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| The SPL’s death has been quick, and it’s no less painful for that |
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| Celtic reached the Uefa Cup final in 2003. Rangers did the same five years later. This season, the pair have gone nine European group games without a victory, and other SPL sides have been embarrassed by some of the continent’s lesser lights. So are we witnessing the quick, painful death of Scottish football? |
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By Shane Breslin
27 November 2009, 5:09:47 PM
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It’s not long ago that Scottish Premier League sides were rubbing shoulders with Europe’s best but with television money having dried up and the top sides in seemingly irrevocable decline, Scottish football increasingly resembles the old aristocrat without an arse in his trousers.
Rewind a couple of years, and the vista was so different, with Gordon Strachan courting acclaim after leading Celtic to the knock-out stages of the Champions League in successive seasons.
Strachan’s achievements were a scarcely expected improvement on the excellent record of Martin O’Neill, who guided the Bhoys to the Uefa Cup final in 2003 and helped to establish a dazzling record at Parkhead.
The 2001/02 season was Celtic’s first in the group stages of Europe’s top competition and, spurred on by the famed Parkhead roar, they won all three games in Glasgow against Juventus, Porto and Rosenborg.
In time, their failings would be on their travels but there was no sign of that during the run to the 2003 Uefa Cup final, where they beat Blackburn and Liverpool away and went to Portugal for the semi-final second leg against Boavista and took the win they needed to book a date with Porto.
Even that final, an unforgettable night when 40,000 happy Celts descended on Seville, underlined Celtic’s status as a side which could compare itself favourably with the best in Europe. Porto, whose success in lifting the Champions League trophy 12 months later was founded on Jose Mourinho’s characteristic defensive solidity, emerged on top, but only on a 3-2 scoreline after extra-time.
Over the next five years, Lyon, Manchester United, Benfica twice, AC Milan all left Parkhead chastened.
Rangers, too, have made their own splashes on European competition. By far their best campaign was 2007/08, when their Champions League results included a 3-0 win in Lyon – that’s three-nil, away to the French champions.
They failed to reach the last 16 but, parachuted into the Uefa Cup as the group’s third-placed side, went all the way to the final, knocking out Werder Bremen, Sporting Lisbon and Fiorentina before their defensive game-plan came up just short against an Andrei Arshavin-inspired Zenit St Petersburg.
Rangers and Celtic are the standard-bearers for Scottish football but all across the SPL this past 12 months, there has been ruin.
The gaping chasm between football in England and Scotland, non-existent when Celtic were regularly overcoming Premiership opposition five or six years ago, was all too evident when the Bhoys were outclassed over two legs by Arsenal in a Champions League qualification play-off.
Rerouted to the Europa League, Tony Mowbray’s side have been singularly dismal, taking just two points from their four games to date. Failure to overcome group leaders Hapoel Tel Aviv at Parkhead next Wednesday will end their European interest for this season. Even if they manage to extricate themselves from their current predicament – and that is all too unlikely – it is impossible to ignore the apathy of their fans: Parkhead, routinely shaken to its core on big European nights in the recent past, was less than two-thirds full for the visit of Hamburg last month.
As for Rangers, well, move along please. Nothing to see here. A 4-1 home defeat to Sevilla was bad enough but when it was followed by the same scoreline against unknowns Unirea Urziceni, the deathknell sounded on Scottish football.
Look below the Old Firm, and there is almost no reason for optimism. Motherwell lost a Europa League first leg to Llanelli in the summer. They were able to redeem themselves in the second leg there but bowed out after a 6-1 aggregate defeat to Steaua Bucharest.
A 4-0 first leg defeat did for Hearts against Dinamo Zagreb. Even worse, Falkirk lost to Vaduz (they’re from Liechtenstein). More contemptible still, Aberdeen went down 8-1 to the might of Sigma Olomouc, themselves spanked by Everton next time out.
With those results, the SPL’s Uefa co-efficient will slide inexorably in the future. The Scottish League was in the top 10 a year ago but is listed in 13th for next season’s competitions. Should they drop outside the top 15 – and it looks certain that they will – their number of Champions League slots will be reduced from two to one.
Where will it end? With the demise of Setanta Sports, Scottish clubs must now budget for greatly reduced earnings in television revenue.
On the financial side of things, Celtic remain prudently run – too much so for the liking of many fans spoiled by success – but will not countenance the level of spending necessary to arrest the slide, never mind build towards bridging the gap to the elite. It is all too conceivable that Strachan, whose popularity with the Celtic fans was never more than lukewarm, could see the direction in which the club was headed, and Mowbray is shouldering the burden of being in charge when the whole thing unravels.
However unsatisfied Celtic fans may be, they can be thankful that they’re not Rangers; the Ibrox side is much worse off. There were reports last month that their lenders would consider placing the club in administration due to debts which are estimated at £30m. Indeed, Rangers were effectively deemed worthless, with the bank seeking the sale of the club at precisely the amount of its existing loans.
And yet, the Old Firm still dominates the domestic league. They are first and second going into this weekend, like they have been almost every weekend for years.
Dwarfed by their rivals, none of the chasing pack – not Hibernian or Dundee United, for all their promise, not traditionally proud Aberdeen, not the shambles that is Hearts – is in a position to take advantage.
So what’s the opposite of a rising tide lifting all boats?
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