Picture the teams in the lower levels in England that have financial difficulties and flirt with going out of business. That’s pretty much the financial picture for the non-Old Firm clubs in Scotland. Any player who looks even slightly OK in that league gets bought by Premier League clubs, even though the Scottish players’ recent track record in the English Premier League is not that great. The third place team hasn’t paid players on time in something like four months, and when it finally paid for December, almost a month late, they literally waited until the check cleared from selling a player to an English club (I think, but I could be wrong) and used that money to pay the December wage bill.
If it helps paint the picture, Cillian Sheridan, who both the Sounders and Timbers trialed and passed on (even though at the time we were putting Noonan and Jaqua out there) has started over half the games for the current 4th place team (tied on points with 3rd place Hearts – who will most likely be docked points for financial issues this year – but behind on differential). In their premier league era, it’s been pretty strange if a team outside the old firm even finishes in the top two. Pretty sad, really.

The one good selling point on signing for Rangers, and this is huge… if you play for Rangers, you have a UK work permit. After that, presumably it would be MUCH easier to end up on an EPL side.