Celtic & Rangers in the EPL

[michealhill]

Hi,

Toying with the idea of moving Celtic and Rangers to the EPL. Would appreciate any tips/pointers in best way to go about this. As a general approach, i was going to do the below:

• push Celtic & Rangers down the Scottish pyramid based on club reputation (i.e., highest rep in Championship swapped with Celtic/Rangers, same for Lg1 etc.)
• swap Celtic & Rangers with Blyth and South Shields in National League North (chose these teams due to proximity to Scotland)
• push Celtic & Rangers up the English pyramid based on club reputation
• adjust finances to better reflect an EPL club
• swap based nation status to England to ensure UCL eligibility

i think for the most part, that will ensure the smoothest way of getting them into the league and no long term issues with Celtic and Rangers, like not being able to play in continental competitions, while also ensuring the other leagues arent majorly impacted apart from the bottom leagues in each pyramid

but is there anything else i should be looking to do to ensure things like:

• B Teams/Youth Teams are set correctly
• Regens still predominantly Scottish
• anything else that could potentially disrupt it as a long term save

Any tips/advice is appreciated!

Edited October 30, 2023 by michealhill

[themodelcitizen]

Newgens will be fine (still in a Scottish city and region, with a Scottish stadium) but Champs League registration will be a pain. It will want homegrown players trained in England because that's what their "nation" (not "based nation") is set to, even if their "continental cup nation" is now England. If I did it again I might try and make the Scottish Cup give one CL place, and include the Old Firm in there so they're still qualifying from Scotland the homegrown rules would be for Scottish homegrowns (or a new playoff at the end of the league season which brings in the Old Firm)

I remember B teams and youth teams acted weird when I did this last year too but seemed to sort themselves out after a year or two

[rusty217]

13 hours ago, michealhill said:

swap based nation status to England to ensure UCL eligibility

FYI this will just make them generate English newgens. Leave Based Nation as Scotland (Cardiff and Swansea still have their Based Nation set to Wales too). Instead it's the Continental Cup Nation you want to change to England, that's the one that affects European qualification.

B teams might be an issue. I know Celtic/Rangers have B teams in the lower leagues, not sure how that works if you move their country. Personally I hate B teams so delete them anyway. Other youth teams I'd assume just stay in their existing youth leagues. Both Scotland and England have pretty detailed youth setups, not just grab teams from Premier League etc., so I'd assume the youth teams just stay where they are. If you want Celtic/Rangers to have their youth teams playing in the English youth leagues you'll have to edit them a bit too.

[michealhill]

3 hours ago, rusty217 said:

FYI this will just make them generate English newgens. Leave Based Nation as Scotland (Cardiff and Swansea still have their Based Nation set to Wales too). Instead it's the Continental Cup Nation you want to change to England, that's the one that affects European qualification.

B teams might be an issue. I know Celtic/Rangers have B teams in the lower leagues, not sure how that works if you move their country. Personally I hate B teams so delete them anyway. Other youth teams I'd assume just stay in their existing youth leagues. Both Scotland and England have pretty detailed youth setups, not just grab teams from Premier League etc., so I'd assume the youth teams just stay where they are. If you want Celtic/Rangers to have their youth teams playing in the English youth leagues you'll have to edit them a bit too.

Thanks for the tip

[forameuss]

6 hours ago, rusty217 said:

FYI this will just make them generate English newgens. Leave Based Nation as Scotland (Cardiff and Swansea still have their Based Nation set to Wales too). Instead it's the Continental Cup Nation you want to change to England, that's the one that affects European qualification.

B teams might be an issue. I know Celtic/Rangers have B teams in the lower leagues, not sure how that works if you move their country. Personally I hate B teams so delete them anyway. Other youth teams I'd assume just stay in their existing youth leagues. Both Scotland and England have pretty detailed youth setups, not just grab teams from Premier League etc., so I'd assume the youth teams just stay where they are. If you want Celtic/Rangers to have their youth teams playing in the English youth leagues you'll have to edit them a bit too.

