In the world of football, are we now classed as a small club?

[calscot 0]

It's not the league that holds us back, it's our population, due to TV money becoming the main source of income. If ever it was time to make use of being British it is now - and we are denied. You just have to look at the similar fall in fortunes of clubs from countries with far larger and richer populations than ours but not big or rich enough to compete with the top five: Ajax, PSV and Feyenoord. Of the smaller countries, only Portugal seem to do consistently ok.

 

Belgium have twice the population but you don't see much from Anderlecht or Standard Liege.

 

Our real peers are from rich countries of similar size like: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland and Slovenia - and compared to their best teams, Rangers have done pretty well over the last 5 years. In fact our 2011 ranking beats any of those countries and when you include bigger countries like Belgium and Holland we're still second only to PSV and sitting a place above Ajax. Panathanaikos are just above us, but again, Greece have a much larger population.

 

To be honest, we're punching above our weight and showing what a successful club we are from such a small country. We just can't compete financially with the bigger countries and are even now being out muscled by Swansea and Cardiff, due to their "British" league status.

[Zappa 0]

We've won more league titles than any other club in the world, have a fan base which is much much larger than many clubs who have more than 20 times more money than us to spend and we have a famous stadium which seats more than 51,000 people. No, we're not classed as a small club. We're classed as a big club, a great club who are getting left behind like so many other great clubs because we don't play in one of the top leagues where the insane amounts of broadcasting money are being handed out and preferencial treatment is being given for UEFA club competitions...

[Guest Dutchy]

Finacially, we're very small, which is why we need the CL money so much.

 

I don't know if it would be better to kick on with our own TV, but something has to change. Most of the money available is supposedly going to be split more evenly, so we need to find ways of making money. I did think the youth system would produce when Murray Park opened, but if we don't play our youngsters, they'll never get any experience and any budding young footballer will say, no point in signing for Rangers as there's very little chance of getting a game.

 

Our youth could be a valuble asset, if we knew how to work them.