After some horse-trading towards the end of last week, involving a reluctant Spartak Moscow, a huge step was taken on Monday towards establishing a Unified Football Championship across former-Soviet countries. 14 Russian clubs met a representative club from the Ukrainian league in Moscow, with Ukrainian clubs now due a corresponding meeting.
The event was hosted by Gazprom deputy chairman, Alexei Miller, an ally of Vladimir Putin, who afterwards briefed Russian media and indicated Uefa were aware of their plans.
Miller said, “We think it is realistic to hold the championship from the autumn of 2014 to the spring of 2015, but if the time to reach agreements drags on, we plan to hold the championship from autumn 2015 to spring 2016.
“Since a championship like this is a complicated diplomatic matter, we have decided to initiate the championship initially with Ukraine only.
“In the future, if everything works out, we will be able to co-opt clubs from the other countries in the post-Soviet territories, but that’s the next step. All former-Soviet countries would be eligible to join.”
Show me the money
Gazprom sponsor the Uefa Champions League and are keen to sponsor the new league. Miller was clear that money would drive the change, promising annual sponsorship of €1 billion, which in world football is (a close) second only to the value of the next FA Premier League TV contract.
Uefa Financial Fair Play requirements make change, of some sort, inevitable in Russia and Ukraine. Leading clubs there are heavily subsidised by benefactors and, unless they manage to considerably improve their income, they will have to either get rid of all their expensive players, or forgo European competition.
As things stand, the sums don’t add up but money from a Unified Football Championship would allow clubs in Russia and Ukraine to meet Uefa Financial Fair Play requirements and compete with major leagues in the west. Gazprom have the seed cash and political influence, both domestically and at Uefa, to oil the wheels.
In 2005 Uefa sanctioned the Royal League in Scandinavia between the top four clubs from Denmark, Sweden and Norway, but the initiative was poorly organised and perished three years later due to a lack of a TV deal.
After this experiment several clubs across Europe started lobbying to extend the strategy to other leagues which were disenfranchised by a lack of competition or TV income. The principle was further confirmed by Michel Platini and the Uefa Executive Committee in March last year, when they approved a three year probationary period for the BeNe League, which combined top women’s teams from Belgium and the Netherlands, the first season of which is now underway.
The Committee stated at the time that, subject to a satisfactory outcome of the BeNe experiment, other cross-border leagues would be considered by the Executive Committee if all stakeholders (national associations, leagues and clubs) came to agreement on a way forward.
The former-Soviet countries are now motivated to regionalise. The Scandinavians have understood the potential of regionalisation for years but didn’t get it right (they retained national leagues which determined European qualification, the Royal League was effectively a friendly competition). The Belgians and Dutch have a pan-national league already underway, while the former-Yugoslav countries have discussed implementing the same for a couple of years now.
Wales and England have the longest-established regionalised league system in the world.
Meanwhile…………. at a national stadium near you, the only change on the agenda is whether to have three lower leagues or two.
Scottish football is fully aware the viability of many clubs is at a critical level, but have singularly failed to present the vision evident elsewhere in Europe. Whatever world-class technical, stadium and coaching resources we have is being squandered by unambitious leadership.
Months into deliberations Scottish football is only addressing how to slice up an ever-smaller pie. The enormous increase in income possible from regionalisation to SPL clubs, and what trickles-down to the lower leagues, dos not seem to have registered.
Hard cash can focus minds..
Spartak Moscow owner, Leonid Fedun, was highly critical of plans for the new league and insisted he would not attend Monday’s meeting but after doing so he said, “When I heard the budget per year was €1 billion I changed my mind and decided to attend. You can’t miss a chance to be the part of that game.”
Football across Europe is set for change, a fact a great deal of the UK media seem to have missed.
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Estadio
A wealth of good material still to be found over at the Yorkshire mans!!
A wee bit of bhun on bhun action could make the cold old day go with a swing..
Hope yer well Mate..
monteblanco
22:32 on
20 February, 2013
Allow me a wee bit of self- indulgence here, there must be tons of these stories…but this one’s mine.
Right, this is a story about a man named Joe. Before I get into his story I need to go back and tell you about his father and uncle. Two brothers from the wild and desolate landscape of county Tyrone in the late 1800’s. Although they were uneducated men they were in fact educators of a sort themselves. They were a kind of latter day seanchai or storytellers who travelled around performing stories and poems, keeping tradition alive as a form of entertainment in the days before X-factor. However they must have been driven to despair at some point at seeing the condition the country and the people were in.
So eventually through desperation they set out on a murderous road, to kill the hated tax collector. As far as freedom fighters go, they made good poets! Unfortunately the tax collector, who’s body had been dispatched down a well, made a full recovery and three days later was able to identify his would be assassins.
