Ronny Deila

[worcesterhibby]

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"Champions league" my arse. They should actually be done under the trades description act for that. Should be called " the competition designed to keep the richest clubs rich and the wee diddy clubs down". Farce of a competition now. Since it began how many times has a non champion won it? We will never see the likes of Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa, Celtic win it ever again. There is probably only about 10 clubs in Europe who now have a realistic chance of winning it and that is all down to the way it is designed to make money for them

Nottingham Forest won it when they weren't champions of their own country

I agree with your key point though. All clubs who win their home Championship (plus the holders of the CL) should get straight into the Group stages. The rest can fight it out in qualifiers.

EDIT: Ok I just realised there are 53 countries with teams in the Champions league, so the above is not going to work. What I would say is that NO team that does not win it's national league should get directly in to the Group stages (unless they are current CL holders). If that was the case there would be another 8 places available for actual champions from the next eight countries with the highest coefficient.

I have to say looking at the way UEFA work out who enters at what round absolutely baffles me. Celtic have a coefficient of 36.813 and have to start at the 2nd qualifying round stage. While Limassol of cyprus have a coefficent of 7.650 yet get to start at the third qualifying round stage ?????

In fact 6 of the 10 teams who enter at the 3rd round of qualifying have a worse coefficient than Celtic…how does that work ???

[SanFranHibs]

May be slightly ill phrased but it is performances like ours last year that are dragging down our co-efficient.

As has been said the CL is designed to keep a few clubs from only several countries at the top, raking in the CL money.

Even Cyrpus, Denmark and Austria have slightly easier qualifying than us and Switzerland, Greece, Belgium and Turkey have their Champions automatically qualify in the group stages and their runners-up straight into Q3, whereas Celtic have to start at Q2 and our runners up not even in the qualifying rounds. Celtic may not have been good in the CL last year but their performances in the past few years must rank higher than being bracketed with Icelandic teams.

And I think it is time that some of our fans got their heads out the read ends regarding 'they reap what they sow 'nonsense. Hibs are a selling club. No-one forced us at gunpoint to sell Scott Brown, Whittaker, O'Connor, Rob Jones, Kevin Thompson, Ivan Sproule when Hibs fans thought Petrie was God and it was all a good bit of business, especially the 4.5 million for Brown. Of course, when we try and poach players from St. Johnstone or Inverness or whomever, it is ok. Or get their managers or executives...it is fine. We are a bigger club and they have smaller expectations. (How many times did I read that on this site regarding ICT and Butcher).

We have been a selling club since I can remember...Colin Stein, the first 100,000 transfer in Scotland and the following week he comes back and nets a hat trick as the old Rangers put 6 past us.

We reap what we sow !!!

[SanFranHibs]

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Nottingham Forest won it when they weren't champions of their own country

I agree with your key point though. All clubs who win their home Championship (plus the holders of the CL) should get straight into the Group stages. The rest can fight it out in qualifiers.

EDIT: Ok I just realised there are 53 countries with teams in the Champions league, so the above is not going to work. What I would say is that NO team that does not win it's national league should get directly in to the Group stages (unless they are current CL holders). If that was the case there would be another 8 places available for actual champions from the next eight countries with the highest coefficient.

I have to say looking at the way UEFA work out who enters at what round absolutely baffles me. Celtic have a coefficient of 36.813 and have to start at the 2nd qualifying round stage. While Limassol of cyprus have a coefficent of 7.650 yet get to start at the third qualifying round stage ?????

In fact 6 of the 10 teams who enter at the 3rd round of qualifying have a worse coefficient than Celtic…how does that work ???

Quite like your idea that no team that does not win their countries league gets automatic entry to the group stage...but we know that will never fly as some of the top English, Spanish and German teams might not make it. Too many countries in 'Europe' now I think and somehow we have have Israel in. Ridiculous. 54 countries although Lichtenstein does not have a league therefore do not have entries to the club competitions so 53 like you said.

But as long as the top 6 - 8 teams in Europe are looked after then all is fine.

And as we all know...the best league this year will the Scottish Championship... Hibs, Rangers and Hearts. What co-efficient is that likely to produce?