I don't believe Rangers do anymore.  They've had a weird relationship with youth and B teams, and have withdrawn from a number of competitions, preferring to organise their own games.  Currently only Celtic B and Hearts B compete in the Lowland league (where, amusingly, the former are getting roundly pumped). 

Might be that the B team just continues to work as a separate entity in Scotland, but safer option might just be to remove it entirely and return the Scottish pyramid to something not beholden to the Old Firm.

[michealhill]

3 hours ago, forameuss said:

continues to work as a separate entity in Scotland

I see you lol 😆 

Nah, thanks for the tips and feedback to all whove responded

Starting to feel its not worth the trouble now.

[themodelcitizen]

I have a file a few pages deep in the download forum like that, I think I put the 'B' teams in the SPL (which should keep them from qualifying for Europe) but that just caused different issues, and the AI didn't really know how to use it properly. You could peek at that file for ideas

[Jorgen]

In the past, such things were also possible with the use of EDT files, making use of commands like "swap_team". I have no idea if this only swaps the teams but keeps everything else intact for example.

[Damian_Rusling]

I edit the DB every year to do this. 

Add Celtic and Rangers to the EPL and relegate 2 teams downwards through the championship, division 1 and 2. The two teams that leave division 2 don’t get allocated to any league.

Its’s the opposite in Scotland. Promote 2 teams upwards with two junior sides entering division 2. 
 

The only issues are the youth teams don’t have a league for the first season. In the second season you get an invite to join the English u23 system. You also get to play in the Scottish league cup in the first season so there is a bit of fixture congestion.

[celtic_fc]

I'm tempted to try the same this year although start in the Championship.  Have done it in the past and usually just switch Cardiff and Swansea for Celtic and Rangers and only issues I've had are the ones @Damian_Rusling mentions above but they're not really major, tend to just use the Scottish League Cup in the first season to give game time to the youth players who are lacking game time.   

[Damian_Rusling]

Had another look at this today. You can edit Celtic to remove the b side and add an u23 side instead which you can move into one of the English u23 divisions.

It is also interesting to see how the spl does without celtic and rangers. In my FM23 save it was very competitive  with the title bouncing around between Hibs , Hearts and Aberdeen.

Edited November 4, 2023 by Damian_Rusling

[themodelcitizen]

16 hours ago, Damian_Rusling said:

Had another look at this today. You can edit Celtic to remove the b side and add an u23 side instead which you can move into one of the English u23 divisions.

It is also interesting to see how the spl does without celtic and rangers. In my FM23 save it was very competitive  with the title bouncing around between Hibs , Hearts and Aberdeen.

Have you noticed any issues with Champions League/"home grown from nation" registration? Usually they have 8 guys trained in England anyway so its not a problem, but ideally that could be Scotland for them

[Damian_Rusling]

7 hours ago, themodelcitizen said:

Have you noticed any issues with Champions League/"home grown from nation" registration? Usually they have 8 guys trained in England anyway so its not a problem, but ideally that could be Scotland for them

The main issue is that players signed from Scottish clubs like Turnbull, Bain and Taylor don’t count as from the nation. You have to start signing English trained players to fill the quota.

[HurkaDurk69]

9 hours ago, Damian_Rusling said:

The main issue is that players signed from Scottish clubs like Turnbull, Bain and Taylor don’t count as from the nation. You have to start signing English trained players to fill the quota.

You could manually add England as homegrown status for those players

[themodelcitizen]

Yeah but newgens will still have that issue. I was thinking about a test setup where the Premier League is set up under 'Great Britain' instead of England, I wonder if it would just look for that "British" nationality that they all have in the background

[Tazx78]

On 03/11/2023 at 08:25, Damian_Rusling said:

I edit the DB every year to do this. 

Add Celtic and Rangers to the EPL and relegate 2 teams downwards through the championship, division 1 and 2. The two teams that leave division 2 don’t get allocated to any league.

Its’s the opposite in Scotland. Promote 2 teams upwards with two junior sides entering division 2. 
 

The only issues are the youth teams don’t have a league for the first season. In the second season you get an invite to join the English u23 system. You also get to play in the Scottish league cup in the first season so there is a bit of fixture congestion.

Are you able to post the editor file at all?