Celtic & Rangers managers offer solutions to Scotland’s youth puzzle

Celtic and Heart of Midlothian are the only two Premiership clubs to have their B teams in the current Lowland League, with Rangers withdrawing last season with their young team.

However, Clement believes it makes sense to have such teams higher up the Scottish football pyramid, citing his own experiences with Club Brugge in his native Belgium.

“I think this country misses that the B teams can play in the second division,” he said. “That would help a lot and you see that in countries where a lot of young players get opportunities and can grow.

“You also get more players aged 20/21/22 who are ready to play in the first division because they have played 17/18/19/20 games in the second division and can make the step in between.”

Clement thinks it is “a big step that people in Scotland are not yet open to”.

He believes playing in a B-team is better than loaning out young players, as the parent club has more control over their development, pointing to Rangers midfielder Alex Lowry’s experience at Hearts last season.

However, he stressed that this would not only benefit clubs with B-teams, but also other clubs that could attract players from top clubs who are better prepared for first-team football.

“They’ve been doing that in the Netherlands for a long time,” he said. “And in Belgium it also took a long time for the teams to agree, because in the beginning everyone was afraid of it too.

“Now everyone benefits from it.”

Clement also highlighted the “crazy situation” he faced when signing 21-year-old midfielder Connor Barron from Aberdeen this summer.

That the compensation Scottish clubs have to pay for players from the youth academy of a rival Scottish club is higher than if the player is signed by a club from another country.

“Even to the Premier League, where they have all the money in the world,” Clement complained.

“So it’s more expensive to keep them in Scotland. I don’t think it makes sense to make rules like that in Scotland. You have to make rules to keep players in the league here.”

Like Rodgers, Clement points to the difficulty of bridging the gap between youth football and the first team at a club like Rangers, but stresses that he is “passionate” about developing young players.

“You could see at the end of the last game that we had several young players from the academy on the pitch,” he added. “That was less the case before.”