On hearing the news the brothers knew they were for the long jump with a short rope so a long horrendous boat trip to America was hastily arranged. What happened next is lost to history but somewhere down the line things never went as planned.
The boat arrived first in Glasgow. Now whether still full of the drink and thinking he was in New York, or whether he just couldn’t handle the boat, one brother got off. The boat left for America before the mistake was realised and the two brothers would never hear from, or see each other again.
Glasgow must have been a bit of a culture shock to its latest refugee and maybe being used to the countryside he couldn’t find any comfort in such an alien environment. Eventually he found his way to Lanarkshire and got work as a miner’s labourer. Anyone who has been to Summerlee museum will have seen the miner’s rows and the conditions that were available to that type of community. So that was him, he settled into another harsh existence, getting paid by a miner who in turn was paid a pittance based on the weight of coal he produced.
He married and started a family. As soon as each child was able, they were also put to work because survival was the only show in town. Well apparently not, the story goes that this man was a bit more than a miner’s labourer. He was known to run amateur dramatic classes (he ran other things as well… but anyway) shows would be performed to keep a sense of community spirit, history (and sanity I presume) as an escape from the world of social injustice above and extreme hardship below in the ground. Anyway by 1910 the eighth and last child would be born, Joe.
Another amazing thing about this father and his offspring was that at some point they all came to an agreement. Each of them had enough awareness and courage to accept that for them, this was there lot. Living hand to mouth in what was a brutally dangerous and unrelenting cycle, survival was the only reward. But not for Joe, no matter how little they would ever have they all agreed that something, however small would be put aside each week to ensure that Joe received an education. He was their hope. Getting him out would be enough reward for them all.
So Joe became educated. He qualified as a school teacher and by the 1930s he was ready to start. Now as fate would have it, his graduation coincided with the Great Depression. We call it Austerity now ‘cos it’s a far nicer word. There were no jobs for Joe. In fact, heavy industry was hit hardest by the depression and there were no jobs for his brothers either. He joined them in their daily walks (sometimes up to twenty miles) every day looking for work, casual or otherwise on farms or railways or mines.
By the late Thirties he did manage to get a job as a rookie teacher and things were looking up for a change. Then Adolf chapped his door. Not literally, it was actually the postman with a letter inviting him (cough) to join in the great battle to maintain civilisation against the brutal Nazi threat to his altogether more decent way of life. A life he had been so accustomed to.
Anyway, being in the first wave of conscripts and being educated had its perks. He wouldn’t be sent to the front line, he would be resourced to intelligence. This didn’t prevent him losing an eye and all his teeth right enough. Riding pillion on a bike in Scappa Flow at midnight saw to that. By the tail end of the war he would be in France, just behind the front line when news came of victory. There must have been a lot of joy and relief at the thought of de-mobbing and a return to civvy street. But then he got another letter. ‘Report to Dachau and carry out an inventory’. No one would ever find out what that entailed because even years later, asking Joe what that meant would be met with the same steely answer…’I was sent to do an inventory’. The only thing people knew about Joe and Dachau was that he was a different man from that day on. Having witnessed the horror of that place for an additional six months at the end of the war, it might seem churlish to complain about anything ever again. Perhaps churlish would be coming home to find the job you had been promised back was actually gone, on account of you being late back from the war?
So another fight for employment was eventually successful and in the meantime Joe married and started a family. He would eventually have three daughters but the third birth sadly claimed the life of his wife. So that meant the hardest part of his life was only just beginning!
I never knew any of this till long after Joe had died. I only remember him as an old man, a retired headmaster in a camel coat and trilby sitting in area B of the old main stand of Celtic Park. Aye, remember all those wee dapper old men? I would turn and head up the stairs and he was there. Beside him on the next seat was a pair of leather driving gloves and a packet of crisps. They were there to keep my seat, the only seat at the stairs with nothing in front so a small grandson could see the game without the obstruction of anyone directly in front. We sat together and watched big Roy Aitken and Tommy Burns do their stuff and he always thought Charlie Nic was a bit too flashy for his liking.
Anyway, is there a point to this? Yes there is (At last! I hear you say)
My son got a message this morning. He has been accepted into Glasgow University to study medicine. So this story is just a big kind of a toast I suppose….to my Granda, his Da and their family. To my mother and to the sacrifices they all made to make today a reality. From the blighted lands of Tyrone to the hellish Lanarkshires mines, from the ravages of war and economic collapse but eventually to the gates of Glasgow University School of Medicine. From desperation came celebration as the song goes.
So there ye have it….. another cinderella story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_-u_cmEWqU
P.S. Oliver Cromwell GIRFUY :)
>>>>>>>>>
still wiping the tears from my eyes.
A wonderfully poignant and ultimately uplifting tale.
HH!
I am sure I heard Green-finger say on talk-bollocks with Keysie and Greysie that he had settled all ranglers football debts . That was several weeks ago.
