Rangers explain Scottish player stance and how World Cup will impact transfers
Missing out on Champions League won’t hinder budget
Rangers say they have a “pro-Scottish bias” towards recruitment amid criticism that they don’t currently have enough homegrown players in their senior squad.
The only Scottish representatives on the Rangers first-team premises are reserve goalkeeper Liam Kelly, defender John Souttar and midfielder Connor Barron. After failing to win the Premiership title from a promising position just last month, some have questioned that the team needs a Scottish core in the ilk of rivals Celtic and Hearts.
Chairman Andrew Cavenagh explained that they will always favour a player from Scotland - but accepted that it not always possible to find a player from this country that fits the profile they are looking for.
“We have a pro-Scottish bias in the club today,” explained Cavenagh, “meaning if you have two players roughly equal and one is Scottish, we will take the Scottish player. When we look at what positions we are filling, we don’t start with people, we start with profiles. What position is it, what type of person is it. An athletic centre-back or a ball-winning centre-back for example. How big, how fast?
“We are always asking who is Scottish that fits that profile. Every time we are looking at that. That’s not to say we can just go out and grab 11 Scots off the street and win the title. It is a bias towards Scottish players but that doesn’t mean that’s the only criteria we look at to build a winning team. I would say we equally look at an SPFL bias. If we’re looking at two players who are roughly similar and one has extensive SPFL experience against one does not, we would take the SPFL experienced player.”
Rangers are expected to be active in the transfer window and do not expect missing out on Champions League football to have an affect on their plans. "I would say that our European qualification has little impact on what we are trying to do this summer,” Cavenagh continued. “We're trying to build a squad to win the league.
“Our focus is on winning the league first and foremost. We do want to play at the highest possible level in Europe, for the prestige, the competition and selfishly the revenue as well, but our squad rebuild this summer won't be dictated in August. It's already planned for, and starts tomorrow.”
What could have an impact on recruitment is this summer’s World Cup. "The window is long - probably too long in general,” added Cavenagh. “And the World Cup will absolutely complicate both the window and our squad. We'll have players not playing because of the World Cup and when they come back, they need to get 30 days rest, something like that.
“The World Cup will absolutely complicate something that is already complicated, but we need to be ready and to move early. We cannot sit on our hands during the World Cup and go 'we are going to take a break from recruitment'. It has to be something that we work on all summer.
“But you can't force the market. Some things won't happen until late because the market gets bottlenecks. You saw that in the January window with strikers that impacted us. Until one player moves, there are four or five players after that. And that could happen this summer, and the World Cup could further complicate that.”
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