UEFA Champions League/Europa League 16/17/18 August *** Spoilers ***

[Weebull]

lol @ english fans thinking hearts are even near the quality of rangers or celtic

Oh aye, cos those two are at the kind of level that swats away piddling European opposition like the mighty FC Sion or NK Maribor, right?

Or is that they're actually both worse in Europe than Stoke, who are playing only their second game out in these wild worlds?

 

[drunkenmaster]

No danger over the course of a Premier League season.

Both Rangers and Celtic would get relegated no question. Anyone who thinks they would compete, is living in a fantasy land.

Couple of seasons ago Pompie got 31.9mil from broadcasting money for coming dead last, Rangers in the same year got............ 3.8mil. Everton got 50mil last season.

The question is with all but 30mil extra income FOR CERTAIN, who would they buy before the season started and how much would they improve.

Everton are in financial strife, they have a 80mil turnover, 50mil from broadcasting. Rangers had a turnover of 56mil and 30% of that was just from being in the champs league errm, briefly shall we say. THeir normal turnover is much smaller. They have the financial power of championship sides, not even the top championship sides, why should they be better.

But again, with 30mil incoming, look what championship sides do, win or bust mentality but it often works. A team will spend through the roof with the hopes of promotion and the increased money making up for the extra they spent before. Rangers/Celtic would both also spend probably 40-50mil before the season started to try and stay in the EPL........ should it happen.

4-5 10mil players of decent quality and they could certainly turn into EPL teams.

 

[drunkenmaster]

40 million doesn't make teams that are already better than rangers and Celtic any more likely to stay on the league why would they be any different?

Rangers and Celtic would require massive investment before they kicked off on the epl, not just in transfer fees but a 4 to 5 times increase in weekly wage bill. They are both based in a poor area with not a great deal of scope to raise ticket prices , they have literally nothing going for them,.

Going from facing no competition to playing 38 games a season where every single team you play against is better than you in every way would be quite a culture shock.

Rangers without being in the prem league already make 25% more in gate receipts than Everton. They will increase that massively more, people will pay more to see Utd, City and even Wigan than most of the SPL teams.

For most of the EPL broadcasting money is the only reason they can stay in the league and pay what they do in transfer fee's and wages. Add that broadcasting cash to Rangers stadium, income, increased ticket price and massive increase in the executive seating prices and Sponsorship especially(basically from being unwatched worldwide to watched in every country worldwide) you're talking about a 60mil boost.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

Celtic have an even bigger stadium than Arsenal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_association_football_stadiums_by_capacity

you guys are mad if you dont think they could compete in EPL, if they got the same tv money and shirt deals and sponsorship and advertising, etc, coupled with their stadium, they would easily be able to afford top players.

in fact man utd are the only team in the UK with a bigger stadium than celtic.

 

[Locky]

Not even championship quality to be honest.

 

[Dr. Pain]

Lol at the "justification" for Scottish football being crap.

Its purely down to intelligence, fitness, and professionalism.

You could see it last night. Spurs had more energy, more power, more stamina, better skill.

Hearts are nothing but a pub team in reality, same goes for all the teams in Scotland, other than Ranger and Celtic, who are pub teams with a few fans.

If the old firm are so good, why cant they beat the worst of the worst European teams?

Its shambolic.

Still, thankfully Celtic and Rangers will NEVER get their wish to join the EPL, it just will never happen, as the English teams don't want them. LOL

 

[Metalface Mark]

lol @ english fans thinking hearts are even near the quality of rangers or celtic

hearts finished in 3rd place and were like 30 points behind 2nd

there is a huge gulf in quality between the top 2 and the rest, but the gap has been getting smaller. if celtic and rangers both joined the EPL, im pretty sure they could compete with the likes of Fulham, Everton, Villa, Sunderland, etc.

it might take them a few years to get from 15th to 10th, but i reckon Celtic with the size of their stadium, could quite easily get into the top 8 within 10 years.

the amount of tv money, sponsorship, shirt deals you get are insane compared to what scottish teams get.

scottish teams get £1 million a year from sky sports lol

You dont know what your talking about. Rangers and Celtic get the bulk of the money and its a lot more than 1m.

First place gets 17% of prize money, second place gets 15%, third place 9.5%.

Of course the SPL is honking, its a closed shop but unfortunately for the old firm, they need the rest of the teams more than we need them, as the crowds they bring are now not much better than other teams (certainly at St Mirren park thats the case, maybe 500-1000 fans more than someone like Kilmarnock).

Hearts are in crisis, hugely in debt, squad of haddies, the result last night was no surprise, that said Celtic could give spurs a game at the moment over two legs, Rangers would have no chance, they are an absolutely honking side this year, McCoist will be lucky to see till xmas.

 

[Metalface Mark]

As for the topic of teams surviving in the EPL, of course Rangers and Celtic could comfortably with the tv money, with their current teams Celtic would be mid table, they actually do have a pretty decent team.

Rangers would be bottom or their abouts.

Hearts you could compare to someone like Fulham, they would get 20k plus a week if they were doing well, but obviously theres tons of clubs of this size in England, Aberdeen are the only other club of this size potentially in Scotland, with Hibs behind both of these, with the same money, championship would be their level with the rest of the clubs in the SPL being of similar size to league one or two sides.

When you consider my own team, St Mirren has a weekly attendance of between 4 and 5 thousand usually, you can see the gulf in size of clubs from the old firm to the smaller clubs in the league and the money we can generate.

