Scottish problems, is it time to look at a North Atlantic League?

At the present time in the UEFA coefficient the Scottish league is 17th behind even the likes of the league in Cyprus.

The old firm are falling further behind the other Clubs in Europe year after year, and so it the whole of the Scottish League, Does anyone else think that we've reached the point that the only way to save Football in Scotland is to form a North Atlantic League (this was proposed a few years ago), the top teams in Scotland (17th), Denmark (12th), Netherlands (9th) and Sweden (24th) and Norway (25th) form the League.

Promotion and relagation or a league without regulation would have to be decided by the Unions.

In my view this is the only way that teams from these counties stand a chance of competing in the Champions League. (Qualification may work as top teams from each union, as in the way the Rugby Celtic League works).

I could see a league like this being able to be about the 5th top League in Europe, Challanging the French League. With a much bigger viewing audence, and top clubs to attract intrest, sponsorship deals and tv money are sure to increase. Downside is the travel involved, there won't be two many away fans at games, and it leaves the Domestic league below it poorer, not getting as much TV and sponsorship money without the big Clubs, the domestic game would suffer greatly. Also Uefa won't encourage it, as it could lay the precedent for other domestic leagues in Europe to combine, Which imo may not be a bad think as with stronger leagues, the usual big 8 teams may not win everything in Europe.

I'd love to see the Old Firm enter the English league ystem, however I don't believe this will ever happen, and a NAL may be the only way to go.

Thoughts?

I don't think the Netherlands would want to enter that league,their sides are on the up. On a side note,is the LOI now officially better than the SPL? Shams faced a tougher team and a daunting away leg but still came through.

You have to ask which countries would want to join such a league?
Lithuania, Liechtentein, Estonia.
Hardly mouth watering stuff.

No I personally think a total restructure of the Scottish leagues would better suit.

42 Teams for a country with a population of circa 5,000,000 is ridiculous.

The fact that there can be 7 Old Firm games per season is laughable. Revamp the leagues. Have a 3 tier set up rather than 4. Larger SPL to make things more competitive - more teams relegated and promoted.

The problem in Scotland is that we breed athletes; not footballers. Some of our best players actually don't have a great deal of football skill, but succeed due to the fact that they have a good engine and can keep running non stop chasing lost causes etc. (I'm looking at Scott Brown, Kenny Miller even Billy Dodds when I say that)

The English National side isn't capable of reaching the heights that they expect, so they have decided to cap squads to 25 with a minimum amount of young English players. They are addressing their problem. Spain obviously did the same to great effect.

I personally think we should adopt the Dutch system. Make kids coming through footballing academies play on smaller pitches so that they are forced to work on their short passing and possession under pressure. Only then will we start to see a benefit to the game over all.

CW, think you are onto something there.

Ireland has 22, in the top two tiers of our league,the Scots should be aiming for around 30.

The Irish league isn't an example I would incourage others to pick up and use we have our own problems in regard to that.
The Celtic League in rugby would be a good format to build a base around but that will most likely never happen as there would be know money in it

Scottish clubs playing through the summer would at least have them in better condition to start qualification.

I think the time has come to reopen the Atlantic League debate. The simple fact is the big 4-5 leagues (Spain, Italy, England, Germany and France are disappearing into the distance due to the TVRevenue the clubs in those leagues receive. It simply isn't a level playing field any more. I can only see that disparity increase as those larger countries have the populations to support larger TV Revenue. The only way for smaller nations to compete is to pool their resources so take the best 2/3/4 clubs from those other countries and form a new league, simple really. Uefa won't like it but uefa officialdom is dominated by representatives from the big 5 leagues who are more than happy to preserve the status quo. The Scots, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Portugese etc should make it clear that they no longer find it acceptable to beg for scraps from the uefa top table.

JAS, it will always be a sideshow to the big leagues and I doubt TV revenue would be too great anyway, especially as leagues from Holland and Portugal wouldn't want to jump in with Scotland, Norway and Denmark.

Would anyone really want to tune in to watch St.Mirren V Haugesund or Dunfermline V Brann Bergen?
That's probably an even less atrractive proposition than the present situation.

