NO ALLY McCOIST, CELTIC’S TOTAL DOMINATION OF RANGERS ISN’T “ALL DOWN TO FINANCES”
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- Apr 14
- 4 min read
According to Ally McCoist, speaking on the verbal diarrhea production mill that is Talk Sport, the gap between Celtic and Rangers is “all down to finances”.
Where do I even start with this latest spewing of total nonsense from the failed Rangers manager?
I’m actually more disappointed in his co-host Jeff Stelling, a man whose opinion I usually respect. He didn’t even challenge McCoist on this drivel, despite all the obvious evidence to the contrary.
Ally McCoist’s Ignorance Means Celtic’s Dominance Will Continue
As I’ve said before, McCoist was, in the past someone whom I found entertaining, and actually quite well informed as a football pundit.
However, since he joined Talk Sport, he’s clearly decided that being a totally partisan uber bluenose, incapable of saying anything that even slightly questions Rangers’ divine right to rule Scottish football, is the best route to continuing employment.
The saddest thing is, on such a miserable excuse for a radio station that trades almost entirely in gossip and manufactured outrage, he might be right.
Now, here are the facts.
Celtic are managed better than Rangers, on and off the park. It has been that way ever since Martin O’Neill came in way back in the year 2000. Our current financial superiority is something we have worked to grow and maintain over at least the past two decades.
In fact, I would argue it goes all the way back to when Fergus McCann, Brian Dempsey and others stepped up and saved us from financial oblivion in 1994.
Celtic got to where we are now on merit, through hard work, smart investment, discipline and patience.
Rangers fans demand success, but lack any of the attributes mentioned above necessary to achieve it.
That is why we are in the position we are in now. We didn’t use any dodgy tax schemes, we only signed players we could afford.
And our managers were given the time, space and resources necessary to succeed, even if it didn’t always go exactly according to plan.
The first version of Rangers went into liquidation because they gave no thought whatsoever to my first two points about tax compliance and player affordability.
The Newco Rangers, The Govan Dodgers, the Tribute Act or whatever you want to call them, now simply can’t accept the reality that they can’t just buy their way out of this problem.
Let’s take Celtic’s biggest profits on players of recent times, as examples of how you should do business.
The soon to return Kieran Tierney was a player we trained and developed ourselves and, knowing his worth, we wouldn’t let him go to England unless we got top dollar.
Then there’s the case of Matt O’Riley. A fantastic young player we recruited from the obscurity of the lower reaches of English league football.
The fee we paid for him is well within the budget of a team like Rangers. They just didn’t have the scouts looking in the right places.
We gave Matt O’Riley time and space to develop and then sold him for a massive profit when the time came.
Meanwhile, let’s look at a couple of similar examples at Rangers: Ryan Kent and Alfredo Morelos.
Now, both of these players fitted the profile that should turn a profit. Young, promising players, that, if developed properly, could return a significant profit on their investment.
Rangers didn’t do that though. Particularly in the case of Morelos, who as much as we make jokes about him, was a very effective striker.
But he obviously had major issues with his fitness, his attitude, and his temperament. Good management could have sorted these issues out, and Rangers could have made a tidy profit on him. Instead, he left for basically nothing, and has now disappeared into obscurity.
Kent was also a player who was totally mismanaged, and who Rangers held onto for about 9 months longer than they should have. Again, they made a massive loss made the player departed.
There is of course, the other, more brutal observation that one could make. Celtic bring in more money than Rangers annually because they are a bigger, more successful club.
As I’ve said before, that will not change unless Rangers accept that, and start putting in place long term measures to develop their own players on the pitch and expand their marketability off it.
That will never happen though. Their fans simply won’t allow it. They will not accept the 5 to 10 years of struggling to maintain second place in the league, that would be necessary to completely overhaul their academy set up and bring through their own players.
And in terms of marketability, well as long as their fans insist upon clutching onto their flutes, their British nationalism, their bigotry and their racism, Rangers remain a toxic asset, with very limited business potential outside of the UK.
A final question I would like to ask Ally McCoist, and anyone else daft enough to parrot this false narrative:
If Celtic’s financial superiority makes it impossible for Rangers to compete with them, then surely Rangers financial superiority should make it impossible for the rest of the Scottish Premiership to compete with them?
Why have they lost to Hibs, Motherwell, St. Mirren and Queens Park within the last 2 months?
If indeed, it “all comes down to finances”, then even in their current, weakened state, Rangers, with almost 50,000 of a crowd every week, should have more than enough to wipe the floor with all these teams.
It is not just about the money, its about how you use it. Celtic have used, and continue to use our money wisely.
Rangers continue to spend beyond their means year after year in a vain attempt to delude their fans that they are still on Celtic’s level.
They aren’t, and until they accept that, they will forever remain in Celtic’s shadow. McCoist knows that as well as I do.
