Graeme Souness has pointed to the vast financial disparity between Scottish football and the top European leagues as the root cause of Celtic and Rangers’ recent humiliations on the European stage.
For the former Rangers manager and player, the brutal defeats suffered by Glasgow’s two biggest clubs in midweek were a harsh reminder of where the power lies in modern football – with the money.
Celtic were demolished 7-1 by Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League, while Rangers endured a 4-1 drubbing at the hands of Lyon in the Europa League.
Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic travelled to Germany with high hopes but were soundly beaten by a Dortmund side that had shown fragility in recent weeks, having been thrashed 5-1 by Stuttgart and narrowly scraping past Bochum.
Over at Ibrox, Philippe Clement’s Rangers were outclassed by Lyon, in a sobering reminder of how wide the financial gulf has grown between Scotland’s best and the wealthiest clubs on the continent.
In his Daily Mail column, Souness did not mince words in highlighting the financial challenges faced by Scottish teams.
“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,” Souness wrote.
He continued, analysing Celtic’s tactical approach: “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.”
Turning to his former club Rangers, Souness described how the disparity in finances has hamstrung Scottish sides:
“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.”
Souness laid bare the stark economic reality:
“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.”
The Glasgow clubs’ failures were, for Souness, a brutal reminder of how Scottish football now lags far behind Europe’s financial giants.