How would the Old Firm fare in the English Premier League?

[calscot 0]

The pedant in me wants to point out that Berwick Rangers are not a good example of cross border membership as they were originally in Scotland until the border was changed for constituency reasons.

 

Cardiff, Swansea and Wrexham are special cases as they were members of the FA before UEFA even existed. Rangers were also a member of the FA but left to join the newly formed SFA as Scottish teams in those days struggled afford the travelling expenses of going to London etc.

 

In fact I think Queens Park forfeited the FA cup as they couldn't afford to travel to a replay after they drew in the final.

 

I think Cardiff and Swansea have shown how successful we could be in the EPL as they don't have the same scale of support as the Glasgow teams due to being a smaller population where football is the second sport.

 

However, I can't see how much different we would be to the likes of Newcastle who have struggled even to compete for a long time, although are doing well now.

 

I think with the lead in finances from the Likes of Man U, Man City (artificially), Chelsea (semi-artificially) and Arsenal, we'd struggle to ever break into the top four. When you consider Liverpool's wealth, sixth to 10th would be our level in my opinion, fighting it out with the likes of Newcastle, Tottenham, Everton and Aston Villa as well as the in form teams of the season like Stoke at the moment.

 

I think we have a better branding and size of following than most of those, on a par with Newcastle and so could have an advantage there. But that could be offset by lower incomes meaning lower ticket prices.

 

I also think we usually punch above our weight against English teams which comes from a different playing environment and a winning mentality, both of which would be lost after a few years.

 

I don't really WANT us to join the English league but the way things are going I don't think we can afford not to. In fact the longer we stay in the SPL and the bigger the financial gap becomes, the more nervous I get about our future in the European game. I really can't stand seeing what was a minnow compared to us like Swansea, totally out muscling us in the recruitment of players. The fact we're now poorer than a Welsh team is pretty depressing.

[calscot 0]

PS Just wondering, could we buy up a bankrupt Championship team and move them to Ibrox and play two sister clubs in two leagues? A bit like we did with basketball a while back? I take it that's against the rules but with the possible get out clause that we're still in the same country - for the moment...

[Guest ghs76]

I think we would struggle initially. The present team is not of a standard to challenge for the EPL title or Europe in England. In fact, being brutally honest, I think the present team would be in the bottom half of the table.

 

Given time though we would settle in and would be able to attract a far better standard of player than we do at present. Rangers are a massive club and should be playing at a far higher level than the SPL. Unfortunately I can't see us being in the EPL anytime soon. I live in England and they have little or no interest in what goes on in Scotland. The Old Firm games do fascinate some of them but I can't see the likes of Blackburn, Stoke or Wigan accepting us in. Turkeys and Christmas come to mind. And do we have the right to just jump into the EPL over the heads of the Championship clubs? There are big clubs down here like Leeds, Sheffield Wednesday and United etc. How would they react to us just jumping over them and joining the big boys?

 

I think we are stuck in the SPL unfortunately.

[calscot 0]

During the 90's we had a far greater profile and perhaps some grudging respect. Now we're seen as an irrelevance and if they called us Mickey Mouse then, I can't imagine what term they would make up for us now.

 

As for struggling initially with our current squad, I think there is no chance we'd keep the same team. We'd borrow on the future income and sign quite a few better players - speculate to accumulate.

 

Mid table would still not be guaranteed - but if Swansea and Norwich can do it, then there is no reason why not.

 

There's also no reason we couldn't compete with the likes of Stoke and Sunderland given the £50M of TV money.

 

I think people are giving Premiership teams far more respect than they deserve. Most of them are at an artificial level based purely on the TV money. How well they do is basically based on how well they spend that money.

 

The TV money is such a majority of their income that it means they are much of a muchness in wealth in the middle which is why that part of the table looks pretty random. It's easy to fail and be relegated if you spend badly - then it's really hard to get back in, although the parachute payment helps.

 

I would think we could have the edge over most of them in total finances as well as the boost from size of the support and the ethos of the club. While in the Premiership I also think we could attract better players than the likes of Stoke or West Brom as in my opinion we'd have a lot more to offer than just a wad of cash.

