It was fully self inflicted by Rangers. When English clubs were banned from Europe, they exploited it by offering big money to England internationals, who couldn’t get European club experience down south. For a time, Rangers were spending bigger than some of the top English clubs - even years into the Premier League era. They were doing to the Scottish game, what PSG have done to the French game, over the last dozen years.
Celtic were in financial trouble themselves, in the early 90s, and were struggling to clinch runners up spot, or the cups. Rangers thought and assumed their financial dominance would go unchallenged. Then Celtic were saved by Fergus McCann. Who reinvested in the squad, and rebuilt a decaying Parkhead. Rangers continued spending, and initially continued their dominance, only interrupted by Celtic winning the league under Wim Jansen in 1998. Rangers were cocksure, that for every fiver Celtic spent, they’d spend a tenner. By 2000, Mark Hateley was declaring Rangers dominance as unbreakable, that Scottish football was now ‘broken’, and Rangers should seek new pastures.
Ironically, he made this ridiculous statement on the eve of Celtic’s revival under Martin O’Neill. But Rangers still kept that mentality, that all they needed to do was outspend Celtic. But it didn’t work out like that. Especially as such an over ambitious transfer policy, requires immense progress in Europe, which they weren’t making. They spent on the assumption that the invite to the riches to the English set up, was always in the post. When it clearly wasn’t. It was Rangers that were more obsessed with moving to England. Not saying Celtic weren’t open to leaving the Scottish set up - but they eyed up concepts like an Atlantic League, which were more realistic, and meant negotiating with like minded clubs like Ajax, Porto, Benfica, PSV, etc.
Rangers kept partying like it was 1999, only the game was moving on, and leaving Scotland behind. Celtic took the harsh decisions to address this harsh reality, and took stick from their fans, in doing so. But Rangers were in denial. They thought that what worked for them in the 80s and 90s, would work in the 2000s. And as we all know, it ended in tears.
ErinStephanie-mfqk
Fun Fact: The last manager to win the Scottish premiership that wasn't Celtic or Rangers was literally Sir Alex Ferguson.
Love this new style of content, since you're also focussing on less covered stories that are still super interesting.
Would suggest a video about SC Freiburg, since Union Berlin has been covered so much. Freiburg has risen to be a European contender, they have a manager that's been there for ten plus year and have an incredible academy producing the likes of Matthias Ginter and Nico Schlotterbeck. Absolutely deserve more coverage.
matthiasw
One of the greatest achievements in Scottish Football isn't Celtic winning the European Cup in 1967, it's not Rangers or Aberdeen winning the European Cup Winners Cup in 1972 or 1983, it's none of those things, it's the Scottish Football authorities watching a club cheat for years (side letters, not telling the SPL), amass debt they would never be able to pay, watching them go into liquidation, then watch a new club take their place, no debt, and claim they were the same club all along. It is one of the biggest scams in football because if they are the same club (and a club by definition is a legal entity) then they owe a lot of money. Why should other clubs watch what they are spending if they can just go into liquidation and re-invent themselves as the same club?
Like it or not, Scottish football needs "Old Firm" and therefore, "Rangers" were preserved. New club in all things legal, same club in all things semantics.
askthesfa
Love it. Rattle the huns. Same amount of league titles as Celtic have European cups
ciaran
In fairness and this is coming from a Celtic fan for both Celtic and Rangers we can’t really do anything else about the fact that other teams don’t have enough money. We can only continue to win that our job as a football club so I don’t know why we always get the blame for the league being terrible as it is
tjay
comment section will be a war zone of angry bears
paddypoohead
Hi Liam, love your content. I’m an Aussie and would love for you to do a video of the history of Celtic Manager Ange Postecoglou. He’s won trophy’s everywhere he’s been, and there’s rumours he may be managing in the EPL next season. Cheers mate
christhomas
Rangers used a loophole in order to keep their titles. The only ones who claim they're the same club are Rangers fans. Check company house records, new company, new club.
sharonbrown
I'd love for you to do a video on two cases that this reminded me of - the case of belensenses, a club split into two because of a disagreement between the owner and the chairman and resulting in the split of a club that was huge untill the late 90s. Another is salgueiros, a team that got relegated and dissolved because of their chairman who stole money, the key element to bring interest is, Zidane played his first match in a European competition against salgueiros. Other cases in Portugal that are still not fully resolved - boavista got wrongfully relegated and the decision overturned years later but they lost all the momentum and have still to be paid the settlement by the Portuguese FA. And the most infamous one- Gil vicente had a player called mateus caused them to be relegated because he was allegedly wrongfully registered and was allegedly ineligible to play that season, saving belensenses from relegation, and waiting 10 years to have the decision overturned and to be reinstated to the top flight
adarbarrush
A very similar thing hapened here in Bulgaria whit one of the giants CSKA Sofia, the club went bankrupt but the owner of Litex managed to acquire the team and its lisence, then he changed Litex to CSKA Sofia and somehow managed to keep them in the first league even tho they shoud have been in the 3rd tier and Litex had just droped out of the 1st league ( i asume there was alot of under the table deals since the league is very corupt ).
Now there is a new CSKA team called CSKA 1948 made by the fans who dont approve of the take over and there is a new Litex too in the 2nd tier.
stefankatsarov
They started out in the 4th tier, not the 3rd. Also, they had to apply for a new SFA membership and a part share from an existing SFL member to play in their first game in the cup against Brechin City. They also had to apply to play in the new SPFL.
maldaley
Brilliant video again Liam. Very interesting to see how it all went down for rangers and obviously feel very sorry for their fans however I’m glad to see them climb again especially getting to a Europa league as that’s the least the fans deserve. Keep up the great content mate👍🏻
zanzo
Loved the video. Great work. I have a suggestion/request.
I'm from India and I support East Bengal FC which plays in the Indian Super League (ISL). We have a very old history. And in the last few years or seasons we have been quite shit. Because of the ownership and the new league (ISL). We were on the verge of administration a few times.
It would be awesome if you could make a video essay about it. :)
Regardless, keep up the great work mate.❤️🫡
soumyasarkar
Great video Liam and hugely impressive research! I've been watching the channel for a number of years now and you're a great guy. Keep up the great work!
fch
Tbf, I am a Celtic fan but an example in a different sport of when a team went into administration was when Force India did in F1. It was bought by another party (by Lawrence Stroll. I think. Can't fully remember if that is when he became part of ownership) and even though the team had new ownership and new name, the team was still the same team at its core.
conalflood
Amazing video Liam! I would love to see a rant about the Steaua Bucharest situation or the rebirth of Rapid Bucharest. I think they are really interesting subjects to look more deeper into. Keep up the good work ♥️
adikala
I’m a Rangers fan and you’ve covered the subject well. It’s a miracle we managed to climb out of the gutter back to where we belong…
BrodieForsterEdits
I thoroughly enjoyed you making a video about rangers, your new style of documentary type videos are great. Keep up the good work Viz.
elisemaybelline
Loving this style of videos, extremely informative and entertaining
unofficialleeds
Loving the effort your giving to put out content for us❤️
