However well-meaning Peter Grant might be tonight, in calling for the scrapping of the League Cup he is dead wrong to do so and Celtic should have no part in it.
I don’t think Ange or anyone connected to the football operation would welcome such a move.
In putting this forward tonight, Grant has given backing to corrupt calls from the European governing body and a handful of its useful idiots at the European Club Association, who are so busy promoting their own greedy vision that they aren’t in the least bit interested what impact their daft suggestion has on the rest of the sport.
The League Cup is important to the Scottish game.
It is a competition for all the professional clubs; it does not exist to make life better for the likes of just Celtic.
Likewise, calls to scrap the League Cup south of the border might find some favour with the super-clubs, but the impact would be felt further down the game. Not that they give a shit.
The motives behind these calls are entirely self-serving.
They would allow UEFA to squeeze in more elite games, and to Hell with the clubs and associations not represented at the top table. Scotland and England might be somewhat unique in having a third cup competition; I would not expect anyone at the cash-rich governing body to understand little things like tradition, but that’s part of what’s at stake.
Grant’s logic is all over the map and utterly without merit.
He says the fixture list is having a negative impact on lower league teams, because of fixture congestion.
What utter nonsense.
Fixture congestion is a problem for the top teams, not those in the Championship and below.
We are the ones who have invariably have a full European schedule on top of the domestic fixture list. We reach the latter rounds of the cup competitions, and we make a major contribution to the national teams as well.
If the League Cup were abolished lower league teams would lose games and money, that’s the truth of it, so I have no idea what he is talking about. His other point, that it affects the international schedule is equally ridiculous.
International fixtures are sacrosanct.
They have allocated slots, and in my view we already play too many of them anyway.
But the League Cup scheduling in no way affects international calendars.
For God’s sake, Champions League matches don’t affect the international breaks and UEFA would move Christmas itself if they thought they could get two more Group Stage fixtures in.
He does mention the number of matches the bigger teams already have to play, and whilst I think the decision to move the League Cup latter rounds to November and December respectively so that they fall between European Group Stage games is a typical Scottish football piece of blind idiocy, let’s be honest; it’s four extra matches if you get to the final. Which player doesn’t want to play four games, for the chance to get his hands on silverware?
The Scottish League Cup was founded in 1946.
It’s a tournament that a lot of us have very fond memories of.
Our two managers from Japan – Wim and Ange – both won it and in doing so got the first trophy of their respective seasons and let people understand that they were watching winners. Ange’s victory in that tournament was a major sign that we were well on the way to a good season, and that we were going to take some beating.
Grant’s final point, about top clubs not wanting to send their kids to other sides in Scotland because they might have to play too many games is just ridiculous and flatly contradicted by a moment or two later by his contention that clubs don’t want to send players out on loan because they might not play enough.
It’s as if he had the thought in his head but just couldn’t unjumble it before the words came out of his mouth.
It’s a bad idea, so I’m not sure that there was any smart way that he could have put it or coherent argument that he could have mustered for it. The League Cup is not ever going to be the trophy I go to bed dreaming about, but you can’t win a treble without it.
For that reason, alone, the suggestion is just plain daft.
Ten Reasons Why Celtic Will Win The Premier League Title Again Next Season.
oh hampden in the sun , The newco have never won the league cup.
I can see both sides. It needs a revamp. How about only allowing players under 23. Sides who do not have enough players in the age category are allowed to add overage players. It would also allow younger players a chance
James, sort the fucking advertising pop ups and the jumping up and down. It’s getting to the point that keeping the thread almost impossible.
If we want to move ahead with a European League replacing the likes of the Champions League, then something has to give, and dropping domestic cup competition for those clubs playing in Europe might be the only feasible way to accomplish it and have clubs competing in their domestic leagues simultaneously.
I’d rather we gain more European experience(and the added income it would provide us) than play in domestic cups, if it were a straight up choice between them, but see no point in doing away with domestic cups under the current European competitions format.
I agree, Peter Grant is talking nonsense, Long live the League Cup and the Treble.
Newco are the only club/company in the premiership that has never won the league cup another world record.
Exactly, you can’t win a treble without it and the league cup gives teams who cannot win the league a chance to win silverware.
We should be looking at ways to make our domestic game better instead of trashing it.
Leaguethisseason
Times change and what does the league cup now bring to scottish football, in general nothing.
Could change the format and only allow the developing youth to participate in it.
League cup is no longer valued as a top trophy.