Tony Blair: I was '˜obsessed' with a British football league

Tony Blair had admitted to being obsessed with a British football league. Picture: Victoria Jones/PA Wire

In an interview with BBC Scotland the former Prime Minister revealed that he had hoped to bring the UK together through football by opening up the leagues to clubs from both sides of the border,

“I know it sounds a bit strange but I was for a time quite obsessed with the idea that, for example, for football we should be opening up the English league and the Scottish league and having them together,” he told BBC.

“I always thought we should be looking at ways of making sure that people felt a connection.”

Mr Blair was speaking as part of the 20th anniversary of the devolution referendum, four months after he led Labour to a substantial and significant win in the 1997 general election.

While he said that a combined British national team would have been a “step too far” he still sees the prospect of Scottish clubs playing alongside English teams having “certain logic”.