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Tims & Huns Escape From SPFL


Stuart Lyon

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Stuart Lyon

Long cut and paste from today's Times 

 

Lawwell will be monitoring the plans for a BeNe League with great interest
BILL MURRAY/SNS
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The ongoing discussions between the Dutch Eredivisie and the Belgian Jupiler Pro League regarding plans to merge the best clubs from their respective leagues to create a new 18-team division will have far-reaching consequences for the game in Europe. It may also finally provide Celtic and Rangers with the escape route from Scottish football that they have been hoping for almost a quarter of a century.

A report in German magazine Kicker revealed that the two countries have hatched a plan for the ten clubs from Holland and eight from Belgium to form a new Super League, one which would generate considerably more money from broadcasters and help them to compete in European competitions with clubs from England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France.

Should their plan be given the green light then the Glasgow giants would anticipate being invited — and would proactively seek an invitation — to join that league or any similar new conglomerate. Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell is on the board of the European Clubs Association and will be monitoring the situation with interest.

“We cannot ignore the new reality,” said Bart Verhaeghe the Club Brugge chief executive. “Sooner or later, there will be a European Super League with games between Bayern Munich and Real Madrid on Sundays.”

Deloitte, the international audit, consulting and financial advisory group, was hired by the Belgians and Dutch to examine the potential for a BeNe League and were informed they could expect to earn around £365 million per year in television revenue, which compares favourably to the £73 million each collects at the moment.

 

That would place the BeNe League just behind the big five TV nations and level the playing field for their clubs in the Champions League and Europa League. It has been proposed that the Dutch and Belgian clubs finishing lowest in the table would be automatically relegated each year while the champions of the domestic leagues left behind would be promoted.

Celtic attempted to form an Atlantic League with clubs from Scotland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal and Scandinavia 20 years ago. Roger Mitchell, who was then chief executive of the Scottish Premier League, confirmed that he had taken precautionary measures to protect the clubs who would not have been invited and regarded the move as inevitable until national associations conspired to prevent it.

“We had it all worked out,” he said last night. “There was a mechanism there which could have seen our clubs promoted and there were financial guarantees which would have meant that our smaller clubs would not have been worse off.

“However, it was the national associations, who are the regulators in each country, who stood in their way. Ironically, it was the former Celtic chairman, Jack McGinn, who was the SFA’s president at the time and he wasn’t interested: he just went through the motions.

“The other associations were the same: they didn’t see any reason to give up their cushy numbers and that’s where it died. They didn’t want to lose their perks — the first-class travel and the five-star hotels — so they weren’t bothered and that was scandalous.

“Leagues, as we’ve seen, are now an uncomfortable marriage of people who want nothing to do with each other and market forces are driving them apart because broadcasters don’t want to show Hamilton v St Johnstone.”

In the late 1990s Celtic considered buying Wimbledon FC, then in England’s top tier, from owner Sam Hammam. The plan was to relocate the club to Celtic Park and then rename it, thus parachuting themselves into the Premier League.

A stalking horse had been let loose in the shape of Dr John Hall, a Bermuda-based businessman who had bought Clydebank FC and attempted to play their home Scottish League fixtures in Dublin.

The Royal Dublin Showground had been chosen as their new stadium and there was nothing in the rules to prevent the deal being done. However, representatives of the Scottish and Irish associations called on Fifa to act prior to the 1998 World Cup finals and the governing body created new legislation to prevent such a move.

Intriguingly, Fifa president Gianni Infantino, speaking to the media in December, appeared to signal a softening of their stance.

“We need to be open to discussions,” he said. “The Belgians and the Dutch have been discussing creating a Benelux league and these discussions have been going on for 20 years and we are always saying no, because we are based on national leagues.

“But maybe it helps? Maybe it is the only way out, maybe in Europe they have to think about this, maybe in Africa. I was proposing something like this for Africa. I think we have the duty to study these things then we will see where it goes.

“It’s not about bringing anyone down. It’s rather about bringing those who are today down a little bit further [up] and we are willing to discuss with everyone about everything. And then we will see.”

 
 
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John Findlay
Just now, JackLadd said:

I don't see Sevco fans being too welcome in Belgium tbh, not that they are welcome anywhere.  

Celtic fans in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Eindhoven and other places will be interesting too.

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jamboinglasgow

It may happen, but considering how times there is a multi country league touted in the works and comes of nothing, I wont hold my breath.

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davemclaren
Just now, jamboinglasgow said:

It may happen, but considering how times there is a multi country league touted in the works and comes of nothing, I wont hold my breath.

Indeed. Old new news. 

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Roger Mitchell is a ****ing moron, and needs help to fasten his Velcro shoes. That is all.

