Norwich City sporting director Stuart Webber has taken a pop at Celtic and Rangers in a comparison with some recent English success stories.
The big play-off final at Wembley that will guarantee passage to the Premier League is this year one for the romantics, as Coventry and Luton both look to cap their rise from the lower leagues to the lucrative top flight. Webber reckons the likes of the Canaries and Huddersfield reaching such a frontier recently is an achievement to be lauded when a club like Southampton are suffering relegation to the second tier.
But he ended his assessment with a veiled pop at the dominance Celtic and Rangers hold in Scotland's Premiership, and hopes his club and others never appear in such a scenario. He told The Athletic: "Whoever gets there I’ll be delighted for them and they will deserve it. People need to respect what the Premier League is. Look at Southampton.
"They’ve just got relegated, are on three more points than we got and spent £143million net this year. How hard is it for a club like ours to become established? Incredibly hard. Oh, 100 per cent overachievements (Norwich's two recent promotions to the EPL). If you looked at the financial modelling of 92 clubs, we’d be considerably lower.
"Football is a money game but where it’s still exciting is you can still have a story of Huddersfield or Norwich, Luton and Coventry. Fantastic. You’ve managed to achieve something. Thank god because if that shuts then what is the point? It becomes American sport, the Super League where it’s Real Madrid versus Man United for the fifth time, or Scottish football. Celtic and Rangers again."
