After Ross County’s new manager Derek Adams’ recent rant about the quality of the Scottish Premiership, St Johnstone manager Craig Levein has made his thoughts about Celtic and theRangers public.
Levein, whose team currently sit 8th in the SPFL table, as reported by Football Scotland said: “Is the game in good health financially? Probably not. I think the TV deals we have got are terrible.
“We are sitting next to the biggest football nation in the world, and they get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions and we get a fraction of that. Maybe if we got a fraction more of that we would be able to improve things.
“I also think the way the prize money is split in Scotland, the top two get a massive amount compared to the rest and that keeps the rest down.
“I will come back to my base camp – I would love to see the Old Firm (sic) playing in the English Premier League. They would be able to afford to pay £50m each per season to the rest of Scottish football and then I would support Celtic and (the)Rangers playing in the English Premier League. But will it ever happen? I don’t think so.”
I, personally, think this a terrible take. While we can all agree that the standard of the Scottish Premiership could do with an improvement, that’s not going to happen overnight by removing the top two teams in the country.
From a financial standpoint, I think that the league would struggle as well without Celtic and Rangers. It has long been a problem that television networks like Sky Sports show very little respect to our league, and I predict that would get even worse.
Sky is entitled to show 48 matches per SPFL season, going up to 60 in 2024, yet they often don’t meet that number as they tend to focus their coverage on Celtic and theRangers. While I don’t agree with this and believe they should broadcast other teams in the league more often, I reckon that they may pull the contract altogether if it wasn’t for the top two Glasgow sides. If the deal were to be canned, the league would be out of £30 million per season.
I don’t think a lot of people have a leg to stand on either, as Celtic and theRangers’ fans attendance makes up for 64% of attendance in the SPFL. Other clubs in the league struggle to sell out their home games, never mind away allocations, and there have been cases where a club’s end at Hampden hasn’t even been filled out completely.
Without Celtic and theRangers, I struggle to see how this would change. Fans of the Glasgow teams aren’t going to stop supporting them just because they would play in the English Premier League, so where are the fans of the remaining Scottish clubs going to come from?
There are issues with Celtic and theRangers going into the EPL in the first place, as both teams would likely have to enter at the bottom of the English pyramid. Direct entry to the top tier of English football is incredibly unlikely, as if it went to a vote, I can’t imagine a lot of teams would vote for admittance. And if entry was from the bottom tier, I don’t exactly see Celtic or theRangers agreeing to this, as it could prove to be a lengthy and costly battle.
Here’s my idea if you really want a change to the Scottish league – revamp it completely. No split, no playing each other 3-4 times per season. Revamp not just the top tier, but go through with the idea for a B-team conference league so younger players can actually develop properly in Scotland. That’s just my personal ideas though, and I’m certainly no businesswoman.
Even the idea of moving Celtic and theRangers to the English pyramid is absolutely mental and something I wholeheartedly disagree with. We belong in Scotland. Although I can agree that the SPFL needs a revamp in order to make it more competitive, that’s not going to come by removing the two most popular teams in the country.
Jessica Elliott
