The likely formation of a " Breakway League " would make UEFA sit up and notice of the countries which lie outwith the so called " Big Nations " (England, Spain, France, Italy & Germany), just thing of how they manipulated the Champions League to their advantage, without the countries like Portugal, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Belgium and Scotland.

 

Must say there is some good points on this thread & sadly some stupid stubborn views like playing in an 'ENGLISH' league is no good. Unlike the huns we have a good support in england, people forget that. Also a * of a lot of mancs, scousers etc have celtic as their second team. Their is no bright future for scottish football & celtic will suffer because of that! Its not about helping the "english" is simply all about helping CELTIC. But hey lets just cut our nose off to spite our face!

 

EPL would be good for the money and the competition. Thos who think the EPL is boring, I would rather see Sunderland 5 Wolves 2 that That 0-0 old firm in feb. The EPL has seen so many 4-4 and high scoring games in the last few years it is an exciting league.

In Scotland only Dundee Utd and Hibs will ever mount a half challenge on the old firm now but they are too inconsistant. Also the old firm fans are keeping the other clubs going by paying higher prices to fill their grounds to watch poor football.

Hearts are in so much debt theyll be lucky to survive, Killie will be lucky to fill a stand, theyve given games away free to people and they still dont want to go.

Motherwell are just a small club that struggled to meet their home games 2 seasons ago because they pimped out their groung to Gretna. Speaking of Gretna this was a team with a few hundred fans that managed to pick up good players and easily soar through the 3 leagues but went bust because their owner got sick, nice story but embarrasin for Scottish football in the end.

Aberdeen will never attract good players and 9 times out of ten a game involving them is awful. Any good players from the other teams will goto the OF or down south and the Scottish game suffers.

With 3 organisations running the professional game in this country and none of them willing to make changes in fear of losing their job the game is slowly going down the pan anyway so we may have to find a new league in the near future.

I only wish the game was more accesible for people in this country and the teams made an effort to entertain the fans. The last few years has been so poor. Personally i'd take the EPL any day.

The EPL or some other league is where Celto

 

The EPL and SKY is what we need as awhole guy's,Celtic at this present moment in time and for the years after Henrik have been *!I hate to admit that but that's a fact.I reckon and have done for the last 2 years that we will be playing down south every other week by the year 2012!We need this!

 

The EPL is not what it is because of Sky money. If you take Sky out of the equation there will always be a big 3 or 4 leagues in England, Spain, Italy and arguably Germany. Whatever the financial injection across Europe there is not a hope that the SPL can even come close to these groups. Someone has already helpfully provided the fact that on the most basic level of population, we are less than a tenth the size of England.

McNaka indicated that the Eredivise is a model we could hope for, but in my opinion Peter Lawwell and co are moving towards that direction with our youth and reserve setup and recent extension to the scouting. But again remember that Holland has 3 times the population, a healthier culture from grass roots up, a proven and more established footballing network and a history of technical genius - and even they have struggled recently.

The question is will the Premiership money run out? Because if it's here to stay then we need a slice of that pie. If not then we will slowly be strangled by the financial limitations of the SPL, which in my opinion cannot be improved significantly. I'm not talking about the structure of the SPL and SFL, but the foundations that will be impossible to change. We have less people, less money, a footballing culture based on size and aggression as opposed to thought and technique, and finally a social culture which is one of the least healthy and highest consumption of alcohol in Europe.

Joining the EPL will be a quick-fix in terms of being able to compete fairly with the big boys of Europe and while the money lasts the sky will be our limit, but it will be copping out on the problems facing our heritage.

 

personally i think we would get pumped in england hard.

last EPL game i watched was everton away at portsmouth. cant remember the score, but there was some really good football being played, and thats coming from a club that almost went bust. the 2 teams seemed very equal, and it was a totally different game from celtic.

then i remember watching the europa league game(think it was europa) between althetico madrid and werder bremen and just thinking "holy *, why cant this be celtic?"

in those 2 games, the quality of football was incredible! both teams in both games seemed very even at times, and had a certain degree of flair to it. the games were exciting to watch, alot more than celtic vs st mirren.

dont know the point im trying to make here, but aye, just think celtic would get shafted in the EPL

 

*yawn* impossible you say? didnt they say putting a man on the moon would be impossible also but they did. explain to me why the * staying in scotland and re-vamping our league would be impossible?

