I see the Sun have a steer today that Celtic “will join forces” with clubs from Netherlands, Portugal and Belgium to oppose the suggestion from Barcelona and Bayern Munich that the likes of Manchester United should get automatic access to the Champions League, whether they qualify or not.
The consensus spreads beyond the countries mentioned above, Greece and Turkey also have large teams, unable to take advantage of lucrative domestic TV contracts.
As Barcelona’s Josep Bartomeu told the BBC, the FA Premier League presents a real threat to all clubs outside it. The suggestion is that TV and commercial values of the Champions League should be bolstered (which it would by having Manchester United next season instead of Galatasaray) to raise the income dividend for all participants.
This proposal would put more income onto Barcelona and Bayern’s top lines but it would not change the fundamental issue that the English and Welsh league generates vastly more income than any other domestic league. Raising income generated from Champions League football would not reduce the disparity in income from domestic football between England and Wales, and the rest.
What’s needed is a league to replace the existing domestic leagues, filled with big teams with large stadiums packed with supporters each week. There are enough big European clubs outside of England capable of fitting this criteria to fill two 20 team leagues.
Two divisions of 20, broadcast live across the world on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, each game played by huge clubs in front of >50,000 seater stadiums would dwarf the England and Wales league.
The earning potential is there to make it happen. What’s needed is someone to put money on the table.
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BMCUWP
BORROWSTOUNNESS if you don’t mind.
Thanks for the ad Boaby!
I’ll keep you posted.
Philbhoy on 24th February 2016 1:06 pm
Sandman
I must confess, that in my younger days, I sang the song about Mr Guff.
Hope your wee girl is all good!
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She’s back and bouncing and full of boundless energy, just the way it should be, cheers.
LOL, those Camptown Races, do-da, do-da, day…
Sandman
Good news and thanks!
Deary me: Philbhoy on 24th February 2016 1:27 pm
‘When the mankies are back in the top league next season …’
Back in the top league … ?
Shurely shome mishtake.
VIP
The CL was set up because Granada (remember them?) had sponsored the old European Cup and their favoured team ,Man U, were put out in the 1st round by Galatasary. Change took place the following year, I think.
Dharma Bam
BT Showcase shows a game (free) on terrestrial every week. Most likely will have the final.
Barrowstounness or Bo’ness?
So confusing , even the locals cannae spell it!
Paul67
OK. So we have the Financial Champions league – Closed Shop
Then we will have the top 40 50,000 seater clubs of Europe League – Closed Shop
Then we will have the clubs who think they should be in the Financial Champions League but are not rich enough, so therefor deem themselves worthy of the Top 40 50,000 seater league. Who will then setup a Top 40 40,000+ seater league structure – closed shop.
Don’t you just love competition!
I can’t wait to be a part of one of these structures were we play for financial gain and paying OTT salaries to guys who are no too bad at kicking a baw, as well as massive bonus’s to grey suits, while we rob the season book holders of more cash for a product that isn’t worth much more than SPFL crap we have.
If it looks like a a farce..?
Yippppeeeeee!
MWD the Baw has a slow puncture and my love for the game is slowly leaking away.
B arrow or B orrow
Can I borro yer barra?
I support the Junior docs.
But were where the junior docs when they came for the miners, the ship builders, heavy engineering, manufacturing, installed financial services as the main economic building block built on sand and corruption.
It’s no easy when they finally get round to coming for you.
Time to closwe down the country and rid us of this hateful evil Tory corrupt self serving government.
MWD
POGMATHONYAHUN 121
A few of the lads have met my lurking sisters. Fitba’ mad,the pair of them.
The younger one refused the invite from the other to nip round to watch last night’s game. F…..g boring same old,can watch the best of it in two minutes on YouTube.
That sister is football mad. And she’s fed up. TV might be eating itself. So too the CL. Same teams,same ties.
Familiarity doesn’t only breed contempt. It also breeds an audience who decide that their-lets be honest here-F…..G GRAND A YEAR-might be better spent on something they enjoy.
Parkheadcumsalford on 24th February 2016 1:45 pm The CL was set up because Granada (remember them?) had sponsored the old European Cup and their favoured team ,Man U, were put out in the 1st round by Galatasary. Change took place the following year, I think.
———-
Think that was the second season of the CL (93-94).
