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Football

19th May 2016

Fans are excited about the possibility of Celtic and Rangers joining English football

This is the time to do it

Nooruddean Choudry

Could the Old Firm finally be coming to England?

With the news that the Football League plan to introduce an extra division from the start of the 2019/20 season – resulting in an increase from 92 teams to a round 100 – there are renewed hopes that Celtic and Rangers could be two of the eight new sides.

Both the Premier League and the FA have approved the plans for league expansion ‘in principle’, but all the existing 72 football league clubs would still need to agree to the proposal at their annual general meeting in June 2017.

Almost inevitably the Old Firm debate has started up again, but interestingly, Football League chief executive Shaun Harvey didn’t rule out the possibility when asked directly about the likelihood of both Glasgow giants coming on board.

“The whole discussion can be had,” admitted Harvey. “But I suspect the wider this gets drawn, the harder it would be to deliver to our clubs and the rest of the stakeholders in the game.”

It was certainly enough to get these fans exciting about the long-discussed possibility…

https://twitter.com/Shindigg67/status/733354082581286914

Although not everyone was happy about the potential implications…

https://twitter.com/TheBigShow1976/status/733351404996300800

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