John Bennett mending broken bridges with SPFL as Rangers crisis continues
06/28/2024 07:30 AM
Per ardua ad astra. Through adversity to the stars. If Philippe Clement is to achieve anything with Rangers this season, it looks like it will be done the hard way.
No CEO, no academy director and no Ibrox for the beginning of the season as well as having to rebuild almost every area of his squad too.
Five experienced players have left, four promising talents have signed which means that recruitment is on the right track, however, the Rangers board is under fire for the situation regarding Ibrox with no end date currently in sight.
Rangers up against it already as SPFL make Ibrox stance
The fixtures for the 2024/25 season have been announced and, predictably, Rangers are away from home on the opening day of the season with three away games pencilled in for August and September.
These are the ones that will cause an issue, along with Champions League qualfiers, with a solution no nearer to being announced.
Posting on X, all Rangers have done is repeat their initial announcement:
"Supporters will be aware of the delayed works in the Copland stand, likely to impact home fixtures in the early part of the new season.
"The club will provide an update on any changes to those home matches at the earliest possible opportunity. Rangers thanks our supporters for their patience."
Speaking on Sky Sports, Neil Doncaster was able to clarify matters slightly in what was an encouraging statement:
"Unfortunately, these things do happen.
"I used to run a club and we had to build a stand and work closely with the league to make sure our fixtures went ahead with only three parts of the ground available.
"So, now that the fixtures are out, we will be liasing with Rangers because they've got a far better handle on the work than we do and we'll be doing our best to work with them to try and get them through what is clearly a difficult situation.
"We've been very impressed with the way that the new chairman John Bennett has tried to strengthen relationships across the game and we'll certainly be looking to work with him and his team to be as flexible as we can be whilst being fair to everyone else."
John Bennett mending broken bridges in Rangers tenure
The nature of the work at Ibrox means that closing one stand isn't feasible due to the crane being used having to be located on the pitch and the grass underneath needing to be repaired before it is suitable for fixtures.
Hearts were in a similar situation in 2017 and there were no dramas when they encountered difficulties so it should be no different for Rangers, other than the obvious inconvenience.
What is good news though, is that Rangers seem to be trying to rebuild some of the numerous bridges that have been burned down over the years.
Rangers relationships with the SPFL and SFA are far from ideal, especially in situations like this when they need them to help.
It's a similar situation with other clubs too, Rangers need to be on good terms with them to open a pathway for talented academy players to go out on loan or, as in the case of Connor Barron, when we need to negotiate transfer fees.
"No one likes us, we don't care" is all fair and well, however, this doesn't really work when you go cap in hand in need of help.
