Rangers Teddy Bears in Distress

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I'm a Hibs fan but my father was a Rangers supporter and my best friend is also a big Rangers fan. I have a lot of sympathy for the plight that the Rangers fans find themselves in. In my view, I would suggest that Sir David Murray turned out to be something less than the brilliant businessman everyone thought he was at the time but that is with the luxury of twenty twenty hindsight. Perhaps it was luck and good timing rather than business acumen that made such a success of MIM. However, he certainly got, and seems to have taken, what turned out to be extremely bad advice.

In my opinion, he is a Rangers man and is much a victim as the rest of the Rangers fans. As far as I can see, Glasgow Rangers are no more because of a criminal neglect to pay their taxes under the regime of Craig Whyte. The big tax case isn't yet proved either way and might conceivably end up going in Rangers favour (I use the word Rangers advisedly) or perhaps a compromise between the individuals concerned and HMRC. I'm afraid I am one of those people who couldn't see any other outcome from the start and predicted that Mr Whyte would disappear off the scene and that Glasgow Rangers would be liquidated.

I would suggest that at this point, despite all the information to the contrary, it is not an absolute certainty that Mr Green has acquired the assets of the club as I understand that the liquidators have the legal right to examine any transactions carried out by the administrators and I am personally very suspicious of the relationship between Duff and Phelps and Mr Whyte. The simple question I would suggest is… Have they provided the best outcome for the club's creditors? It may only be rumours but I understand they had offers for players such as Naismith and could have found a way of selling them rather than delaying until such a point as they could walk away for nothing. That alone would appear to be a cause for anxiety amongst the creditors.

I'm no Brahan Seer but it was obvious a long time ago that Rangers were in dire straits and the obvious thing is that something should have been done by the board of directors who were either complicit, had knowledge of what was happening or had concerns. If they had acted against Mr Whyte the club might have been able to avoid administration and the subsequent (inevitable) events. That is all water under the bridge now but I raised that because, right now, the fans appear to be focussed on where Rangers are going to play next season, what the team will be called and whether or not they should consider buying a season ticket; none of which addresses the debts of Glasgow Rangers nor the impact the club's behaviour has had on the people they owe money to, not to mention the consequences in terms of Scottish football. This is such a huge and complex story that it gets very difficult to keep all the factors balanced but here is a Hibs fan's perspective on the situation…

Should Rangers be allowed to play in the SPL? Absolutely not. In the case of Glasgow Rangers in administration it might have been possible to accept their demotion to the First Division but a new club has to start by applying for inclusion in the Third Division. I think every fair minded football fan understands that sporting integrity has to come before anything else. If the SFA bend the rules to accommodate the Newco Rangers then the impact it will have on the fans for every other club in Scotland will be seriously detrimental. Who wants to watch a game where the body in charge is prepared to bend the rules.

If I can take some time to plead a case on behalf of Hibs fans. We have just struggled through a season where the highlight was a narrow escape from relegation. Despite being a poor team, we somehow made our way to the final of the Scottish Cup only to be faced with a better team on the day (and our bitterest rivals) who are tens of millions of pounds in debt (including shares for debt transactions with themselves that don't make the debt disappear despite what many a deluded Hearts fan might want to believe. Does this remind you of anyone? The glory years at Ibrox come to mind.) We were comprehensively beaten on the day but it will never be the victory that the Hearts fan want it to be because the referee was a cheat.

I'm definitely not saying I can tell the future but I was on record at the time the referee was appointed as saying that, not only would Hibs not win, but that he would send a Hibs player off and give them a penalty. I was not alone amongst Hibs fans in terms of my predictions and would sight the first couple of offences in the game when a Hearts player elbowed a Hibs player in the face and received a speaking to for what could easily have been seen as a sending off offence and yet the first Hibs player to commit a foul was booked and subsequently sent off for a second offence committed outside the box and for which Hearts also received a penalty. The penalty / sending off happened fifty seconds into the second half where Hibs had somehow managed to score late in the first half to potentially make a game of it.

Every Hibs fan knows how it feels to be cheated. I would note that I have still to meet a Hearts fan who agrees with me. Now please, all of you Rangers fans, I appreciate that I am asking for an acceptance of the claims I've made above but just ask yourselves, how sorry would I be if Hearts went into administration tomorrow? Then consider that every other football team in Scotland feels that Glasgow Rangers have cheated for years. A cheating player is one thing; that is an individual who might dive or feign injury to get someone sent off or handle the ball like Maradona or Henry but we rely on the officials and the institutions of the game to defend fair play and punish the offenders accordingly.

