As Rangers implode and Celtic prosper, what can be done to make Scottish football competitive? Geoff Brown fears for future

GEOFF BROWN first got involved in Scottish football in 1986.

The same year, Graeme Souness rolled up at Ibrox to spark a revolution in Scottish football that has hardly stopped since.

Big names arrived from England and abroad. Clubs spent more money than they could afford.

And in the wake of the New Firm of Aberdeen and Dundee United threatening the normal order, the Old Firm regained ascendancy.

Scottish football became a two-horse race.

Now it’s showjumping.

Celtic were already disappearing over the horizon before the crisis at Rangers peaked on Friday night with manager Mark Warburton’s messy departure from Govan.

The question now is how long it will take the Light Blues to recover and the implications of that for the domestic game as a whole.

But Brown is a staunch pragmatist.

That’s what almost three decades at the business end of Scottish football does to a man.

Between saving St Johnstone from oblivion in 1986 and handing control to his son Steve in 2011, the Perthshire construction boss saw it all.

But domination by one half of the Old Firm or the other was a constant.

That’s why the announcement by the Bhoys of near £19-million six-monthly profits following their return to the Champions League didn’t send Brown off the edge of a cliff.

The former Saints chairman knows the situation is a disaster in competitive terms for every other Premiership team – and those beyond.

But his experience tells him that Celtic’s wannabe challengers only have two choices – like it or lump it.

“These figures are great for Celtic,” says Brown.

“But it doesn’t exactly help the league in terms of it being competitive.

“Celtic are miles ahead of everybody else and, unfortunately, that isn’t going to change in the immediate future. But what do you do?

“Celtic – and Rangers for that matter – are obviously keen to move to the English Premier League so they can make more money.

“From a business perspective, that’s understandable.

“But the Premier League, at present, doesn’t want them, and the rest of Scotland doesn’t want them to move, so that’s the catch-22 we find ourselves in.

“That’s the reality of it. There is no easy answer.”

Brown’s assessment is difficult to disagree with.

Now retired and devoting his time to the Riding for the Disabled stable he set up after stepping down at McDiarmid Park, the 73-year-old has no axe to grind.

Yet he maintains a healthy disapproval for the financial idiocy exhibited by certain clubs in the late 1990s and early 2000s – an era he is glad our game will not be allowed to return to, even with Celtic streaking ahead.

“Rangers were a real embarrassment in terms of the amount of money that was going out,” he says, forthright as ever.

“Since then. it has been proved that spending wasn’t the answer. They overspent and got into trouble.

“That was Dundee, too, and it happened at a lot of other clubs.

“But the one thing these days, with Celtic being so far in front, is that the banks won’t allow clubs to spend beyond themselves in pursuit.

“In the past, when Rangers were doing so well, clubs spent big money to try and get them. It happened at a few places.

“Hearts did it, Aberdeen did it, Dundee did it and, to a certain extent, Dundee United did it.

“In the end, it turned out that Rangers were doing it too.

“But I don’t see that happening now. There are more sensible people in charge of clubs these days.

“We have seen the consequences of overspending. Rangers have been right down to the bottom and are still struggling.

“More people know now, having seen for themselves, that there is no benefit in going down that road.”

Laid out in black and white, it looks like doom and gloom.

But Brown has built a construction empire and a football club on solving seemingly insurmountable problems.

When a planning regulation stands in his way, he goes to war.

Similarly, when football discussion veers into a tunnel, he immediately starts searching for the light at its end.

“The question is what can we do to make things better?” he ponders.

“Let’s face it, the things we’re saying about the league, we’re the same with the national team. We’re miles off where we used to be.

“What everybody wants to see is an improved product across the board.

“So how do we do that?

“I believe we need to be bringing more young players through, more young players with natural ability, but also with the physical attributes.

“Unfortunately, we haven’t been good at doing that recently. We can’t hide from that.

“But, for me, the best player in Scotland this season has been Stuart Armstrong.

“There’s a young Scottish player who is shining. And Kieran Tierney has been terrific.

“Both of those players are at Celtic, of course, but they are both Scottish.”

For Brown, that is the rub.

Celtic have the financial advantage, which gives them an advantage in every other department.

What is required is for clubs to accept the situation, then start making the best use of the resources they do have – youngsters.

“Celtic, because they have ambitions in the Champions League, will always bring in foreign players in numbers,” explains Brown.

“But for the rest of the teams in the Premiership, more emphasis should go on bringing through young players.

“Scottish football as a whole needs to focus on what it CAN do to get better, not what is preventing it from getting better.

“One way or another, that has to happen.

“Clubs need to get youngsters developed, get youngsters into their first team.

“We need more Armstrongs and Tierneys, but we need them at all clubs, not just Celtic.

“It’s difficult. In my time, youth development has been something that has never been easy to improve, no matter how much money you throw at it.

“But that’s really the area in which we should be targeting our efforts to improve.

“Spending big money isn’t an option for clubs at this moment. That’s fairly well accepted.

“The result is that the League isn’t as competitive as we’d like it to be.

“But what do you do? Take Celtic’s money off them and spread it around? That’s ridiculous.

“The only way that Scottish football is going to get more competitive – and the only way we’re going to improve at international level – is by getting more kids playing football and hope that produces players.

“Until we can do that successfully, this will be a conversation we have over and over again.”