So we’re back at this again? Celtic and the Ibrox side will NEVER be allowed to play in England, EVER! Here’s why…

Every few months, this story about Celtic and the Ibrox side heading for England is regurgitated.

This morning it’s the turn of Keith Harris, a former EFL chairman, who has popped up on the Keys and Grey Unleashed podcast with a “secret plot” to tell us all about.

Big news, apparently.

Except it isn’t, because we’ve heard it all before.

And it will still get a lot of attention, because it always does.

Harris says a £40m deal was signed, sealed and very nearly delivered

Here is what he said on the podcast, as reported by the Daily Record:

“I attended a lunch at David Murray’s house in Perthshire. The Celtic and Rangers board were both there in the same house.”

“There was broad agreement that they would come into the Championship. It was a triumph. I’d like to take praise, but it wasn’t that difficult.”

“I got stopped by a journalist who said ‘I’ve got the story.’ I think he was an Observer journalist. And that blew it, no question. It died on the maypole. But it was that close.”

So that’s the story.

A lunch, a handshake, and a nosy reporter from the Observer who spoiled the party.

Now, I’m not calling Harris a liar.

He chaired the English lower leagues for all of six months back in 2002 – so he’s entitled to his memories of it.

But a lunch at a rich man’s house in Perthshire isn’t a signed contract, is it?

A broad agreement between a few boards isn’t the same as the English game opening its doors.

And notice who wasn’t at that lunch, by his own telling.

Not the clubs in England who would have had to vote it through.

The clubs English people say their Nan could play in are too big for English football

Believe it or not, that’s the reality of the situation.

Everyone in England has a joke about the league their Nan could play in.

Yet those same people would not allow Celtic or the Ibrox side anywhere near the English game.

Why?

Because their growth, as soon as they arrived, would be off the charts.

Think about it for a minute – you know I’m right.

Celtic Park on a European night, or even a Tuesday in League Two, if we had to start at the bottom, with 60,000 in the stadium.

Season ticket waiting lists that would embarrass half the Premier League.

A support that travels in numbers no other club south of the border could dream of.

And that’s before we get to the television money.

Most people in the English game are terrified of two Scottish clubs overshadowing the big boys

That’s the concept that keeps them awake at night.

It’s not that Celtic and the Ibrox side would be a nuisance in the Championship, or even the lower divisions of English football.

It’s that they wouldn’t stay there.

Give either of them a few years of English TV money and what they’d do with it would be off the charts.

They wouldn’t just be promoted, they’d be sitting alongside the top EPL sides.

And eventually, probably, challenging for the title.

Don’t tell me the likes of Manchester United and Liverpool wouldn’t see that coming from a mile away.

Why on earth would they vote for it?

They’d be handing a rival a seat at the table, and a seat that came with a ready-made fanbase.

Make no mistake, those clubs didn’t spend thirty years plus building their EPL brand just to share it with a pair from Glasgow.

I think this is part of the reason Dermot Desmond behaves the way he does now

I’ve already discussed how desperate Dermot Desmond was to gain access to the riches of the EPL.

The absent meddling golfer has wanted a piece of that pie for as long as I can remember.

He’s seen what the money does for clubs who have it.

And he’s seen what it would do for ours.

Which is why I think it’s part of the reason he behaves the way he does now.

The refusal to spend.

The obsession with the net transfer profit.

The sense that Celtic are being run as a holding pen until somebody lets us through the gates.

I could be wrong about that.

But if I’m right, then he’s been waiting for a door that was never going to open.

And that’s the one bit of this story that actually matters.

It’s never going to happen, no matter how many times it’s brought up

Let’s get real here.

Even if Harris is telling the truth word for word, the story is twenty-four years old.

The Scottish game is a different place now, and so is the English one.

There’s more money at stake, more people guarding it, and far less goodwill for a pair of clubs who would walk away with the lot.

So we’ll hear it again.

In a few months, somebody else will remember a lunch, or a phone call, or a plot, and the papers will lap it up.

The Scottish media will give it a few days of dead air and a few thousand clicks.

And we’ll all roll our eyes and move on.

Because we all know why it won’t happen.

They’re SCARED of us!

End of.

Choose Read Celtic as a ‘Preferred Source’ on Google News for quick access to the news you value.