Former SPL Chief Executive Roger Mitchell joined Duncan Castles on the Transfer podcast this week to talk about the European Superleague which has now been quashed. Mitchell was on the same podcast last year and warned this move was coming from the richer clubs.

Speaking this week – Mitchell points out the hypocrisy of English football calling out the Super League programme when they have squeezed out other leagues going on 25 years now for preferential treatment and to make sure their clubs get a big piece of the European pie.

Mitchell then went into a bit of detail on how he tried to get Celtic and their Glasgow rivals out of Scotland for the betterment of the game here and the two clubs.

One idea was the Atlantic league back in the 90s; Mitchell spoke of all these lower levelled leagues breaking off from their domestic game and the top teams competing in a league together. In the proposal, the teams left behind would not be short-changed and would have any gap in income covered by a dowry.

This never got off the ground and has still been talked about to this day. Celtic pulled out of any talks about the league fairly recently which was a bit of a surprise.

The other option Mitchell tried to seek out was Celtic heading to England which came up against so many obstacles it just never seemed practical.

Roger bemoans the geographical nature of football and the associations’ overcomplicating things, stopping the logical progression in football.

Mitchell wanted to see Celtic thrive elsewhere but at the same time lift up Scottish football to a point where anyone could win in any given season.

“If you take me back, two major initiatives for us was the one you mentioned before, the Atlantic League, because it became clear to me that the situation in Scotland wasn’t working for anyone

“Celtic and Rangers couldn’t compete in Europe, and nobody else could win the league. That was the same in every small league.

“So, I didn’t appease, I went out and tried to make it a win-win for everybody where the top teams in each league would create the Atlantic league, would pay a dowry to make nobody else worse off and you had full relegation and promotion.

“The Atlantic League, it’s all there, it’s all in the public domain.

“The second thing was Celtic and Rangers in England, for exactly the same reason. I genuinely believe if you made up market research now of the family of football, what percentage of fans support clubs that have got probably zero per cent chance of winning silverware?

“I think that’s quite a big percentage. They’re already used to not winning, they get their jollies out of another way now; it’s either bonding with their dad on the stand, or their mates, or it’s a social thing. The one I hear so much all we love to stick it the day we beat the big teams. Every dog has its day.

“They’ve rationalised out their fandom in a way that’s like that, and I feel they deserve more than that.

“They should be competing in a league that’s the right size for them. With homogeneous clubs where any of them could win at any point in time.

“This is the thing that I’ll go to my grave with because I’ve lived this – football has been organised by stupid geographical rules with geographical governance with a whole lot of butchers and bakers and candlestick makers – running the national association that prevented the natural rationalisation to the game to the way I’ve just described.

“I’m hopeful that now it will come about.”

The talk of a British League has been touted this week not long after this podcast dropped. It’s a move that would likely not sit well with a lot of the Celtic support.

Fans are stuck in between wanting the club to prosper on the best platform possible but they also don’t want to lose their identity as a club.

You would hope that any moves made would see the club consult the fan base like never before but as we reported earlier today.

Read More: Celtic’s Second Major Shareholder and Why It’s a Concern

Two shareholders holding more than 50% of the club’s shares presents a major problem in Celtic fans having any kind of say, especially when one of those shareholders (Lindell Trains) is out to make a profit.

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