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This will be extremely unlikely due to how the points work. The more teams we have in the competition the better they need to do as all the points gained are then divided by that amount of teams. Last season Celtic and Rangers entering so early gives them a chance to get some easy points in the bag and the overall total by the Scotland teams was divided by 4 (the teams qualified). The higher we are placed and having less qualifying rounds to get 'easier' points also means the total is then divided by the 5 teams we have competing. I felt last year was an exceptional year. Rangers and Celtic beat a Lazio and a Porto every so often but I would be surprised if that became a regular thing which it would need to if we were to climb into the top 10.

Are Ross County frustrated and demanding an explanation from the government? I don't have a big issue with Celtic inquiring about this but why is there a song and dance about them not getting it? What I am debating here is why is this headline news and frustration because it is Celtic? Have any Scottish racecourses asked the government for fans back, did the SRU request their game be chosen, has any other sporting establishment asked the government to be the test event? I would think most have not and they are waiting on the government guidelines changing. We have already been told fans can get back in from the 14th September in some form. The government will be trying to bring fans back in the way they see is acceptable.

I can't remember seeing a proper explanation why pubs were open before gyms. Or why were tattoo parlours opened before dentists. In England they had chose a few test events, snooker and cricket were selected, I don't believe any other sporting event asked for it they were just accepting the guidance. Did any football club other than Celtic ask for a test event? Why out of the thousands of sporting clubs in the UK Celtic appear to be the only one asking for themselves to be selected. Why then must they receive an explanation? They should be told they have chosen an event and to wait for further announcements. They don't need anymore than that. I doubt at a test event they would do anything do disrupt it. I believe the majority of fans are good people and behave themselves. I was only saying that my view on why football fans are treated differently is because in general as a collective group they act differently.

Why does everybody need an explanation? To me it is clear why they choose a rugby game, a large stadium and fans that will obey the guidance. I am not offended or disappointed by that. The government said there would be a test event and they have choose one. Are horse racing fans, golf fans, cricket fans all jumping up and down wanting an explanation why rugby and not their sport????? I don't feel at football I am treated that differently but then I behave myself, if some fans feel they are then they need to also have to admit that some football fans act differently to other sports fans. If you compare football fans to all other sports fans (not just rugby) then you have to be honest and admit overall the behaviour is worse. The Scottish parliament felt the need to bring out an offensive behaviour at football and threatening communications act. What other sport required an act of parliament due to the supporters behaviour? If you don't like football being treated differently then I understand and sympathise with that view especially if you behave and go to games just to enjoy the event but at least be honest and admit that a minority of fans have put the sport in that position and not the authorities.

Exactly, why should Celtic or football fans feel aggrieved at this. They have to choose something for a test event. They have chosen rugby, a lot of it will be for logistical reasons. No way could football have been selected and absolutely no way could one of the old firm because of fans who would think they were being treated unfairly and it is a conspiracy against their club for the one who wasn't chosen. England had test events at cricket and snooker I believe, had it been golf and tennis nobody would have cared, only in the world of Scottish football is this an offensive issue.

By every measure it is a better stadium then Hampden. Views, location, facilities. What does Hampden have that is better than Murrayfield? I am a massive football fan however I don't have the view that this automatically means I have to hate rugby. I have been to several Scotland rugby games and the day out at Murrayfield puts the football to shame.

I agree with all your points and if Turnbull chooses Celtic because of personal reasons then that is perfectly fine for him to do that. I debate this with people though that Celtic are guaranteed Champions league football. They are guaranteed the chance to qualify for it. I haven't worked it out but I'd guess they have a 50/50 chance of qualifying for the groups most seasons. Another point of the appeal of Champions league is to get to play against a Bayern or a Barcelona, that is great but it is only 6 games if you even qualify. I would say you can put Liverpool, Man Utd, Arsenal, Man City, Spurs and Chelsea in that category of 'super clubs' too. At Newcastle he is guaranteed to play 12 games every year against this opposition and on top of that his run of the mill games are not Ross County and Hamilton but are Everton, Leeds Utd or Leicester. The most unappealing game in the EPL is maybe playing Burnley, that is comparable to Aberdeen in Scotland which would be deemed Celtics biggest fixture after Rangers. There are many more big games if you are at any EPL club than there is if you are at one of the Old Firm.

