Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has addressed a Scottish club in the midst of takeover talks where Celtic fans are a prime target. In the Lowland League where Celtic have a ‘B’ team, Albion Rovers have fallen on hard times. They have been left mired in the fifth tier after dropping out the SPFL and are in financial difficulty, with it announced they won’t pay players and staff a wage next season, with parachute payments from their relegation ceasing. They will no longer receive SPFL prize money.
That has the ‘Project Phoenix’ consortium on the case and willing to try and provide a financial footing for Rovers to work off, but with some major changes.
After initially proposing to rebrand the club ‘Shamrock Rovers Coatbridge’, they have come back to the table with a pledge to keep the original name but Celtic still play a key role. Rebranding will ensue including a move towards green and white colours as the consortium look to tap into Coatbridge’s Irish heritage.
Project Phoenix spokesman and businessman Paul Reilly has already blasted the club in its current state, saying to Lanarkshire Live “Albion Rovers has been synonymous with failure, I am from Coatbridge and the club has always been – and still is – an embarrassment to the town and the great people of Coatbridge.” It has also been confirmed that they are appealing to Celtic fans to help make the project work by adopting Rovers as their second team. MP for Coatbridge and Bellshill brought the Rovers story to the attention of the Prime Minister at PM’s questions on Wednesday.
He said, as shared on X: “Albion Rovers has been a football institution in Coatbridge since 1882, however following relegation and the lack of financial support for teams leaving professional leagues it now faces a deeply perilous situation, risking the very future of one of Scotland’s oldest football clubs.
“Does my right honourable friend agree that clubs like Albion Rovers are integral to the fabric of our communities and will he join me in encouraging all parties to be solution focused on this matter and encourage football authorities to strengthen our clubs in the lower leagues to help protect the future?”
Starmer responded: “He’s a superb local champion and regardless of which club any of us support, we share a love of the game and they are at the heart of our communities. Albion Rovers is exactly that, a huge point of local pride and I’d encourage all efforts to secure the future of the club.” Celtic fans prove vital to saving club Those efforts alluded to by Starmer, for now, have Celtic fans right at the heart of them. Reilly has already said: “People in the area will go to Celtic Park and some to Ibrox on a Saturday, but we want to have Albion Rovers there as their second.
“The club sits in the central belt, the largest, populous area of the country and many people cannot get to games. This would provide an alternative. Obviously, we are not foolish and given the nature of the rebrand, anyone who currently has a season ticket at Ibrox is not going to go along to a newly rebranded Albion Rovers.
“You have to know your core customer and we are going to focus on them. We intend to take the club into an online international platform as well. We have a global Irish diaspora out there and Celtic are already tapping into that in the US. Many people don’t like change, but sometimes change is what is required. Some fans may not come with us on this journey, but those that do will be rewarded. We will get thousands of fans at Albion Rovers. Most people will laugh at that and look at the support at the moment and ask: How is that possible? But we have got a strategy and rebrand that we know will create opportunities for the club to grow its fanbase.”
