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Must compliment TLG, Rico and Panda for the quality of posting on this page of this thread. I can honestly say that as I've caught up on this this morning I've found my opinion on the matter at hand (European club football and its merits for the Scottish and wider game) changing by post. Each of you have points that I found myself agreeing with, even if in part it contradicted what I'd agreed with in the previous post. Maybe however, it is simply old age catching up on me and making me more senile and unable to remember what I thought a couple of minutes previously

This for me too Al I do sometimes wonder wonder Rico does for living when he posts his gigantic comments - think the last Booker prize winner had less words haha I was thinking today that if along with us, Hibs & Utd also progress into the group stages I really don't want jambos getting free run at all the League points!!

I'm not only looking at the status quo, and I am looking at the bigger picture. The bigger picture is exactly as I suggested - another tier in Scottish football. There will not be five teams playing regularly in groups, but if there were, it would taper off to being just those few teams who begin to dominate financially. The evidence for this is overwhelming, because it's exactly how the Huns and Tims gained their forty year dominance. The shitey Euro leagues just do exactly the same thing. The early recipients of the windfall use that to get the windfall again and again. It takes time to settle, of course, but within decade you have exactly the same problem. You're basically arguing that the answer to the problem of inequality is more of the same. It's not just in football, obviously, it's very basic trickle-down economics, with evidence in every single walk of life. We've had fifty years of Thatcher/Regan policy worldwide, showing us that inequality increases and that trickle-down economics is nonsense, for very obvious reasons. Of course, this is exactly what UEFA wants. They're not trying to create competition within leagues, so I'm not sure why anyone would think that'd be the goal of this expansion. It's about bringing more clubs into their dominion. Clubs that begin to rely on their funds and will agree to whatever bollocks they come up with next. The very obvious destination is European leagues, which for leagues like ours will mean B teams being shoehorned in (witness the total destruction, ongoing, of the challenge cup, for the sole benefit of the premier league - but mainly the scum). There is no other bigger picture here, what you've argued is a very narrow window that looks at the benefits for between 1-4 teams. Is it better for Aberdeen? Probably. Although I'd argue that it's only better if you're too partisan to see the view from the perspective of other clubs - which is exactly what the Huns and Tims do. I spoke to one of my Tim mates about the abomination that is the Euro leagues last night, and he said it was great because if they're third seed then they have a chance of getting through (in other words, completely ignored the point, and could only see it from how it benefited them). All European prize money should go into a single pot and distributed evenly across the league (with a significant portion going downward). That is the only way that the trite and objectively nonsense saying "a rising tide lifts all boats" could be applied. Not by the endlessly tried and failed methods of the trickle down.

I don't see how it's different. Attempting to create another unbreachable tier really, that we happen to be within. It doesn't benefit Scottish football at all, it benefits us, Hearts, Hibs and perhaps one other every so often. It's a fucking horrendous tournament, with contrived wanky leagues, that seeks to takeaway from domestic football with the eventual goal of European leagues and perhaps B teams gracing the domestic scene. We're in a situation where the talk about getting European football, is the unfair, unequal and unsporting injection of guaranteed cash that gets thrown at the team in third. Not just about us getting it, but it being essential that [one of] the other team[s] doesn't. There is zero benefit to Dundee, St Mirren, Livingston, Motherwell etc to us getting six times the prize money we receive from our league position (or cup win) just for being in a competition. Just as there isn't a benefit to us from the Huns or Tims doing so. Until unearned European prize money is shared equally between teams in our league, then it will continue to destroy the competition within the league and lead to compound inequality. By design. It's good for us, but it isn't good for Scottish football. Suggesting it is, is the exact blinkered view that the Scottish media present as to why we should support the scum in Europe. It's simply a question of degree.

Have to say that I have grown to enjoy the BBC Scotland coverage of the Championship on Friday evenings. Tonight's match between the two teams relegated last season, although only the second match of the season, already had the feeling of an important game for both teams and the opportunity to lay down a marker Almost sixty minutes in and still awaiting the first goal but the second half so far has definitely seen the pace of the game being upped.

The champions league started in '92. Not only did it allow the Hun to extend the imbalance, but it paved the way for McCann to sort out the Tims, comfortable that some sort of return could be made. Overall, the diddy clubs getting a one off windfall is a bad thing. Firstly, because only one or two will get it, and just as many will gamble and fail to get it. Secondly, because it perpetuates the myth that trickle-down works because we can give one example where it once helped a team temporarily. It allows people to say that if the diddy clubs just invested in better players and tried a bit better, or had more belief, then they too could have a chance at regular group stage football. We basically use the current scum arguments on those below us. Most importantly, however, is that nobody is addressing the fact that European group stage income is completely unearned, undeserved and unsporting. It's very clearly a form of sanctioned doping - or cheating, for want of a better expression. The biggest reason that nothing will happen is that everyone involved - both industry and fan - is in complete denial about it. Admitting the problem would go a long way to solving it. That there's not a single journalist willing, or capable, of articulating it is a large part of the problem (I'm not picking on the BBC!). People like me that attend most games are also a large part of the problem.

Probably more than any of us 2bf

Unemployed, obviously. Booker prize is for losers. Fuck do they know about fitba?

This makes me feel sick haha

Maybe this explains Blooming Tony's thinking behind his claims they're winning it