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What fans would vote in favour of that? Would cost a fortune to go to any away games. So what sort of atmosphere would there be? The so called 'elite' game would gradually be taken over by tourist fans, and eventually the team will lose its soul.

 

These big money spinning ideas get touted a lot, but football without real fans is nothing. It would just be exhibition football match after exhibition football match and it'd get boring quite quickly.

 

But those pushing these ideas wouldn't care. They'd get their massive payout and move onto something else once it started to fall apart.

 

There is interest in the CL and it makes money because the games are rare. Having them all the time will just devalue that. A bit like playing everyone around 4 times in the SPL setup, after a number of years its just zzzzzzzzzz.

 

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Would be good ******* riddance. Nobody in England want the scum down there either. Not happening sadly

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But if there is an 18 team league, why would they then seek to extend it further, with the complications of having teams from hundreds of miles away?

 

So, why not Copenhagen or Rosenborg or an Austrian team?  Pathetic excuse to get clickbait for Celtic fans, I think.

 

Although, as always, if it comes to it - "bye Rangers, bye Celtic"

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Pasquale for King

Great news, get them to **** and no colts teams left to play here. Maybe they could play their home games alternatively in Ireland and NI. 

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38 minutes ago, Pasquale for King said:

Great news, get them to **** and no colts teams left to play here. Maybe they could play their home games alternatively in Ireland and NI. 

Spot on. Get them to ****, pair of leeches

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Ex member of the SaS

Have said it many times and I know it will never happen, but the first person involved with either bigot team that mentions leaving the SPFL should result in that team being hauled in with a disrepute charge and fined cash and points. Large sums of cash and huge number of points whereby they would be lucky to stay in the top flight even winning every game 😉

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Best news I have had for a long time.  I am able to drive them to the airport provided I get to keep the door closed behind them, and keep them out of all cup competitions too.  Kick them out and keep them out, and once they are gone they cant come back, no matter how much they get found out and that goes for both their colt teams and their unwashed fans.  Any room for doncaster and the corrupt SPFL co-horts on the plane?? 

Our leagues will be better and stronger without them. I have said for a long time that when the silverware/trophies/flags are being won by different teams each year the fans will be there in droves.

We dont need or want them. Happy to see the back of them

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ToadKiller Dog

What arrogance to think they would be automatically invited to a benelux league .

Happy to see them go ,but no colt teams left behind and they can't represent Scotland in Europe. 

 

Also whats to say us ,the sheep and his wouldn't get invited our gates match the top half of both benelux leagues if you take out the top 2 in Belgium and 4 in Holland. 

 

Edited by ToadKiller Dog
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Tommy Brown

Right back to the days of Souness became manager at Hun Central this pish has been spoken, always sooner rather than later. 30 ****ing years ago :lol:

 

At least back then, they said they would be up against Europe's finest. Now its other similar desperate wankstains.

 

As @martoon says, if HMFC speculated this, we would be on a disrepute charge.

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Fine, as long as you get into the league by qualifying for it.

 

As soon as teams start getting invites irrespective of winning sporting contests, then that's me finished with football.

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Libertarian

Will there be promotion to and relegation from this proposed league? Without a 2nd tier it would become mindblowingly dull 

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I would welcome this, as long as Rangers and Celtic really left. They would not be allowed to enter their 'reserves' in our league, nor get into the Scottish Cup. If it's a clean break, good riddance.

 

But knowing them, they would want both to leave Scottish football and continue to run it.

 

 

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1 hour ago, John Findlay said:

Celtic fans in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Eindhoven and other places will be interesting too.


Whole thing is pickled if you ask me. 

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Guess The Crowd

I have no interest whatsoever in Celtic and Rangers, although the arrogance in terms of 'expecting to be invited' did amuse me.

 

It did occur to me though, during a short holiday in these two countries last year, that a Holland / Belgium combined league would make an awful lot of sense. Their combined populations are still considerably smaller than the big European countries, but the amount of top players each country produces is phenomenal. If it were to happen it would be a very interesting development.

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Nookie Bear
2 hours ago, JackLadd said:

I don't see Sevco fans being too welcome in Belgium tbh, not that they are welcome anywhere.  

 

2 hours ago, John Findlay said:

Celtic fans in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Eindhoven and other places will be interesting too.


It’s not like Dutch fans are angels so I doubt they will care too much about the behaviour of the old firm. 
 

It’s all about the ££££

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2 hours ago, martoon said:

If we suggested doing this we'd be on a disrepute charge or similar. 

 

 

Was a dispute charge brought about form the 2011 (?) emails revelation? 

 

I can't remember, but no doubt the SFA didn't bat an eyelid on them breaking their agreement. 

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NaturalOrder74

Celtic* playing in a league without the SFA aye right 😂 we’ve all seen how they get in Europe every year 

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I sort of think there's no smoke without fire.  The more speculation increases about Euro leagues, the closer we get to them happening.

