STEPHEN McGOWAN: Ibrox debacle the last thing Clement needs ahead of a make-or-break season at Rangers

If Philippe Clement had any hair left he’d be pulling it out now, strand by precious strand.

The Rangers manager is trying to secure qualification for the Champions League and build a squad capable of snatching the league title from Celtic’s persistent grasp.

It’s not enough for the Belgian to match the league and cup Double winners. This time, he really needs to leave them trailing in his wake.

He finds himself under pressure to do it in the face of a significant financial disadvantage and a trip to Parkhead for the first Old Firm league match of the season, where he still hasn’t won. And now he has to hit the ground running while decanting Ibrox ‘home’ games to Murrayfield or Hampden for the opening months of the season.

After weeks of rumour, Rangers have come clean on their issues with the completion of building work on the Copland Road stand.

Unrest in the middle east is creating supply issues which make it difficult to get materials from Asia in time. And they won’t arrive in Glasgow quick enough to get Ibrox up to scratch in time for the kick off of the William Hill Premiership or the two rounds of tricky Champions League qualifying around the same time.

The club hierarchy hope to have the Copland Stand done by September at the latest. Until then, they’re wrestling with a conundrum of their own making; scratching around trying to find football’s answer to an airbnb rental.

Dundee managing director John Nelms must be chuckling up his sleeve at this debacle. It’s now three months since the Ibrox hierarchy issued a statement accusing the Tayside club of ‘negligence and unprofessionalism’ after their Premiership clash at Dens Park was called off for a second time.

Rightly, an SPFL hearing ordered the Dark Blues to cover their hotel and travel costs for a shambolic episode caused by a failure to manage their stadium maintenance properly. The irony of Rangers facing the same accusations now shouldn’t be lost on anyone.

‘If they ask us to play on Mars, we go to Mars,’ said Clement when the row over the Dens business was at its peak.

Once his chairman John Bennett has checked out the cost of playing the opening games of next season at Hampden and Murrayfield, then, he might want to make a call to NASA. The red planet could hardly be any less appealing than the other two.

Talks are already underway with Scottish Rugby over renting the home of Scotland’s rugby team. Hearts and Celtic have played there in the past and when Rangers face Manchester United there in a pre-season friendly on July 20, season ticket holders will discover just how awful the place is as a venue for professional football.

Hampden offers the more obvious solution, with the SFA ready to do what they can to help. Unpopular with supporters who think it’s not fit for purpose, even that’s fraught with logistical difficulties.

The pitch is due to be ripped up after two concerts by American artist Pink on June 28 and 29 before being relaid in time for the start of the domestic football season. Queen’s Park are also due to return there next season, placing further demands on a surface not noted for its durability.

Almost anywhere has to be better than a cap-in-hand approach to other top-flight clubs asking them to switch their away games at Ibrox in August and September while building work cracks on. With Clement under pressure to hit the ground running, that has to be the option of last resort.

Not least because it would potentially force executive chairman Bennett to make an awkward call to Dundee counterpart Nelms asking him to let Rangers move a fixture to Dens Park weeks after they left him without a name.

A smart man with a track record in the City, Bennett’s first task as executive chairman is to stop Rangers shooting themselves in the foot repeatedly. After the saga surrounding the construction of Edmiston House, construction cock-ups are becoming an expensive and regrettable habit.

The impact on Champions League qualifiers could be the biggest handicap of all. The difference between Rangers mixing with Europe’s elite and dropping into the Europa League is millions of pounds.

For the big European nights at Ibrox, the atmosphere always feels like a goal of a start. The task of negotiating a couple of rounds qualifying becomes a hell of a lot harder when they’re playing their games at somebody else’s ground.

German efficiency? Even ScotRail do better job

Euro 2024 has killed off those old cliches about German efficiency. Vorsprung durch Technik is an outdated myth.

Supporters travelled to this tournament anticipating a proper host nation with a reputation for grounds flogging beer by the barrel-load, faultless public transport and world- class football in the most fan-friendly environment in the world.

Regrettably, no one warned them about the security checks and long, snaking queues to get into games. Crowd control outside stadiums has been poorly sign-posted and haphazard, with Aberdeen chairman Dave Cormack describing the opening game between the hosts and Scotland at the Allianz Arena as the worst organisation he had witnessed at a game anywhere.

Five words from an Uber driver also summed up one of the biggest issues at these Euros. ‘German trains,’ said Hasan from Turkey, ‘are no good.’ Forced to wait in long queues for a train to the RheinEnergieStadion in Cologne, the Tartan Army taunted Germany’s shambolic national train operator with chants of: ‘Are you ScotRail in disguise?’

When tens of thousands of ticketless fans descend on a city, the infrastructure comes under strain. And trying to get around urban sprawls on the days of games has become a sweaty and frustrating experience.

Munich — where Bayern sell-out an 80,000 stadium every second week — has a creaking infrastructure unable to cope with the weight of numbers.

After Scotland’s game with Switzerland, meanwhile, some fans complained of a three-hour slog from the stadium to Cologne city centre.

Despite the logistical issues, Euro 2024 remains a brilliant sporting spectacle. Find a way into the stadium and the atmosphere is up there with the best. For the first time since 2016, grounds are filled by a high number of proper supporters from both sides. The pre-match rendition of Flower of Scotland against Switzerland teased the hairs on the back of the neck.

UEFA’s army of unpaid volunteers, meanwhile, patiently dispense help and advice in English better than any dialect spoken by the Tartan Army.

The main problem is getting to grounds in the first place. Regarded for so long as the gold standard of efficiency, German trains now make ScotRail look like a model of punctual perfection.