GARY KEOWN: It's make or break for Bennett at Ibrox... if Rangers don't grasp their European lifeline, Celtic will simply disappear over the horizon

THE last time John Bennett said anything significant outside of the stage-managed snoozefest of the Rangers AGM, it was part of a ludicrous move to try to play down the significance of monies being brought in from the Champions League.

September 2022 that was. On the in-house TV channel. He was still the vice-chairman. The manager, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, had got the club into the group stage of Europe’s premier competition by beating PSV Eindhoven in a play-off and, despite seeking to strengthen the squad, received nothing for any new players in the six days between securing progress in the Netherlands and the transfer window shutting.

When it all went pear-shaped that season, managing director and all-round grey man Stewart Robertson started droning on about how people had been talking about money having ‘fallen out of the sky’ and how this Champions League dough the club had been chasing for years was, as it turns out, nothing to get in a flap over.

Bennett then appeared, singing from the same hymnsheet, saying there was no cash ‘falling from heaven’ and that people shouldn’t believe the headlines about the difference pay-outs from UEFA would make.

Mind you, he also said that the board deserved criticism for failing to communicate properly. And has barely been heard of since — even though he became club chairman just over a year ago and is now interim executive chairman following CEO James Bisgrove’s decision to head for Saudi Arabia.

Let’s be clear on one thing, though. There should be no downplaying of the importance of Champions League finance this summer. Unless Bisgrove reappears from the Middle East with some flaky sheikh ready to throw silly money at Rangers, making it into the business end of the revamped version of that tournament next term represents the club’s last chance to stay on the coat-tails of Celtic.

A look at the balance sheet tells you that. The Parkhead outfit have £70million in the bank. Rangers don’t. Celtic have a player-trading model that, for all their many failings in the market of late, still boasts a £20m-plus asset in Matt O’Riley and other marketable indivuduals such as Kyogo Furuhashi and Cameron Carter-Vickers. Rangers don’t.

They could maybe get a few quid for goalkeeper Jack Butland, but there’s no one else there bringing in a fee of anything close to eight figures.

Celtic also have an estimated £40m in the post as a result of getting over the line in the Premiership, despite everything, and going straight into the Champions League groups.

However, Atalanta securing a top-four finish in Serie A and ensuring Rangers will be seeded for the third round of qualifiers and the play-offs over the course of August has offered Bennett and co a real lifeline.

The way it is shaping up right now, they’ll face the likes of Red Bull Salzburg, Lille or Fenerbahce in a winner-takes-all shoot-out. Not easy, but doable. And necessary.

This is make-or-break for 60-year-old Bennett if he wants to continue as a key player in the running of the club, which appears to be the case, considering he is understood to be giving up his day job as a fund manager to focus more intently on affairs at Ibrox.

If Rangers can’t get themselves sorted out in time over the summer to have a team capable of getting through those two ties and scooping up a hefty £40m-plus for themselves, it is hard to see how they stay properly competitive with Celtic after letting them off the hook following the black hole-style implosion that was their wonderfully comedic attempt at winning 10-In-A-Row in 2021.

There are a few things to say about Bennett at this juncture. He has most definitely put his money where his mouth is in bringing Rangers back from financial meltdown. He also has a strong reputation in his field. He is, unquestionably, a man of substance.

That doesn’t mean that you are any good at running a football club, though. And right now, his credentials for that particular job are under serious, serious scrutiny. Since becoming chairman, he has been as unimpressive as he has been invisible.

Yes, he can’t be held responsible for the nonsensical appointment of Michael Beale as manager in the wake of Van Bronckhorst’s dismissal in November 2022. That’s on ex-chair Douglas Park.

However, he and Bisgrove allowed Beale to spend £21m unfettered last summer, having failed to recruit a new director of football following the departure of Ross Wilson, on a selection of players who have clearly shown themselves to be unsuitable. To put it politely.

Recruiting Philippe Clement made sense when it became clear Beale could not be allowed to stay in the building and that appointment is going to define Bennett’s tenure. Despite an end-of-season collapse and some pretty feeble excuse-making towards the end of the campaign just gone, the Belgian has pedigree and deserves a chance at making a fist of this with his own players and his own strategy.

However, it cannot be denied that, right from the get-go, Clement gave the impression he couldn’t quite believe how shambolic certain things were behind the scenes.

