New Atlantic League

http://sport.uk.msn.com/football/news/rangers-ponder-new-atlantic-league

Rangers are again talking about leaving Scottish football is it time the Old Firm were kicked out of the SPL?

For years they have moaned about the lack of money and competition but the minute a player hits a purple patch the 2 of them fight over him and force the smaller clubs to sell for less than what the players worth. Should the rest go on without them and rebuild Scottish football?

It would be the death of Scottish Football, it might become a bit more competitive but there would be little to no TV coverage, desperate sponsorships, clubs would have to pay lower wages than they do currently so on a whole talent would go down and any chance of attracting anything decent would be a million times harder than it is currently.

It's a very simplistic view to just 'kick out the Old Firm' but it's not viable and utterly unrealistic

My thinking was that while that would happen in the short term in the long term would it not prevent the better players leaving and take the overall standard of the league up because what ever happens with the Old Firm involved they will get the majority of any money and stop the other teams building

Simple answer; No.

So they don't sign for the Old Firm; do you think that would stop them jumping ship to the lower leagues in England? Or more to the point, if you kick the Old Firm in to the "Atlantic League" do their scouts suddenly lose their knowledge of the Scottish League? Surely they would continue to use the SPL as a source of talent? They would also be more of an attraction playing in a better league than they currently are.

Also I would argue against the point of "but the minute a player hits a purple patch the 2 of them fight over him and force the smaller clubs to sell for less than what the players worth." Are you telling me that Scott Brown was worth more than the £4.4m Celtic paid for him?

Celtic and Rangers may annoy other teams with their whining, but they are the biggest asset (as a pair) to the league. Most teams charge Old Firm fans more for matchday tickets than the rest of the SPL teams. That is a potentially massive loss of revenue.

With 2 clubs fighting to sign him £4.4m is a a few million off what they should have got for him, Blackburn were able to get Liverpool Arsenal etc to offer way over the odds for Phil Jones because he was in demand

My whole problem is that no one seems to have a long term view and the Old Firm complain about the standards and big fish in a small pond and all that rubbish but are unwilling to take drastic action to fix it. The only plan seem to be to restructure the league yet again but theres no real idea behind why this is going to work

I'm sorry but that is a contradiction.

A players free is not directly what they are worth. Brown was not worth £4.4m. You may think they could have gotten more for him, but he was not worth that. The fee is dictated by the demand. If he was worth more than £4.4m then an English team would have came in and increased the bidding war for him.

You claim there is no long term plan. The long term plan is to restructure and yet you are sitting there slating the idea of restructure. So your plan is to kick the 2 biggest money spinners out of the league?

Great. I'd love to see how well that would work.

The sad fact is that without Celtic and Rangers there simply wouldn't be any money for Scottish teams, fans of other clubs may think the sum there team gets now is poor but its far more than they'd generate without the Old Firm.

In the early days of a non Old Firm SPL there would definitely be no TV deal, Hearts and Hibs would be able to sell the rights to the four derbies, after that it'd be a struggle, even then as the realisation of no money kicks in big time with no regular TV or Sponsorship deals clubs will be forced to sell their best talent quicker and for less cash than they do now

I want Celtic and Rangers to be apart of a new SPL, we are founding members and belong in it, it's never going to be an amazing league but a complete re-structure backed and helped funded by the government and backed by SKY with highlight rights sold to BBC and STV as well as selling it abroad

We need an 18 team league with 2 up 2 down automatically with the third and fourth bottom having a relegation Play Off for the third relegation spot

There would also be a European Play Off for teams 4-7

Teams would need to be brave initially because they'd need to sacrifice only one home league game per season against every club.

The reason I'd look for financial backing from the government would be to help clubs with the initial revenue hit, I also think it would be a good way for prices to be slashed and for clubs to allow more free access to kids under 14 and as part of the deal for clubs to get more involved with community projects

I feel this could generate more interest in clubs, get more people to games, totally freshen up the league and with less games against the Old Firm, give teams an opportunity to have a better go at challenging for the title

Terrible idea. I would rather play in the SPL than Scandinavian teams. At least we have some history with the SPL teams and the rest of Europe won't care about the league.

Celtic and Rangers should give up on this England idea. Why would they want either of us down there we are bad news. Look at the sort of stuff going on last season.

I don't think the FA or PL would ever openly admit to wanting Rangers or Celtic down here, despite the money spinning possibilities of adding two big clubs with huge followings.

Simply, how would it work? The football league won't forego any promotion for a season, and the PL clubs won't want an extra two relegation spots...they'd have to expand it to 22 teams for a period, which would then bring out complaints from United, City, Chelsea and Arsenal et al about the amount of games they have to play each season with CL/FA Cup/League Cup etc.

I hope they don't leave the Scottish league in the dust because it truly will remove millions of pounds in funding and the fans interest will wane more than ever. I don't know the solution though -- how do you repair the league as it is?

Celtic Warrior wrote:You claim there is no long term plan. The long term plan is to restructure and yet you are sitting there slating the idea of restructure.

The SFA and SPL know they need to do something and this is all they can come up with is is restructuring, how will changing the number of teams and rebranding the first division do that?

You seem to forget that the split was meant to do reinvigorate Scottish football and keep it entertaining until the end but its failed.

Okay then. You go ahead and suggest something.

Oh wait, you've already told us your suggestion. Booting out the 2 teams that draw the most interest to the league. Great Plan

You slate the restructure idea but if you did boot the 2 out as you are suggesting, don't you think you would need to restructure? Or would you just leave the SPL 2 teams short?

Why won't increasing the league size generate more interest? It's a start at the very least. There has been a thread on this sort of thing before and I aired my views on how to revitalise the Scottish game as a whole on that so I can't be bothered going over ground I've already covered.

Look, Celtic looked 2nd best to the Udinese B team. SPL teams seem to have no imagination in going forward with numbers, defensive football will only work if you have speed and power to counter attack, Scottish teams like the speed part.