Sports
Graeme Souness feels Celtic and Rangers’ Euro defeats are a ‘cruel’ warning of how the game has progressed
The Ibrox hero gave his assessment following a sobering night in Europe for Glasgow’s big two.
In a painful reminder of how the game has developed, Graeme Souness says Celtic and Rangers’ midweek difficulties in Europe are simply a matter of economics and where the money is.
Glasgow’s big two had a forgettable midweek, with the Hoops being hammered by Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League and the Light Blues suffering a similar fate a few days later at Ibrox against Lyon in the Europa League. Brendan Rodgers watched as his team lost 7-1 in the Bundesliga giants’ backyard, while Philippe Clement’s side lost 4-1 to the Ligue 1 outfit.
Rangers great Souness believes the gloomy week in Scottish football is a sharp reminder of how the modern game has developed for clubs north of the border. He utilised the figures behind Rangers’ earnings last year, including domestic and TV money, in comparison to the total garnered by his local team Bournemouth, which has 11,000 home supporters, to demonstrate the significant financial difference.
Writing in his Daily Mail column, he said: “This last week has been a sobering one for Scottish football and a reminder of how the game has evolved in a cruel way for our clubs. Both of the giants in Glasgow have suffered depressing defeats.
“Celtic faced a Dortmund team who lost 5-1 at Stuttgart two weeks ago and had to come from 2-0 down to beat Bochum last week, so Brendan Rodgers’ thinking would have been: ‘We’re firing on all cylinders and they’re not, so we can go there and take them on and outscore them’. I can understand that thinking, but it didn’t happen and Celtic came unstuck on a grand scale, losing 7-1.
“In my old team Rangers’ case, they were playing at home in a European competition where they had previously gone to Malmo and won, and thought they could take on the opposition this time — Lyon. They also got beat up badly, which again showed up the huge gulf.
“It’s a simple question of economics and where the money is in football, now. Rangers earned £8.28million in domestic and European TV money last season. My local team Bournemouth — which is not a football town and where 11,000 will attend home games — got in excess of £100m. That’s the gulf in money we are looking at. It came to the surface all too quickly in Dortmund and Glasgow.”
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