Rangers are now reliant on Celtic favour as £50m+ development revealed
Rangers are now reliant on receiving a favour from Celtic to have any hope of qualifying for the FIFA Club World Cup, according to the Daily Record.
The newspaper reported on its website on Saturday (11 November) that should FIFA use their bespoke scoring system to select the teams, which would only be based on Champions League points over the last four years, Rangers would have no chance of qualifying.
Should they instead opt to use a “surprise” scoring system based on all UEFA competitions, Rangers could qualify should one of 11 teams including Chelsea, Real Madrid, PSG and Bayern Munich lift the Champions League this season.
In the event of that occurring, Rangers alongside Ajax, Feyenoord and Club Brugge would have a chance of qualifying, with the Light Blues’ relying on Ajax continuing to struggle and needing Celtic to win their last two Champions League matches, including their clash with Feyenoord, to knock them out of Europe.
If Clement then managed to see his side win one leg of the Europa League quarter-final, all the other teams exit their European competitions at the earliest possible stage, and one of the 11 teams won the Champions League, the Rangers would qualify for the Club World Cup.
Reports had previously emerged that qualification for the tournament would see a £50million windfall arrive at Ibrox [The Sun, 26 October] but with the latest update that seems incredibly unlikely to occur.
Complicated
It is safe to say that it is about as easy to explain how Rangers will qualify for the new addition of the Club World Cup as it is for Clement’s side to book their place in the tournament in the coming months.
To start it seems likely FIFA will opt to use only Champions League points in their scoring system, which would immediately discount the Light Blues, given their recent struggles when they have forayed into the competition.
Secondly, Celtic have not looked likely to pick up a point in the Champions League outings this season, let alone win their last two matches and knock Feyenoord out. It will take so many dominos to fall in a row for the Gers to somehow sneak their way into the competition.
There is a little bit of hope remaining for the Ibrox fanbase but is quickly fading. After the November international break, the entirety of Rangers’ focus needs to be directed towards ensuring that they qualify from their Europa League group first as nothing is confirmed yet.
In other Rangers news, the Light Blues must prepare a transfer for “no-brainer” Lawrence Shankland after his display on Saturday