The Unforeseen Fall and Rise of Glasgow Rangers

One of the biggest football giants in Scotland hit a snag, to say the least, in 2012. Financial hardship hit them hard and the Rangers we see today are but a pale shadow of what they once were. More people read up on the downfall of Glasgow Rangers than they ever did on a review of William Hill, for example. Let us examine how this happened and whether there is still hope for the Rangers.

The Beginning of the End

The last game that the original Rangers had to play, in order to get back on their feet after a few monetary troubles, was in 2011 against NK Maribor. The match ended in 1-1, though the aggregate put the Slovenian team ahead and expelled the Rangers from the Europa League.

The majority of club’s stocks were owned by Sir David Murray. However, the club was bought by Craig Whyte, a businessman who owned a company that took over the Rangers’ outstanding financial debt. He bought the team for a single pound. The financial tap of the league has dried up. The nightmarish bureaucracy within the club has left it penniless and in February of 2012, they entered administration in Edinburgh.

Whyte not only obtained the team when he should not have been able to do so, but he also did it against Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, making the team a target of an investigation. Several malpractices were discovered and the team was banned from signing on new players for a year and their new owner was banned for life. After a long and exhausting legal tussle, the team went into liquidation.

Division Dive

Because of the scandal and the fact that some of the old Rangers wouldn’t transfer, the team got severely relegated. They were denied entry into the Scottish Premier League and were transferred to the third division. The players that remained did their best and had moderate success in the league.

One of the highlights of the new Rangers was their victory over East Stirlingshire where 49,118 people came to watch them, which was a world record for this level of gameplay. The 2013-4 season was also kind to them – they climbed to League One, but the following two years were no pleasure cruise.

Climbing Up (Or Not)

After several defeats, the club hired Mark Warburton to be their manager in 2015. They finally climbed back from the lower divisions and entered the Scottish Premiership. Until the next year, the team looked like they were going to get back their former glory. These were the Rangers the fans remembered! However, before Warburton’s 3-year contract was up, he left the club after a bad start of the 2016-2017 season.

Pedro Caixinha took on the role of the team manager but was only there to witness some of the worst blunders in the team’s history. The team didn’t qualify for the Europa League 2017-2018. In May of 2018, Caixinha was replaced with Steven Gerard. With him behind the team, they remained in the Scottish Premiership. We may have just gotten our Rangers back.