Football finance expert Kieran Maguire believes Celtic blew a chance to secure a stranglehold on Scottish football by failing to take full of advantage of Rangers’ time in the lower leagues.
Maguire reckons the Parkhead side should have done more to put a bigger gap between the and their rivals which would have made the Ibrox side’s historic league title win under Steven Gerrard impossible. The Light Blues were sent to the bottom tier of Scottish football following their financial implosion in 2012 but worked their way back through the leagues and claimed the title in time to stop Celtic’s historic bid for a 10th consecutive title.
Rangers also managed a Scottish Cup semi-final win over Celtic four years after embarking on their journey back from the bottom. And Maguire, speaking as a guest on the The Huddle Breakdown podcast, said they should have put the foot down and pulled away so far that the Ibrox side couldn’t have caught them.
Maguire said: “As an outsider, I felt that what happened to Rangers was to a certain extent a lost opportunity to Celtic. If I’d been there I’d have tried to expand the facilities even further, get another 5000 fans in, get a load more opportunities for hospitality tickets and so on and ensure the club was in a position where they would be so far ahead that they were almost uncatchable for Rangers who were in a recovery phase.
“You talk about a duopoly. Rangers came back because the duopoly was achievable. Celtic perhaps missed an opportunity to make it a monopoly. I’m not saying a monopoly is good - I’m not saying a duopoly in football is good - but if I’ve got an advantage there’s a case for putting the afterburners on and just getting so far ahead to make the challenge for Rangers nigh on impossible.”
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