Rangers’ academy coaching team was weakened on Wednesday, 14 October 2026, when Steven Mundell announced that he is leaving the club after five years at Auchenhowie. The news arrived around lunchtime through a short, warm message on his X account, and it landed as a reminder of something that rarely makes the headlines: the success of a youth system is built less on the famous names who graduate from it than on the coaches who spend years shaping them before anyone is watching. Mundell was one of those figures, and his departure removes an experienced, well-travelled voice from the part of the club that Rangers rely on to keep their pathway to the first team healthy.
The Gers’ youth setup at Auchenhowie is widely regarded as one of the best in Scottish football. It operates at Elite Level status within the Scottish pathway, in the same bracket as the academies of Celtic, Hearts, Aberdeen and Hibernian, among others. Over the years it has produced a steady supply of players who went on to become first-team regulars at Ibrox or who built careers, and brought in transfer income, elsewhere. When a coach who has been embedded in that environment for half a decade chooses to leave, supporters are right to pay attention, even if the immediate on-pitch consequences are impossible to measure.
Mundell kept his announcement brief. “After an incredible five years, I’m moving on from Rangers,” he wrote. He followed that by offering “a huge thank you to all the Rangers academy staff and players” he has had the pleasure of working with, and he closed by saying he is “excited for the new challenge ahead.” He finished the post with a globe emoji.
That single emoji has become the most intriguing detail of the whole announcement. Mundell did not name a destination, a club, or a role, and nothing in his message confirms what comes next. A globe is not a flag, and it would be a mistake to read too much into a piece of punctuation. But given his career history, it is not an unreasonable suggestion that he is preparing to take up a position outside Scottish football, and perhaps outside the United Kingdom altogether. Until Mundell or his new employer say so, that remains speculation, and it is worth treating it as such.
What can be said with confidence is the tone of the message. There is no hint of acrimony, no pointed reference to a dispute, and no suggestion that he has been pushed out. It reads as the farewell of a coach who believes he did good work, enjoyed the people around him, and has decided that after five years the time is right for a change. In a profession where exits are often messy, that is worth noting.
Mundell joined Rangers as a youth and professional development phase coach in September 2021, according to his LinkedIn profile. That places his role squarely in the middle and upper tiers of the club’s academy structure, the stages where promising teenagers stop being talented kids and start being tested against the realities of senior football. The youth development phase and the professional development phase are, in effect, the bridge between the foundation years and the first team, and they are where a coach’s influence can be most visible to supporters, because the players he works with are close to emerging into public view.
Rangers organise their academy around three broad stages: the foundation phase for the youngest players, the youth development phase for those in their early and mid teens, and the professional development phase for the older age groups heading toward the B team and the senior squad. A coach who works across the youth and professional stages is therefore handling players at a critical point, when decisions about development, loans, contracts and futures start to carry real weight. That is the part of the pathway where Mundell has spent the past five years.
This was not, however, the first time he had said goodbye to Rangers. His connection with the club goes back much further than 2021. According to his professional profile, Mundell began working for Rangers as a community coach in October 2005 and held that role until September 2015, a ten-year stint that involved working with young players and with the wider community around the club. In February 2011 he also took on a role as foundation and youth development phase coach, which he held until July 2017. For a period, then, the two responsibilities ran alongside each other, with Mundell working both in the community programme and inside the academy proper.
In July 2017 he left for England, joining Rotherham United as lead youth development phase coach. He stayed there for two years before making a far bigger leap. Mundell moved to China, where he became head of coaching at Chongqing No.7 high school, and he spent two years in that role before coming back to Rangers in September 2021. It is a career path with real range: Scottish community football, an elite academy, an English club, and a school environment on the other side of the world, followed by a return to the place where he had first made his name.
It is tempting to read that history as a pattern. Mundell has shown more than once that he is willing to leave a comfortable position, and to move a long way, to find a coaching opportunity he believes in. Going from Ibrox to Rotherham was a significant step, but leaving Britain for a post in Chongqing was a very different proposition, involving a different culture, a different language, a different football system and a different working environment. Few coaches in Scottish youth football would take that leap, and he did it for two years.
That background is what makes the globe emoji in Wednesday’s message feel slightly more meaningful than it might otherwise. A coach who has already worked in China is plausibly open to opportunities in Asia, the Middle East, North America or elsewhere. Football academies around the world are investing heavily in development staff, and coaches with experience at a club of Rangers’ stature are attractive candidates. None of this is confirmed, and it would be unfair to Mundell to assume. But it is reasonable to suggest that his next step may take him a long way from Glasgow.
