Celtic shouldn't join the Premier League

Wednesday, 22 April 09, 03:58 PM · Comments (0)

And the "Old Firm to the Premier League" story rears it's ugly head for 2009.

Nearly every football season, without fail, we hear of how either Celtic, Rangers or both have an interest in joining the (English) Premier League and every year they get rebuffed with good reason. This year, it's Celtic again.

Yes, Celtic and Rangers are massive clubs that play before crowds of 60,000 and 52,000 nearly every week. Yes, Celtic and Rangers are worldwide clubs and yes Celtic and Rangers are punching well below their weight in the Scottish Premier League. But they need to stay in the Scottish Premier League.

The first and most obvious reason is how blatantly unfair it would be to First Division (sorry, "Coca-Cola Championship") clubs to deny them two chances at promotion to the most lucrative league in the world, a league many First Division clubs had a hand in building mind you, just to allow entry for the Glaswegian pair.

Another reason is how in the world would you pull it off? The Premier League isn't going to expand to twenty-two clubs and further dilute it's revenues just for the Old Firm which means there will be a bottle neck in terms of promotion and relegation. What do you do? Do you send two extra clubs down to the Football Conference, possibly killing them? Or do you expand the Football League to ninety-four clubs and again dilute the revenue which is so vital to many of those same clubs? You can't do either.

I know many will point to the fact that the Premier League could have a Welsh club (be it Cardiff or long-shots Swansea) among it's ranks, but there is a distinct difference. Cardiff or Swansea would have arrived on merit, having worked their way through the divisions, through tough aways at Birmingham, QPR, Wolves, Sheffield United, Watford, and the list goes on. Even Wrexham are more entitled to a Premier League place having given service and time to the Football League. The Old Firm haven't done this. I realize that Hearts, Hibs, Motherwell, Aberdeen and Killie are decent clubs with plenty of heritage, but they aren't First Division calibre clubs.

Would Celtic and Rangers allow Linfield and Glentoran to join their league? I think not.

Rather than bicker over the fate of Celtic and Rangers the Scottish FA should focus on more pressing matters. For instance, why was Gretna allowed to exist in the manner it was? Why are the fans in Gretna now without a league team because of this? Why are so many of our clubs facing financial ruin? Scottish football has bigger problems than two clubs crying for attention.

Celtic shouldn't join the Premier League

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