I think the idea started kicking around a few years earlier – maybe after Milan knocked out Real Madrid in the early rounds.
I also seem to recall the chairman/owner of a club not too far away being involved in discussions as his team kept on getting knocked out early. Whatever happened to that club……..?
looking for some advice on something
its my girls birthday soon and she is looking to get a guitar , she will be 10
and was wondering if anyone had any advice/pointers on what kind/brand i should look at
thanks in advance
brnobhoy
Macjay:
Those doctors, kid doctors, they live in a different time from what was once that we knew.
You don’t walk in their shoes.
You’re comfortable.
Wealth and security and a life from a different era and a different hemisphere.
You do yourself no favours by decrying them a life possibly a fraction of what you have.
Deprive a man of sleep and you take away his mind.
Deprive a man of sleep and you take away his mind.
Deprive a man of sleep and you take away his mind.
You really should know better.
I hope we all have food on our tables.
The table does not have to be big nor the wine expensive.
What matters most of all is who your eyes see and who looks on you fondly.
Fondly for your heart, not your perceived riches.
No wealth is greater than humanity.
Rare night out on Friday, meeting an old friend in town, West George St/Sauchiehall end of town. Anyone got a recommendation for the game? More mainstream than rebs. Malone’s still OK?
PHILBHOY
Right enough,you stay there. I only visited it on occasion over thirty years ago.
The locals weren’t too happy at me having a whale of a time with their local sweetheart. Neither were her parents.
Hence I didn’t stay around long enough to learn how to spell it properly(!)
Glass2/3s
Bt might well put the final on as a free for all but unfortunately I’m not sure they are obliged to.
Imo there’s some games that should compulsory be on terrestrial and that is one of them
HH
brnobhoy
My wee two have got into keyboard. Their teacher steered us away from guitar, quite tough on their fingers at that age, but if she’s committed speak to a guitar teacher if you can, they are great advisors on age and stage relevant gear.
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS
Couldn’t agree more with your sister’s view. I have stopped watching Champions League knockout stages because it’s just like watching repeats every year. Barca and Bayern might love that but I don’t.
Remember the Porto vs Monaco final? That will never happen again – I genuinely think the rich teams and UEFA consciously decided that that would never happen again. The competition is dead.
brnobhoy
accoustic electric or classical ?
BlantyreKev
the Griffin should be ok but phone ahead as it’s the last weekend under present owners
From April 2014:
====
Bayern Munich’s dominance in Germany means now is the time for a European Superleague
Surely it’s inevitable that the continent’s giants will break away and form their own competition
There is a widespread belief in Germany that Bayern Munich have become so good, so strong, so omnipotent, that they have simply outgrown the Bundesliga.
Their last defeat in the competition came back in October 2012. They won the treble last season, adding the Champions League to their domestic cup and league double.
This season, they have won the title with seven games and six weeks to spare and they have done so while operating on cruise control.
That should worry the rest of European football and it should, whether they are willing to admit it or not, alarm Uefa.
However, this is not because Pep Guardiola’s side are bound to become the first side to win the Champions League two years running. They are not destined to become the dominant football club on the continent for a generation.
A spirited, but limited performance by a Manchester United side that sits seventh in the Premier League has shown they are not superhuman and that, contrary to what you might have been led to believe by the slightly over-the-top profiles of him, Guardiola is not a magician.
Yet, that is precisely why Bayern may be the biggest threat to the European football landscape for decades.
If Bayern are, as seems to be the case, going to find it so easy to win their domestic championship for years to come, they are, despite all the silverware and success, going to become bored. With boredom, comes the desire for change; a quest for new challenges and the creation of bolder goals.
They want to face arduous nights like their trip to Old Trafford more often, they want to go to Arsenal and win and they want to take on Barcelona, Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain home and away, so why not do it every year in a league format?
The Champions League offers Bayern their severest test, just as it offered Barcelona theirs during their golden years under Guardiola, just as it has for the various Galacticos sides of Real Madrid.
But even the Champions League has become little more than a procession for Bayern and the other superpowers of European football as they trot towards qualifying for the knockout stage.
It is only when the competition reaches the last 16, when the best play the best, that it really sets pulses racing. Increasingly, it is the same 16 teams, give or take one or two surprises, who reach this stage.
The Champions League replaced the “lottery” of the European Cup, an old-fashioned knockout competition played over two legs, because it was Uefa’s concession to the big clubs to keep them under its umbrella.
