Just an Idea - An Epl Alternitive

Why Dosent the Spl - The league of ireland (not sure if theres one or two sorry) and the welsh league (if theyd be interested) all join together to make a league (alot like the magners league in rugby).
You could have the top (super league) with a mixture of scottish, welsh and irish clubs in it. of 20
Then the top three of each of the leagues below are promoted and the bottom three from the super league are reliagated or
say the leagues below are national, with the top three from each one league into a 9 team touriment where the first second and thrid team are promoted and the bottom three from the superleague are religated. mmm the tourniment idea needs some work on it i cant remeber exactly what my plan for it was.
you could call the league like the celtic league or just let it be named after a sponsor.
it would improve the spectical of our irelands and wales football and potentially get more money if we got a good tv deal.
i know it isnt as good as going into england but it would mean less loss of idenity and not being stuffed at start.
now if some teams - ie wales and swansea dont want to join us then thats fine they stay in england.

i know its not fulproff and its just an itial idea but i do feel its got potential and i was just wondering what you bhoys and ghirls thorght of it and how i could improve it.
sorry for bad spelling and punctuation.

 

Well spose it could work, but then again who would be the person to arrange who goes in the top league & who falls into the other leagues? Alot of teams might get * off falling into Lower Leagues after being in Premier Leagues of there own countries, would be a hard 1 to work that out, but good idea

 

its a good idea mate ( i think ) but its hard enough at times to imagine celtic going to the EPL, nevermind 3 seperate countries combining leagues.

 

Why do people have constant urge to see us out of Scottish league as soon as possible?

 

the spl should go back to 18 teams. the smaller teams wouldnt have to play the old firm eight times. generally meaning tyey lose 26 points straight away.also teams like hibs/hearts or aberdeen could go on long unbeaten runs which could see them getting much closer to old firm surely that would massively improve our league. just an idea.greed will probably stop it happening though

 

i agree,

i think its a great idea, fifa could maby work out a world ranking for each team, and obiously the higher the rank the higher the league.

maby get a nike sponcership like the premiership.

you've got me thinking now mate lol

 

found a wee fault, what would happen if no team from scotland was relegated from the super, but say 2 teams from scotland won in the tournement n got promoted to the super?

 

ok heres my solution....

super league

1. team1
2. team 2
3. team 3
4. team 4
5. team 5
6. team 6
7. team 7
8. team 8
9. team 9
10. team 10
11. team 11
12. team 12

nat scotland 1...nat ireland 1........nat wales 1

1. team 1...........1. team 1...........1. team 1
2. team 2...........2. team 2...........2. team 2
3. team 3...........3. team 3...........3. team 3
4. team 4...........4. team 4...........4. team 4
5. team 5...........5. team 5...........5. team 5
6. team 6...........6. team 6...........6. team 6
7. team 7...........7. team 7...........7. team 7
8. team 8...........8. team 8...........8. team 8
9. team 9...........9. team 9...........9. team 9
10.team 10.......10. team 10........10. team 10


nat scotland 2...nat ireland 2........nat wales 2


1. team 1...........1. team 1...........1. team 1
2. team 2...........2. team 2...........2. team 2
3. team 3...........3. team 3...........3. team 3
4. team 4...........4. team 4...........4. team 4
5. team 5...........5. team 5...........5. team 5
6. team 6...........6. team 6...........6. team 6
7. team 7...........7. team 7...........7. team 7
8. team 8...........8. team 8...........8. team 8
9. team 9...........9. team 9...........9. team 9
10.team 10.......10. team 10........10. team 10

ok so here goes... im not 100% about numbers of teams but that above is a basic set up. there might not be enough teams in ireland n wales to fill these leagues but u get the idea, hopefully?

the bottom 3 of the super league get relegated into there national leagues,

the top team of each "national 1" gets promoted into the super league.

to keep the number of teams in each league the same, adjustments have to be made.

say the relegated 3 from the super league are 2 irish teams and a welsh team. well the welsh team wud be a straight swap with the team who finnished top of wales 1, the irish wud be alot more complicated...

they wud end up with 1 team to many, so.... the team who finnished bottom of the ireland 2 would be removed from the league and would be entered into a semi pro league, (something like east of scotland which spartans play in, but obv the irish version) then because scotland didnt have any relegated from the super they wud be 1 team short so.... a semi pro team would be promoted into national scotland 2, alot like the situation with annan athletic, who were nominated for scottish league football last season.

 

Jeeze man! You haven't half went away & studyed that haha, Wouldn't it just work if it was England thrown in aswel? Big Bristish League? The leagues would be huge! But still, all the top teams would be togetheir of course, but you start doing that, then the arguement of all the top European sides to go togetheir, then all the teams in the World, & then before you know it, your side is playing in Division 6 or 7, not saying Celtic would be that far down, but just for an example, it would cause alot of problems..