Now we hear that he has only just paid part of the Jelly debt.
How much of the other fitba debts have been paid -in full?
Anybody know what they are saying over on Zombie Zombie regarding ole Chuckles v Murray?
I wonder if they will try to buy Murray’s silence? Maybe a steak bake and a sausage roll from Supper Sally…or is that a deal too far for the chunky chappy?
So many questions…
Chis Graham and hurting Huns congratulating Mark Daly on twitter.
Eye done oot CSC
V
Monteblanco 22.32
A magic story of which our forefathers would be proud
Congrats to all concerned :D
AC Milan 2 —— Barcelona 0 .
Some comments .
” Sometimes you need to do more than turning up and saying Hey -we’re Barcelona “.
Arrigo Sacchi
” The tie is far from over . Maybe they’ll be interested in scoring next time ”
Abbiati [ the AC Milan goalie ]
NB —– Today’s Fitba Pink doesn’t give Abbiati’s performance a mark out of ten – reason ?. . He had nothing to do beyond watching Barca .
” AC Milan 294 passes and 2 goals/ Barcelona 805 passes and 1 shot at goal “.
Sicilian radio football analyst..
” Barcelona were Monotematico ”
Mediaset post match pundit..
Big black sky —— going to be a monsoon -way down south.
monteblanco
22:32 on
20 February, 2013
Wonderful story and congratulations to your son!!
Tim Malone Will Tell
09:07 on
21 February, 2013
Anybody know what they are saying over on Zombie Zombie regarding ole Chuckles v Murray?
———
They are somewhat confused Tim:
“Most reports are focussing on an apparent, or alleged unsuitability for Murray to his present role. We have to read between the lines to guess what that means.
However, it’s no surprise that the Rebel alone is trying to twist it into a Green/Murray power struggle in the hope it discredits Green. Green has the haters in a whirl and they will do anything they can to sink him (and the Gers).”
———
“Do you think Malcolm Murray would have the standing in the business community in London that he does if he was a raging alky turning up for meetings pished and blabbing company business to whatever jakey happened to be propping up the bar next to him?
It’s a stitch-up, pure and simple.”
——-
“I don’t know about blabbering at the bar but I do know 100% about turning up for meetings reeking of booze.
As for standing in business community (and I’m not saying he has a drink problem) you could write a book about business men who hit the bottle.”
I’m now 95% lurker, but had to chip in to say congrats to monteblanco’s boy and to thank him for the story, beautifully told, sad & hard but beautiful at the same time.
Monaghan,
Thanks for that, I could see that this could send them into a tailspin of confusion. Amazing that some show unquestioning loyalty to Green – all for the princely sum of £2.
Stii, I suppose when you are selling hope to the hopeless…
corkcelt
09:38 on
21 February, 2013
I’m now 95% lurker, but had to chip in to say congrats to monteblanco’s boy and to thank him for the story, beautifully told, sad & hard but beautiful at the same time.
———-
95% lurking is proven to be bad for the heath – get posting!
They may prefer him drunk if this is what he says when he is sober.
Malcolm Murray, on appointment as chairman,
“I have spent most of my working life developing a long-term investment philosophy, taking stakes in companies and working closely with the boards while imposing the highest standards of corporate governance.
“It is my firm intention to ensure high standards of transparency and probity are adopted and the club will be managed with a prudent long-term strategy avoiding the fiefdoms and excesses of the past.
“With that approach I am sure that Rangers can look forward to better days.”
In fact, with those stated aims it is surprising that he got the gig !
Reading those extracts Monaghan1900 posted ……..all I can think is YAHOO more H*n on H*n slamdown action…………does this make me a bad person
monteblanco
Brilliant. That should be published somewhere. Certainly the next CQN magazine for starters.
corkcelt
I have just added your donation to my Just Giving Page ( along with a made up comment where I wish myself all the best!!). Thanks again and it was excellent to meet you and Mick.
JJ
Good morning fellow Celts from sunny Renfrewshire – fresh and breezy
Monteblanco- some pipers, harpers and bards lived to tell the tale. Superb!
corkcelt
You’re at it,you had 95% of the posts last week :O) HH
It will be interesting to see what Murray has to say if he is forced out. I’m sure he will have a few stories to tell – although Charles will surely try to put some sort of gagging clause into any agreement reached.
Yessss!!! Just bagged some tickets for Springsteen’s opening of the new Leeds arena.
P
gordybhoy64
I disagree.
JJ
Morning, no rain, no wind, no frost in the very cool but pleasant Chilterns…
Interesting piece Paul67,
I know you would dearly like precedents to be set so Celtic could be elevated to a larger stage, a platfom the scale and ambition at our Club deserves.
However the ex USSR, Russian Ukraine model is an example of the unique difficulties that each union of Associations will present.
