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WALTER SMITH says there will always be a sense of bitterness at the way Rangers were prevented from continuing to play in the SPL back in 2012.

Speaking days before the Glasgow derby on Sunday and a week after they sealed promotion back to the top flight, Smith claimed the Ibrox side should be motivated by any remaining ill feeling as they prepare for life in the Premiership next season.

The former manager at Ibrox reckons the decision by SPL clubs to deny them a place after liquidation was the wrong one and that the decision has negatively affected some clubs.

"I think it [ill feeling] will always be there," Smith said. "There was no necessity for Rangers to be put down into the Third Division.

"I think that's the thing that will always stay in Scottish football, I think there will be a bitterness in the Rangers ranks that it happened. It will be a massive motivation for the club, it would be for me.

"There's no doubt it was the wrong move in my eyes. Scottish football's been worse off and a lot of the teams who were happy to see Rangers go down there have suffered and found themselves relegated or in the process of being relegated. So there will be that bitterness.

"How can they forget what happened to them? They can't forget that. Nobody can forget."

(Image: SNS)

Smith added: "I think Rangers being out of the top flight has in many ways caused problems to quite a number of the teams that have been there and Celtic are one of them in the sense that they've been left more or less alone to win a championship.

"Aberdeen put up a great fight over the last couple of years but it's very difficult for the provincial teams to match Celtic or Rangers, when Rangers are at the level they were at five years ago.

"I think Celtic have had a problem with their own motivation in terms of going into games, I think that's a big, big thing."

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