There’s a bigger conversation going on around Rangers just now than formations, line-ups or even who we sign next. It’s about the ceiling we’re all hitting in Scottish football, and what that means for a club like ours.
Rangers and Celtic should, in theory, be miles clear by now in terms of growth and long-term development. But the truth is there’s only so far you can go when the environment you operate in keeps putting a lid on ambition. That’s where we are as a league, and it’s starting to bite.
The decline of Scottish football around us
For a long time now, Scottish football has been slipping relative to other smaller countries across Europe. You look around and see nations with less support and fewer big clubs managing to modernise their structures, invest properly and keep raising their level. Meanwhile, we seem stuck arguing about the same issues year after year.
The worrying bit, for me, is what that means in 5–10 years. At this rate, it’s not hard to imagine a future where Rangers and Celtic aren’t even regular Europa League sides, never mind pushing beyond that. Other leagues will overtake us by a distance if we keep standing still while they quietly improve their coaching, facilities and youth pathways.
It’s not about panicking, but about being honest. The rest of the football world isn’t waiting on Scotland to catch up.
A broken system that blocks meaningful change
One of the biggest problems is the way change actually happens in our game. Needing almost all of the 42 league clubs on board for anything really impactful is a built-in handbrake. It means self-interest wins far too often, and bold decisions get watered down until they are pointless.
We can’t even properly get a couple of colt teams embedded in the pyramid and treated as a serious development tool. Other countries lean into that kind of thing to improve young players and raise standards. We turn it into a political row then leave it half-baked.
On top of that, we still have plastic pitches at the top level, which is just crazy for a supposedly elite league. Add in officiating that, far too often, looks amateur and inconsistent, and it all feeds into the same feeling: we’re not serious enough about making the product better.
Rangers’ job: rise above the chaos
All of this is the wider, slightly doom-and-gloom backdrop. But even with a flawed structure and a league that’s holding itself back, Rangers still have one job: be the best team in the country, every season. That has to remain the basic standard.
So while we can’t single-handedly fix Scottish football, we can control how we build our squad. For me, that starts with what we do in the next transfer window. We should be targeting experienced professionals who’ve been around the block, know how to handle pressure and won’t shrink when the title race gets tight.
Scottish football might have its limits, but Rangers can’t afford to think small. If the ceiling is coming down on the league, our response has to be to raise our own level and mentality as far as we possibly can within it.
The national game might be stuck for now. Rangers, however, don’t have that luxury.
Related Articles
About Rangers News Views
Rangers News Views offers daily Glasgow Rangers coverage including match reaction, transfer analysis, SPFL context, tactical breakdowns and opinion-led articles written by supporters for supporters.