I can think of several issues but lets look at one, where is Georgia in all of this? Surely a no brainer for an invite in Football terms yet Russia’s recent invasion has made things tetchy.
Of course our no brainer in Footballing terms is a British League, but the fact is that Scotland have only one competitive team to offer and less than 10% of the populace to bring to the party.
So as long as Companies like BT are ready to up the ante and pay colossal sums for FAPL TV rights we are out in the cold.
It would be good to see Scotland’s Capital’s sides or the west coast’s aul new firm looking to making the most of the opportunities afforded by the recent changes in Scottish Football but I see no spark of ambition within these Clubs.
Of course we ourselves have certain issues to deal with, we always will have but Celtic are doing most things right, financial prudence, the academy, excelling with scouting and coaching allowing us to perform above our weight on the pitch, a World Class Football experience to match Europe’s top arenas etc.. etc..
Truth is we’ll just have to keep on patiently succeeding and improving till the right platform is ready to invite us. Scotland is not going to help.
Hail! Hail!
Have to say old Leggoland blog excels itself today.
First Speirs was the bad guy or Odious Creep as he calls him.
Next it’s the BBC and Mark Daly spreading untruths.
After that we get the posing poltroon Alex Thompson.
Today, unbelievably, it’s the DR and, of all people, Keech Jackson who’s now seeking to damage Rangers.
Wow, what a cast. Just how much drink must this guy take to produce such pash.
Leggo been on the meths again I see.
HH!!
Sorry,don’t know what P was all about
Interesting to read the Spanish media portraying Barcelona’s performance last night as their ‘worst in 5 years’.
One or 2 Milan players crowing about Barcelona’s performance.
Sets the 2nd leg up nicely.
Of course I mean’t the East coast’s aul new firm in my last post.
Don’t want to see an such association in the West Coast again.
Although logic tells us that the next competitive Scottish team may well come from a new Club in Glasgow, the meteoric rise of a Football team is oft predicted but seldom achieved.
Man City did it.
Leeds United didn’t.
Interesting:
THE Football Association has closed the door on any attempt by Glasgow City to join the English Women’s Super League.
The Scottish champions revealed they were considering the move because the game in Scotland is not expanding at the same pace as their ambitions.
Monteblanco 22.32
Thank you for posting that amazing piece. Congratulations to your son
Hail Hail
Stephen with a “ph”
Just dropped into say….
Monteblanco
You must be so very proud.
I’m sure the guid fholk from
up above will be smiling very
favorably on yer own guid fholk.
All The VERY Best M8.
God Bless
I had been wondering were Paul conville had been…
http://scotslawthoughts.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/charles-green-lenders-options-craig-whyte-and-lessons-for-rangers-from-sheffield-united/
I see the troll is back!!!
http://newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-opinion/6781-the-sectarian-foundation-of-the-united-kingdom
An interesting wee read for those vote no people and anyone else who is interested.
Remember Aiden McAnespie Murdered 25 Years Ago Today.
To say it was an accident was the greatest crime of all
To his heart-broken family, the worst that could befall
Now a cross marks the lonely spot where young Aiden was gunned down
As he strolled along on that sunny day on his way to the Gaelic Ground.
European Regional Leagues?
Will probably come about sooner rather than later – but what form will they take?
I can also foresee political and nationalistic tensions coming into play.
Personally I feel that a Balkan league – comprising clubs from the former Yugoslavia – could be a recipe for disaster. Feelings in the region between Serbs on the one hand, and Croats, Bosnians and the rest on the other are still tense.
In Belgium the President of Standard Liege – which lies in the French speaking part of the country – has said that if talks on forming a cross-border league with the Dutch come to nothing, his club will try and gain entry to the French league.
What about Switzerland? Clubs from the German speaking part join a league with Austrian clubs or try and gatecrash into the Bundesliga? What about clubs from the French speaking part of the country?
British/British Isles league? Never see the light of day in my opinion.
Scandinavian league – a possibility.
… and others.
Where does all this leave Celtic?
I really have no idea!
HH!!
Snake Plissken
10:51 on 21 February, 2013
Ever wonder why the SNP are known as the Stricty No Papes party?
Snake Plissken
Those anti-Catholic precepts were set down to underpin the Monarchy as unwaveringly Protestant following a long period of religious warfare.
I do not see what it contributes to the Independence debate since the Independence Campaign is committed to retaining the monarchy and have made no commitment to alter its terms.
Monteblanco 22.32
I would like to thank all those posters who congratulated Monteblanco on a great post.
I had initially paged down thru the article thinking I would go back later and read it. Probably wouldn’t have !
However after reading all the congrats thoght I had better go back and read it, and yes it was a great story, though thought the bit where they tried to eliminate the tax collector was a bit mmmm .