This week of all week was supposed the one where nothing that could happen could take a shine off Rangers’ upcoming Europa League final clash with Eintracht Frankfurt – then Stewart Robertson went and said an Ibrox beamback was “very, very unlikely“, citing staffing numbers and it feels like a massive slap in the face from the club to fans.
With over 100,000 Rangers fans expected to make the trip to Seville for the Europa League final, tens of thousands more were hoping they would get the chance to watch the game on screens inside Ibrox.
However, with the staff needed apparently unavailable due to all being in Seville, they’ll now need to make alternative arrangements.
Robertson’s Ibrox Europa League final beamback excuse doesn’t stack up
The idea that the club can’t host an event at Ibrox is so laughable it’s genuinely surprising Robertson got through the whole sentence without cracking up laughing.
It may be a wild idea but hiring an events company to put some screens in place while the club staff, rightly, enjoy themselves in Seville surely can’t be THAT difficult.
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Anyone on Twitter will have seen a Rangers fan organise an actual jet to fly fans out to Spain for the final but we’re to buy that the club can’t find anyone capable of hosting a beamback at Ibrox?
Looking at some of the other clubs involved in the major European finals, Liverpool, Real Madrid and Frankfurt have all organised something similar.
But somehow Rangers can’t?
It’s that ridiculous a claim from Robertson that it’s left some fans on Twitter joking that when the club play host to Harry Styles’ concert at Ibrox, the players and staff will be recalled from their summer holidays to check tickets and sell merchandise for the pop superstars fans.
There are also huge potential financial benefits with as many as 50,000 fans paying to get into Ibrox with ‘Seville 2022’ merchandise everywhere.
Latest in growing disconnect between fans and the Rangers board
One other aspect that is particularly galling is that it has taken the club until now to give some sort of idea that this wouldn’t be happening.
Many fans assumed, wrongly it turns out, that after the club hosted a beamback in 2008, it was just a given that there would be one this year.
For fans to find out via third-party media rather than directly via the club is poor.
The communications at Ibrox has long been lacking and with so many fans looking to head to Ibrox, the club could have told us days ago it was a no-go.
Hopefully, we don’t need to have a moan about anything else over the next week but this decision just screams of short-sightedness from the club.
Maybe someone can provide a better explanation than the one given by Robertson because, right now, he’s probably the only person that believes it.