Celtic Cup set to start in 2009

This Story is from www.BBC.co.uk:

Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland have agreed "in principle" to play a series of three biennial "Celtic Cup" tournaments.

An agreement signed on Monday commits the countries to arranging the tournaments on a league basis.

Home and away games will be rotated from one tournament to the next with each team playing three matches in each of the competitions.
Last week England distanced themselves from involvement in the tournament.

Commercial arrangements and fixture dates are now being finalised.

The old Home Championship, which included England but not the Republic of Ireland, was staged every year until 1984.

But matches between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were eventually scrapped because of increasing fixture congestion.

Last week Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he would welcome the revival of home internationals to ease the pain of Euro 2008 misery for the four home nations.

England's defeat by Croatia, following the failures of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales triggered calls for the sides to face each other in 2008.
It is the first time since 1994 that no home nations have qualified for a major tournament.

The Republic of Ireland did qualify for the 1994 World Cup in the United States.

Scotland battled valiantly but finished third in a group including Italy and France, while Northern Ireland's fate was sealed when they were beaten in Spain on Wednesday.

Wales's campaign was in tatters after a string of early defeats.

It's a shame England cannot or refuse to be involved because I think that would make thos tournament more appealing with all due respect to Wales and the 2 Irelands nothing will be as passionate as Scotland v England however as with Scotland at the olympics I believe we should respect Englands descion and get on with it ourselves. Personally I would ditch the term Celitc cup and invite the mighty Gibralter into the tournament, hell maybe even have a Commonwealth cup or something.

I think the problem that England has is that it's F.A. are so stuck up in themselves that they think they are too good to be involved with Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland now.

In my opinion it is England loss. This tournament will be a chace to build the new international teams when the countries aren't involved in the big tournaments. It will only make the countries involved stronger and allow the respected F.A.'s of each country to work out what players are going to be good enough to play in the main team and when.

I suppose that it is more likely that England would be in the major tournament anyway and so would missout but they could play a B side and even that would be good enough to compete in a home nations tournament because it would mean that England would be involved and young players could groomed for the national team.

Instead the English F.A. (who are supposed to be looking for was to improve the quality at the national sides disposal) cannot see the benifit in this.

As things are going currently I can see the England side in future years being eclipsed by Scotland or the Republic of Ireland as the best side of the British Isles (And Eire)