SOME OF British football’s greatest talents have been Scottish: Hughie Gallacher, Dave Mackay, Kenny Dalglish, Jim Baxter and Denis Law, to name but a handful. Until the arrival of the Premier League in 1992, there was scarcely a successful team that didn’t have a Scot or two in their squad. In more recent times, this has certainly NOT been the case. The most renowned Scottish players to have graced the Premier League have included Andrew Robertson of Liverpool, John McGinn of Aston Villa and Manchester United’s Scott McTominay. Decent players they may be, but arguably incomparable to the likes of Billy Bremner, Kenny Dalglish and Gordon Strachan.
Scotland is a country of just 5.5 million, a figure that puts them on par with Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Serbia and Slovakia. Places like Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Greece, Hungary, Portugal and Sweden have around twice as many people. Because of its role in the United Kingdom, it is often forgotten that Scotland is a small country.
Given its size, Scotland’s club football has overachieved in many ways – Aberdeen, Celtic and Rangers have all won European trophies and the national team has participated in eight World Cups and four European Championships, although they have largely underperformed in most of them. As well as players, Scotland has also given the game some of its greatest managers: Matt Busby, Jock Stein, Bill Shankly and Alex Ferguson among them.
Because of its past – which saw Scotland benchmarked primarily against England – Scotland’s expectations have often been higher than the reality of its football. True, a star-studded gallery of top players has given the Scots a status in the United Kingdom, but that’s where it ended to a large degree. Celtic, in 1967, achieved great things by winning the European Cup, and Rangers have enjoyed success over the years, but Scotland today is seen as a football country whose “glory” is embedded in the past. Regardless of that perception, Celtic and Rangers are huge clubs with massive support and their name still has significant value.
Scotland provided much of the impetus for driving the growth of professional football in Britain and their style of play was certainly more progressive than their English counterparts in the 19th century. Scotland was football mad and exported hundreds of players to England as mill-owners and industrialists provided the finance to build teams in the north and the midlands. In 1889, Preston North End’s double-winning “invincibles” comprised at least half a dozen Scots, including Jimmy Ross, George Drummond, John Goodall and Johnny Graham. Sunderland’s “team of all the talents” was also laden with top-quality Scottish footballers, notably goalkeeper Ned Doig, James Logan, Jimmy Millar and Jimmy Gillespie.
In the 1980s, there was a seismic change; Rangers began importing talent into Scottish football and took advantage of the UEFA ban on English clubs. This was a reversal of the decades-old process of the best Scottish players moving south of the border to join top English clubs. Was this, in fact, damaging Scottish football’s conveyor belt of talent? Before the 1980s, English football’s “foreigners” were in effect Scots, Irishmen and Welshmen. Once clubs cast their nets wider, there no limitations and English clubs could buy cheaper abroad. When the Premier League gathered momentum and benefitted from huge broadcasting fees, the “foreigners” came from far and wide while the talent started to dry-up from the far north of the United Kingdom. In some ways, having a wealthy neighbour didn’t help – comparisons have been largely inappropriate.
The status of Celtic and Rangers also changed. In the past, the popular theory was that the “old firm” would enhance the English league and on more than one occasion, there were suggestions that perhaps they should do just that. With the arrival of corporate football, boosted by television money, the size of the market meant huge broadcasting revenues eluded clubs in Scotland. Therefore, Scottish clubs lost a degree of competitiveness when up against opponents from bigger TV markets. But at home, the Glasgow giants swept up and not even grand old clubs like Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian could compete. The financial chasm between Celtic and the rest of the league has grown to create major imbalances. Celtic’s turnover was £ 125 million and even Rangers were far behind at £ 83 million. The rest of the league’s income – Aberdeen £ 24 million, Hearts £ 20 million, Hibernian £ 16 million and Dundee United £ 6 million – generate a mere fraction of Celtic’s earnings.
This has enabled Celtic to source their football talent from all over the world. Of their current squad, only five of 23 players are Scottish, the rest from a dozen countries. Likewise, Rangers have just six Scots in a 29-man squad. If the two behemoths of Scottish football are not producing young footballers from their own nation, what chance have the others got?
While Scottish clubs have struggled to make much headway in Europe, Rangers rekindled the flame in 2022 when they reached the final of the UEFA Europa League, losing to Eintracht Frankfurt. Generally, when confronted with half decent opposition, there has been disappointment – teams like Galatasaray, Cercle Brugge, Viktoria Plzen and Slavia Prague have a hurdle too high. However, in the new-look European competitions, Celtic and Rangers have both made progress in 2024-25. Celtic are in the play-offs in the UEFA Champions League and Rangers are already through to the last 16 in the Europa.
The decline of Rangers (on and off the field) has meant Scotland, for much of the past 15 years, has been the Celtic show with the occasional interruption from Rangers. Although the followers of both clubs seem to hate each other with no small amount of venom, the fact is, they need each other. They have the potential to be more competitive outside their own small, domestic market, but in order to do so, they will need further investment. Any idea of a super league in the 1970s or even 1980s would have included at least one of the “old firm”, but in the modern game, neither would be regarded as being a member of the elite.
Ultimately, Scotland’s position in football today is unlikely to change too much, but there should be a place for the development of home-grown talent, just as there was 50 or more years ago. It is a passionate football nation, but it seems to have forgotten how to produce outstanding players. If they can get back to that, the production and trading of talent, as demonstrated in countries like the Netherlands and Portugal, can make Scotland into the football factory it once was. And that can benefit the clubs by generating more money to build stronger, sustainable institutions that are competitive.