So as we all know now, Rangers won’t even finish runners’ up this season, but end third.
Most importantly of all, this categorically loses the club £60M in guaranteed Champions League funds.
Ibrox Noise has expressed the importance of Rangers winning the league, due to that guaranteed kitty in the event of results elsewhere in Europe favouring Rangers, and securing, as champions, the final automatic group spot.
Breakdown
Those monies were based on TV split, coefficient payment, prize money and the gate receipts. These total in Rangers’ case due to historic European performance, around £60M.
Celtic nor Hearts will get that automatic spot, and they will have to qualify for the Champions League manually.
Rangers will only be in the Europa Conference League qualifiers and the finance at that level is utter peanuts.
Those fans who are backing Rohl, appear blind to the cost the manager has inflicted upon Rangers.
There is now not even the chance of finishing second to give a shot at the UCL qualifiers. That guarantees issues higher up because Rangers’ owners needed the shot at the UCL to finance the summer window.
This window is now a big problem, because the Conference League revenue is nowhere near the UCL. It is not even as high as the Europa League.
Demands
Which means those fans demanding Rohl keep his job and be judged on his own players may be disappointed hear that his failure to get second place will cost him the budget he would have needed to sign the kind of player Rangers need.
Ironically, the only success of Rohl’s own signings was of course Tuur Rommens. All the other three January additions have simply not shone.
But at the end of the day, the owners needed the UCL revenue to fulfil FFP requirements. They will not fork out their own cash because they cannot. They are prohibited by UEFA and FIFA legislation and cannot bankroll any kind of transfer assault this summer.
This critically limits what business Rangers will be able to carry out and puts the club on the backfoot for next season, before it even starts.