Help with a soccer/football TL

[WorldWarZ]

I am interested in writing a sports timeline having seen a few recently and one that focuses on Rugby and other sports and not so many on the sport of football or to many, SOCCER.

My basic premise is that sometime obviously after 1900 and 1970 perhaps having a league pyramid consisting of the Irish of north & south, scotland and wales competing in a league together akin to the rugby magners league.

Any POD's someone can provide for me with regards to this as I know welsh football is pretty piss poor in comparison to even the lower leagues of some other nations and scots football is heading down the drain fast.

 

[Ironballs]

The clubs in Scotland have always had much larger following than those in Wales, NI and Ireland so I think you would be hard pressed to ever get them to merge without decimating Scottish football first.

 

[WorldWarZ]

I completely agree with the statement that Scottish football is in respect more better and of a better class. But if anything it is in a quick decline as Rangers & Celtic just win everything even with weak teams, only Hibernian have the drive now to overtake them as Hearts cocked that chance up.

And the reported financial instability of Scottish football is well documented with Rangers surprisingly still afloat as they have no money whatsoever. Anyway we can make these financial instabilities grow and force the hand of the SFA, FAW & both Irish associations to merge leagues like the Magners League has done.

Obviously you would have the huge argument of European qualification to deal with, possibly having an agreed deal with the associations to have one team per nation allowed to enter qualification depending on what team from each nation finishes highest and then eventually shifting into a simple top four qualify regardless what nation they are from.

 

[james31]

There's a huge incentive for them not to merge.

The position of FIFA, football's international governing body, is seen as critical as to whether a British team will play in the 2012 Summer Olympics. The SFA's opposition to the plans are rooted primarily in the fear that the Home Nations would be forced to field a combined team in all competitions.[3] This would mean the loss of the special status of the Home Nations, which is established under FIFA's constitution.[25] FIFA President Sepp Blatter had given assurances to each of the British Associations that their status would not be affected by fielding a combined team in 2012, stating:

“ We have confirmed in writing that they have to provide a Great Britain team for the 2012 Olympics, but the four British associations will not lose the rights and privileges acquired back in 1947.[26] ”

The SFA refused to change its position, arguing that Blatter's personal opinion and permission may not matter once he has left office, and that they do not wish to jeopardise their status.[3] The case for a GB team appeared to be strengthened by the decision of the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball to permit a combined volleyball team to participate at the 2012 Games,[27] but Blatter seemed to change his view in March 2008. He stated that "they should enter only a team composed of players from England",[28] and he suggested that the independent status of the four British associations could be harmed by a unified team.[28]

UEFA chief executive David Taylor, a former chief executive of the SFA, said in August 2008 that a British Olympic team would threaten the existence of the individual home nations.[29] Taylor also said that the unique status of the Home Nations had come under attack before from other FIFA members, and that it was "difficult to see what guarantees could be given" to protect that status.[29]

Remove these "1947 assurances" and who knows. Apparently...

The 1947 game, dubbed the 'Match of the Century', was played to celebrate the return of the Home Nations to FIFA (they had left in 1920). For the match, played at Scotland's Hampden Park in front of 135,000 spectators, the Great Britain side wore a navy blue strip in honour of the host association.

Perhaps there's something in there for your POD? i.e. Scotland/Wales/N. Ireland breaking rank with the English FA and rejoin FIFA without them, thereby competing as "Britain" both in league/internationally. This sort of leaves England isolated from international competition.

 

[WorldWarZ]

Yes but thats for a unified national team. If you keep the national teams independent from one another and only keep the idea of a celtic league and lower divisions and then non-league structure for each nation below the top possible divisions.

As I know they are reintroducing the home nations tournament minus England so its possible with the right tweaking of history and football necessity to merge the leagues and keep some kind of rules securing the amount of players born in the nation of the club to remain.

Also on another related point, the mooted atlantic league combining dutch, scottish, portuguese and belgian teams is also an influence as they arent connected but yet would retian their national teams.

 

[WorldWarZ]

Anyone? I genuinally think this is not ASB and is attainable. Another added bonus is if you can convince the teams from wales playing in the english system (swansea, cardiff, wrexham, merthyr, newport county & colwyn bay) to quit it and like bangor city join the welsh system

 

[Tyr]

I don't know why it would ever be done.
Its controversial enough when Rangers and Celtic talk of joining the English league and they would stand to gain a tonne from doing that but to disband the Scottish league in favour of a united league which also has a low standard of football?

I'd think a British Isles league could maybe be done but getting to play against the big English teams is the big prize which will tempt teams from elsewhere into joining. Without England its nothing.
And if your league is of a low standard travel costs are highly important.

Another possible alternative if you really want the English out for some reason is the Atlantic League proposals.
But this involves bringing in the Dutch, Belgians, Swedes and Portuguese.
The Scots are already in on these proposals.
For Wales..Its harder. You'd need some major changes to make Cardiff and Swansea drop out of the English league for the Atlantic League. And they're the only teams with a chance there (well. Only Cardiff really).
For Ireland you're creating teams from the ground up, their current league is pretty amateur. Dublin, Belfast and some other places could well supprot decent pro teams but this is going a bit close to the American model of creating teams from the top down/