Nov
10
Two-tier Premiership?
Filed Under Premiership | Leave a Comment
When Premiership share-holders and club officials meet on Thursday the 12th of November, a wide range of topics will be discussed—but undoubtedly, center stage will take the proposal to create a two-tier English Premier League. This plan will separate the Premiership into two 18-team divisions, with Scotland’s Celtic and Rangers joining in. Rumors about such ideas have long been circulating the news outlets, but this is the first time they appear to have a genuine chance of coming to fruition.
As expected, such a radical move has garnered both supporters and strong opposition. On one hand, people who think this will be a good idea believe that it will increase the English League’s popularity, boost competition by adding such well-supported teams like Celtic and Rangers, and reduce the huge financial deficit of being relegated to the second tier.
The problem is that realistically it is not going to change that much at all, and the only real benefactors would be Celtic and Rangers. The TV money may increase, but it does not take a genius to see that it will be saturated mostly in the top tier, which essentially means that instead of 20 English clubs only 16 will be seeing the benefits. Competition may be harder for the top spots, but everyone below will be even farther away from challenging the big clubs.
And lastly—what about the Scottish League? Without its two biggest clubs, it would be faced with the prospect of falling into obscurity, much like the Irish league. It is true that Wales’ biggest clubs play in England too, but eliminating all completion around the U.K. hardly seems fair to the individual countries.