Improving Scottish football would involve playing fewer Old Firm games than was customary before Rangers fall from grace rather than getting back to a routine of playing four a season, according to the Ibrox club’s current manager.
Mark Warburton has previously made clear his support for extending the Premier League and for all that his team took a step closer to regaining top flight status last week he is in no mood to retreat from the view.
Instead he has gone further in suggesting that having just one guaranteed home game a season against Celtic would be good for them and good for Scottish football as a whole.
“If you want things to change, if you want things to improve, then there has to be some short-term pain for longer term gain,” he suggested.
“Sometimes you’ve got to embrace some different ideas, but my personal opinion is that you’ve got to improve the quality of the product.”
New to the Scottish game as he may be Warburton is speaking from experience of what adds real value to fixtures and competitions.
“In my personal opinion it is (worth sacrificing two Old Firm games) because last year, playing for the Championship Brentford fans hadn’t been to the City Ground for many years, hadn’t been to Blackburn Rovers, hadn’t been to Elland Road, hadn’t been to Carrow Road and they were big days out,” he recounted.
“They hadn’t been to Fulham for a while and took six and a half, seven thousand there and those type of big days out were great for the fans. It was fantastic. The backing we received was magnificent.
“Here we’ve now played Hibs four times (11 in all since the start of 2014/15) is it? That tells you everything… we’re not at the end of the year yet and we’ve played our nearest rival apparently four times. I’m not sure how you maintain the uniqueness or the attraction of a fixture if you have that many games.
“That’s just my personal opinion, so I think the sacrifice may be that if you’re going to try to improve the elite end you’ve got to look at improving the product and that to me would be the benefit.
“You’ve got to make it where there is investment coming into the clubs, into the top end and you close the gap between the haves and have nots, but you have that quality of fixture and you challenge your players accordingly and the fans are excited and look forward to a fixture.”
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