Will Scottish game be heard in Euro debate?
WHO is speaking for Scotland? More i mportantly, is anyone listening? Questions worth asking as European club football moves inexorably towards a new age. One that makes no allowances for history or tradition — and measures a nation or team purely by its market potential.
While sending our very best wishes to the country’s appointed negotiators in this matter, there have to be doubts over whether SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster and Celtic counterpart Peter Lawwell can temper the worst excesses of the lucky few intent on increasing their guaranteed good fortune. Serious doubts.
Developments over recent days have given us all a fair idea about the future direction of travel being pursued by those at the top. Assuming there is no Continent- wide grassroots putsch against the powerful elite who have amassed so much influence, New Europe is not going to be a more inclusive celebration of every league covered by th eU E FA umbrella. Quite the contrary.
Now, before you write off attempt store model the Champions League as no more than a privileged cabal flexing their muscles in pursuit of ever greater wealth, accept that the tournament, in its current format, has become no more than a cash cow for the ‘lesser’ sides who view reaching the group stage as the be all and end all.
Reducing the old European Cup to a series of qualifiers worth tens of millions in various currencies, the impossibility of going beyond the group stage hardly mattering once ‘ success’ has arrived in the accounts of the little guys, that is hardly true to the ideals of the competition founded by L’Equipe journalists Gabriel Hanot and Jacques Feran back in 1955.
One problem with the alternative blueprint is that introducing a new knockout phase purely to end up with two eight-team leagues will not right the sluggish wrongs of the present set-up.
Making it increasingly difficult for champions from ‘small nations’ to qualify for the group stage? That’s what you might call collateral damage. Or, if you’re cynical, a price that the richest are willing to make the poorest pay.
The issues with sending Doncaster and Lawwell to fight against changes likely to impact on Scotland’s leading clubs are, well, numerous.
Let us start with the Celtic chief executive, who has just committed his club to take part in the International Champions Cup, the brainchild of one Charlie Stilitano. Yes, the same American fellow who just recently floated the idea of a breakaway European League with no promotion or relegation.
Stilitano’s interjection was clearly intended as a hint to those who opposed revamping the Champions League for the benefit of the already super-wealthy.
The ‘kid from New Jersey’, as Stilitano likes to style himself, didn’t spend months negotiating terms on his pre- season tournament with Barca, Real Madrid, Inter, Bayern et al without at least picking up on some whispers about how he might help the cause of the self-appointed select.
For Celtic to sign up for the prestige and hard currency on offer in Stilitano’s pet project is, of course, entirely their prerogative.
We all know Celtic would have to jump at an invitation to a closedshop European league, just as they would crawl over broken glass to join the English Premier League.
As Lawwell brings determination, intelligence, cunning and charm to the current fight against some pretty powerful heavyweights, we can at least be grateful that — in this instance — the interests of Celtic and the entire Scottish Premiership j ust happen to overlap.
The whole top flight benefits from having our champions in the group stage of the Champions League, with hundreds of thousands of pounds in spin-off payments being spread through the nation’s elite division. Anything that imperils that is a risk to all.
What happens, though, if and when the welfare of club and country no longer align? Hired by Celtic to do what is right for them, Lawwell would be failing in his duty if he allowed other concerns to impinge on his thinking.
Which means t hat, should Scotland’s reigning champions be offered a deal to make the new Champions League worth more in guaranteed revenue, without significantly increasing the wealth of domestic rivals hoping to challenge them for local honours, Lawwell would be bound by his employers to accept. Let’s hope it never comes to that.
The ones pushing for change, simply point to the figures — £ 50million f or winning t he Champions League, £100m for f i nishing bottom of the TVenriched English Premier League — as the only argument that matters.
I f closing t hat gap means eliminating the ‘champions route’ that should put the group stage within easy reach for Celtic and other title winners from smaller leagues, UEFA – official motto: We Care about Football — will bow to pressure without hesitation.
Should that upset teams in Scotland, Sweden, Portugal and the like, don’t expect someone like German l e gend Karl- Heinz Rummenigge, the European Club Association bigwig who openly t al ks about t he i deal of a European League consisting entirely of teams from the very biggest nations, to lose any sleep.
Who is speaking for us? Good professionals with strong arguments to make — and, we’d at least like to think, right on their side.
It hardly matters, if no one is listening.
Interests of Celtic and rest just happen to overlap