Why Celtic fans are vindicated one year after Rangers takeover
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 4 hours ago
- 3 min read
In the early months of my work on the ACSOM Blog in the first half of 2025, I devoted a fair bit of time, maybe a bit too much on reflection, to countering the prevailing narrative that the Rangers Takeover was going to “revolutionize Scottish football”.
Of course, as we all well know, when the likes of The Daily Record or The S*n talk about revolutionizing Scottish football, what they really mean is “Getting the latest incarnation of Rangers back to the top where they ‘belong’”.
I took the line that the takeover and the associated bluster that accompanied it was nonsensical. I honestly didn’t think it would happen.
And it’s fair to say, I took a fair amount of abuse from those of the “staunch” persuasion when the deal was finally completed.
The Rangers Takeover Has, For the Most Part, Panned Out Exactly As I Knew it Would
I acknowledged that I was wrong at the time. However, I did qualify my “concession speech” with the proviso that I still didn’t think it would have the transformative impact that the Scottish press claimed it would.
Again I was wrong. Andrew Cavanagh and his entourage managed to take a team that was a consistent second place in the league and, with an epoch-defining declaration of intent, to the tune of 40 million, they did, in the end, have a massive impact on the club that still calls itself Rangers.
With robust investment, and backing for their 2 managers, Rangers rose from lowly second in the Scottish Premiership to, erm, let me check my notes…
Oh, they scaled the dizzying heights of third place!
It seems mediocrity does come with a price, and its a number with a lot of zeroes behind it!
For all their bluster, all their investment, and all the fascist fury of their fans, Rangers are now even further away from Celtic than they were when I penned that last Rangers takeover piece 12 months ago.
Celtic have stretched ahead by finally getting the biscuit tin open (though with outgoings we will still recover most of our expenditure).
But even if we hadn’t Rangers have regressed. Appointing Derek McInnes as manager was clearly an act of appeasement to the more base elements of their support, and it worked… for about 10 minutes.
Four games into the season, and already out of one European tournament, McInnes is already the source of numerous “enough is enough” type threads on various fans forums, for those amongst the Ibrox denizens who can read and write.
I’d normally be apprehensive about playing Rangers twice in a week so early in the season. Not this time though. It’s not arrogance, but it is confidence. If we play the way we have played lately, and they play the way they have shown they can play so far, this should be a walkover.
The Celtic Board will, from some parties, get credit for putting us into this position, but the reality is we could, and should have done this 5 years ago. But for our own profligacy, some may even say arrogance, we could be sitting on 15 titles in a row right now.
Perhaps someone in the Celtic Board room has finally realized after all this time, that maybe, just maybe, all those angry fans with their banners and their chants might have had a point.
The structural issues at Celtic remain, but the difference is we know what they are and we know how to continue to push for meaningful change.
Now look at Ibrox for a second. The problem with a fanbase so absorbed in it’s own misplaced notions of supremacy is that they will never accept any kind of critique from outsiders. Yet we can all see it. Season after season, they through good money after bad, chasing a rival that has outgrown them.
Rangers have only got close to Celtic in recent years when Celtic have allowed it to happen, be it through poor performances on the pitch or more often in the boardroom.
For whatever reason, that side of things finally seems to be coming together at Celtic. What we have coming this season is a reckoning and it is one that neither the Ibrox hoards, nor the “Scottish football needs a strong Rangers” gaggle in the press box are ready for.
They may all soon realize just how far they truly are behind a Celtic side willing to flex it’s financial muscle.
As the song goes, we only know there’s going to be a show, and this season is setting up to be one of the best for quite some time.
