Scottish clubs are easy meat for oil-rich ‘minnows’

ABERDEEN have crashed out of the Europa League to Kairat Almaty of Kazakhstan. St Johnstone fell in truly pitiful circumstances to FC Alashkert of Armenia. In Scotland, we used to treat teams from Kazakhstan, Armenia and Azerbaijan as a joke. No one is laughing now. Thirty years ago — when the former Soviet Union kept these teams behind a curtain — results like this would have been impossible. However, European football has a new frontier now — and it is squeezing Scottish clubs off the map completely. Losing to teams from the likes of Kazakhstan is the new norm. We should all get used to it. The Central Asian Republic is awash with oil. So, too, is Azerbaijan, where Celtic scraped past Qarabag to keep our national flag flying. Baku was a surprisingly clean, modern and impressive city. Evidence of conspicuous wealth dripped from the towering buildings which overlook the Caspian Sea. No one should be surprised, then, if oil oligarchs buy up the local football teams, pump in a few million and beat Scottish teams who — in contrast — are paying players £1,200 a week. Kairat Almaty’s owner is a case in point. A 48-year-old oil tycoon by the name of Kairat Boranbayev, he was general director of KazRosGas, a Kazakh gas company, until last year. This year, he introduced McDonald’s to the Central Asian state, opening a string of fast-food restaurants. His daughter’s wedding entertainment was provided by American superstar Kanye West — at a cost of £2million. Since buying Kairat, he has built a £15m youth academy, hired Dutchman Patrick van Leeuwen as his sporting director, Vladimir Weiss as his coach and outbid Gulf and American clubs to sign Anatoliy Tymoshchuk — the former captain of Ukraine and Bayern Munich midfielder. Clearly, cash is no object. Kairat’s budget is on a different planet to Aberdeen’s. You get what you pay for. Stewart Milne, the Pittodrie chairman, has a fair few quid himself. But he can’t — and won’t — compete with an oligarch. Scottish clubs live within their means now and the blunt truth is that those means are genuinely pitiful. If only Aberdeen had some oil cash they could call on...