It started with the expensive cryochamber at the training ground that no one ever used and very quickly snowballed from there. He couldn’t figure out the ‘crazy situation’ of players continually being allowed to walk away for free at the end of their contracts — from Alfredo Morelos and Ryan Kent, who once attracted £30m of offers between them, to John Lundstram and Borna Barisic.

He wasn’t happy about Kieran Dowell being injured on ‘a bad pitch’ at mid-winter training in La Manga, a jaunt which didn’t carry the feel of being executed in an elite environment.

He described the amount of injuries affecting the Ibrox club as ‘the biggest puzzle that I ever saw’ — and wasn’t able to fix it by the end of the campaign. It was clear big changes were required to the medical and sports science departments.

Rangers have spent money down the years. Loads of it. That’s not up for debate. At the last count, they were running a £64m overall wage bill, more than Celtic.

The problem is that so much of their dough has been wasted and squandered. Bennett has been on the board for pretty much all of it. But now, particularly with Bisgrove off the plot, he is centre stage like never before.

It is not just anyone and everyone saying that Rangers have not been run well and are not being run well. The current manager has been pointing to it for months and months, growing ever more exasperated. Making it clear that what has been going in recent times cannot possibly continue.

Bennett brought him in with recruitment chief Nils Koppen and has staked his reputation on them being able to help sort it out. The problem is that they don’t have long.

When Bennett and Bisgrove took over the controls last April, word was that the club would become more open, more communicative. It hasn’t always felt that way, though.

There is a sense from a section of the support that they need Bennett to come out and give some kind of address after so long in the shadows. They want to know his plan, want some recognition of mistakes made on his watch.

That would be nice, but is not essential. Given the greater opportunities afforded by Atalanta’s success, though, pulling together a half-decent team over summer and getting into those Champions League groups is.

Otherwise, everyone in the forward-facing positions at Ibrox is going to be under the cosh. With Bennett compelled to explain where Rangers go next as Celtic sail off into the sunset.

It’s time the SFA got their own house in order

LAST summer, the Scottish FA registered an interest with UEFA in holding another European final at Hampden Park in 2026 or 2027.

They put their name in the frame for the Europa League final, Europa Conference League final and Women’s Champions League final.

For whatever reason — the national stadium being an outdated relic, perhaps — they never really got anywhere.

The 2027 Women’s Champions League final is about to be put back out to bidders as a result of UEFA being unable to settle on a suitable venue and that would seem an opportunity to revisit the idea.

Assuming the great and good on the sixth floor at Hampden do maintain a desire to host such fixtures, though, they’d better be ready to detail just how a protester managed to get onto the field and chain himself to the goalposts ahead of Scotland women’s Euro qualifier against Israel on Friday night — despite the match being played behind closed doors to prevent exactly that.

The organisation staging a pro-Palestine demonstration outside the ground even went as far as stating, quite openly, before a ban on ticket sales was introduced, that part of their plan was to disrupt the match by any means necessary. This was hardly Operation Mincemeat.

And no matter your views on what is unfolding in the Middle East right now, the fact the safety of the Israeli players was compromised is thoroughly unacceptable.

The SFA like to make clubs up and down the country jump through hoops to get their bronze licences and make sure their two-bob grounds are fit for the big occasion. Time to do a little explaining themselves then.

Winning would be nice, staying fit is the priority

MUCH will be made ahead of tomorrow’s friendly with Gibraltar in Portugal of Steve Clarke’s Scotland side having gone seven games without a win. Already, there is plenty of discussion about the need to build morale and momentum before the Euros by winning that one and storming onto victory in the big Hampden send-off against Finland on Friday night.

This, of course, is all nonsense. The purpose of these friendlies is to get some game time into legs that badly need it. It is to have a proper look at the likes of Ben Doak. Try stuff out. See how Ross McCrorie fits in at right wing-back. Judge the fitness of the likes of Stuart Armstrong, John Souttar, Grant Hanley and others.

Clarke’s team will beat Gibraltar whoever plays. As for the Finland game, who cares if the team wins or not? It is irrelevant as long as we land in Munich on June 14 for the opening game of the Euros against Germany with the head coach possessing a better idea of where his squad is exactly in the wake of a rather testing build-up.

If the team can win both of these affairs, all well and good. It won’t do any harm. After seeing the likes of Aaron Hickey, Nathan Patterson, Lewis Ferguson and now Lyndon Dykes bite the dust, though, the main instruction for the players is clear.

Whatever you do, just don’t get injured.