JAS wrote:I think the time has come to reopen the Atlantic League debate. The simple fact is the big 4-5 leagues (Spain, Italy, England, Germany and France are disappearing into the distance due to the TVRevenue the clubs in those leagues receive. It simply isn't a level playing field any more. I can only see that disparity increase as those larger countries have the populations to support larger TV Revenue. The only way for smaller nations to compete is to pool their resources so take the best 2/3/4 clubs from those other countries and form a new league, simple really. Uefa won't like it but uefa officialdom is dominated by representatives from the big 5 leagues who are more than happy to preserve the status quo. The Scots, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Portugese etc should make it clear that they no longer find it acceptable to beg for scraps from the uefa top table.

my sedaments excatly. A North Atlantic League could be as good as the French League if not better.

Out of Scotland onlt the old Firm and Hearts and hibs would prob make it, so games would be like Celtic v Ajax. surly that is marketable. Its the only way I can see to stop the big leagues dominating.

Uefa promised the smaller teams to make the Uefa cup better to try and make them not form an Atlantic League, and for the way the money in the Champions League goes, but in comparision the Uefa cup is nonesense, you can earn up to £10 million if you make it to the final, in Champions League you get £30 for just the group stage.
A hugh difference, and the clubs from the Smaller League have to do something to be able to compete as the Uefa cup revamp answers none of this.

I don't find Nante v Monpellier or Blackburn v Norwich particularly appealing. Give me Rangers v Porto or Celtic V Ajax and yeah I'd start watching football again.

The way things are going it's only a matter of time before the Dutch and Portugese ate in the same position as us and won't be able to compete due to the huge financial disparity between their leagues and the big ones. We are at our crisis point now, theirs will come soon enough given the status quo. I think Porto (under an exceptional manager) will go down in history as the last non big5 leagues team to win the Champions league. They did well to win the uefa cup last year but remember...Rangers reached the final a mere 3 years ago.

The combined population of Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Belgium Scotland etc would give an audience base that would allow TV broadcasters to divi out a much larger share to the competing clubs than they do now. The paltry sum that the old firm get from TV revenue at the moment is quite frankly pathetic but sadly a symptom of the current state of the game and the sheer ineptness of SPL negotiators.

JAS, Portugal and Holland would never be in it. Why would they want to play Celtic or Rangers or teams from leagues much much much worse than their own?
The revenune is only half the issue, Dutch and Portuguese teams will always play good football regardless of the TV revenue, Scottish teams almost never have.
I also don't think that TV audience would be that big either. Scandinavians have shown far more interest in the EPL than any of their own leagues since the start of the Premiership. The introduction of a second rate league, combining teams from inferior leagues into one big inferior league won't stir much interest for them.

You say that the sum the the OF receive from TV is paltry, and it probably is, but do you really expect them to pay more for such a dreadful product that no one wants to watch? If I were a broadcaster I probably wouldnt offer anything as there are probably more at some of the matches than watch on TV.

super realist, I don't think you get the Idea behind an Atlantic League.

The Atlantic League is a proposed international association football competition to be played in a number of European countries. The aim of the Atlantic League to allow clubs who have been successful in their national competitions to participate in a more competitive league that would be more attractive to fans and television viewers, resulting in higher revenues and the ability to attract more talented players. An Atlantic League would aspire for itself and its clubs to achieve parity with the largest existing national leagues in England, Italy, Germany and Spain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_League_(football)

You also say Dutch and Portugese teams would never be in it, but if you look into it you'll see the idea orginally came from The first Atlantic League proposal was made by Peter Fossen and Harry van Raaij, chief executive officer and club president respectively at Dutch club PSV Eindhoven.

The Dutch are the best placed league and teams at the minute, but even they are selling clubs, do you not think they would like to join a league, whereby they have increased revenue, and a better chance of keeping hold of the players they delvelop.

I think th edebate needs opened again in time to put something in place when the current TV deals expire.

I think the debate does need reopened, but I think it's a bit rich that simply because those clubs are now being asset stripped the way that they used to cherry pick players from their own leagues that they are now turning round and crying foul that their leagues are poor and they want to start elsewhere. Lets not forget they have to take some of the blame for the parlous state of the league.

Problem with Scottish football, no grass roots football.

All the pressure on the teams financially to compete and stay in the SPL has forced them to bring in average foreigner players rather than looking at what they already have at there club.