 

we also need the other clubs in scotland doing things for themselves also and stop clinging on to the old firm`s coat tails! teams like kille! for example! have a nice stadium,but they pump ticket prices up disgustingly for when the of go there to play and thats unfair!as do the rest of the clubs! we need them to be more ambitious also!look at aberdeen! stewart milne one of the richest * in scotland going wont be a penny into that club that is more or less begging to be helped! and we all greet on here about our board!hahahaha settle petals!

a full change within scottish footballs infrustructure is needed and needing done now!not tomorrow,not next week,or next month ,or even next year NOW!. if we do this it will take 3 or 4 years to develop into a good exciteing league and therefore we will have an excellent product to sell to sponsors then money will come in and the crowds and quality of players and teams will improve. moveing to the ott epl(which it is now as i get bored watching most games)isnt and should never be an option.

running away from what needs fixed is a diabolicle and cowardly way out and to me it lacks respect for the game in scotland(one of the oldest leagues in the world)absoloutly no respect what so ever!

 

I honestly think that everyone is kidding themselves on with this...

I'd love it to happen but really in all honesty it really isn't fair on the rest of Scotlands teams... Celtic and Rangers are both born and bred in Scotland, as much as people like to dispute where their origins are from etc they are SCOTTISH teams.

The only fair way of doing this would be to totally integrate all the leagues to make some sort of super sized British footballing format... which isn't going to happen.

Obviously not all teams would be fired into the EPL infact i don't think even Celtic and Rangers could be instantly propelled into the top league either, we wouldn't be able to handle the pressure imo.

Teams like Hearts, Hibs, Dundee Utd - i feel they could handle themselves and have a decent finish in the Championship and below...

We could handle ourselves in the EPL after a year of English money without being relegation fodder...or at least i'd like to think that but look at Portsmouth just now, they were once able to keep a reasonable finish in that league and now they're dead bottom.

I'm feeling a crap load of negativity coming from my thread and i actually don't mean it to be like that lol but i suppose it's just my view on the matter, i can't see this working out.

 

And if we stay, wht do we get? A token trophy every May that says we aren't as pish as everyone else?

The SPL offers us nothing anymore. We've outgrown it. We've hit the glass ceiling and are going backward as the money, attendances and football all dries up. We're not captains of this ship, we aren't going down with it.

Bigger doesn't mean better. I'd say we have a bigger global support than any club in Britain bar Man United. How many organised Liverpool, Chelsea or Arsenal supporters groups are there in North America and Australia?

We aren't certain of being in Europe every year anymore. Stop deluding yourself, the Hungarians can get easier access to the Champions League that we can. We may not ever get automatic qualification again with the way our co-effecient is dropping. What'll happen when the Huns run to the UEFA Cup final stops getting counted?

 

Great post.
On the Eredivisie note, I'd add the visa issue. That is a major disadvantage for SPL. Fixing that would instantly do a whole lot more for the league than simply expansion.

 

Did they really put a man on the moon though?

The reason the game wont change is beause the people that have the power to change it wont benefit from it so they will self preserve.

 

supposedley!lol. but still not a good enough reason!(and im not getting at you) just the removal of has beens and never will be1s at the sfa need punted asap then.

 

all this talk about re-vamping the SPL, which will in turn get us more money, and make us a more exciting league with better players, all the people saying this, who are you kidding?

im not being naive here, and i think the only way to progress is to move to the EPL, but if there was a solution in scotland, dont get me wrong, i would take it in a heartbeat, the realistic situation IS though;
how the * do you take a dying, poor, boring league, and basically overnight, make it as exciting as la liga? theres alot of enthusiastic ( perhaps too enthusiastic ) posts being made in this thread, and the sad, but true story is that you cant just do that with a whole league.

*, if thats the way some people think, then im suprised africa are still in poverty!!
it will take more than just a brainwave to sort out the SPL. im afraid the only way the SPL is going to get better is if we get 20 arab trillionaires inject tenfolds of millions into each individual club, in turn managing to buy world class talent, which would then catch the eye of sponsors ( ie TV money )

 

You don't, nothing happens overnight, but long term solutions can be made - doubt the SPL will ever be as good as la liga and no one is suggesting that is possible but the SPL can and needs to be improved.

The problem is that a lot of those in charge don't want to change, there are too many clubs in Scotland, an amalgamation of clubs and two leagues of 16/18 would help improve the competition in Scotland but clubs don't want to merge with their rivals.

Throwing money at the SPL won't work either - although we desperately need funds to compete on the European stage, the problems within Scottish football are a lot more deep routed. The entire system needs overhauled from grass route level with more of a focus provided from a very young age on skill and not brawn.