Scottish Football / Tareq Quiroz / 21 April 2009 / Leave a comment

It's an old moot point but one that seems to surface every year. Should Celtic and Rangers be allowed to join the English Premier League? TQ is very much in the "no" camp...

Each week that passes bring us more joy and heartache in equal measure within the wonderful world of football. The leagues are drawing to a close and the cups are in their final stages. Even those who only really pay attention to the Premier League take an interest in the lower leagues and in some cases even the Scottish Premier League.

In all fairness to the SPL it is shaping up for a cracking end to the season. You will however not be surprised to hear that that once again it is a two horse race between Celtic and Rangers with just five games left to play. It is twenty five years since a team other than those two won the top flight league in Scotland and it is hard to see when that dominance will come to an end.
Celtic and Rangers are the giants of Scottish football but on a regular basis we get this same old proposal that they should be playing in the English Premier League. Just last week we have had rumour that there is a possible proposal for a two tier Premier League that would involve Celtic and Rangers. I find all this talk somewhat baffling. It is a move that would certainly have more minuses than plusses.

Why would the Premier League want the arrival of two average sides who would undoubtedly struggle in this far superior division? All it would do is show the world just how poor the SPL is and expose these two great clubs as not being quite what they're made out to be north of the border. There is no way either of them would finish in the top half of the Premier League and I would not be at all surprised to see at least one of them relegated in the first year they tried it.

Then what? Send them back to the SPL to gain some confidence before another pop at it?
The SPL teams simply aren't good enough and that is the bottom line. Everyone should enjoy the SPL for what it is - a two horse race - and be happy with that. Five games to go and just one point between the two teams is great. That one point edge has Celtic favourites to take the title at [1.68] but you have to give Rangers a decent shot at [2.44] as they still have Celtic at home in a couple of weeks time. Now surely that is much more exciting than them scrambling around at the bottom of the Premier League.

If any indication was needed then you only need to look at the recent moves of some of the top SPL players to the Premier League. Barry Ferguson was hailed as this Scottish legend yet he chose to move to Blackburn Rovers. Admittedly his time was blighted by a bad injury but when did play he hardly set the league alight and unsurprisingly he is now back at Rangers. That said, his misdemeanor whilst away on international duty may result in him not being there for too much longer. A similar story for Shaun Maloney who moved to Villa form Celtic after terrorising SPL defences yet was a bit part player that was hopelessly ineffectual when given his chance. Surprise surprise, he is now back at Celtic.

I could sit here all day listing failures such as the likes of Kenny Miller, Craig Beattie and the ridiculously expensive Craig Gordon but the point is proven just as easily the other way. Look at the players that have been Rangers' best players this season. Pedro Mendes and Steven Davis are Premier League rejects that went to Scotland to resurrect their careers and now they are idols.

The Premier League has a three-way contest for the title with Man Utd the favourites at [1.42]; it has an exciting head to head to be best of the rest with Villa just the jolly's to take that at [1.7] and finally a nerve wracking relegation fight for which the mighty Newcastle are [1.8] to face the drop to the Championship. Does this sound like a league that needs two mediocre teams coming to add nothing more than an additional storyline?

It is time we put the idea to bed once and for all. The Premier League wouldn't be better with them and the Scottish League would all but cease to exist without their two giants. Two giants that could quite conceivably be playing in the Championship within a couple of years if this crazy idea ever did come to fruition.