The old firm moving on?

I am going to start with a little history, it’s relevant to the rest of this post. The Act of Union 1800 merged Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland and created the imaginatively named United Kingdom. The monarchy and government were in London and that’s how it was untill the Anglo-Irish treaty partitioned Ireland in 1921.

Because of political instability, occasional famine and opportunity there was a significant emigration from Ireland to Scotland in the 19^th and early 20^th century and settled in East Glasgow and Edinburgh. In 1876 the Irish in Edinburgh formed Hibernian FC, a few years leter Celtic FC were founded in East Glasgow, both clubs have very strong Irish and catholic identity.

A couple of years earlier Ranger FC started play in Glasgow, originally the club had no particular religious or ethnic identity, they just wanted to play football.

In the late 1800 Rangers and Celtic became the two biggest clubs in Glasgow and the rivalry grew. Around the turn of the century Rangers took on a more and more protestant identity, untill the club and religion were almost inseparable.

Clearly this is more than a regular sporting rivalry, there is a complex history that’s a mix of politics, religion, bigotry and occasional violence that have come together to make it so much more than just a game. The clubs have made moves to keep the worst of the sectarianism out of the grounds, but they also get the importance of the religious divide to the rivalry. A game at either club had a tremendous atmosphere and any football fan should make the trip to Celtic Park or Iborx for a game, it’s quite an experience.

This is all background to where I’m going. In last weeks Sunday Times Graham Spiers wrote an interesting piece about Ranger and Celtic leaving the Scottish Premier League and joining the English league pyramid.

I don’t feels it’s quite as inevitable as Graham Spiers does, but it’s a move that makes sense for what are two of the best supported clubs in the world, and today money is what makes world football go around.

Financially it’s a no brainer, the SPL clubs are getting just under $4million a year from TV, while Premier league teams get closer to $70million. Then there are the so called “big games”, currently they play each other three times a year. In the EPL they will have a full stadium every week.

There is some football precedence for this that sets a precedent. FC Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are Canadian teams play in US football leagues. Cardiff and Swansea both play in the English leagues and Wellington (New Zealand) play in the Australian top tier.

I’m sure the most vocal opponents will be the smaller Premier league clubs, a pair of which will be displaced from the big money top division into the championship to make way.

The Scottish league is in a financially perilous state after the collapse of Sentana last year, and loosing the big pay day clubs get when they play Ranger and Celtic will not make it healthier. However I can’t think of a country that has as many nominally professional clubs as Scotland, and a little thinning of the heard as clubs go part time will be painful, but ultimately may benefit the game in the longer term.

How they would join the Premier League is another question. There has been some talk about the creation of “Premier 2” to make two 18 team divisions. If this were to happen then the inclusion of the Scottish giants becomes fairly straight forward. Of course the formation of Premier 2 depends on TV money, and this year the Scottish teams have seen how quickly that can go away.

As ever some clubs will miss out on the payday that premier league TV money brings, today Coventry City would be one of those teams on the “Premier 2” bubble, add two more clubs and admission to the top tier become more difficult again for the Sky Blues.

I can see significant positives for Rangers, Celtic and the English clubs they would play. There are negatives, but ultimately TV money will decide which way it goes. If “Premier 2” happens then I agree with Graham Spiers that we will see the old firm playing in England, I think it’s more difficult to pull off if the structure does not change.

I’m interested in seeing what happens next.