 

Personally, I can't wait.

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mellors1874

should be charged for even thinking about it under an article I can't be bothered to find or type from there book of rules 

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Said this numerous times, but it’s worth repeating. Unless Celtic and Rangers were to physically relocate to another country, then their departure from the league we play in would do more harm than good. If they were to leave, we’d have to go with them, because what would be left would be diminished in quality and stature. Scottish kids would prefer to play in the premier competition that takes place in their country, as opposed to the shite one.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Special Officer Doofy
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Nookie Bear
1 hour ago, ToadKiller Dog said:

What arrogance to think they would be automatically invited to a benelux league .

Happy to see them go ,but no colt teams left behind and they can't represent Scotland in Europe. 

 

Also whats to say us ,the sheep and his wouldn't get invited our gates match the top half of both benelux leagues if you take out the top 2 in Belgium and 4 in Holland. 

 


Funny how they tried to push that through only recently 🤔

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Nookie Bear
5 minutes ago, Special Officer Doofy said:

Said this numerous times, but it’s worth repeating. Unless Celtic and Rangers were to physically relocate to another country, then their departure from the league we play in would do more harm than good. If they were to leave, we’d have to go with them, because what would be left would be diminished in quality and stature. Scottish kids would prefer to play in the premier competition that takes place in their country, as opposed to the shite one.

 

 

 

 

 


Sadly true. 
 

I reckon that, once the major clubs get their European Super Duper League, everyone else will soon follow and we will end up in European Super Duper Division 3 (North). 

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32 minutes ago, Zen Jambo said:

 

Was a dispute charge brought about form the 2011 (?) emails revelation? 

 

I can't remember, but no doubt the SFA didn't bat an eyelid on them breaking their agreement. 

 

Don't recall, Zen, but I'm sure you're right. Not an eyelid batted. 

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King Of The Cat Cafe
2 hours ago, kila said:

What fans would vote in favour of that? Would cost a fortune to go to any away games. So what sort of atmosphere would there be? The so called 'elite' game would gradually be taken over by tourist fans, and eventually the team will lose its soul.

 

These big money spinning ideas get touted a lot, but football without real fans is nothing. It would just be exhibition football match after exhibition football match and it'd get boring quite quickly.

 

But those pushing these ideas wouldn't care. They'd get their massive payout and move onto something else once it started to fall apart.

 

There is interest in the CL and it makes money because the games are rare. Having them all the time will just devalue that. A bit like playing everyone around 4 times in the SPL setup, after a number of years its just zzzzzzzzzz.

 

 

 

ssssh: don't discourage them.

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Good luck to them. 

 

But they don't get to stay in Scottish football. No colt teams, nothing! You're either all in or all out. 

 

Would mean a much more evenly contested league which would be interesting domestically. Quite whether it would have much in the way of commercial value is another story, but with the right people in charge we could have a good deal. We'll see how loyal their fans get when they're travelling obscene distances every other week. Could be a real chance for local football teams to prevail long term. 

 

This is absolutely bringing the game into disrepute btw. Its saying 'you're not good enough for us'. Charges ain't happening though. Wonder why?

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Bazzas right boot

The way the top 4 leagues and clubs guzzle up all the money is sickening. 

 

Football is Slowly being ruined. 

Rather than look to share things more equal across more clubs / leagues, teams want to join the top table and reduce the rums for the rest even more. 

 

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, JackLadd said:

I don't see Sevco fans being too welcome in Belgium tbh, not that they are welcome anywhere.  

8% plus beers on matchday.............what could possibly go wrong??

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Bazzas right boot
5 minutes ago, OTT said:

Good luck to them. 

 

But they don't get to stay in Scottish football. No colt teams, nothing! You're either all in or all out. 

 

Would mean a much more evenly contested league which would be interesting domestically. Quite whether it would have much in the way of commercial value is another story, but with the right people in charge we could have a good deal. We'll see how loyal their fans get when they're travelling obscene distances every other week. Could be a real chance for local football teams to prevail long term. 

 

This is absolutely bringing the game into disrepute btw. Its saying 'you're not good enough for us'. Charges ain't happening though. Wonder why?

 

 

Also, any deal could be around 50% worse and we'd be as is without them. 

 

 

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Folk need to remember that if Celtic and rangers leave the league they don’t leave Scotland unfortunately, they would still be here sucking the lifeblood out the country.
 

You can also guarantee they would be allowed ‘colt’ teams to remain in our league that would probably still generate more money than any other club.  Depressing. 