It seems to have already worked at Rangers over the last few seasons with the likes of Danny Wilson, Jamies Ness, Kyle Hutton & Gregg Wylde emerging and making their full competitive debuts.

Other clubs such as;

Aberdeen - Ryan Jack, Fraser Fyvie, Mitchel Megginson.
Dundee United - Johnny Russell, Scott Allan.


And then we go to clubs like Hamilton who pretty much always look to use their youngsters have created EPL players such as James McCarthy and James McArthur.

It just shows that with a little faith we can produce quality players so why not get the ball rolling and follow Spain/England and have caps on foreigner players and force the teams to use their youth teams when in an injury crisis. There is so little faith it is laughable. Most reason case being Neil Lennon feeling he needed to sign a brand new player to replace Izzaguire (spelling?) for 6 months rather than trusting one of the young lads.

Shocking.

The footballing standards in Scotland are abysmal. Goodwillie got it absolutely right when he said he wanted to play Man Utd every week, not St Mirren.

Things that need to be done:

Merge the SPL, SFL and Highland Leagues. Might save some money not having all those bodies.

Increase SPL to 14/16 teams (more teams to provide competition, not too many so teams get a reasonable cum of TV money)

Share all TV money equally (Yes OF, equally!!!)

Try and boot the OF into England. They cause too many problems up here.

IMPROVE GRASS ROOTS FOOTBALL MOST IMPORTANTLY!!!

Forget being on a par with the Irish League, we're on par with the Welsh league.

Although the Atlantic League seems like a good idea in principal I can't see it happening due to Portugal, Scotland and Holland playing in the winter and Norway, Sweden, Denmark et al play in summer, whilst there are also no big teams in Scandinavia that Portugal or Holland would be interested in playing against. It wouldn't be any different to playing that dross that prop up both of their leagues.

Altough it's quite a good idea and some greats points have been made, there is simply far too much traveling involved for a start.

The Galveston Giant wrote:Altough it's quite a good idea and some greats points have been made, there is simply far too much traveling involved for a start.

Good point gg ,those wretched greenpeace protesters would be up in arms, not to mention the sfa. The least progressive organisation imaginable.

The elephant in the room is that most sensible parents will steer thier kids away from supporting Scotland's two most successful sides.
If you examine the crowds of those two sides you will see that they are mainly overweight 40 to 60 year olds, not a cool image.
I really think that Scottish football is dead and buried and the clubs have only themselves to blame. Corporate greed and stupidity to blame.

The team that win the league should be making the group stages of the champions league. Their is no excuse for Rangers losing to malmo or for Celtic when it was Bratislava. They should also be making the Europa League group stages they have far more resources than the clubs they were up against. Poor management and lack of ambition from the players. Their is no excuse for the way the big two have performed in Europe this year.

The league is bad but i agree with Kev they still have significantly more money and resources than many of the teams in the europa league. It was only 3 or 4 years ago the old firm were in the top 20 richest teams in Europe.

I've heard someone say that this years spl champs go direct into the champions league group stages next year. I've not seen the proof of this and given that the league will be ranked 28th as of 2012 it seems unlikely as only teams in the top 16 get in without qualifying.
Does anyone have definitive proof of next years situation? Either way they'll be pumped but I just can't see that given the appalling/laughable/embarrassing performances of late how they could go from having to qualify when the league is ranked 17th to getting straight in when it is ranked 28th. Would seem a bit odd to me.

I don't have proof but i'm pretty sure the Champions go straight in, after our performance in Europe this season though it's will be back to the qualifying stages the next season.

Anyone else a bit peeved a the coverage that this got in the English press?

In what way tip?

in the way that their just using it as another excuse to take the p*ss outta scotland. The english press take every opportunity the put us down. I was listening to one of the english footie radio shows and it slid away from football to how we shouldn't be allowed to vote in national elections, we freed the lockerbie bomber and how we're all ginger and sponging of the uk government.