 

To say we'd definitely struggle seems to just be negative defeatism to me and doesn't hold much water. To me it's a toss of the coin.

[Danny 0]

During the 90's we had a far greater profile and perhaps some grudging respect.

 

Yeah right! Not remember when we got tied with Leeds - the English laughed and 100% expected their boys to make the group stage.

 

When we won it was an absolutely massive shock.

 

Sadly that was as good as it got for us in the 90s, 9iar aside we were miserable in Europe - I dunno where the respect you claim came from.

[der Berliner 3,251]

On a sidenote, you do wonder if a sunstorm hits Sky's satellite network and puts its lamps out for a few months. The EPL bubble will burst big time ...

[Danny 0]

On a sidenote, you do wonder if a sunstorm hits Sky's satellite network and puts its lamps out for a few months. The EPL bubble will burst big time ...

 

This 'bubble' has been going since the days of ITV Digital. That was as far back as 2002 and earlier iirc.

 

If Sky crapped out, ESPN would pick up the scraps. ESPN, far as I know, are worth a shitload more than Sky are. But intelligently decided not to go the Setanta route of competing with them in Europe, and instead opted to work alongside them.

[Juancornetto 1]

Blue Square Premier and work our way up would be a fine by me, within 4 years we'd be in the Championship and playing Leeds/Notts Forrest/Reading etc, much more competitive than Dunfermline and St Mirren with bigger crowds and better players. From there on in who know's if the fanbase stayed loyal then we could have a proper crack at the Premier League. The real bonus in this scenario is that Celtic would be left behind to win 27 in a row in a Mickey Mouse league.

[Guest Dutchy]

I've not read all of this, too busy, but I still have an opinion.

 

That opinion is that if we ever were allowed into the EPL, we may struggle to begin with, but when the TV money kicked in, we would be able to more and better players. We'd have a better chance than say the Boltons, or Southamptons, as the OF have a recognized name amongst European players, thus adding an extra element of attractiveness.

 

Of course, the fan base would change dramatically as there's trouble just now attracting fans at present prices, never mind the overly inflated costs of watching the prima donnas of the English Prostitute League.

 

I would go to see Rangers if they joined up with that shit down south, even though I don't get there much, I definately wouldn't be back if it went south.

 

Rangers are a Scottish institution and I'm happy all the shity clubs don't want to share their money with Scots and will always vote for our non-entry.

[calscot 0]

Blue Square Premier and work our way up would be a fine by me, within 4 years we'd be in the Championship and playing Leeds/Notts Forrest/Reading etc, much more competitive than Dunfermline and St Mirren with bigger crowds and better players. From there on in who know's if the fanbase stayed loyal then we could have a proper crack at the Premier League. The real bonus in this scenario is that Celtic would be left behind to win 27 in a row in a Mickey Mouse league.

 

While I think we'd survive without too much problem in the EPL (and eventually prosper) and should quickly work our way up our way through the leagues, I think the most difficult part of getting there would be gaining promotion from the Championship.

 

It looks like a very difficult league to get to the top of and while I've no doubt we'd eventually get there, it could take several seasons when many fans' patience would be severely tested. The immense pressure to succeed would just make things so much harder and I could imagine us losing in the play-offs more than once.

 

More money, a decent fan base and having the choice of Scottish talent is not always a great advantage as Middlesbrough showed recently.

 

I could see us borrowing a lot to put together an expensive team to get us there and then risking suffering big time if it didn't pay off. Even if we were promoted to the EPL we'd initially be handicapped by repaying the debts to get there.

 

There is an endemic debt ridden overspend in the lower reaches of the EPL and I think that would affect us more than most until we made a consistent success of it.

 

To be honest, football is broken by the financial aspects in most countries and England more so than any.

 

For a parochial long term survival viewpoint we'd probably be better staying where we are and drawing up some agreement with Celtic where we instil some kind of spending limit and agree for both to run debt free.

 

It would make it a level playing field for both clubs in which they could both be financially secure, and they'd still both be miles ahead of the rest. Europe aside, there is really little need for the OF to get into the same debt cycle of the EPL yo-yo clubs. We should have done this over 10 years ago when we realised the situation we were in after Advocaat and both clubs could have been financially healthy right now.