By creating a group stage with lavish prize money, Uefa pumped more money into the big club coffers, while heading off the threat of a breakaway European Superleague.
At one stage, they even followed one group stage with another, although thankfully this was scrapped.
The big clubs had formed their own body to represent their interests, the G-14, and had threatened to create their own competition where the best, richest and most glamorous clubs from Europe would play each other in a midweek league alongside their domestic ones.
The G-14 has since been replaced with the European Club Association, formed in 2008 with the mission statement of “directly representing football clubs at European level…..to create a new more democratic governance model that truly reflects the key role of football clubs in football.”
It is a more inclusive body, but it is still led by the same superpowers who created the G-14 as a rival to Uefa hegemony.
Consider this. The ECA Executive board is made up of representatives from Bayern Munich, Barcelona, AC Milan, Anderlecht, CSKA Moscow, Juventus, Real Madrid, Arsenal, Ajax, Olympiacos, Sparta Prague, Celtic and FK Ekranas.
With the exception of Ekranas from Lithuania, all of the above would be prime candidates to compete in a European Superleague should one be formed. Interestingly the ECA chairman is Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, chief executive of Bayern Munich.
The idea of a European Superleague containing 20, or even 24 of the biggest clubs is not a new one. It has been repeatedly raised in different guises and various potential formats for the best part of 30 years, but just because it hasn’t happened yet does not mean it never will.
Uefa have managed to appease the big clubs with the Champions League, but they may soon come under renewed pressure to change the format.
A league makes sense to clubs like Bayern Munich who have outgrown their domestic competition and want to challenge themselves against clubs of an equal stature on a regular, say fortnightly, basis. A pan-European television audience would be huge and so would the advertising revenue.
They are not alone. Celtic were so dominant in Scotland this season they could barely rouse themselves to celebrate winning the title in the absence of the Auld Enemy Glasgow Rangers.
Celtic, though, are financially hamstrung by the relative poverty of the Scottish Premier League and they will never grow without something fundamentally changing in the way they compete in Europe
Paris Saint Germain have, through what appears to be a blatant breaking of Uefa’s Financial Fairplay Rules, turned themselves into potential Champions League winners.
In doing so, with the exception of another foreign billionaire funded club, Monaco, PSG have moved into an economic sphere that other French clubs cannot hope to compete with.
In Austria, Red Bull Salzburg have won their fourth title in six years thanks to the backing of the energy drink manufacturer.
In Spain, Atletico Madrid have emerged from the also-rans, but it is the first time a club, other than Barcelona and Real Madrid, has had a realistic chance of winning the title since Valencia a decade ago.
Atletico have a wonderful side, as did Athletic Bilbao a few years ago, but they, like Bilbao, do not have the money to resist huge bids for their best players, which will surely come in the summer. That should return La Liga to a two-horse race again.
Portugal have Benfica, Porto and Sporting Lisbon, Belgium have Anderlecht, Greece have Olympiacos and Holland have Ajax. In most of the Eastern European leagues it is the same.
The exceptions come in Italy and England, where the playing field, for differing reasons, has become a more level one. In Italy, that has been down to a lack of money, in England it is due to the huge sums pumped in by two television companies competing for broadcasting rights. In these leagues there are arguably a big four or five rather than one, two or three.
But in a country where, increasingly, La Liga’s El Clasico between Barcelona and Real Madrid draws as much hype as say, Liverpool vs Manchester United or Chelsea vs Manchester City, can we really still say a European Superleague does not make sense?
It is starting to look like making sense for Bayern and where the Bavarians lead, others tend to follow.
BRNOBHOY
Make sure her fingers can reach round the fret board.
Speaking from experience!
Why should the Germans, or any nation for that matter, be allowed to dictate to a continent?
Is Brussels included in this proposed ‘exclusive’, clichy, super league. The ‘master’ footballers only league?
Very topical and interesting article from Gerry Hassan on free speech and our right to be offended among other things.
http://www.scottishreview.net/GerryHassan25a.html
Sorry if already posted.