I honestly don't care if anyone from Rangers ever apologises (although a lot of fans on this site have done so and have been very decent) but I would anticipate they would take the punishment. Unfortunately, Rangers appear unable to do so and the fact that they challenged a punishment in court and got it overturned was a sublimely stupid move on their part as it may well result in a much more draconian outcome. It seemed arrogant and made the situation worse. How would that judgement look if it comes back for reconsideration and the Newco are expelled from the league on the basis of that decision alone. Uefa might well look for strong action.

This brings us to another point i.e. what exactly is the status of the liquidated club in relation to the new club? Despite the sterling efforts of your editor / moderator on this site to clarify this issue on numerous occasions I would suggest that, unfortunately, it just isn't as clear cut as we would all like it to be. For instance, let's just state the obvious, Glasgow Rangers no longer exists. So how come they get a vote on the issue of their inclusion in the SPL? If that right to vote lies with the Newco then it beggars the question why as they aren't even a registered member of the SFA. The fact that the SFA appear to be considering plans for the Newco that include a recognition of debts applied to the liquidated club. The separation of the assets and the debts is open to question and the separation of the business from the club (not to mention the thorny issue of its history) is equally grey simply because there are very few precedents for this.

As far as I can see it, the liquidators might well look at the assets i.e. the players that are left, Ibrox and Murray Park and consider how best they could be disposed of in order to provide the best outcome for the creditors. The Newco should apply for membership of the SFA and, providing they are accepted, enter the Third Division. The Newco can then start their journey toward the SPL and I would respectfully note that no-one should presume that this will be done in a single bound as it were; it is anything but a foregone conclusion (just consider how close Dundee United went to not achieving promotion back to the SPL even though they had invested substantially in the team, which is something Newco Rangers may be unable to do). Take the instance of Ross County's domination of their league.

It would be quite conceivable for a team to dominate in a similar way and win almost all their games alongside a Newco Rangers who would no doubt be capable of the same. It might come down to a couple of matches between the two teams with no absolute guarantee that Rangers would win. I would admit that this is an unlikely scenario but I don't think there would be any doubt that every team who played a Newco Rangers would see beating them as the season's major prize if they can't win the league themselves. The issue of reduced income from gates and season tickets are also obvious factors that might impact on the steady progress. However, I for one would be happy to see a re-vitalised Rangers back in the SPL three years from now having proved their right to be there on the pitch rather than in an off-shore account.

Another point I would make is that Glasgow Rangers history was one that included sectarianism, prejudice and aggression as much as it included winning trophies and truly great players. Perhaps I should point out that the first senior football match I ever attended was at Easter Road in the early sixties when Rangers beat Hibs five one (it may have been five nil) but I somehow came away a Hibs fan because there was just something uncomfortable about the aggression of the Rangers fans that upset me.

I could go on and give you my prophecies for the future of this saga but I just wanted to write all of this down and to let you all know that I am genuinely saddened by what has happened to Rangers and their fans. As far as I can see a great many of your contributors are saying exactly the same as myself. They are fair minded, decent fans who can see that what has happened is morally wrong and that there is a definite whiff of the criminal about it all.

If I could just hark back to my earlier comments regarding Hearts and the cheating referee. I think they would have won on the day anyway but would they have even been in the final if they, like Hibs, were seriously trying to live within their means? I doubt it. Similarly; would Rangers have won all of the trophies they have won with a team they patently couldn't afford? I doubt it. Recognising that at the time when a lot of Rangers fans would probably have been gloating at their Old Firm rivals and others is about as likely as the chance that Hearts fans will recognise their cup win is tarnished. Football requires rivalry and we all love and fear derby matches but, as had been said recently, integrity is priceless and when it's win at all costs and the rules get bent to serve that cause then there really is no longer any point in attending. I have better ways to spend my cash than to supplement cheats.

Sincere apologies for the length of this post but I have enjoyed reading the vast majority of comments on your site recently and I have to admire your editor's sterling efforts to make sense of it all and to keep calm and carry on. I haven't even got halfway through my various thoughts, opinions and comments but even a Hibby has to draw the line somewhere when it comes to discussing the Teddy Bears in distress.

Best of luck to all the decent Rangers fans.