[worcesterhibby]

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May be slightly ill phrased but it is performances like ours last year that are dragging down our co-efficient.

As has been said the CL is designed to keep a few clubs from only several countries at the top, raking in the CL money.

Even Cyrpus, Denmark and Austria have slightly easier qualifying than us and Switzerland, Greece, Belgium and Turkey have their Champions automatically qualify in the group stages and their runners-up straight into Q3, whereas Celtic have to start at Q2 and our runners up not even in the qualifying rounds. Celtic may not have been good in the CL last year but their performances in the past few years must rank higher than being bracketed with Icelandic teams.

And I think it is time that some of our fans got their heads out the read ends regarding 'they reap what they sow 'nonsense. Hibs are a selling club. No-one forced us at gunpoint to sell Scott Brown, Whittaker, O'Connor, Rob Jones, Kevin Thompson, Ivan Sproule when Hibs fans thought Petrie was God and it was all a good bit of business, especially the 4.5 million for Brown. Of course, when we try and poach players from St. Johnstone or Inverness or whomever, it is ok. Or get their managers or executives...it is fine. We are a bigger club and they have smaller expectations. (How many times did I read that on this site regarding ICT and Butcher).

We have been a selling club since I can remember...Colin Stein, the first 100,000 transfer in Scotland and the following week he comes back and nets a hat trick as the old Rangers put 6 past us.

We reap what we sow !!!

Your right of course in many ways, but the power is with the players these days, not the clubs. It's almost impossible for Hibs to hold on to players who know they could be across in Glasgow earning 5 or 10 times the wages, so it's normally a case of keep them against their will for an extra season then get nothing for them, or sell them when they demand that they want to go and at least make some money. It's a catch 22 situation and to just "Blame Petrie" is to suggest that Hibs are the only club effected by this, which you point out later in your post is not the case. We do it to "smaller" clubs ourselves. The trick is to somehow get your club further up the food chain. Plus in the last 20 years Rangers and Celtic have gone out of their way to buy players from Scottish teams to weaken them, even if it meant virtually never actually giving the bought player a game (as in the case of Deek). If The Old Firm had sought to bring on their own players and buy from outside Scotland then I suspect the other teams would definitely have stayed stronger. This would have benefitted the Old Firm with a better Euro coefficient, but in truth they just don't like the increased domestic competition.

[SanFranHibs]

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Your right of course in many ways, but the power is with the players these days, not the clubs. It's almost impossible for Hibs to hold on to players who know they could be across in Glasgow earning 5 or 10 times the wages, so it's normally a case of keep them against their will for an extra season then get nothing for them, or sell them when they demand that they want to go and at least make some money. It's a catch 22 situation and to just "Blame Petrie" is to suggest that Hibs are the only club effected by this, which you point out later in your post is not the case. We do it to "smaller" clubs ourselves. The trick is to somehow get your club further up the food chain. Plus in the last 20 years Rangers and Celtic have gone out of their way to buy players from Scottish teams to weaken them, even if it meant virtually never actually giving the bought player a game (as in the case of Deek). If The Old Firm had sought to bring on their own players and buy from outside Scotland then I suspect the other teams would definitely have stayed stronger. This would have benefitted the Old Firm with a better Euro coefficient, but in truth they just don't like the increased domestic competition.

Which was my point regarding selling. I was not blaming Petrie but highlighting the fact that he was held up as a financial god for us when in reality and I have said this in a few previous postings, all he done was sell off our best players and it was thought by many Hibs fans to be good business for the club. No-one can expect Celtic to 'spread the wealth' as was said on this thread. It has to be a league wide system to better serve the league by making it more competitive. Easier said than done I know but complaining because we are presently down on the food chain is not the answer.

Also, I don't think Celtic can be accused too much of not bringing in youths from their system or importing foreign players and I think Riordan is the only one that Celtic kept on the bench for personal reasons. It's not as if Stokes and Griffiths came through our youth system and they plucked them from our creche.