Geordie Munro
When BT announced the deal I seem to recall them saying the final would be on free-to-view, but I can’t be absolutely certain on that. Time will tell I guess.
this atlantic league sort of thing has been talked about for decades,nothing has happened,it would change my whole footballing experience,I go to most away games in scotland,if it was european based i just could not afford it,someone on hear suggested that Hearts and Aberdeen would be part of it,no chance of that far too small and virtually unknown outside this country,what needs to happen is for the Champions League to be that,Champions only ,a fair competition,hey it might be the only fair competition we are involved in,given the corrupt crap we put up with here.
Are the football authorities, as they line their own pockets, revisiting despicable history and trying to deprive the world of parochial culture and voice?
Never….
Not in this day and age… surely?
The teams looking to start a closed shop competition have the biggest world wide support
.
This generates the biggest TV deals,advertising and so on.
We maybe be bored of it but if its the team you support it’s different.
IF there is any semblance of an Atlantic or whatever league, I will bet my life the huns will be included, too much pay per view for them not to be.
Philbhoy on 24th February 2016 1:09 pm SoT
I’m looking for a Maths tutor for my daughter who is doing her Nat 5’s.
=====================================
Philbhoy, if you are not sorted, please email me on celticrollercoaster@yahoo.co.uk, as I have an idea which may help.
HH
CRC
GlassTwoThirdsFull,
Thanks for that info. I did see your post earlier and tried to posted my thanks but it got lost in the ether somewhere.
lennon’s passion
on the one hand…’meddling with the unmeddlable’ …
On the other hand, European football as whole could be making a whole lot more from TV when compared with the NFL, for example, so this alone tell us us its full potential is not been met.
A closed shop is not the answer as the sameness will become stale pretty quickly.
As far as Celtic were concerned we were operating with one hand behind our back anyway but that could soon be two. Thankfully there ARE a lot of other clubs in the same boat as us.
There has to be a solution which suits the so called ‘Superclubs’ AND everyone else.
It can’t be that hard, can it? A solution that opens up European football and caters for all yet retains the essence of competition, using the current coefficients to determine where you start.
I mean they’ve succeeded in detecting gravitational waves how hard is it to come up with a structure for the European game that doesn’t restrict based on national borders!
HH
CRC
Cheers M!
We have a friend who is a maths teacher and she said last year to let her know if we needed help.
She lives nearby so she would be perfect. C will be contacting her today.
I will let you know if we are stuck though.
Thank you so much for your offer of help.
CQN – MORE THAN JUST A BLOG!
oneofthe70percent on 24th February 2016 2:14 pm
I think we all have to look at the bigger picture.
Imagine a Celtic that were able to hold on to Van Dijk, Wanyama, Forster etc.
Home league games outwith games vs Aberdeen and Hearts this season have been stale.
In contrast even on the Europa league nights vs Fenerbache and Ajax the place was buzzing and that wasn’t against what would be considered ‘Tier 1’ clubs.
The Celtic support is raring to go but the life is being sucked out of us with so much negativity. Imagine a Celtic unrestricted by geographical constraints.
Why don’t we just go down the legal route – if Jean Marc Bosman can do it so can we.
HH
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS/Davidopoulos
Yep, the football we all new and loved is moribund, it will soon be more deceased than the deadybears
Glass2/3s,
I hope you are right neebs.
I’ll be OK as I have allrachannels ;), but I sometimes like going to my local for it which (along with many other pubs) doesn’t.
Lp,
Agree. The competition apparently is boring everyone but it still seems to ‘grow’
HH
knew
FOLKS,BODIES REQUIRED PLEASE!!!!!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By request,I have two dates for your calendar over the next few weeks. The first is a quiz night in aid of An Gorta Mor memorial.
It is at The Squirrel Bar,just off Gallowgate at 36 Stevenston Street on 11 March from 7pm.
Tickets are £5 per person,with live music afterwards. A good cause indeed,and a grand night a certainty. If you are interested,please either let me know or contact
hamiltontim88@yahoo.co.uk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Second is another cause close to all our hearts. The Annual Kano Foundation Dance.
This is at The Hilton in Glasgow on Saturday 9 April from 7pm.
Tickets are £40,and if last year is anything to go by,well worth your time and money.
Added bonus for you,I’ll miss both of these! If you are interested,please contact
sannabhoy@thekanofoundation.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If I’ve got any money left after Cheltenham and Dublin,not to mention the Grand National,I might be at the latter. Doubtful,especially if you all rush to ensure there are no tickets left-so there’s yer incentive,haha!
HH