Robbed? Rangers beat Leeds and could have been the first Champions League winners in 1993 if it wasn’t for dodgy Marseille

Rangers are back in the Champions League group stage for the first time in 12 years, but talkSPORT is going back even further to remember the side that missed out on a place in the inaugural Champions League final in controversial circumstances.

Rivals Celtic had been able to boast being the first ever British side to win the European Cup when they triumphed in 1967, but the 1992/93 campaign was the first in which the competition had been re-branded the ‘Champions League’ and, in those days, it truly was restricted to domestic champions. This was Rangers’ time – or so they thought.

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talkSPORT Breakfast host Ally McCoist was then leading the Gers’ front line in a format that saw the final eight clubs split into two groups of four, with the top teams in each mini-league qualifying for the final. Going into the final game, Rangers were level on points with Marseille, but the battle-hardened Gers were agonisingly pipped at the post.

Marseille went on to win the final 1-0, beating a brilliant Milan side in Munich, becoming the first French team to lift a European trophy in the process. Soon after the victory, however, it emerged the club and their president Bernard Tapie had fixed a French league match involving Marseille six days before the final, allowing them to focus on the Milan game without fear of over-exerting themselves.

The French side were subsequently stripped of their league crown, relegated to the second tier of French football and banned from the following year’s Champions League, as well as the World Club Cup match in Tokyo (Milan took their place, losing to Sao Paulo). But they were not stripped of their Champions League win, despite suspicion being cast on the legitimacy of their European exploits, too.

Rangers striker Mark Hateley has since claimed he was offered cash not to play against Marseille in the penultimate group match, when a win would have seen the Scottish side top the group with one game left.

“It was a friend of a friend, who had got in touch via certain routes, basically asking me not to play,” claimed Hateley.

“He was not an agent I knew, but another agent had given him the number. It was a French-speaking person, offering me large sums of money not to play against Marseille.”

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In the event, Hateley was banned from the match in Marseille having been sent off in the previous game, a 2-1 home win against Club Brugge. “I knew that something had gone off there,” said Hateley. “It was a bitter pill to swallow.”

That same night, Marseille had increased their goal difference significantly by beating CSKA Moscow 6-0. It was a surprise scoreline, considering the Russians had earlier eliminated reigning European Cup holders Barcelona and drawn their home match with Marseille 1-1.

The CSKA coach later made allegations that his players had been ‘got at’, before withdrawing the claim, while there was also talk of drinks being spiked.

Rangers bounced back from the disappointment of missing out on Munich by clinching a domestic treble, while their fans can look back on their Champions League adventure with pride, as well as a sense of what could have been.

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Two decades later, talkSPORT.com relives each round of the club’s famous European journey…

Rangers v Lyngby: First Round, 16 September 1992 and 30 September 1992

This was the first year the Champions League branding was introduced to the tournament, but the format was the same as the previous year’s European Cup, with two knockout rounds between the champions of each participating country, whittling the teams down to eight.

This was followed by a ‘Champions League’ group stage of two groups of four, which were effectively the semi-finals, as the top two clubs progressed to the final itself. Rangers began their journey in the first round against Danish champions Lyngby, winning 2-0 in the first leg at Ibrox and 1-0 away from home.

Rangers v Leeds United: Second Round, 21 October 1992 and 4 November 1992

These days, the gulf in money and quality between English and Scottish club football is large, but in 1992 the Premier League, like the Champions League, was in its infancy and there was far more of a level playing field. So it was that a meeting between the champions of England and Scotland was a hotly anticipated tie billed as the ‘Battle of Britain’, with Leeds – boasting Eric Cantona among their ranks – providing the opposition for Rangers.

The English club had scraped past German champions Stuttgart in the previous round, then took the lead at Ibrox when Gary McAllister put them in front after just one minute. However, an own goal from John Lukic and a McCoist effort gave Rangers a slender lead to take south of the border.

In the second leg, Rangers produced one of their most memorable European performances. Mark Hateley scored an outrageous goal in the opening two minutes, a sweetly hit volley from outside the box, and McCoist bagged the crucial second.

Cantona pulled one back late on for Leeds, but the Scottish side held on to make their way into the first ever Champions League proper.

