Euro boss suggests Rangers could be invited to preseason tournament in Lyon
Rangers and Celtic could be invited to a prestigious preseason tournament in Lyon this summer.
According to manager Rudi Garcia, the Ligue 1 outfit are planning to host an eight-team competition at their home stadium, and are hoping to attract teams from a number of countries that have seen their domestic seasons curtailed early.
In particular, Garcia has name checked Scotland as one such league.
PSG and St. Etienne are already understood to have agreed to participate, with the Daily Record suggesting that Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas is eager for at least one of the two Old Firms clubs to take part.
Garcia has even suggested that fans could be present for any potential matches.
As quoted by the Record, he said: “The plan is for eight teams to play at the Groupama Stadium in two groups of four.
“It will include mainly French clubs, but also hopefully teams from countries who had their leagues stopped early too, like Scotland, Belgium and the Netherlands.
“We also want to invite supporters to this tournament too.”
What can we make of this?
In theory, this would be a brilliant opportunity for Rangers.
After such a difficult few months, the chance to go and play some of the top teams on the continent in a bid to step up our preparations for next season would, ordinarily, be welcomed with open arms.
But in this instance, there are just too many doubts for us to take this seriously at the moment.
Playing any matches at all by late summer, as the Record suggest this would be, may still prove to be a stretch, let alone ones on mainland Europe.
And that’s without Garcia’s suggestion that fans could be allowed to attend.
Competitive action is still on hold until September in France, and it’s difficult to see how this tournament would be allowed to go ahead before, not withstanding having supporters in the ground.
We’d love to see it happen, but at the moment, we’re a little sceptical.
In other Rangers news, James McFadden claims Lewis Ferguson would be ‘huge loss’ to Aberdeen if Gers snap him up.