Celtic are reported to have held initial talks with their business partners at Ibrox over joining the Woman’s Super League in England.
The report appeared in The Times at 5pm on Tuesday, a publisher with very little profile in Scotland and not overly known for chasing cheap stories.
After a token approach to the women’s game Celtic and their city rivals both decided in 2020 to become professional, offering full time contracts in the largely amateur game.
That approach has broken the dominance of Glasgow City, this season Celtic reached the group stage of the Champions League although they failed to take a point from six matches.
The SWPL has three full time clubs, three more that are part-time with the six other clubs making up the numbers as they try to keep the score-lines down.
After 17 matches this season Dundee United are bottom of the table with a goal difference of -82, Queens Park have -74 after losing 14-0 at the weekend with Aberdeen sitting on -46 from 15 matches and collecting 11 points.
Ever keen to explore new revenue streams with their friends at Ibrox it seems that Celtic have had discussions about joining an expanded league based in England.
The Times reported:
Celtic and Rangers have held initial talks with the Women’s Super League to explore a move to play in the English top flight.
Nikki Doucet, the chief executive officer of the company that has taken over the running of the WSL, is exploring ways to expand the women’s game, including learning from the rich history of men’s football, with the added benefit of hindsight.
This does not necessarily mean mirroring what has happened in the men’s game, and possibilities such as the involvement of Celtic and Rangers and a closed league (like the NWSL in America) are being explored. Four Women’s Championship teams — Bristol City, Southampton, Birmingham City and Newcastle United — are trialling a new pilot to allow fans to drink alcohol in the stands, a scheme partly given the green light because of the different demographic of fans in the women’s game.
Scottish women’s football is some way behind the English game — the Scottish Women’s Premier League was only formed in 2022 when the clubs playing in the existing top two leagues decided to move the ownership and operations of the elite competitions into a new structure. As a result of Scotland’s qualification for the 2019 Women’s World Cup there was a significant increase in support and funding for Rangers and Celtic — previously Glasgow City had been the dominant club. Since then, however, they have not enjoyed the same level of growth in attendances and commercial success as teams in England.
Celtic won the league last season — on a tense final day when Rangers could also have lifted the title had results gone their way — but are bottom of their Champions League group in the first year they have qualified for the competition. They narrowly lost 2-1 to Chelsea at Celtic Park, but there is a feeling that further investment is required in Scottish football to help those leading teams compete in Europe.
It was reported last year that Rangers had held informal discussions with the FA over whether it could be feasible to join, and those exploratory conversations have continued with Women’s Professional Leagues Limited (WPLL), the company that took ownership of the WSL and Women’s Championship in August.
The WPLL, the Scottish Women’s Premier League, Rangers and Celtic declined to comment.
It is understood that talks are at such an early stage that there has been no official approach to the SWPL or the Scottish FA, the latter of which would have to agree on any future proposal, which seems unlikely. The notice period for leaving the Scottish league is two clear seasons, which puts any possible inclusion of Celtic and Rangers far into the future, given official conversations have not yet begun.
In 2022 Michael Nicholson signed Celtic up to the Sydney Super Cup, following sustained protests from Ibrox fans their club pulled out with Everton stepping in to take up the fixtures in November 2022 ahead of the World Cup Finals.
It seems that no-one from either club is prepared to comment on the story from a reputable source, it could well be a case of testing the water to see what reaction there is to the proposal before deciding on further negotiations.
I stopped even reading that.
I merely suggest that if we get any offers for the fat slug or his skinny, mostly invisible, legally trained, (conveyancer most likely) placeman then snatch their hands off; including from the new huns where both those tossers would be right at home.
Business partners at Ibrox, FFS
The womens game needs investment like the rest of Scottish Football, I say we stay in Scotland and develop the game here if anyone is leaving then it should be the Bowling Club Committee with their Blazers n Brogues that currently enjoy the lavish lifestyle at the SFA.
Time to overhaul Scottish Football from top tier to school level is long overdue. Get a real governing body and a foreign regulator in and start developing playing and officiating talent from early years. Maybe in 20 years we can see some improvement.
Croatia regularly qualify well and have a smaller populous than us, we are massively underperforming and the root cause lies at Hampden.
The longer we leave it the more 3rd world we become in football terms. Celtic and Sevco joining the fat cats and greed of an English game will escalate that even more. Won’t be long till we end up in the WPL Globetrotter league if we do go.
Excellent stuff, Thomas!