Rangers were founded in 1872 and ceased to exist as a club in 2012. A new club, called The Rangers, was formed in 2012 after the old club was liquidated. Article 12.2 of UEFA Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations edition 2010 prohibits new clubs from participating in any European competition for a period of three years. As a new club, this ban was automatically applied to The Rangers. Ally McCoist was the last manager of Rangers; sadly for their fans he is the only Rangers manager to lose every competition he entered. Charles Green, the Chief Executive of The Rangers and acting on behalf of the owner(s) of the new club, has retained McCoist’s services for The Rangers.
There is a constant attempt by The Rangers management, and fans of the old Rangers, to deny that The Rangers is a new club, with the obvious purpose of preserving the history and tradition of the old club as one unbroken continuum. The hub of this article is not a counterpoint to those that believe their historical line to be unbroken – the EUFA ban puts that to bed and to think differently is merely delusional – but rather an argument that the history of the old Rangers was based on aggressive anti-Catholicism and does not merit continuation in any shape or form.
From its inception in 1872 to 1989, a period of over 100 years, Rangers refused to sign a high-profile Catholic football player. Rangers’ Protestant Unionist and anti-Catholic background is well documented.
For example: “Historically Rangers have maintained a staunch Protestant and anti-Catholic tradition which includes a ban on signing Catholic players” (Giulanotti, R., 1999: Football: A Sociology of the Global Game). Continue reading →
