Rangers fans in outcry over new season's SPL fixtures

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Tricky start: Walter Smith's Rangers face three out of their first four matches away

The Ibrox club were deeply unhappy at closing the previous campaign with a congested programme after reaching the UEFA Cup Final.

Now fans have reacted with fury to the early-season schedule that Walter Smith's men will face when the action resumes in August.

Rangers will play three away games out of four in the first month of the season, with trips to Pittodrie and Celtic Park sandwiching a potential Champions League qualification decider on August 27.

The SPL revealed at the weekend that Canadian company Optimal Planning Solutions had been drafted in to produce the schedule after the chaos that enveloped the previous campaign.

But Jim Templeton, president of the Rangers Supporters' Assembly, condemned the calendar they produced.

"The SPL were bragging about the new fixture list being outsourced to a new company," said Templeton. "It has cost them a fortune - and then it comes up with something like this.

"They said it would be alternate home and away games, yet Rangers have three out of the first four matches away.

"Where is the sense in sending us to Aberdeen before what could possibly be a massive European game, and then having to play Celtic on the Saturday lunchtime after that?"

SPL secretary Iain Blair said: "It's very easy to pick out little two or three-game runs and be really unhappy about that for your particular club.

"But our objective is to find the best balance for all 12 clubs over the entire season and I think we've done that."