CRAIG MULHOLLAND hopes Rangers’ new Under-20 schedule will help prepare his Light Blues kids for Champions League action.

The Gers won’t field a side in the SPFL Development League next term as they line up a series of matches against top clubs from across Europe.

And Head of Academy Mulholland is confident the next generation of Ibrox stars will reap the rewards at home and abroad in the future.

He said: “The objective is we want to get back to the Champions League. If we are going to produce young players we want to play at that level, they shouldn’t be playing against a top player in Europe the first time they run out in a Rangers jersey at Ibrox.

“We should be equipping them to say ‘I have played against them two or three times’ and therefore they will hopefully be much more equipped when this club is, hopefully, back where it can go to go and play in Rangers’ first team.

“With this project, hopefully if we have our Under-19s or 20s playing against say Manchester City or Barcelona or someone like that, we can maybe get the game at Ibrox or a different stadium and have a Rangers crowd coming along.

“We must replicate as best we can the first team environment for them and hopefully this project will do that.”

SFA Performance Director Malky Mackay has given his backing to the Rangers blueprint as he presses ahead with ‘Project Brave’.

The Gers could field a Colt side in the SPFL structure in the future and Mulholland told rangers.co.uk: “There are a whole range of things being looked at just now, one of which is colt teams in the lower divisions.

“What we will do is undertake this project, look at the data and how players develop, look at the responses from the players and the coaches and if it proves to be successful then we will report that back to the SFA and the SPFL, and I think for Scottish football we must build something like this – this ‘best v best’ programme into the programme domestically to make sure our young Scottish players are being pushed in a way they haven’t been before.”