Scottish Teams in Europe; How poor are the Old Firm

[Zappa 0]

Zappa I will have a wee go and then forward it to Andrew_2010 for his input and we can maybe get something out

 

Superb rbr!

[pete 2,499]

Not totally honest as if Rangers and Celtic are taken away from the equation then other smaller clubs would have had entry to the Champions league and received CL monies which could have made them stronger.

[calscot 0]

Not totally honest as if Rangers and Celtic are taken away from the equation then other smaller clubs would have had entry to the Champions league and received CL monies which could have made them stronger.

 

I doubt they would ever have qualified for the CL and the coefficient would never have been high enough to do so automatically. You could argue that if say the OF had joined the English Prem then the other clubs would actually have less money - due to lower attendance total and lower income from tv and sponsorship.

 

I think the main point is to compare what our clubs are doing compared to their contemporaries in other countries who have comparable resources - in this sense they look incredibly poor and is something I've been pointing out for years. We're talking about comparing them to countries such as Ireland and Estonia.

 

I think to be fairer we should be removing the points gained by the top two teams for those countries before comparison. However, we have clubs like Hibs and Aberdeen who have attendances of about 12k paying quite high entrance fees who are being outclassed by clubs with less money from the likes of Iceland.

 

When you consider how small Rangers' squad is, the lack of Scots in the Celtic team, and the low number of Scots playing outside our nation, that the rest of the Scottish teams would have the pick of all but the best Scottish players available. The fact that they can't compete with what are considered as lesser footballing nations as well as poorer ones, is pretty damning for Scottish football as a whole. The only ray of light is that despite struggling financially, Rangers have been propping up our coefficient with teams actually full of Scots.

 

Rangers have done far more to prop up the pride of our national game than the rest put together - including Celtic, and yet we are the ones on the end of a malevolent witch hunt which is out to show us as Scotland's shame.

[rbr 1,270]

There are probably 5 countries , possibly 6 that are in and around the same position as us , from Switzerland in 16th position through to Greece in11th that continually swop around , Holland who are ranked 9th are too far away points wise and even Turkey in 10th and possibly Greece in 11th are just outwith our reach again due to the excellent work their smaller teams do in the Europa league .

 

Andrew_2010 and myself have a wee idea of a thread we will work on and hopefully be able to get it out soonish explaining exactly how it works and various other points of interest .

[calscot 0]

I think in the long term we will struggle to compete with the likes of Holland, Portugal, Turkey and Greece. They are all footballing nations with significantly higher numbers of population leading to much higher numbers of people actually playing. Statistically they should usually produce better players than us and have enough wealth to compete financially considering our tiny TV income.

 

Our real rivals are in their own kind of division containing Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, Israel, Czech R. and Austria with perhaps Romania who are potentially a cut above due to their 21M, football mad population (+ Moldova) and lack of obese kids with play stations.

 

We need to be in the top two of that division to grab 12th or 13th place which guarantees the champions entry into the CL and a second team who can qualify. However, apart from Denmark who have only 10% more population than us, those countries have between 50 and 110% more population with Romania more than 300% extra.

 

We're actually the smallest in that group and as such have least potential for TV income. Not only that we're the most unhealthy nation with probably the least interest in health and fitness. We're also overshadowed by our neighbours who take a slice of our potential income from those that subscribe to Sky to watch the Premiership.

[Waltersgotstyle 307]

One of the biggest factors that's screwing us up is the actual number of teams we're getting into Europe in the past couple of years. For Scotland to be having 5 or 6 teams in Europe might seem great for the fans of the smaller clubs who suddenly get the chance of one or two European nights, but it's a complete joke for our nation as a whole and needs sorted out.

 

We shouldn't have more than 4 spots in Europe and the idea of clubs like Falkirk, Dunfermline, QoS & Gretna getting a chance in Europe is rediculous at the moment. If we had a bigger SPL and over time these smaller clubs improved their standard due to having better finances, then they wouldn't necessarily get pumped out as quickly and screw up the coefficient as much.

 

Freak things like Gretna and QoS getting to cup finals will happen sometimes, but that special Cup final day as well as the money it earns their club should be their reward. They shouldn't be getting a European spot.

 

Totally agree, as a small nation we should be rewarding the most consistent teams. All European places should be given to the SPL not the Scottish cup.