‘Wow’ – talkSPORT pundit reacts as Ally McCoist makes big claim about Leeds & Rangers
Ally McCoist stirred the pot on talkSPORT this morning when he said that Rangers are a bigger club than Leeds United.
It wasn’t just Leeds who were put below the annual runners-up in the Scottish Premiership either.
On the Breakfast show, McCoist was asked whether Rangers were bigger than Leeds, Burnley, Crystal Palace, West Ham, Newcastle, Everton, Spurs, Chelsea and Arsenal.
He replied Rangers for all of them, only allowing Man City above the Scottish side.
talkSPORT pundit Jamie O’Hara responded to the claims on Twitter saying, “Wow Ally McCoist saying on @TSBreakfast that Rangers are bigger than Spurs, Leeds, West Ham, and on par with Man City… and I thought I had one yesterday.”
Leeds a sleeping giant
We’re obviously going to take issue with McCoist here.
In terms of history, Leeds have won the English top-flight three times and were the last winners of the old First Division.
Leeds got to the semi-finals of the Champions League in 2000/01 – Rangers have never made it past the round of 16.
While Rangers are stuck in the Premiership, playing against opposition that ranges between Championship and League One level (Celtic are the only side that could survive in the Premier League), they can never hope to be as big as Leeds.
Ibrox might hold just over 50,000 fans but Elland Road is set to be expanded to around the same capacity and both clubs would sell out every week.
In terms of value, Leeds owner Andrea Radrizzani has claimed his club is worth £300m now with a future valuation of £1bn a possibility.
Rangers wouldn’t fetch anywhere near the £300m mark. Transfermarkt has them listed around a £50m valuation, which sounds about right. The Scotsman said they were worth £31.5m in 2015.
In almost every metric, Rangers come up short and while we might be biased, these are just facts.
Rangers are a huge club in Scotland. Put them in League Two and we think they’d struggle to make it to the top of the football pyramid in England.
In other Leeds United news, Phil Hay delivers Bielsa update, expects Leeds to confirm major loan signing this week