And no I won't be voting SNP ha ha it just hacks me off

but fair play we bombed outta europe this year, utter joke. I heard celtic might be getting back in though

I think we've got a problem in Scotland in being too sensitive. let's face it we've not got much to be proud of. The simple fact is our football is an embarrassment and deserves everything said about it by the southern media. We have no defence to it.
To be fair though, most of the bitter Scots who get upset about criticism are exactly the type who love to dish it out, but can't take it when it comes back to them.

sensitive? no. I get spat on for a living so i'm not sensitive about much.

i just hate the way english press loves to go on about us.

and its not just scotland. do you not remember the media led hate campaign against murray when he said he'd be supporting anyone who played england in the world cup?
which was actually said as part of an innocent joke. the reporter who actually interveiwed murray said he was having a laugh about the scottish football team and murray retorted. then the rags got a hold of it and printed headlines such as "Murray hates England" in big red letters on the front page. so no its not just us.

When there were a few large scorlines involving Hibs i think it was recently, they ripped into the league saying it showed how poor it was, it may be poor, but it's a poor example, there was a huge scoreline in the prem at the same time and then the Man U/Arsenal game yesterday.

Well I will be interested in reading how the English game is in turmoil after 2 teams that are considered top 6 got beat 5-1 and 8-2 yesterday...

Won't happen though. There is an obvious gulf in class between the Scottish leagues and the English leagues. There is no denying that but I do think they go on about it a little much at times.

Tottenham beat Hearts 5-0, coupled with the Old Firm having poor showings and it leads to a discussion about total league reform. Tottenham and Arsenal lose heavily and praise is lavished upon their opponents. That is the way it should be. The winning team deserve their praise.

Having said all of that; I do still think the Scottish game NEEDS the change. As I said previously in this thread: -
Amalgamate the SPL and SFL leagues, larger leagues with more teams promoted and relegated.

Youngsters going through youth academies to play on smaller pitches to get them used to a short passing game and prepare them for being put under pressure in possession.

Equal splits of TV revenue

Perhaps lowering the price of tickets. Lower prices = more fans turning up. What you lose in lowering the ticket prices you will make up for in the higher numbers turning up; plus any merchandise/refreshments they buy when they are at the game.

Ticket prices to be frozen around the grounds. No more raising ticket prices when the Old Firm come to town just to fleece the travelling fans.

These are just some of the ways I would look to improve the game. I'm by no means an expert, but I honestly believe some of these changes would be hugely beneficial.

Tip, I think the Scots are easily as bad, if not worse than the English when it comes to irrational hatred, their insecurity and hanging on to ancient history as a reason for hating the English is pretty sad. As bad as the Irish not being able to take jokes about potatoes.
I don't mind people taking the urine out of us because by and large we are a joke of a country, but at least the realistic know that and don't pretend they're something else. You can't polish a turd or defend the indefensible.

Anyone remember the Bruzillia Irn Bru ad? Now theres the right idea.

I'm loathe to comment on these types of thread because I love the SPL. I think it needs retuning and not restructuring. Some of the ideas here seem to be looking to punish the OF for being (more) accomplished. Teams buy players that impress them and they always will. Teams that earn european money should get to keep european money. Although AberdeenSteve is on to something with capping outside players

Darth Realist, here was me thinking you just hated the SPL and OF. Now you go and a do a Renton "its sh*te being Scottish" speech.

Tip, I'd struggle to find much worth noting for being Scottish. In terms of the spl though, I think it needs a complete overhaul. We all accept that epl teams are going to walk all over us in terms of ability, but there is no reason why they shouldnt be as fit. And hearts were well off the pace. I can't see why we persevere with playing in the winter. Now we are a European laughing stock we might as well play in the pleasant time of year instead of flogging a dead horse in winter football.

As for Celtic getting in through an expulsion for sion. Nae chance. Uefa and fifa are based in Switzerland. Turkeys voting for xmas.

Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country and all that stuff.

Yeah playing through the "summer" would be good for a number of reasons like fitness and ensuring that the fans in the stands only have to wear 4 layers instead of the extra 8 layers needed to survive 90 minutes in the stands in winter.

I dunno, if anyone can kick up a fuss its Neil Lennon

Tip, I think he's just seen as a bit of a brainless gadgie. Can't really see him having any sway in the spl. Needs a change, but the sfa are a joke and never change anything so were going to be on a par with Estonia and Latvia soon.

Hey come on guys we just won the Homeless World Cup, beating Mexico in the final.