The Derby, UEFA, Coin Flips and Nedball

As regulation tempers the worst Ibrox excesses, so football philosophy adapts to challenge Celtic's hegemony

Firstly, apologies for the lack of articles from me this week. Real life sometimes gets in the way, I’m afraid. I’d rather have been writing!

I will catch up in due course.

Back to matters at hand.

Many of us rationalists expect Celtic to prevail in these derbies, and the current news cycle highlighting a new kit deal with adidas exemplifies.

Of course, Celtic should be beating this shower! Just look at the resource advantage.

With around 9,000 more season ticket holders and the same advantage in match-day income for every home game, Celtic generates around £10 million more in match-day revenue per season compared to their rivals.

Add in another (minimum) £10 million advantage in commercial, retail and sponsorship, a functioning player-trading model (can be greatly improved!), and Champions League revenues, and Celtic, in Scottish terms, is almost uncatchable.

Yet. In a league where the third-best team has a stadium capacity a third of Celtic’s, second place only needs to beat the rest and stay on the coattails, making the derby matches competitive to break this advantage.

Much of Celtic’s resource advantage is baked in year on year. Meaning, the Hoops have margin of error on their side. Celtic can have a calamitous 2020-21 type season and recover quickly as they did under Ange Postecoglou. Meanwhile, The Rangers must hit the player trading jackpot time and again, AND take advantage of Celtic slip-ups to prevail. Very doable on a one-off basis, but difficult to sustain, especially as direct Champions League entry is off the table for the foreseeable future, whilst UEFA Financial Sustainability Regulations (FSR) will put a stop to short-termism in the various forms evidenced at Ibrox over the years.

These advantages have been in place for some time, and our thanks, as always, to Fergus McCann and team for making it happen.

Despite this, if we take a benchmark of the 2019-20 season, when The Rangers' wage bill achieved some sort of parity with Celtic’s, the picture in the derbies defies the resource landscape.