 

Pretty daft idea. All that hastle and issues that would create to see Irish and Welsh club sides. Celtic vs Sligo Rovers. Mouth watering stuff. The Welsh ones simply wont join and the Irish ones are no better than what we have, probably worse. A 14 team Atlantic League with all the big fish in small pond teams of Scotland, Portugal, Belgium, Holland and Denmark would be an improvement.

 

haha yeah mate once ive got an idea in my head theres no stopping me. theres no way england would want in, they have got it perfect with the premiership, where as ireland n wales have struggling leagues, so good chance of them joining

 

Which clubs in Northern Ireland, Rep of Ireland and Wales (excluding Cardiff, Swansea and Blue Square premier Wrexham who would never leave the english set-up) would represent any more of a challenge to us than Hearts, Hibs & Dundee United?

None, would be my answer.

 

i think the league would be just as *. it be still hoops or huns every year and couldnt imagine major spondoolies for tv rights either. imo celtic should stay in scotland, win the league every season, bury rangers,take most of the cl tv money every year and eventually we'll get a few gems in, and build a sensible team around them along with hopefully some young'ns comin through, its not unrealistic.

 

they seem to want as many old firm derby's as possible so i dont think the sfa would go for this, see where ur comin from though, would prob make the league more competative.

 

Trouble is it wouldn't get much TV investment. Who is going to pay to show Aberdeen v Llanelli? or Llanferfechin v Galway? It would all come down the Celtic & Rangers again. The whole issue of leaving the SPL is so we can pit our wits against TOP opposition. The likes of Liverpool, Man U & Chelsea etc.
I would be more inclined to go with the North Atlantic type league with teams from Holland, Belgium, Scandanavia & Portugal. I don't really want us to leave the Scottish set up, but barring a complete restrucuring of the system we are going to stagnate as the TV money is what gives the top European clubs an advantage over the rest of us. Even teams like Hull City, Wigan & Stoke have a major financial advantage over us.
The Celtic league thing is a nice romantic notion but financially it just wouldn't cut it.

 

Because it's *, and the financial differences between our league and the one down south are astounding. If we could piggy-back on the EPL, with the support our team gets and the fact that we're in a good light as far as debt goes would really see us increase our average player quality. But I know you know that already, as I've seen that you're pretty knowledgable Orthodox. To answer what I think was your real question, it's a romantic idea, and one which would be mega-positive for us if it happened, so we the fans hold on to what little hope there is that we don't stay on the sinking ship that is the SPL.

 

Never mind the fact this would not happen how does this create a more competitive and financially lucrative league for Celtic? It wouldn't. Cardiff and Swansea could compete maybe with Celtic and the huns but they are not going to leave the English leagues. Beyond that there is nobody. The best teams after the above mentioned ones are the top 2-3 teams from the Eircom leagues who are no better at best then mid table spl teams.

 

Haha, cheers for that.

But I really don't think we would do well down south. As you see, we're in * league where we are with poor teams whose standard drags us down seriously. We are poor in Europe mainly because we can't afford better quality because of SPL and its poor standard. Something needs to be done, I agree, but I'm not convinced England is the solution.

But few facts are breaking illusion of many fans.

- They don't want us.

- We don't have any right to jump in their league just like that ahead of man other teams with same ambitions like us.

- Many incidents would be seen from Old Firm and English fans.

- We wouldn't be able to compete seriously in first few seasons, therefore we would have to spend big time and risk debt if we are to do anything more than just surviving among the best of EPL.

- We would also risk debt and coming from an environment where so much money is strange, we would have to adapt quickly if we are to fit in well and try to mathc our ambitions.

- Overall, it's all one big farce and it will probably never happen, even Keane has more chances of coming to Celtic then us coming to him.:icon_mrgreen:

And if we want to make a big step forward, Atlantic League would be the best solution and it's more feasable than EPL.

 

imo the most realistic possibility is the evolution of the champions league. champions league football is what everyone watches every year and anticipates, it draws the huge tv crowds and most of the worlds best teams are on show. i reckon it will end up evolving so that it becomes the main thing played for during the season, im talking like 20+ games a season. it wont happen quickly but at the end of the day money talks

 

What about a Cup competition between the Scottish/Irish/Welsh clubs to replace the League Cups in each respective league which has gone stale in Scotland at least.

Early rounds could be held in each country as normal then from say the fourth or fifth round the teams start to mix and clubs can be drawn against clubs from other countries.

Something similar happens in Ireland called the Setanta Cup I believe?

I think there would be a big interest from sponsors for this sort of thing and could bring in a bit of needed cash for these countries without the need for the Old Firm to move down south or whatever.

Early rounds could be (for example):

Queen of the South v. Berwick Rangers, etc (for Scottish clubs).

Then as these clubs progress to say a last 8 for Scotland, 8 for Wales and 8 for N. Ireland and ROI, a group stage could kick in and all the teams mixed up.

So we could see:

Llannelli v. Heart of Midlothian

What do you think? Would make things interesting for punters and sponsors.