Understanding The Messages From Rangers To Their Fans

Date: 18th May 2022

Tonight Rangers will face Eintracht Frankfurt with the winner taking home the Europa League trophy. 

The build up to the final has seen Scottish Premiership side Rangers sending out various messages from club legends like Ally McCoist, Graeme Souness and John Greig telling the fans to enjoy their trip but to also behave themselves. 

Those videos and open letters have been met with criticism from some Gers supporters and lots of mirth from rival fans within the Scottish game. Both responses that I fully understand. 

I’ve also seen pundits and football writers making fun of these messages, I don’t fully get that position. How long have we all been asking for Rangers to do more when it comes to stamping out bad elements within their support? Years! 

Yet when they actually step forward and try and make a stand some in the media use it as a stick to beat the club and its supporters with. It’s bizarre and it won’t make the club think ‘this idea of engaging with the fanbase to ask for responsibility works well for us’. This should be the start of Rangers Football Club doing more to communicate with their fans and hopefully seeing the faithful react positively to those messages. 

Now I should also state that I don’t believe that Rangers have done this on their own volition. I think UEFA and possibly the city of Seville have come together to demand Rangers do more in the lead up to this huge fixture. We all knew a huge travelling support would navigate its way to Spain and Rangers do have a history of having an unruly support, especially during finals of European competitions. 

So I’m not going to applaud Rangers for possibly being coerced into this engagement but I am certainly not going to slag them off for doing it either! It really should happen more. 

Personally I hope that the Rangers support behaves themselves and enjoys the game. It would be great to see them secure the trophy, I’ve never seen a Scottish side lift a European title. I totally get why supporters of other clubs don’t want to see that happen and that’s fine too. Football is nothing without fans and their rivalries. 

I really hope beyond anything else we don’t see the same scenes that followed the UEFA Cup final in 2008 in Manchester. Whether we like it or not, the whole of Scottish football will be judged on any misbehaviour that takes place and we don’t want our game to be tarnished. 

By Scott Johnston (@TheFootyblognet)

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