Football

Welsh football clubs

Wouldnt it be a good idea if Cardiff and Swansea City left the English League and joined the Welsh Premiership.
This would enable 2 more English clubs to join our league. Also Cardiff and Swansea would benefit, as it would more or less guarantee them European qualification every year. The knock on affect of this would also help the Welsh national team to qualify for the World/Euro cup for the first time in nearly 60 years.

bobthebandit Thurs 30/10/08 21:13

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mark01
Fri 31/10/08
08:32

Bob, with respect have you seen the standard of the Welsh premier?

The average attendance at games is 300 and the majority of the grounds can only accommodate up to 2500 -3000 fans.

Both Cardiff and Swansea will want to play at the highest standard possible and the prize of playing in the Premier (English) far outweighs qualifying for Europe via the Welsh FA.

The quality of the young players that Wales have coming through the system is excellent and they recently took the English u 21 side to 2 close games. The full Welsh team can only benefit with these young players playing at the highest level - the average age of the Welsh squad for their last game was early 20's. This all bodes well for the future.

bobthebandit
Fri 31/10/08
21:42

Question Author

Mark
Thank you for your response. I agree that the Welsh league is of a lower standard, however this would improve with the introduction of Swansea, Cardiff and also Wrexham,Newport County and even Merthyr Tydfil.
The Welsh League would then mirror the Scottish League where Rangers and Celtic dominate.
Although both Cardiff and Swansea have had relative success recently with bigger gates and promotion, this will not last. Over the last 20-30 years both these clubs and Wrexham have been surviving on gates of between 3-4,000 usually in the bottom 2 divisions.
A few big games in Europe for them would more than make up for any lost revenue. In fact revenue loss may be an advantage, as these clubs would not be able to attract players from outside Wales and then would have to rely on home grown talent. The knock on affect would then benefit the Welsh national team as they would have a bigger pool to choose from.
Also as mentioned before, there would be room for 2 more English clubs to play in the Football League ie Chelmsford City, AFC Wimbledon etc

Hammond Egg
Fri 31/10/08
23:40

Bob,
I think your comparison of the SPL to Welsh football is seriously flawed.

Most of the other clubs in Wales are tiny, in terms of their fan base, as Mark01 has pointed out; they are certainly smaller than nearly all the teams that play in the SPL.

Cardiff and Swansea wouldn't get the income from visiting fans from a Welsh league that they get from playing in the English system. They wouldn't get money from TV rights that they do now. And they would throw away for ever their chances of playing in the Prem in England (however small you may think that chance is).

Because of the poor performance of Welsh clubs in European competitions over the past few years, those two would
begin in the very early stages of European competition and I think it's unlikely that either of them would reach the group stages of the Champions League often.

The potential downside for Cardiff and Swansea is huge. The upside isn't so big, and the chances of it ever happening are slim, to say the least.

It's also worth pointing out that very few of the better Welsh players in recent years have played in Wales. I can't see your suggestion having any influence whatever on the fortunes of the Welsh team

Mark01's analysis is spot on.

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