Rangers fans have been debating the pathway from academy to first team for years, but it feels like we’re right back at the same point. We keep producing talented youngsters, and we keep watching them head down the road before they ever really become Rangers players.
The reality of losing our best kids to England
It’s not one isolated case and it’s certainly not new. Off the top of your head you can rattle off a list of clubs we’ve lost players to in recent seasons: Newcastle, Forest, Villa, Brentford, Man City, Crystal Palace. And that’s only the ones we actually hear about.
On top of that there are the boys who never even properly commit to our academy in the first place. They’re identified early, sounded out by English sides and tempted south before we’ve really had a chance to build anything around them. By the time they should be pushing towards our under-18s or under-19s, they’re already away.
This drip of talent out of the club chips away at the whole point of having a top-level academy. You invest the time and the coaching hours, but when the ceiling for these lads is England rather than Ibrox, you start to wonder what you’re actually building towards.
B Team gone, pathway still unclear
The decision to disband the B Team said a lot. The club recognised that by the time players hit that under-19 bracket, we were already losing the very best of them. On top of that, there wasn’t a clear, convincing pathway into the Rangers first team from that level. In simple terms, the structure just wasn’t doing what it was meant to do.
If the B Team isn’t providing a bridge and the elite talent is leaving before they get that far, it becomes hard to defend the current model. You can talk about coaching, facilities and structure all day, but if the end product isn’t Rangers first-team minutes, it starts to feel like we’re developing players for other clubs.
Can we really compete with the Premier League?
That’s where the harsh question comes in. Unless Rangers can revamp the academy to genuinely compete with the draw of the richest league in the world, sitting practically on our doorstep, what purpose does it serve in its current form?
We’re not just talking about money, either. English clubs sell a dream of regular elite competition, bigger platforms and faster routes to the top. Trying to beat that pitch is incredibly difficult, even for a club of Rangers’ size and history.
When that question is being asked by someone who has spent almost 15 years involved in coaching and player development, it carries a bit of extra weight. This isn’t moaning for the sake of it. It’s a genuine worry about whether the system, as it stands, is sustainable or even worthwhile.
And now the women’s game is heading the same way
The concern doesn’t stop with the men’s side either. The women’s league is already starting to follow a similar pattern, with interest and investment from elsewhere threatening to pull the better players away before clubs here can really benefit from them.
Rangers can’t just rip everything up, but the club does need to be brutally honest about what the academy is supposed to achieve. Is it about producing first-team players for Ibrox, or is it becoming a finishing school for richer leagues? Until we answer that properly, the frustration around losing our best youngsters is only going to grow.
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