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51 minutes ago, Special Officer Doofy said:

Said this numerous times, but it’s worth repeating. Unless Celtic and Rangers were to physically relocate to another country, then their departure from the league we play in would do more harm than good. If they were to leave, we’d have to go with them, because what would be left would be diminished in quality and stature. Scottish kids would prefer to play in the premier competition that takes place in their country, as opposed to the shite one.

 

 

 

 

 

Not sure what your last sentence actually means.  If it means that Scottish kids would prefer to play in the more glamorous Euro competition, so what.  I would prefer a racing green Rolls Royce to my Suzuki Swift but that's not going to happen either.

 

We would have an ultra competitive domestic competition which would rejuvInate each and every one of us not tied to the OF.  

 

A game at Kilmarnock against Motherwell where both clubs were in the running for winning the league would be packed to the door.  Not sure Rangers v PSV Eindhoven would carry anywhere near the same degree of public interest.  Bit of a yawn in fact.

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Unknown user

This has been talked about for literally decades and they're no closer to getting the necessary buy in from leagues, national associations and rival clubs.

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17 minutes ago, Smith's right boot said:

 

 

Also, any deal could be around 50% worse and we'd be as is without them. 

 

 

 

It would be 50% worse with Sky

 

I think some sort of Scottish Sports TV/online package should be arranged and led by the government. Crowdfunding has taken off in a big way, and the foundation is kind of based off that thinking. If a Scottish sports package was offered at say £10 a month how many takers could we get?  If it worked out that it included multiple popular sports like Tennis, Football, Rugby, Cricket*, Golf, swimming... ****ing tiddly winks,  it may reach far enough across the spectrum to have near virtual universal uptake. Google says there are 2.4m households in Scotland. So already, assuming 100% uptake (never going to happen) you have £288m a year which could be invested directly into Scottish sports. Even just half you're talking £144m and thats still literally just within Scotland AND not counting any sort of commercial license (for pubs for example).

 

Obviously that figure would be split across multiple sports but we're still talking about a net gain on whatever pittance Sky come to the table with. 

 

Look, its 100% ambitious, I totally get that but loads of people said that the Foundation would never be successful and to date over 8,000 people have bought into what the foundation is all about. I think similarly a Scottish sports package could have similar success. It would take everything in house and actually maximise investment in these various sports rather than lining the pockets of Skys investors. 

 

Sky have set the threshold for success at £25m so if the OF left our deal could be £12m maybe less, maybe more. We'd be stupid not to at least try. 

 

*calling Cricket a sport is a bit of a stretch :P 

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Harry Potter
5 minutes ago, Smithee said:

This has been talked about for literally decades and they're no closer to getting the necessary buy in from leagues, national associations and rival clubs.

Correct 100%.

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11 minutes ago, Kiwidoug said:

Not sure what your last sentence actually means.  If it means that Scottish kids would prefer to play in the more glamorous Euro competition, so what.  I would prefer a racing green Rolls Royce to my Suzuki Swift but that's not going to happen either.

 

We would have an ultra competitive domestic competition which would rejuvInate each and every one of us not tied to the OF.  

 

A game at Kilmarnock against Motherwell where both clubs were in the running for winning the league would be packed to the door.  Not sure Rangers v PSV Eindhoven would carry anywhere near the same degree of public interest.  Bit of a yawn in fact.


It would be shite. The OF would have access to even more money than they do currently, and our league would not be able to compete. Fans would desert what was left in droves, and the standard of player available to the teams that were left would drop considerably too. It would kill our game within about 20 years, possibly sooner. You had people complaining about the standard of player and style of play these last six years, do you think they will suddenly start enjoying an even lower quality product? No chance. If the OF start playing in a higher standard competition whilst still playing out of stadia in Glasgow, then our league is ****ed.

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40 minutes ago, Shanks said:

Folk need to remember that if Celtic and rangers leave the league they don’t leave Scotland unfortunately, they would still be here sucking the lifeblood out the country.
 

You can also guarantee they would be allowed ‘colt’ teams to remain in our league that would probably still generate more money than any other club.  Depressing. 


Indeed. 

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50 minutes ago, Neil Dongcaster said:

Let’s go with them.


If they were to go, we would have to go with them, or resign ourselves to being in a dying league.

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buzzbomb1958

Feck off and take your rancid bigoted clubs and your bigoted rancid and unhygienic supporters with you Scotland as wonderful a country it is would be the best place in the world to live without your stinking smell hanging over it 

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Guest ToqueJambo

"Celtic attempted to form an Atlantic League with clubs from Scotland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal and Scandinavia 20 years ago."

 

Go to court to overturn an unfair relegation: Hammered for weeks

Try to break up the entire Scottish league: "On you go Celtic"

 

Apart from the behaviour of Old Firm fans at home and abroad week after week, I can't see anything that brings our game into more disrepute than openly attempting to leave it.

Edited by ToqueJambo
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