Former Rangers Player Urges Clubs and SFA to Take Steps for Youth Improvement

According to a report by the media outlet The Scottish Sun, former Rangers player Alan Hutton has urged the Scottish clubs and the Scottish Football Association to take necessary steps in order to introduce improvements in the youth set-up of the football environment in Scotland.

Speaking to OLBG in an interview, the former full-back said, “It needs more. It’s very difficult to force teams to play young players because of everything on the line: financial security, staying in the league, and all that.”

Hutton’s comments came on the back of his country's UEFA Nations League tie against North Macedonia, a game that saw only one Scottish player currently playing in the SPFL make the starting line-up. The said player was Celtic FC’s defender Kieran Tierney.

Himself a player who rose through the youth ranks at Ibrox and eventually played 94 league games for the Gers, Hutton feels that not enough is being done for the development of young players. The former defender, however, did agree to the fact that opportunities for young players are scarce as fears of relegation always haunt clubs, and thus managers prefer to put established and proven players on the field. He, according to the report, also feels that tight schedules and tough competition for national and continental championships make the situation worse for the youth prodigies of the country. Hutton said, “We need to see young talent coming through and being given opportunities; provided they’re good enough, you can’t just be there for the sake of it. Showing them a pathway to get into the first team and develop is vital because there isn’t enough of it right now.”

Hutton, during the interview, also said that more young players need to get first-team opportunities, and this would benefit the national team set-up as well. 

The former Ibrox star, even after leaving Scotland, has a prolific career in the United Kingdom, playing for several clubs across the English football pyramid, most notably for clubs like Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa. He also had loan spells at Sunderland, Nottingham Forest, Bolton Wanderers, and also spent the second half of the 2012-13 season on loan at Spanish side Mallorca. 

Alan Hutton, who also made 50 appearances for the senior squad of the Scotland National Football Team, was part of Rangers' Scottish Premier League-winning squad in 2004-05, and he also won the Football League Cup with Tottenham Hotspur in 2007-08. In 2016, Hutton was included in the Scottish FA International Roll of Honour.

The former Rangers man concluded his interview by saying, “It's a step in the right direction, but we need to see it happen more.”