25 Mar 2026 19:14:26
Recently had a very interesting conversation with Piotr Kasprzak, the scout responsible for identifying Redzic, Frigan, Belcar and Annan - all of which rejected moves to us over the last season or two.
He genuinely believes that Scottish Football is now regarded as a third tier league by the vast majority of the Balkan leagues and is not seen as a viable pathway for emerging talent - who would rather move to the second division in France and Germany or the Austrian and Swiss leagues.
With the changes to European qualification for next season and our inability to retain the best from our own youth, there is a genuine concern for our future transfer strategy.
25 Mar 2026 19:31:44
Somehow that doesn't surprise me, Ehl. The running/promotion of our league is shambolic at best.
At very least, a couple of things need to happen asap, full time officials, bring back reserve league with strict rules to play mostly homegrown/academy players.
Introduce & enforce a rule so no transfer of u18 players out of Scotland (e.g. Brazil).
25 Mar 2026 19:40:47
Correct, Ehl. I think that's why we r seeing subtle changes in focus towards Scandinavia, Portugal, and Belgium.
25 Mar 2026 20:11:46
I'm sure we'll manage to survive just fine without them.
25 Mar 2026 21:09:28
Plenty of quality in the leagues, with very reasonable prices.
25 Mar 2026 21:11:20
Makes you wonder why we didn't pick up Shankland and Mckenna on a free in the summer with all these difficulties in the transfer market.
25 Mar 2026 21:14:03
Was reading the other day, Koppen has been moved up at Copenhagen, the technical director, when he joined, is now working under him.
25 Mar 2026 22:49:55
Ehl, let's bring our own through. Love a team of 11 Scottish.
26 Mar 2026 02:20:42
Well, when we buy a third tier German player for a record fee, we kinda do it to ourselves.
26 Mar 2026 07:48:08
Had very limited success from those regions anyway, but with no pathway for development, it doesn't matter what country you're from until SFA or whoever changes.
26 Mar 2026 08:00:04
Simple solution. Improve our players, sell them to good leagues for great money.
The club is the attraction, not the league so much, but obviously plays a part.
I think if Hearts win league and or keep improving, then the league only gets better.
26 Mar 2026 08:23:01
Good points, Gdog, it's been a better league this year for me, just because the Glasgow teams have struggled, a few others have also stepped up their game.
26 Mar 2026 08:23:03
Gdog, I agree with you, but the problem is that we don't have patience to allow players to improve if they aren't playing well when they arrive. We have a good few examples in our team just now who will improve, but they aren't good enough for the team just now, supposedly, so we want to just get rid.
We need that pathway in the club to do it as they won't keep having share issues like the last board. Player development and sales are probably the most important element in our ability to grow, even more important than CL qualification in my mind; at least initially as player sales is where real money lies.
26 Mar 2026 08:31:17
That view point will change after a few high profile sales of players like Fernandez and Gassama amongst others. Once the pathway from lower to higher is consistently proven from us, players will want to come.
26 Mar 2026 09:03:31
Wish we could get back to having a reserve league. It was good, if you couldn't manage the first team away game you could always go to the reserve games at Ibrox. Used to get some decent crowds.
26 Mar 2026 12:04:42
Tf2 a reserve league is a must but won't happen because of cost and the way our football is run in this country.
Scotland is a terrible place for young up and coming foreigners to come to these days and the weather doesn't help either
26 Mar 2026 12:28:47
Rostoso, you need the players to want to come to us, yeah we could have, and should have, had Shankland especially with Dessers going, but I don't think McKenna was ever likely to come to us and he was supposedly earning £50k a week at Forest, we ain't paying that.
26 Mar 2026 12:47:39
Strange though that the Balkans don't rate our league but the Italians and English clubs go after our young players. I know where I'd rather end up.