By James Hegarty
May 16 2002

The English FA have moved to try and kill off the old firms hopes of a switch to England.  They are insisting that they will never give any plans to have Celtic and Rangers in the league.

Celtic and Rangers have been holding meetings with chairman from the English Nationwide League trying to persuade them to let them come down south but at the moment they don't have much hope. 

If Celtic and Rangers do get to go to the English First division then UEFA and FIFA insist that all the football governing bodies like the SFA and EFA will have to be in an agreement before any move can be made.

In a statement from the English FA they had this to say "The football Association today made it clear that it would not sanction either Celtic or Rangers joining the Nationwide Football League."

"This was discussed at a recent board meeting.  The FA has reconfirmed that any such move would be contrary to its policy and against the spirit of fair competition."

That statement was from Scottish born Chief Executive of the English FA Adam Crozier.

They are currently in a meeting just now and the thought's are we might see a joint league cup.

It has now came to light who it was that invited Celtic and Rangers this was Bradford Chairman Geoffrey Richmond.  Richmond said "We saw the turnout and atmosphere at Stuart McCall's (testimonial) game.  It was certainly an experience that I've never experienced."

"It would be hugely beneficial from the point of view of negotiating the next television contract, but the negative of that is that the benefit would probably only be a short term one of one or two years, and then we're back to where we were."

Recent testimonial matches in England have showing that Rangers and Celtic could bring down big crowds to increase gates which some of the English 1st division sides could be happy with due to the collapse of the ITV digital deal.

If this does happen don't expect it to be this season.