Celtic Nations Club Football Cup

I have an idea to help football in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Brittany, the Isle of Man and Cornwall. My idea is to have a trophy played between the top clubs sides of all the Celtic nations. A Celtic Nations Club Football Cup.
Cardiff City would get a chance to play big Celtic sides like Glasgow Celtic, Glasgow Rangers, Aberdeen, Heart of Midlothian, Hibernian, Dundee United, Dundee, Motherwell, Swansea City, Wrexham, Newport County, Rennes, Nantes, Linfield, Shamrock Rovers, and Cork City.
It would mean trips to beautiful places, and stadiums.
I would want all the Celtic nations to enter sides in the trophy.

It would be a club Cup on top of domestic and European football.

My idea would be a group stage trophy, leading to a knockout stage, leading to a final.

My idea would be to include all Scottish Premier sides, plus the four big Welsh sides in the English Leagues, plus selected sides from the Welsh Premier, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Plus selected sides from Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany.

Imagine games like Aberdeen v Cardiff City, Nantes v Motherwell, Glasgow Celtic v Shamrock Rovers, The New Saints v The Isle of Man, Wrexham v Glasgow Rangers, Dundee United v Truro City, Swansea City v Dundee, Rennes v Heart of Midlothian, Ross County v Larne, Hibernian v Dundalk, and Linfield v Connah's Quay Nomads.

The clubs would need to finance their own participation in the trophy. This would stop the smaller sides decreasing the quality of the trophy.

The knockout stages could be single leg knockout rules. With the first team drawn out of the hat at home.

I think the Scottish clubs would be able to get access to a larger market out of this. While the smaller Celtic leagues would grow from regular football against top sides.



A Celtic Club Football Cup.

The Celtic lands reach a population of around 20 million people. So this is a big market.

This trophy would be on top of domestic and European football.

UEFA allowed the Scottish Challenge Cup to have Welsh and Irish sides in the trophy. So UEFA would be OK on this.

I think this would be on top of domestic and European football. -

For the Scottish sides it could replace the Scottish League Cup, and would be an interesting trophy to play in.

For Scotland this would increase their market, and would allow Scottish sides to play team from other nations.

For the Welsh Premier and Irish sides it could really increase their size. It could awaken sleeping giants.

For the big Welsh sides it could allow them to test themselves with teams who play in UEFA competition.

I am not pretending this trophy would be like Real Madrid v Barcelona. But it would have some decent sized sides.

Travel would be tough. But remember the distances that teams manage in the Chinese, Australian, Russian and Brazilian leagues. And remember that in rugby union the Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Italian and South African clubs sides play in a cross border trophy.

It is important to remember the name Celtic Club Football Cup is not like Celtic the football club name. The names Celtic for the football club and the name Celtic for referring to the Celtic nations are pronounced differently.

I would love more co-operation between the Celtic nations.
Also some small English sides could be invited into the trophy. Clubs like Shrewsbury Town, Chester FC and Carlisle United could enter sides for joy.

When do you suggest these games would be played, maybe as a warm up to pre season games, or just carry on the end of season straight through the summer, so we can burn out the players.

I would love more co-operation between the Celtic nations.
Also some small English sides could be invited into the trophy. Clubs like Shrewsbury Town, Chester FC and Carlisle United could enter sides for joy.

Pretty sure the likes of Shrewsbury used to be in the Welsh Cup when we were in it?

Feck me, Terry’s on a roll tonight..

Can’t see any appetite for it. Sounds like something a rabid nationalist would come up with.

I would be in favour of dropping out of the League Cup for a competition like this if there was any chance of having us having European football again.

You need to stay off the Sticky Sticky fella

Can't see it with EFL league clubs - too much hassle and too little gain. For the under 23s possibly but I don't think they can compete in non-EFL tournaments as far as I'm aware (I was told this when I suggested a while back we should have a feeder side in the LoW and play our kids in there)

That said for a long time I've suggested that the LoW should move to a summer league which would give them better attendances mainly as it wouldn't be competing for fans against us the jacks, Newport, Swansea and to a lesser degree Merthyr.

This however would also put us in sync with the League of Ireland who have operated as a summer league since 2003 and would open the doors to an Irish-Welsh cup which could be the foundation for something you are looking at - and I could see that as feasible as it is of benefit for both leagues.

The wider of a Celtic tournament though just wouldn't work in my mind.

The other areas though (in particular Scotland & France) would either have the challenge that we would have in that the parent league wouldn't justify a breakaway tournament (just look at proposed Superleague - it's the same idea just with smaller clubs) or simply not have the appetite/financial incentive. At the same time, the less developed (in footballing terms) areas of Cornwall and Isle of Man simply wouldn't have the funds or frankly any teams good enough.

Nice idea for the fans, but just not feasible for the clubs would be my guess. Kind of thing that could possibly work for kids/amateur level really well - but I don't think that was what you had in mind?

I would be in favour of dropping out of the League Cup for a competition like this if there was any chance of having us having European football again.

Why would this be a path to European football?

I would be in favour of dropping out of the League Cup for a competition like this if there was any chance of having us having European football again.

Welsh League available for that, fella....

Would certainly shorten the number of games we play in a season quite considerably as our season ends in late summer or early autumn

But hey, what an opportunity to improve the football, increase crowds with 'local derbies' against Cardiff Met, Barry's Town, Bridgend and other games against other Welsh giants like TNS, Llansantffraid and Llanelli

Surely a sell out stadium every game would enhance our status in the game and ensure financial stability?

Jeeeez, what an incredulous thread!

Hello! Earth calling!

It's all been tried/done before and failed due to lack of interest from the supporters and self-interest from those in power at each national associations (FA, FAW, SFA and IFA) when FIFA/UEFA suggested the UK be treated as one footballing entity even at international level

Ideas like the one in the OP are best left in their heads, if you don't want to see a new ambitious wannabe Alun Evans (many will remember him) emerge from the FAW's vaults seeking to make a name for himself

Why would the whole Scottish league qualify!?

There's literally less than a handful of games in your list that any cardiff fan would give two shits about.

Most of these teams don't have the capacity to playing another cup tournament onto of their current schedules.

It's a romantic idea but I'm afraid.. im out.

Let's just stick to not having a pre season friendly against Celtic or Rangers and playing Tavistock and Bodmin instead. Fortunately there are 46 league games against the likes of Preston and not Prestatyn.

It's a romantic idea but I'm afraid.. im out.

Perhaps it's just the mention of the Scottish teams that put it in my head but I literally read that out in Duncan Ballantyne's voice