Charles Green expects Rangers to feature in new European league

CHARLES Green has predicted that Third Division Rangers could take part in a new European league because they are one of the top clubs in the continent.

• Charles Green believes Rangers will be involved in new Euro league

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• Green makes claims on day he announces £20m share issue

The Ibrox chief executive suggested that Rangers are still one of the top sides in Europe despite their downfall this year, and believes top flight clubs in England and elsewhere would want to take them on.

“There will be a European league because big teams can’t keep subsidising small teams for the next ten years because they will go stale,” said Green.

“Arsenal don’t want to play Southampton or Swansea, but ask them if they want to play Celtic or Rangers. It’s what the fans want to see.

“Fans across the world want to see Manchester United play Barcelona, not just once every few years but every season.

“If there are two divisions of 18 clubs, how could Rangers not be a part of that?

“I’m convinced it will happen because otherwise where will the revenues for the top come from?

“These days Arsenal are struggling to sell out their game against West Ham.”

A European league has been mooted over the years, but now Uefa are reported to be open to change.

Green insists the rewards for playing in the lucrative English Premier League are not fair on the top clubs.

“How can Manchester United’s revenues be £320m and Aston Villa, who are completely useless, get £250m?” he added.

“What Manchester United put into world football is massive, but what they take out of it is a joke and they won’t put up with that for much longer.”

League reconstruction

Yesterday Green used the announcement of the club’s stock market flotation plans to suggest that, if and when Rangers return to the top level of Scottish football, it will not be within the current format.

The Ibrox chief executive has been at loggerheads with the SPL over the way the governing body dealt with Rangers during the summer upheaval and their investigation of the ‘oldco’ club’s alleged use of employee benefit trusts during Sir David Murray’s time in charge.

And yesterday Green claimed that the SPL may not exist for much longer because Scottish Football Association chief executive Stewart Regan was actively seeking league reconstruction. “On the SPL, Stewart Regan said the other day they will be looking at reconstruction,” he said.

Green is adamant that Scottish football is suffering due to Rangers’ absence from the top flight, and he suggested that a radical restrucuting of the league will see the SPL wound up.

“I want to play in the top league [but don’t assume that] will always be the SPL,” he said. “The SPL threw us out the league. They then stole our money that was due for last year [in prize pot and centralised revenues that were due to oldco Rangers] and are pursuing us to strip titles.

“It’s like coming home, finding your wife in bed with the milkman, asking for a divorce and then a week later asking: ‘Can you forgive me? We’ll make up’. I can’t make up. If the Rangers fans can make up, get on with it. But Charles Green will never forget what the SPL has done and that’s why I am anti going back where we were told we weren’t wanted.

“I can’t affect reconstruction. I don’t know what the Scottish Football League is thinking. I don’t know what the SFA is thinking. We are having a meeting with Campbell Ogilvie and Stewart Regan shortly to see the SFA’s thoughts because we want to draw a line and move forward.

“Scottish football is broken. Attendances are not there, the gates are falling, the interest is falling and it needs to be fixed. Where we are, as the biggest club in Scotland – by fans, by numbers, by any number of multiples – we need to be sat round that table with Celtic and the other people to look at how Scotland can move forward.”

His comments contradict the views of SPL chief executive Neil Doncaster, who said yesterday that the SPL had continued to be “financially robust” since the demotion of Rangers to the Third Division.