NafisaRangers are now watching a familiar face from Ibrox take aim at one of the biggest issues facing Scottish football — and there is an uncomfortable twist to the story for those inside Govan.
The former Rangers figure is now in a position where he can influence the direction of the Scottish game, with ambitious proposals being discussed that could change how clubs approach developing and using young players.
That has inevitably brought his own time at Rangers back into focus.
During his spell with the Light Blues, there were talented players emerging from the club’s system, but relatively few managed to establish themselves as regular first-team players. Now, the same former Ibrox man is calling for measures designed to ensure more young Scottish players are given meaningful opportunities at senior level.
The Scottish FA is proposing financial incentives, alongside possible penalties, to encourage clubs to increase the number of homegrown players featuring for their teams.
Specific quotas could also be introduced to encourage more Under-21 players to appear in domestic competitions. While the proposals are aimed at improving Scottish football as a whole, they inevitably raise questions about the record of those now leading the push for change.
Craig Mulholland’s Rangers legacy assessed
Mulholland spent around 20 years at Rangers in various positions and headed the academy for eight of those years before leaving the club in 2023.
There were certainly promising players produced during that period, with Nathan Patterson and Billy Gilmour among the most notable examples. However, Gilmour never made a first-team appearance for Rangers, while Patterson eventually moved south.
Rory Wilson was another highly-rated prospect who emerged during Mulholland’s time at the club before joining Aston Villa in 2022.
Ross McCrorie is arguably the clearest example of an academy product from that era who managed to break into the Rangers first team and establish himself with regular minutes.
That backdrop makes Mulholland’s current position particularly intriguing, especially given the scale of the changes he is now advocating for Scottish football.
Writing in the Daily Record on 7 September, Keith Jackson said, “And now Mulholland has arrived on the scene telling the rest of the game where they have been going wrong and what they need to do in order to rectify it.
“It’s hard to know where to start with this anomaly, but suffice to say there are senior, highly experienced, dyed-in-the-wool football men around Rangers who can’t quite believe what they are seeing and hearing and asking how it has possibly come to this.”
How Craig Mulholland’s recommendations could have an effect at Ibrox:
One player who could benefit from any increased emphasis on young Scottish talent at Rangers is Findlay Curtis.
The 20-year-old has already broken into the first team and has also represented Scotland, making him one of the most encouraging young players to emerge from Ibrox in recent years.
Curtis’ progress could become even more significant if Scottish football adopts measures designed to make clubs give greater opportunities to players in his age bracket.
Speaking recently, Mulholland said, “We would always love to do more, but we believe that introducing requirements for Under-21 players in the Scottish Cup and League Cup and targets for minutes in the Premiership would represent a significant step.”
Among the recommendations is a proposal for two Under-21 Scotland-eligible players to start in every Scottish Cup and Premier Sports Cup match.
For Rangers, that could have a direct impact on how the squad is managed, particularly when McInnes is deciding how much responsibility to place on younger players in competitive fixtures.
The Rangers manager has not always appeared particularly open to handing opportunities to youth players during his time at the club so far, although Curtis has played a major role in the team.
The youngster’s emergence has therefore provided a welcome exception, but there does not currently appear to be another obvious academy graduate immediately behind him in the first-team picture.
That could make the SFA’s proposals especially interesting from a Rangers perspective.
If the recommendations eventually become part of Scottish football’s domestic competition rules, clubs could face greater pressure to give young players genuine opportunities rather than simply having them around the fringes of senior squads.
And for Rangers, there is an added layer of intrigue given that the man now pushing for those changes spent so many years at Ibrox himself.
Whether Mulholland’s proposals ultimately transform Scottish football remains to be seen, but the debate has already created an awkward question for his former club: why did the system he is now trying to improve produce so few regular Rangers first-team players during his own time there?
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