Scottish football no longer attractive to big names, says Jorg Albertz

Jorg Albertz celebrates a goal for Rangers at Ibrox against Austrian side Sturm Graz in September 2000. Picture: PA

The German midfielder, who spent five seasons at Ibrox, reckons Scottish football ‘cannot keep up financially’ and that the Scottish top flight is no longer an attractive prospect for big name players.

Previewing Celtic’s clash with Bayern Munich for German website Merkur.de Albertz said: “When I was at the Rangers, great names were playing in the Scottish League - [Paul] Gascoigne, [Giovanni] van Bronckhorst, [Tor Andre] Flo and [Brian] Laudrup [at Rangers] and Celtic had [Henrik] Larsson and [Paolo] di Canio. These were already household names. But big names are now sought in vain, the level has subsided.

And Albertz reckons part of the problem is the lack of competition for Celtic.

He continued: “The big problem is that Celtic are not challenged, which is a disadvantage for the Champions League.

“Celtic are always first, second is Aberdeen, with third being Rangers, who have been going through hard times. When I went to Rangers they had just won their ninth title, equalling Celtic’s record.

“Both teams wanted to be number one every season.”

Albertz, who moved to Ibrox from Hamburg in 1996, made 228 appearances for Rangers, scoring 82 goals. He won three league titles, two Scottish Cups and two League Cups.

But the former Ibrox fans’ favourite has spoken out in favour of Celtic moving to the English Premier League.

“Celtic has been thinking about moving to the Premier League for a long time, which would be a good thing, because their name and their legendary ‘Celtic Park’ are actually attractive for good players,” Albertz explained.

Meanwhile, Kenny Dalglish has said he thinks both Celtic and Rangers would improve the English league - but they would never get voted in.

• Read the full article on scotsman.com here>>>