The news has an extra layer of resonance because of what is happening in the Rangers first team right now. The current shining example of the academy system under Derek McInnes is Findlay Curtis. The 20-year-old has progressed from the youth ranks to the point where he is looking poised for a very bright future in Govan, and his rise has been quick enough that it has attracted attention beyond Ibrox, including a place in Sebastien Pocognoli’s Scotland squad alongside Liam Kelly.
Curtis’s journey is one that supporters have followed with growing excitement. His development took in a loan at Kilmarnock, where he was able to get regular senior football, and it has now brought him into the conversation as a genuine option for the first team. For a club that has spent heavily on its squad, a player of his age and promise offers something that no transfer fee can buy: a homegrown talent who understands the club and who is still improving.
It would be wrong to claim that any one coach is responsible for a player’s rise, and Mundell has not been credited by the club with a specific role in Curtis’s development. But the logic is straightforward. Top young players do not become top senior players without the work of excellent coaching at academy level, and a coach working in the youth and professional development phases over the past five years will very likely have crossed paths with the players who are now emerging. As the original report put it, Mundell is one coach who will no doubt have played a part in the progress of players like Curtis over recent years. Whether directly or indirectly, his work has been part of the environment that produced them.
Supporters tend to judge an academy by its headline graduates, and that is understandable. The names that stick are the ones who play at Ibrox, who earn international caps, or who move on for fees that make the newspapers. But the people who contribute most consistently to those outcomes are often the coaches whose names are barely known outside the training ground.
Consider what an academy coach actually does. He works with players across years, not weeks. He identifies technical weaknesses and builds drills to address them. He helps teenagers understand positional play and decision-making. He manages the emotional side of development, the disappointment of being left out, the pressure of expectation, the uncertainty of contracts. And he does it while being measured against a standard that is brutally unforgiving: how many of his players will make it, and how many will fall away.
At Rangers, the stakes are heightened by the fact that the club has been explicit about the importance of its pathway. The academy has a track record of producing talent that has been sold for significant sums as well as talent that has gone on to play for the first team. Players such as Nathan Patterson, Billy Gilmour, Robby McCrorie, Leon King, Alex Lowry and Adam Devine all came through the system during the period of its modernisation, and the club’s leadership has publicly described the academy as one that compares with those of top European clubs. In a statement marking the departure of former academy director Craig Mulholland, the club pointed to more than £15 million in academy player sales over a five-year period, as well as the introduction of the B team, the creation of the Boclair Academy performance school and the professionalisation of the women’s programme.
Those achievements did not happen by accident, and they did not happen because of one individual. They happened because a large number of coaches, analysts, sports scientists and support staff worked consistently across many age groups. That is why each departure matters, even when the person leaving is not a household name. Every coach carries knowledge of individual players, familiarity with the club’s methods, and relationships that took years to build. When he leaves, some of that goes with him.
The most honest assessment is that the immediate consequences are uncertain. Mundell is not a first-team coach, and his departure will not change the team that McInnes selects at the weekend. It will not affect the Premiership race, the League Cup semi-final, or the pressure on a manager who has spent the autumn turning around a difficult start. The loss is felt at a different level, in the continuity of the academy’s coaching staff and in the loss of an experienced voice in the development phases.
The practical question is how Rangers respond. Replacing a coach is straightforward in administrative terms: a vacancy is advertised or filled internally, someone is appointed, and the work goes on. The harder part is preserving the knowledge and the relationships that sit in a coach’s head. Players who have been working with Mundell for years will need to adjust to a new voice, a new approach, and potentially a new set of expectations. For a teenager at a sensitive point in his development, that kind of change can matter more than it might for a senior player.
There is also the broader question of what the departure says about the academy as a place to work. It is worth being careful here. A single coach leaving after five years is entirely normal. Five years is a long time in football coaching, and Mundell’s own message suggests that he is leaving on good terms and with enthusiasm for what lies ahead. There is no evidence of a wider problem. Nonetheless, supporters will want to see that Rangers can attract and retain strong coaching talent, because the quality of the academy depends on it. Elite Level academies compete not only for players but for staff, and the best coaches have options.
