Glasgow sides set for move South of the Border?
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Rangers chief executive Charles Greens insists that both Celtic and Rangers will be playing in the English football league within five years according to the Daily Mirror.
The Ibrox supremo believes that the time is right to discuss this age old debate and believes that UEFA’s softening attitude to the proposal and Rangers’ own demise will help make the fantasy a reality in a few short years.
On the subject of when this might come to fruition Green states;
“I would like to think within five years. I say to English clubs: Don’t be afraid of the unknown. There will be cross-border leagues and that will change the face of European football. These doors are opening.”
Green insists that the chief executives he has spoken to South of the Border are all open to the suggestion, this despite the fact that back in 2009 when Bolton put such a suggestion to the floor it was swiftly turned down by all present.
However the 59 year old Yorkshire born business man doesn’t want special treatment, he doesn’t expect either Glasgow side to be given an immediate path to the top tier.
“I don’t want to go into the Premier League,” Green claimed. “It would be wrong. If the Premier League sent me an invite saying we could start next year, I would turn it down.
“I don’t want to go into the Football League. But what I do want to do is to start playing football in England, and knowing that if I win that league, I get promoted to the next one and the next one. And no one can stand there and say we can’t get promoted because you are a Scottish club.
“Could you imagine the income generation Rangers and Celtic would create in the Conference? Every Conference stadium would be full. And then to work through the leagues over the next three or four years would refresh English football because this staleness that is affecting Scottish football is prevalent here.”
Green has an ace up his sleeve in terms of looking to force the issue and that is the small matter of the fact that footballers based in the Scottish pyramid system pay tax to the British treasury, as of course do those in the English leagues.
“Under European law, (stopping us) is categorically a restraint of trade,” he claimed. “It is clearly the same law as Bosman. If people think that is right, they are in cloud cuckoo land because it is not right. I am an outspoken Yorkshirman, I call a spade a spade and I say it. Others whisper in corners and I think it is wrong.
“Now if we are not good enough, and the Football League clubs vote that they don’t want us in, I accept that. That is fine. But don’t tell me there is a law that is outside of the laws of this country and outside of the laws of the EU.”
That’s fighting talk!
Of course his argument is more than a little flawed. After all by his reckoning what would stop Aberdeen, Hearts and Hibs also choosing to follow suit? Is Mr. Green expecting all sides based in Scotland to make the same switch, after all why would those left behind to ply their trade in the SPL and below have to gain from remaining where they are?