Rangers manager Philippe Clement has urged Scottish football and the SFA to follow the lead of Belgium and protect players from unnecessarily early kick off times.
The Belgian coach was talking after Rangers defeated Livingston at the Tony Macaroni with Philippe Clement taking his side to East Lothian little over 60 hours from when the team last played.
With Rangers finishing their Europa League tie against Sparta Prague at around 10pm on Thursday evening, the club was back on domestic duties at 12pm on Sunday afternoon.
It’s a situation which Philippe Clement criticised at the time and now the Rangers boss is pleading with the SFA to protect the interests of the game and the players by rethinking this approach.
“I think it’s better for Scottish football to do it that way,” said Clement. “They do it in Belgium and in other leagues.
“People who have never played may think, ‘what is the difference between six hours or eight hours more?’ but it’s a big difference in the recovery of a body, these hours of sleep and recovery because it’s a really short time for players to recover.
“We play every three days, we will have a schedule of 12 games in about 38 days (after the international break) so recovery is an important part of it. The food, the drink, the cryo, when to sleep.
“It’s important I think in every league that teams that play in Europe on Thursday evening play on the Sunday evening. In a lot of leagues, that’s done so it’s maybe something we can see in the future.”
SFA and VAR on Rangers and Philippe Clement lips
Rangers ran out 2-0 winners over Livingston at Ibrox courtesy of goals from Cyriel Dessers and James Tavernier in the Scottish Premiership.
But the game was also fraught with VAR controversy as Rangers had two goals disallowed and two penalties in a match which saw young Ross McCausland make his first start for the side.
As well as urging the SFA to reconsider their approach to post-European fixtures, Philippe Clement has also been speaking about VAR.
Insisting that he is a fan of the technology, the Belgian has resisted claims from elsewhere to bin the assistance.
“I am a fan of VAR, to be clear, because it makes the game more honest,” said Clement. “There are less mistakes than there were in the past.
“The times when I was player there were much more mistakes because now everybody can see back in slow motion, can make the right decision.
“And still at the end there will be some mistakes made because some decisions are a gray area and it’s always interpretation of things.
“But overall it makes the game more honest and that’s what I want; and honest game.”
Rangers overcame the SFA’s fixture scheduling to defeat Livingston and make it five wins out of six under Clement.
However, the club remain eight points behind Celtic with a game in hand after Aberdeen’s latest humiliation in Glasgow.
