"The Other 10" RESIGN from the SPL!

[bloke]

Celtic and Rangers should join the English leagues right away. They should go right into Division 1 and I'm sure they would win it in one year and then they should go into the Premiership like I know they can.

Then everybody would be happy. Then maybe the SPL will get like 20 teams or so. That's the only thing I don't really like about SPL. Very few teams in one league so they have to play four times. The clubs are great though.

If Rangers and Celtic would play in England then I am sure Hearts or Aberdeen would get their chance to qualify and play in Europe.

 

[Jambo Den]

Originally posted by bloke
If Rangers and Celtic would play in England then I am sure Hearts or Aberdeen would get their chance to qualify and play in Europe.

we actually can through the UEFA cup spots but if we had a chance to play in the CL it would be brilliant for our clubs...

 

[bloke]

Champions League is just what Scotish clubs need. Then you'd have more teams playing in Europe. Some in CL, some in UEFA. Then the SPL would become even more popular.

 

[mhflierman]

Ok my essay starts here :

The collapse of professional football has just started.
Recently we have heard an amazing amount of bad news regarding professional football. First there was the collapse/troubles with ITV and ITV digital, after that Germany's Leo Kirch comapny (KirchGruppe) had major financial problems, causing him to sell almost his entire company to Rupert Murdoch and Silvio Berlusconi.

It all started with the Bosman trial. It became hard for clubs to keep their players, so they started to show off with money, the entire market was blown out of proportion and right now we're starting to realize that, it's collapsing. Everything is being valued properly again. It's a bit like the Internet/New Media hype from 2 years ago, stocks rose and rose but finally collapsed.

The German clubs paniced because the KirchGruppe had bought the TV rights for the German Bundesliga (and the WC 2002 and 2006 which has been saved due to a genius financial side-step). After the collapse of this deal, German clubs lost a major part of their income. There had to be renegotiated a new eal very quickly. Only this deal wasn't worth just a bit of the older one.

Let's move west, coming to the Netherlands. Not a major competition, but a sort of pond of young talent for the rest of Europe to fish from. Recently the finincial positions of the BVO's (Betaald Voetbal Organisties, in English: the professional football clubs) has been scrutinized. The conclusion of that rapport was devastating; almost every club has major financial problems with massive debts, including the "big" dutch clubs.

Let's cross the North Sea coming to Great Britain. There were the problems with ITV and ITV digital. There were clubs going into registration (dunno if that's correct English) because of their massive debts. Now the SPL seems to be collapsing. "It's like the Titanic man, it's all going down". (© Brad Pitt in Fight Club)

In a dutch football maginze it was explained quite nice. Football clubs are paying their players way too much, or have to many contracted players (Like Ajax who have over 50! contracted players who'll have to be paid). Most clubs don't generate enough income to balance the salary and other costs. So TV deals really helped to balance the costs. Clubs began to rely too much on the TV deals. Now that most people are getting a bit sick of all the football on TV and they stop watching, the TV stations are getting problems, and inflict that on the clubs.

There's only a few clubs who are finincially healthy. The really big ones who generate income by playing in the Champions League and selling merchandise. But the prize money of the European cups will also become less. The UEFA can't pay it much longer either, because they too pay the prizemoney with the money from TV deals.

The solution? I don't know, everything will devalue, players have to agree contracts worth a lot less then they could have had before. It may well be that Zidane or Figo will stay the most expensive footballer ever, because not one single club will, no CAN, pay that kind of money for a player again.

 

[monkee]

I haven't read much about this development. All I can gather is that the 'other 10' SPL clubs wanted more money and they figured that the best way to go about this was to set up their own TV Rights. Celtic and Rangers weren't happy with this risk so they decided not to join in the party, fair enough I think seeing as a lot of TV companies that rely on football for their revenue are going bust.

It is to risky in the present climate, and, in all fairness, I think Rangers and Celtic have more to lose because I'd guess they have more expenditures every year. It seems as if staying with Sky is the safe bet. Why fix something if it ain't broke I guess they are thinking.

If the 'other 10' are going to throw their rattles out of the pram if they can't all agree then it's only going to either be a benefit to or completely destroy the Scottish game. We'll see Celtic and Rangers join the English Football league now, although it'd be unfair to put them straight in the EPL. They seem to have wanted it for some time. Let the 'other 10' have what they want although I think the Scottish League is going to be worse for a few seasons because of it. What if the risk doesn't come off, will it be all over for Scottish football?