The Rangers Youth Academy have received a major cash injection of £450,000 courtesy of the Rangers Youth Development Company (RYDC).
RYDC presented the cheque to Head of Academy, Craig Mulholland and youth starlets Kai Kennedy and Nathan Patterson on Monday.
It’s a rise of £50,000 from last year’s donation.
“The Rangers Youth Development Company is absolutely delighted to confirm this £450,000 donation to the Rangers Academy – making it almost £1.3 million provided to the club’s youth programme in just four seasons,” Director of Operations, Colin Stewart, told Rangers.co.uk.
“RYDC is immensely proud to support the Rangers Academy and I know the money we provide makes a positive difference to Craig, his coaching staff and all the youth players at the Hummel Training Centre.”
It was also confirmed that the Rangers Pools have raised £100,000 exclusively for renovations to Ibrox Stadium, while the amount of prize money distributed to Bears from various initiatives has totalled just shy of £375,000.
Verdict
These are exciting times for the Academy system at Ibrox as after a silverware-laden 2019, some of the club’s most talented young prospects have made an encouraging start to 2020.
After jetting off to Dubai with the first-team for the mid-season training camp, both Nathan Patterson and Kai Kennedy made their competitive senior debuts against Stranraer on Friday night.
Patterson (18) started the game at right-back and earned rave reviews for his performance, while Kennedy (17) came on as a substitute, and central defender Lewis Mayo (19) was named on the bench.
Steven Gerrard showed faith in those young players and many Bears will be hoping that we are finally seeing a pathway develop between the Academy and the senior team.
This donation shows the lengths that supporters have gone to throughout the year to continue supporting the development of homegrown talents, and evidence of players breaking through is only likely to galvanise efforts.
Rangers are a dominant force across multiple age group levels right now, and it’s hoped that further cash injections will go towards better facilities and greater opportunities, so that very soon, the Gers will have a veritable production line of top quality players.
