Sasa Papac is the latest former Rangers (IL) star to suffer memory loss and whinge about the 2007/08 season in which the SFA and SPL went to incredible lengths to present the Ibrox side with the league championship.
In an interview with The Sun, the full-back who picked up at EBT payment of £319,000 for his 161 games, claims that the Association never did enough to help Walter Smith’s side prepare to park the bus against Zenit St Petersburg in the final of the 2008 UEFA Cup.
Perhaps Papac has forgotten that the SPL postponed a tricky match away to Gretna at For Park to give Rangers (IL) an 11 day preparation to face Lyon in the final group match in the Champions League. The French side won 3-0 at Ibrox.
At the same time Celtic played Shakhtar Donetsk on Wednesday November 28 and AC Milan on Tuesday December 4 with a visit to Tynecastle thrown in between two Champions League matches in seven days.
Papac told The Sun:
I still think we were treated unfairly. If the SPL had given us a free week to prepare for the Uefa Cup Final, we still might not have defeated Zenit.
“That was a golden age for them. They had great players like Andrey Arshavin and Anatoliy Tymoshchuk in their team but they had time to prepare properly for the game and we didn’t.
“It would have been great if our association had treated us the way the Russian authorities treated Zenit.
Maybe Papac can explain why the SPL season finished on a Thursday night with Aberdeen having to hang around for 12 days before hosting the UEFA Cup runners-up in their last match of the season.
Or perhaps the Bosnian defender can explain why Rangers (IL) second last match of the SPL campaign was against St Mirren of the bottom six.
With their place in the SPL secured for the following season most of the Saints players had airport taxis waiting to take them off on holiday as soon as the final whistle had blown on a 3-0 defeat.
Time and again former Rangers (IL) players trot out the line about the obstacles that they had to overcome in the 2007/08 season, the reality is that never before or since has one club had so many favours from the football authorities.
A google search for Craig Levein and Mike McCurry sheds even more light on a very strange season rather than the selective memories of Papac and his team-mates.