I wasn't aware that this has been going on for so long. I believe though that the champions league format will change in a few years to even more benefit of the current superclubs and if the countries outwith the 'top 5' leagues don't do anything they will fall further behind. I believe in tradition and would prefer that domestic leagues remain but became more competitive but sadly I feel that is very unlikely. The only way our league, Netherlands, Portugal, Croatia, Serbia etc could become genuinely competitive would be drastic rule changes which make it difficult for clubs to dominate but any new changes seem to be going in the opposite direction. If cross border leagues can bring more competition I would accept that as a small price to pay.

I have thought of this for some time that football should do a bit more to attract fans to stadiums. People on here laugh at the idea of trying out ideas that other sports do and the thought is that a pint before the game and walk to the ground is all you need for a day out and any ideas contrary to that belong elsewhere. Having been to a lot of other sporting events, football abroad included, the things around match days are so superior to football in this country it baffles me why we accept it and I don't know if we are accepting it anymore. Although Scotland has a high attendance per capita I heard the Aberdeen and Motherwell chairmen saying the highest demographic of their fans is late 40yr old men (I would be surprised if that wasn't the case for all clubs). If we keep appeasing the 40-50yr old men then attendances will eventually decline. If clubs don't have fresh ideas after Covid then fan attendances may go down.

Current squads both would struggle, anywhere in the bottom 6. The EPL is unforgiving, massive historically successful clubs like Leeds and Villa have both been relegated Leeds staying down for a long time. Big supported clubs like Newcastle, West Ham and Wolves have been relegated several times in the last 20yrs. The 2 biggest clubs, Liverpool and Man Utd have went 26 and 30 yrs between winning titles. So any OF fan thinking they would be guaranteed to compete are just wrong. They may challenge and win the league from time to time but they could also quite easily be relegated. It probably comes down to whether a billionaire is willing to plough money into them or not. Do they still attract the big supports if they have long periods of mediocrity?

According to McCoist Rangers are bigger than Chelsea and only Man City, Liverpool and Man Utd are bigger. If Celtic are equally as big then we already have a large proportion of our squad at big clubs.

That is unlikely for a country of our size although Belgium have done it and we are closer in population to them than Germany or Brazil. A more realistic aim is to have 3-4 top players and a bunch of players who are good players and sufficient to play to a managers plan. Lots of small countries that do well may only have 1 or 2 top players but the rest of the team are capable of playing to a good level and tactics. Apart from Bale and Ramsay Wales are pretty average but the rest of the team can play a good support role which has gave them a very successful recent spell. I think we almost have the supporting players but we just need a few gems to come through.

Have you seen the potential teams who the 2nd placed team (Rangers) would have to beat to qualify for the group stage? For example this year 2 places were between, Olympiakos, Basel, PSV, Viktoria Pzen, Basaksehir, Krasnodar, Brugge, Porto, Dynamo Kiev, LASK. No way is the runner up of the SPFL getting through this.

I have thought about this kind of thing for a while but no way will Scotland lead the way in cross border leagues as we are among the least progressive countries in the world when it comes to trying new ideas. A Scotland, Wales and Ireland would be good but won't happen. Wales would need to bring Cardiff and Swansea to the table and as they are yo-yo EPL teams I doubt they would want to swap leagues. The teams from Ireland are all too small to compete if they were the size of Hearts, Hibs or Aberdeen it would be interesting but none of them are that big. If they were willing to merge and create 4 province teams like in Rugby then it could be interesting. I don't know but I think football in the North of Ireland has the bigotry attached to it so it would be a divisive thing and probably wouldn't gain the same support that the Ulster rugby team has. Netherlands and Belgium may be the first to go for such a league. If that works then a Scandinavian one may follow. These countries are quite open minded and their people are not stone age neanderthals when it comes to ideas like this.

Celtic and Rangers have done well to get they points. The writer though talks about getting to 10th in Europes rankings. This will be extremely difficult and there are a few reasons for this. Celtic and Rangers start in the early qualifiers therefore pick up some easy ranking points. When they start entering at a further stage then they have to get further to pick up the same amount of points, also the countries we replace then get the opportunity to get the easy points so if we go above a Denmark or a Greece their sides will mop up the early rounds and it will become a yo-yo effect in the rankings. The next thing is if Celtic or/and Rangers do get straight to the champions league then they wont win as much games as they would in the Europa therefore dropping down the rankings again. I think 14th-20th is where Scotland fit in the UEFA rankings. We were at 26th a few years ago and to get near the top 10 we have to do better than Turkey, Netherlands, Ukraine on a consistent basis.

