RANGERS' new executive team have claimed they are open to all ideas which could generate revenue for the club, including playing an Old Firm game in the USA or selling the naming rights to Ibrox Stadium.
There is no intention to leave the ground or any plan to allow it to be renamed -- Ali Russell, the new director of operations and commercial activity, said yesterday -- but Russell and new owner Craig Whyte admitted they will be receptive to any commercial idea they think would benefit the club.
Russell also said Rangers wanted to develop the Old Firm derby into “the biggest rivalry in world football”, but not by exploiting the sectarianism which has fuelled so much of the historical animosity.
The idea of the Old Firm playing a friendly in Boston was raised a year ago but came to nothing. Recently, it was suggested the Old Firm could be involved in an SPL mini-tournament played in Florida or Dubai during a mid-season break, although that idea also failed to advance.
Russell said a friendly match against Celtic outside Scotland would be something his club would consider to raise its profile and revenue, and the same appeared to apply to selling the naming rights to the stadium as Arsenal did when they moved to The Emirates.
“It would have to be right for the fans,” said Russell of playing a derby overseas. “The fans come first in terms of moving the club forward. There’s a lot of history here. The brand can’t be tarnished. We can’t move too far, too quickly but we still have got to be open-minded.
“I think at this stage with the new era we consider everything but selling the naming rights is not something we’d go out and look at. Ibrox is synonymous with Rangers Football Club so I don’t think it’s something we would consider at this stage. We’re very protective of our intellectual property and Ibrox is synonymous with Rangers.
“We will be playing here. I have to reiterate that Ibrox will be the home -- there are no plans to look at anything else. It’s about looking at all avenues. It’s about looking at the real estate here. How do we maximise that? Is it just a football ground used for football or does it have more uses. How do we ‘sweat’ that?”
Russell previously has worked at Hearts, Queens Park Rangers and the Scottish Rugby Union and will handle the commercial and marketing aspects of Rangers under Whyte while new director of football Gordon Smith and manager Ally McCoist do the football. His intention is to grow the Rangers “brand”.
“I think we’ve got some huge opportunities. The club was under some challenging financial circumstances over the last couple of years. I think, moving forward, we’ve got to challenge ourselves. How do we generate more interest in Scottish football? How do we become central to that? How do we move it forward?”
He hinted that Rangers would emulate Celtic by signing players from lucrative football markets such as Japan and South Korea. “What do we do to grow the brand, where do we play friendlies as a football team? How do we integrate international players so that we’re building the brand in different markets? In terms of pre-season friendlies we went to Australia last year, do we go to the US, do we go to Japan? We don’t just go where the biggest cheque is, we look at growing a fan base in different areas of the world which strategically fit back very well into the club itself.
“Also the Old Firm game is a fantastic game. It’s about making it the biggest rivalry in world football. How do we ensure that without some of the negativity that maybe came to the surface last season? It’s a fantastic, fantastic occasion.”
Russell claimed that in the seven weeks since Whyte’s takeover -- a period in which they successfully defended the Clydesdale Bank Premier League title -- Rangers’ season-ticket sales were ahead of the level they were at this time last year.
“The feedback is that there is a huge amount of excitement. It’s the dawn of a new era here. The fans are getting excited and we’re seeing that reflected in terms of season tickets.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article