In many ways Scottish football has never been in better shape. Per head of population, more of Scotland’s inhabitants pay to watch top-flight football in their country than anywhere else in Europe. In 2004-5, 73 per cent of SPL players were Scottish. However, when one is talking about Scottish football, one naturally focuses on ‘The Old Firm’ because they dominate the game far more than the top four do in England. On the face of it, they are doing well. In Europe, Celtic reached the last 16 of the Champions League for the first time in 2007, losing to eventual winners AC Milan.
In many ways Scottish football has never been in better shape. Per head of population, more of Scotland’s inhabitants pay to watch top-flight football in their country than anywhere else in Europe. In 2004-5, 73 per cent of SPL players were Scottish. However, when one is talking about Scottish football, one naturally focuses on ‘The Old Firm’ because they dominate the game far more than the top four do in England. On the face of it, they are doing well. In Europe, Celtic reached the last 16 of the Champions League for the first time in 2007, losing to eventual winners AC Milan. Rangers reached the Uefa Cup Final. Rangers enjoy a bigger home attendance than Liverpool, while Celtic are 17th in Europe’s rich list of clubs, the only operation in the top 20 from a minor domestic league outside of England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Nevertheless, small Premiership teams like Wigan and Fulham with less than 20,000 fans can easily outspend Celtic and Rangers because of television money. As SPL champions for the third successive year, Celtic earned £1.5m from last year’s deal with Setanta, whose coverage has received wide praise. The SPL has already agreed their next contract with Setanta which will start in 2010. It’s worth £31m per season for the whole league compared with the £35m Derby County alone received for finishing bottom of the Premiership. It’s total value is four per cent of the £775m Premiership deal. The Old Firm need somehow to get in a virtuous circle: they need success in Europe to be able to spend money, but they have to succeed in Europe to have the money to spend. Moreover, there is always the risk that Scotland could lose one of its two Champions League places if its Uefa coefficient falls.
So what’s the answer? The Old Firm would like to be in the Premiership, but the Premiership doesn’t want them. The one thing they would bring is a massive international support base at a time when that is becoming more important to the Premiership. But their presence would do nothing to help the bottom line of the leading clubs, while those down the league would not want two new competitors. In the early days of this page, we reported on the idea of an Atlantic League which would bring together some of the less important European football countries such as Holland, Portugal and Scotland. Uefa is talking informally to Belgium and the Netherlands about a new league, but that is hardly likely to involve Scotland. The Scandinavian Royal League, a winter competition, was a flop.
Investors from the Middle East and elsewhere are unlikely to be attracted to Scotland while there are still plenty of interesting English clubs potentially on the market. Glasgow is a much more attractive city than when I lived there nearly forty years ago, but it is not a world city like London, nor does it have the football glamour of Manchester. In financial terms, Celtic are the stronger club, making an annual profit of £10-£15m. But if they did pull away financially from Rangers, the Old Firm rivalry would be weakened and that is really the mainstay of Scottish football.