It would be easy to try to draw a line between this exit and other changes at the club, but the evidence does not support that. Staff turnover in academies is a normal feature of football, and coaches move on for countless reasons: family circumstances, career ambition, a better offer, a desire for a new environment. Mundell’s own history shows a man who has made several significant moves in the past, and a decision to seek a new challenge after five years fits that pattern rather than breaking it.
What is fair to say is that the timing underlines how much the club relies on stability in its development structure. Rangers have spent significant sums on the first team this year, and the pressure on McInnes to deliver results is considerable. In that environment, the academy offers something different: a pipeline of players who cost far less than a market signing and who can become part of the squad’s long-term core. Keeping that pipeline strong requires continuity, and departures, however amicable, make that harder.
Rangers are not alone in facing the challenge of retaining academy coaches. Across Scottish football, the best youth coaches are increasingly in demand, both domestically and abroad. The Elite Level status that Rangers share with Celtic, Hearts, Aberdeen and Hibernian reflects a significant investment in coaching quality, facilities and player welfare, and coaches working in those environments develop skills that are valued far beyond Scotland.
That is both a compliment and a challenge. It is a compliment because it confirms that Rangers’ coaches are respected in the wider game. It is a challenge because it means the club must keep working to make Auchenhowie an attractive place to build a career. That means competitive terms, clear development opportunities for staff, and a sense that the academy’s work is valued at the highest levels of the club.
The good news for supporters is that the structure of the academy is not dependent on any one person. The phases are staffed by teams of coaches, supported by performance and medical departments, and overseen by senior figures who set the philosophy and the standards. Mundell’s departure leaves a gap, but it is a gap that can be filled, and the club has previously shown that it can manage change in its academy leadership and continue to produce talent.
Whatever comes next, Mundell leaves Rangers with a career that deserves recognition. He has spent a considerable portion of his working life connected to the club, from his early days as a community coach in 2005, through his work in the foundation and youth development phases, to his most recent five-year spell in the youth and professional development phases. That adds up to a significant contribution to the club’s football culture, much of it carried out away from the cameras.
His willingness to leave and return is also worth acknowledging. After Rotherham and China, he chose to come back to Rangers in 2021, and his farewell message suggests that the second spell was fulfilling. Few coaches get to say that they have had two distinct chapters with the same club, and fewer still leave both on terms that allow them to speak warmly of the people they worked with.
His message to the academy staff and players was brief but sincere, and it speaks to a coach who values the relationships he built. For the young players who worked with him, and for the colleagues who shared the training ground with him every day, the departure will be felt more keenly than any headline can capture. Those are the people who saw his work up close, and they are the ones best placed to judge it.
For Rangers, the immediate priority is to ensure that the academy continues to function smoothly. That means making sure the players in Mundell’s groups are supported through the transition, that his responsibilities are covered in the interim, and that a suitable replacement is identified in due course. It is the kind of administrative task that rarely generates public attention but matters enormously to the people directly affected.
The longer-term priority is to keep the academy competitive with the best in the country and, ideally, to strengthen it. The success of players like Findlay Curtis is the best advertisement the system has, and the club will want to make sure that the next generation of talent is given the same quality of coaching. That requires a stable, ambitious and well-supported staff, and Rangers will want to show that a single departure, however significant, does not disrupt that.
For Mundell himself, the focus now turns to whatever comes next. The globe emoji may or may not be a clue, and supporters will have to wait to find out. Given his willingness to travel, to take on unfamiliar roles and to build a career in different environments, it would be no surprise if his next step proved to be another bold one. Wherever he lands, he does so with the thanks of the people he worked with and the good wishes of a club that he has now served in two separate spells.
Steven Mundell’s exit is not the kind of news that will change the course of the Rangers season, but it is a meaningful moment for the club’s academy and for the supporters who care about its long-term health. Five years in a central role at Auchenhowie is a considerable contribution, and his farewell message was gracious and generous. His career, from community coach to academy coach, from Rotherham to China and back again, is the story of a man who has never been afraid of a challenge.
Rangers will now look to fill the gap and to keep the academy moving forward. The system that has produced players such as Findlay Curtis is bigger than any one coach, but it depends on the quality and commitment of the people within it, and each departure is a reminder of how much that matters. As Mundell moves on to his next opportunity, wherever in the world it may be, he does so with the gratitude of a club he has served twice, and with the satisfaction of knowing that he helped to develop players who may one day wear the first-team shirt at Ibrox.