 

[Weebull]

Celtic have an even bigger stadium than Arsenal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_association_football_stadiums_by_capacity

you guys are mad if you dont think they could compete in EPL, if they got the same tv money and shirt deals and sponsorship and advertising, etc, coupled with their stadium, they would easily be able to afford top players.

in fact man utd are the only team in the UK with a bigger stadium than celtic.

Hillsborough Stadium	39,812	Sheffield Wednesday	League One
Loftus Road	        18,360	Queens Park Rangers	Premier League

Stadium size means jack. (sorry Tummy).

 

[Psycho Sonny]

Hillsborough Stadium	39,812	Sheffield Wednesday	League One
Loftus Road	        18,360	Queens Park Rangers	Premier League

Stadium size means jack. (sorry Tummy).

lol celtic fill their stadium every week, and if it means jack then why do liverpool want a new stadium?

why do chelsea want a new stadium?

answers?

 

[Psycho Sonny]

You dont know what your talking about. Rangers and Celtic get the bulk of the money and its a lot more than 1m.

First place gets 17% of prize money, second place gets 15%, third place 9.5%.

Of course the SPL is honking, its a closed shop but unfortunately for the old firm, they need the rest of the teams more than we need them, as the crowds they bring are now not much better than other teams (certainly at St Mirren park thats the case, maybe 500-1000 fans more than someone like Kilmarnock).

Hearts are in crisis, hugely in debt, squad of haddies, the result last night was no surprise, that said Celtic could give spurs a game at the moment over two legs, Rangers would have no chance, they are an absolutely honking side this year, McCoist will be lucky to see till xmas.

i think DM posted above rangers got like £3.8m in tv money, but your also forgetting they were in europe that year, so its not just spl tv money they received, im pretty sure i read somewhere all spl teams get the same amount or thereabouts, its roughly £1m each.

 

[Weebull]

lol celtic fill their stadium every week, and if it means jack then why do liverpool want a new stadium?

why do chelsea want a new stadium?

answers?

What? That has nothing to do with your original point (that having a huge stadium somehow made them a competitive force in and of itself).

Clubs wants bigger stadiums so they can make more money. Quelle surprise.

As I've pointed out, and you don't quite seem capable of grasping, just having a bigger stadium doesn't prove that Celtic would be good enough to compete in the Premiership. Sheff Weds probably trounce what QPR make on a match day, but they're not above them in the league, are they?

 

[Twinblade]

lol celtic fill their stadium every week, and if it means jack then why do liverpool want a new stadium?

why do chelsea want a new stadium?

answers?

Because in the PL bigger gate receipts means more cash, more cash means better players. In the SPL it's irrelevant because better players don't want to play there.

 

[semi-pro waster]

lol @ english fans thinking hearts are even near the quality of rangers or celtic

hearts finished in 3rd place and were like 30 points behind 2nd

there is a huge gulf in quality between the top 2 and the rest, but the gap has been getting smaller. if celtic and rangers both joined the EPL, im pretty sure they could compete with the likes of Fulham, Everton, Villa, Sunderland, etc.

it might take them a few years to get from 15th to 10th, but i reckon Celtic with the size of their stadium, could quite easily get into the top 8 within 10 years.

the amount of tv money, sponsorship, shirt deals you get are insane compared to what scottish teams get.

scottish teams get £1 million a year from sky sports lol

I'm sure we've had this discussion in the SPL thread, Hearts were about 30 points behind because they finished the season without a win in the last 10 games or so. If they'd managed to keep up their earlier season form it would have been a gap of maybe 10-15 points, a considerable difference but nowhere near as bad.

Hearts were outplayed completely as expected, my views before the game were that if we kept the score vaguely respectable in either leg that would be about as good as we could hope for and nothing has changed in that except the boat for keeping the scoreline respectable in the first leg has well and truly sailed. Well done to Tottenham, it's a convincing win rather obviously but then again given the disparity in resources it's not exactly much of a surprise either.

It may or may not be worth noting for those disparaging Hearts that they've recently had a new manager appointed after the (rather dubious) sacking of the previous incumbent which makes I think 13 managers in the past 6 years since Romanov has taken over the club. With that lack of continuity it's slightly amazing that we've managed to do as well as we have although maybe that speaks more to the lack of quality in the rest of the League. Metalface Mark is right about the debt though, the club has huge debts thanks to our special chairman, premium grade loon that he is. I'm not so sure that the squad is as bad as his assessment though, they've made a few reasonable free signings over the summer so lets see how they do in the SPL.

Because in the PL bigger gate receipts means more cash, more cash means better players. In the SPL it's irrelevant because better players don't want to play there.

But the point is surely that if they joined the EPL and got the greater amounts of cash available then you'd see whether players wanted to go there because you've taken the league out of the argument. Sure, Glasgow's not London or even Manchester/Liverpool but it's a pretty decent city (you have no idea how much it hurts to type that) with good transport links and passionate fans - you'd be a hero to several hundred thousand people every week if you played well, you'd also be hated equally by a roughly equal amount but there you go.

 

[placeholder]

Ally McCoist said today that carlos bocanegra may not get his papers in time to play this weekend.

If he doesnt have clearance to play in his clubs domestic league he is inelligible for Europe i believe?

From the rulebook regarding EL player registrations:

"18.14 For the three qualifying rounds and the play-offs, a club may register a maximum of one new eligible player on List A after the above-mentioned deadlines, provided the quota of locally trained players is respected. Such registration must be completed by 24.00 CET on the day before the relevant first-leg match and the club’s association must confirm in writing that the new player is eligible to play at domestic level at this time."

Oh well.......