ALL three of Scotland’s Europa League entrants will have to play at the first qualifying round before the start of July for the first time in history next season as our ranking has hit a new low.
Only eight years ago, largely due to the 2007/08 season when Rangers contested the UEFA Cup Final, Celtic reached the last 16 of the Champions League and Aberdeen qualified for the last 32 of the UEFA Cup, Scotland was ranked 10th and had six teams in Europe but there has been a real collapse since then.
Sweden and Norway have climbed above us in the UEFA Country Ranking list, pushing the nation down to 25th for next season.
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Second and third in the Premiership have been used to starting at the first qualifying round of the Europa League for three seasons now as our ranking has continued to drop.
However, as clubs across the country prepare for the fifth round of the Scottish Cup this week, it has become clear the same fate awaits the winners. This means they will be in action just a month after the May 27 final although, if Celtic win the Cup, the fourth-placed Premiership side will win a slot.
UEFA rankings are worked out over a five-year period a season in advance and the malaise between 2011/12 and 2015/16 has coincided with Rangers’ absence from the European scene.
Celtic have tried their best for the co-efficient but the other clubs have contributed very little.
Former Ibrox midfielder Alex Rae believes the outlook is bleak especially with a worrying revamp of the Champions League in 2018.
UEFA’s flagship tournament will become more of a closed shop from 2018/19 when the top four countries – currently Spain, England, Germany and Italy – will have four automatic entrants.
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This in turn will reduce the qualifying slots from 10 to eight and further discussions are planned this year by the major clubs to introduce more changes from 2021.
Rae said: “It’s incredible that all three of our Europa League entrants will have to start at the first qualifying round at the end of June.
“Imagine if you win the Cup on May 2, you’ve got a month until you’re playing again. What do you do? Give the players a week off and then go again?
“Games will need to be arranged in terms of preparation. It really has become harder and harder for our teams.
“It’s actually ridiculous when you think about, and it’s alarming. We should be doing better but the clubs outwith Celtic are unable to get into the group stages.
“Look at Dundalk in Ireland this season. You’re not telling me they have better players than Aberdeen.
“They not only qualified but they won one game and got a draw in Holland against AZ Alkmaar.
“Clubs like Aberdeen and, now that they are back on an even keel, Hearts should be doing a lot better.
“You can understand it is more difficult for clubs like St Johnstone and Motherwell who have much smaller budgets.
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“Effectively it has been left to Celtic to fly the flag in Europe.
“In saying that, in the past five seasons Celtic only got to the Champions League group stages twice and they have only come out of the Europa League group phase once so it has been tough for them too.”
The ranking dropped to 26 in 1998 which was the first time since rankings began that Scotland had fallen out of the top 20 but were back up to ninth within five years. The slide began at the beginning of this decade.
Given the vast disparity in finances between Scottish clubs and Europe’s powerhouses, Rae is concerned the situation may even get worse.
He added: “It really is worrying that we have fallen so far down the rankings and it makes it all the more difficult to get into the groups of either competition.
“Unless a couple of teams step up to the plate in the next couple of seasons then you can’t really see the situation changing.
“In fact, the likelihood is that we could fall further behind and that’s not what we need with the Champions League becoming even more elitist in two years’ time.”
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