Tony Blair became "obsessed" with creating a British football league as a way of bringing the UK together, the former prime minister has revealed.
Mr Blair said he believed merging the Scottish and English leagues would strengthen the bonds between the two nations after devolution.
But he said a British national football team would have been a "step too far".
Mr Blair was speaking to BBC Scotland to mark the 20th anniversary of the devolution referendum.
The referendum was held just four months after he led Labour to a landslide victory in the 1997 general election.
Looking back at the referendum - which led to the creation of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh two years later - and its aftermath, Mr Blair said he believed in retrospect that he could have "looked for more ways to keep Scotland and England culturally aligned".
He told BBC Scotland's political editor Brian Taylor: "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.
"I always thought we should be looking at ways of making sure that people felt a connection."
It has often been suggested that Rangers and Celtic in particular could join the far wealthier English league but the idea has never come to fruition - partly because of the lack of widespread support for the move from English teams.
Mr Blair, a Newcastle United fan, said he could still see a "certain logic" in the concept of a combined British league.
But he acknowledged that any proposals for a British team to replace the Scottish, English, Welsh and Northern Irish international teams would be a "step far too far".
He added: "I was looking for ways of making sure that as we in a sense diverged around devolution, that there were elements of convergence and I still think in the future it is important we look for that."
- from the BBC