Champions League Group A: Rangers 2 – 2 Marseille, 25 November 1992

Rangers, Marseille, CSKA Moscow and Club Brugge were picked to fight it out in Group A and the opening group game in November 1992 was a belter at Ibrox, with Marseille going 2-0 up after 60 minutes.

Rangers looked out of it until Gary McSwegan headed in with 15 minutes left, and Hateley nabbed a point for the home side as he scored with only eight minutes remaining.

Champions League Group A: CSKA Moscow 0 – 1 Rangers, 09/12/92

Next up for Rangers was a tough away test against the Russian champions, with the match played in Bochum, Germany, due to the severity of the Muscovite winter.

In front of a crowd of 16,000, the Russian champions fell to Ian Ferguson’s early goal after 15 minutes. It was Rangers who could have been 1-0 down, though, had it not been for some desperate defending in their own goal-mouth, but a slice of luck for the goal, which took a wicked deflection, gave the travelling fans belief that perhaps their European adventure could go further than they thought.

Club Brugge 1 – 1 Rangers: Champions League Group A, 3 March 1993

Manager Walter Smith and his team had to wait almost three months until their next match, this time heading to Belgium to face Club Brugge, who were unbeaten at home in Europe for three years.

Rangers got their second draw of the campaign when the visitors’ Pieter Huistra cancelled out Tomasz Dziubinski’s opener. Meanwhile, Marseille drew 1-1 with CSKA in Berlin, leaving them level with Rangers on four points at the top of Group A (only two points were awarded for a win).

Rangers 2 – 1 Club Brugge: Champions League Group A, 17 March 1993

A fortnight after their first meeting, Rangers and Brugge met again at Ibrox and this time the home side bagged the win they sorely needed to start dreaming of a place in the final.

Ian ‘Wee Durranty’ Durrant scored the opening goal before Brugge’s equaliser, then Scott Nisbet scored one of the luckiest goals you are likely to see. The defender’s speculative cross was wild and after a strange bounce, lopped over the goalkeeper and into the net. A unique goal, but a very important one, especially considering that key striker Hateley had been sent off after just 44 minutes.

Marseille 1 – 1 Rangers: Champions League Group A,  7 April 1993

A game which is now tinged with controversy following Rangers striker Hateley’s claim that Marseille offered him a cash bribe not to play in this match. In the end, Hateley missed the match through suspension after his red carded in the previous match against Brugge for what many believe to be an innocuous challenge, leading to more conspiracies of shady dealings.

In the match itself, former France international and Hibernian legend Franck Sauzee put Marseille ahead before Durrant levelled for Rangers. Ahead of the match boss Smith said both teams would have settled for a draw to take qualification down to the wire in the final game, but Rangers came close to beating the nervy French side.

Rangers 0 – 0 CSKA Moscow: Champions League Group A, 21 April 1993

Rangers went into their final group match needing a win and were hoping Marseille slipped up against Brugge. What followed was 90 minutes of frustration at Ibrox as Rangers, no matter how hard they tried, could not find the net, with CSKA ‘keeper Evgeni Plotnikov denying the home side again and again.

Trevor Steven also hit the bar, but Marseille’s victory in Belgium meant Rangers would not have made the final anyway, although even the nature of Brugge’s defending in that final game – having conceded the only goal of the game after just two minutes – has been called into question. In a 1997 embezzlement trial brought against Tapie – who was earlier jailed for his role in the Marseille match-fixing scandal – prosecutors questioned the validity of the Brugge result, but nothing was proven.

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Tapie died in 2021, aged 78 and despite not being stripped of their 1993 Champions League victory, Marseille’s success was achieved under a considerable cloud. Rangers may be justified in feeling that they should have been the ones contesting the first Champions League final against Milan.

In an era when a Scottish club is happy merely to make it to the group stage, it is remarkable to think Scotland was so close to providing a winner in the Champions League era.

Rangers beat the English champions – a team that boasted players such as Eric Cantona and Gary McAllister – home and away, and went the entire continental campaign unbeaten, matching a Marseille side containing Rudi Voller, Didier Deschamps and Marcel Desailly.

Who knows if we will ever see something like that happen again.