Smith fears vicious circle after loss of Champions League place

Scotland will have only one entrant in the Champions League from the 2011-12 season after finally slipping out of the top 15 of the Uefa rankings this week. Thursday night's Europa League results for Belgian clubs confirmed Scotland's slide to 16th place in the provisional list which will determine participation for the season after next.

It is the consequence of the past two dismal campaigns for Scottish clubs in European club competitions which have seen just seven victories recorded in 40 matches.

Only the winners of next season's SPL will go into the 2011-12 Champions League, where they will then have to negotiate three qualifying rounds to make it into the lucrative group stage, the value of which was underlined this week by the half-yearly accounts published by both Rangers and Celtic.

Rangers manager Smith has long been a proponent of change in European football, favouring an extended league system which would benefit the top clubs in more mid-size nations such as Scotland, Belgium, Austria and Switzerland. He feels that need is now greater than ever if Rangers and Celtic are not to drift even further behind Europe's elite clubs both on and off the pitch.

"It is a huge problem," said Smith. "I think what has happened this week brings it into sharp focus for the Scottish clubs.

"While you can look at the situation and certainly say that the co-efficient ranking is our own fault, the fact is that it is going to be very difficult in a financial sense for each of the clubs to even make their best attempt to reach the Champions League. That will be a big, big thing for Rangers and Celtic.

"Even when we do get the Champions League income, it is difficult for us to spend the kind of money that is going to guarantee you can compete at that level. Therefore, it is now going to be a nigh-on impossible task for our clubs to do so if we are not getting that benefit or the guarantee of it.

"There are going to be qualifying matches for the future SPL winners, so the way it is structured is difficult. The realistic expectation is that we are going to have difficult ties to get near to the Champions League group stage. I would suggest to you that it won't just be in Scotland that it has an effect over the next few years. It will happen to a whole lot of the biggest teams in the smaller countries around Europe. They will be badly affected by that circumstance.

"I have advocated change in European football on many occasions. Not just for our clubs, but for the bigger clubs in smaller countries. Make no mistake, they are all getting affected by it. I will continue to advocate the need for change because I think it is the right thing."

With this season's SPL winners now likely to be the last for many years to earn a guaranteed place in the group stage of the Champions League, retaining the title has taken on added significance for Rangers who go into this afternoon's match against St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park with a ten-point lead over Celtic at the top of the table.

"This team is able to get results most of the time, but it also becomes a popular thing to say we haven't played well whenever we win a game," observed Smith. "I just think that over the season we have maybe played a bit better than people give us credit for on a lot of occasions.

"It doesn't rankle with us, all I'm saying is that every time we win, people say we didn't play well and it becomes an easy statement to make. There have been spells this season when we have not played well. One of our poorer performances was in Perth (last October] when we got a win we hardly deserved and we certainly need to be better this time.

"All I'm trying to point out is that it doesn't necessarily mean we are poor in every game."