Celtic are reported to be considering whether they will field a team in next season’s Lowland League.
After two seasons of playing in the fifth tier of the Scottish game Celtic’s B team face an uncertain future with the SFA ditching their plan to introduce a Conference League in season 24/25.
Last night the club from Ibrox announced that they wouldn’t be playing in next season’s Lowland League, back in 2021/22 the two Glasgow sides were presented as a package to the Lowland League with Hearts B expanding the division up to 19 last season.
Playing in the Lowland League isn’t realistically going to catapult players into the Celtic first team but in the absence of anything else it does offer regular matches for players coming out of the club’s Academy.
This morning The Sun is reporting:
Rangers broke rank last night and announced that they would NOT be fielding their B-team in the Lowland League next season.
Both Celtic and Rangers have competed in the division over the past couple of seasons with their B-teams.
Hearts joined last season too and it’s understood they intend to continue fielding their side in the Lowland League in the campaign ahead.
However, Celtic are now considering whether or not they still want their B-team to feature.
It’s understood that the Hoops had hoped the Conference League proposal would be voted through.
As a result of that not being the case, the Parkhead club are now weighing-up their options as they decide what the best option for their academy is going forward.
With fixtures due to be published next week the Lowland League will be anxious for a quick decision from Celtic.
Don’t go down the Sevco route, keep the young lads in the B league, gives them something to look forward to. We are ourselves, nothing to do with sevco
You beat me to it, James. The OF died in 2012 as a result of Rangers FC going bust and being Liquidated and Sevco has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with us.
The young guys need the best level of football they can get and if it’s the Lowland League okay. We can afford to back our young guys, the scum across the river can’t. Lawwell and Desmond can’t see life without the attachment to the new huns. Everybody else can.
Cut that ‘old’ umbilical cord and go forward, leaving that scum in the gutter/sewers where they belong.
Hail! Hail! The Glasgow Celtic.
This issue still really annoys me about the younger players development within Scottish football. The whole issue is disgraceful and the knock on effect for Scottish teams playing in European competition in future years could be drastic.
We are already going to struggle to get 8 Scottish players to fit into a 25 man squad for next season, that are going to be good enough to warrant a place within a squad for CL standard, let alone any European competition standard.
This situation seems to have little chance of improvement with diddy team’s been allowed to hold Scottish football to ransom, yet contribute nothing towards the game but hamper the development of our younger players.
Yet these diddy team’s are still happy enough to take these players on loan with ourselves possibly still paying there wages.
How the whole system remains so backwards is beyond me, and no wonder others team’s within Europe are looking to exploit the situation currently in play and able to take away young talent for peanuts.
Might not be at drastic levels now but calmac isn’t getting any younger and any Scottish potential replacement will get a far better development plan elsewhere than Scotland has on offer.
No surprise the scum are using the whole issue as another cost cutting exercise, we still need to be looking at a far bigger picture, and the signs aren’t great either as I’m seeing things
Johnny, the “diddy” teams are not to blame for the current situation regarding our academy players. Solutions had to be found due to Sevco withdrawal from the Reserve League. This was the catalyst that ended said League, leaving no proper infrastructure in place. The Lowland League at least allowed regular game time -however lacking of quality – for keeping match fitness and possible elevation to first team. It seems now that Sevco have withdrawn from Lowland League structure and have led to the present situation. Sevco probably can’t afford to field or even sustain a “B” team over a season and are diverting monies to transfers. A +£2mil announced just after withdrawal. The SFA should re introduce the Reserve League and any Club can join. If any Club/Company cannot provide a team then so be it.
The B team should be playing in the championship but without promotion. Playing in the 5th tier is just nonsense.
Gatecrashing the Lowland League was always a poor substitute for proper reserve team football. Funnily enough it was the Orcs who kyboshed that too some years ago. It should be a condition of entry to the Premiership that a reserve team be fielded.