Rangers investor Stuart Gibson knows they have to close the gap on Celtic - as he claims to have met Boris Johnson over combining English and Scottish football.
The Light Blues are nine points off the pace in the Premiership and lost the League Cup final to Celtic last month. It came after boss Michael Beale caused debate when he said the champions were fortunate to be able to spend large sums with regards the money they have in their coffers, having won 10 of the last 11 titles. The club's third largest shareholder insists it was something Rangers would have built up too had they had their shoes on opposite feet.
But Gibson is aware there's a gap to close, saying to This is Ibrox : "We’re second in the league. We’re nine points behind Celtic and that’s just not acceptable. That’s something we need to fix. As our new manager said recently and he got into a bit of trouble: ‘The Celtic manager has been lucky he had such vast sums at his disposal’.
"That’s good for them but they basically had no one to beat for ten years. They should have accrued that wealth anyway.
"We’d have accrued that same wealth had we been in that position but again we’re behind Celtic so we still have to have more money to be able to go into the transfer market. I think in a bigger way.
“I think we probably need a handful of players to be honest during the summer and they’ll probably cost more than £1million or £2million a time. So we do need to figure out a way to actually increase that pool of money that is available for the Director of Football."
Gibson also claims he held talks with Boris Johnson over uniting British football. It was something he did of his own accord but suggests it was an idea well-received by government before the Conservative MP was fired a fortnight later.
He claimed when asked what can be done over 'strange' decisions in Scottish football: "I personally feel the future of Scottish football is not Scottish football, but British football. You've got to have clubs from Scotland in a united league and you can't just take two as that would kill the rest.
"That should be a 10-year plan. I have had conversations at Downing Street about that and there is a political will to do that.
"I was asked to go down to Downing Street and meet Boris around two weeks before he got sacked. I said that if you had the chance of a British United Cup where Forfar might get drawn against Arsenal, you would think Forfar fans would love that opportunity.
"My idea was you could find unity through football. The old idea about Rangers and Celtic won't work, and the SFA and SPFL will hate it because they have self-interest, and the English FA.
"But the Government liked it a lot. But Boris got fired, I had a dinner with Michael Gove and explained the idea to him, and he said I had to meet Boris so I did.
"I told him the SFA and SPFL will throw up at the idea and the English FA probably will as well, but he said that it was the government's role to bring these threads together. I said that's my idea, go make it work, my idea would start with a cup.
"Do it every two years, not every year as schedules are too busy, then after 10 have the goal of having a united league for the UK. You would need to do it every two years a pilot but the English clubs would love it, that idea wasn't sanctioned by Rangers but me off on my own."