Werner could have asked to play out the champions league season for RB Leipzig, he decided not too. This could be seen to show disloyalty to his team. Chelsea are not seeing it that way and will be delighted he decided not to play it out. This could be seen to show the same disloyalty as Fraser. I am implying that a buying club will be grateful for this and in no way will it put them off a player as much as fans (especially of selling clubs) would like to think that. There will be players playing the remainder of the Champions and Europa league seasons that will move after the tournament has finished. If you believe that Ryan Fraser is struggling for a club then that's fine, I don't see it that way. I believe that he will have known for a while he has options and there will be discussions going on that we are not aware of. Bournemouth apparently offered him a new contract which would have been a big increase on his previous wage. If he has no suitors then he would have signed that contract, the fact he didn't indicates to me he has something lined up. The fact he choose not to play the remainder of the season which would have been a good shop window to display his abilities is another indication to me has something arranged. Ryan Fraser will be in the EPL next season on a bigger contract than he was last season.

Werner is still be eligible to play for RB Leipzig. They are in the kinder side of the draw so he could have played on in that tournament and had a chance of doing well. The fact he has chosen not too will not annoy Chelsea but will delight them surely?

While I and almost every football fan would like to think a players lack of loyalty to their current club would put people off I think that is just not true in reality and I wouldn't be surprised if their was a club touting him and they were happy for him to sit out and not risk injury. Think Chelsea are regretting Werner sitting out the champions league run in?

It's strange that Man Utd are going for him. They are also heavily linked with Grealish and Sancho. To me it is not the attacking side of their team they need to strengthen. I think they need a new goalkeeper, left back and maybe one other top player to have the squad to challenge, although I don't think they have the manager to seriously do that though.

What are these rates like compared to other countries? And what are they like compared to 50's and 60's?

Yes as a country we do if we listen to the statistics. On a first aid course I went on a few years ago the doctor made a remark to the class that diabetes will bankrupt the NHS. If this is a self inflicted problem then we should be doing a lot more to address it. We shouldn't throw money at the NHS to fix a problem when we should be fixing the root cause which in the long term will save us money.

That is fair and I don't imagine Hearts fans want to be in the championship to get that same feeling but that wasn't the reasoning behind his comment. The point he was making and I now understand is that at the start of the season in the championship all the teams can dream of winning it (whether that is likely or not) but can also have the surprise of actually getting relegated as Falkirk and Partick have proven recently. In the Premiership 10 of the 12 teams can only ever get to 3rd but can also get relegated. There isn't a limit as to what a team can achieve in the championship, there is in the premiership. Nobody dreams of finishing 3rd therefore 10 of the 12 prem teams don't really start the season with any real excitement as to what they can achieve.

The point is the same, the premiership will never be able to change as Sky want 4 old firm games. It doesn't matter that the majority of Scottish football fans would like a bigger league and a more varied opposition, we have to tick the as many old firm games as possible box.

I remember a Falkirk fan telling me that the Championship was a lot more fun and while he was happy to get promoted as that is their aim and the success brings you joy the premiership was boring for him. I couldn't get the concept of that at the time but as I got older I totally get it. The premiership does everything for the sake of 2 teams and these are the only 2 teams that can ever win it. If my team is in a competition I want the opportunity to win it not only to be there to make the numbers up so the old firm have a league to play in. I would say the most interesting league in my lifetime was the championship when Hibs, Rangers and Hearts were in it and probably because Rangers were just like any other team for a season.

The Scottish cup is more prestigious than other European domestic trophies and other countries don't really care? That is quite a statement. Whether it is true or not there are over 50 spots in the Europa league for domestic cup winners so even if it is a 2nd thought to most clubs it is still a valuable prize. I didn't know that, thanks for info. I don't underestimate the finances of this, how much of the 22% comes from the semi and final though? Surely the SFA will already have some of this money. I just believe if there is a way to make a mess of things the SFA and SPFL will do it. Nobody even knows when fans will be allowed in so delaying it is a gamble. Their is a good chance of fixture congestion coming ahead especially for Celtic (who I have no sympathy for but will scream conspiracy and unfairness) so any possibility this gets put back again or ends up behind closed doors anyway defeats the whole point of delaying it.