I don't like Celtic, I don't like Rangers but I am not going to blame them for our failings. We sell, they sometimes buy. If we had more money we would buy from clubs 'lower' down the food chain which in itself is becoming a problem as there are not many in Scotland below us on the food chain who actually have players worth buying.

I think for the next year or so we will have to rely heavily on youth, loans and the occasional free agent like El Alagui. Could be more productive than paying 150k-200k for mediocre players.

I am quite hopeful Stubbs can make some good loans/signings.

[Turkish Green]

The EPL teams have money to bring in international players from non-EU countries worldwide or top ranking players from within the EU. This is generally well above the level of players that Scottish clubs can attract so we are foiled by UK Immigration work permit rules for players from non-EU countries that are not current internationals. This is a good thing if you want to protect the nurturing of home grown talent but I cannot see how the likes of Man City and Chelsea buying up the market of foreign players does anything to progress the development of English youth. It could be argued that the failure of England in Brazil was as a result of a lack of players in key positions due to those positions being filled by foreign imports in the EPL.

Go take a look at teams in other European countries and count the number of Brazilian footballers that ply their trade in Portugal, Greece, Germany, Turkey, etc. the majority of whom are nowhere near international level. Teams like Ajax have made profit out of bringing young South Americans and Africans into their academy system (e.g. Zlatan, Suarez) and then selling them on. They can do this because other Eu countries do not have as stringent work permit rules as the UK. So what we see are players from the lower leagues in France, Netherlands, Spain, etc. coming to Scotland to play.

The men in blazers that sit in Hampden appear to be more interested in preserving there perks that making radical needed change to the game in Scotland.

[givescotlandfreedom]

Aberdeen would have won last night with ease IMO. Does anyone know his religion because that's the only reason anyone would dislike a Celtc manager.

[Hermit Crab]

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Don't know if this has already been posted elsewhere

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/28307088

Great way to endear yourself to the rest of Scottish football.

What a roaster

He won't be in that seat long I don't think.

[weecounty hibby]

Been thinking about this today. And the ugly sisters were two of the biggest advocates fot the champions league and were firmly behind it from the start. Now that they find themselves as one of the diddy teams there not happy. As with the way they control our leagues you reap what you sow assholes. No sympathy whatsoever and stop blaming every one else. Especially as RD doesn't appear to know his history, another in a long line of fuds in charge of the OF

[bigwheel]

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Aberdeen would have won last night with ease IMO. Does anyone know his religion because that's the only reason anyone would dislike a Celtc manager.

Eh ?????

[Dashing Bob S]

As long as Celtic has the dipstick element of sad losers in their midst, (the ones who see supporting the club as being akin to membership of some bizarre sex cult) it will always generate a culture that turns reasonable people into rabid, slavering pricks, as they try to play to this gallery of weirdos. Martin O'Neil an excellent case in point.

[MWHIBBIES]

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Eh ?????

Its a joke because Celtic fans thought people didn't like Lennon because of his religion.

[Lucius Apuleius]

Those saying that he it's correct are of course right, the rest of us have pulled them down. However we have only pulled them down due to the finances they have compared to the rest of us. This is obviously due to bigger crowds. Which is due to them having better players and winning things. Which is due to them stealing all our bloody players.

[Pedantic_Hibee]

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As long as Celtic has the dipstick element of sad losers in their midst, (the ones who see supporting the club as being akin to membership of some bizarre sex cult) it will always generate a culture that turns reasonable people into rabid, slavering pricks, as they try to play to this gallery of weirdos. Martin O'Neil an excellent case in point.

Bravo!

[NAE NOOKIE]

He has a point. But as others have said, the failure of Scottish teams in Europe for more than two decades has many causes and celtic along with their ugly sister have been part of the problem, certainly not part of the solution.

The so called Champions league is nothing of the kind, it should be called the 'Lets make sure the top clubs from countries with the biggest TV audience make the last 16 every year league' Coz that's the name of the game. If Ronnie Deila seriously thinks that UEFA are ever going to put sporting results over financial gain he has failed to grasp the truth everybody else realised years ago. The Champions? league is all about money and has little to do with sporting competition.