Rangers > Reviews (57)

Its time for Rangers and Celtic to leave the Scottish Premiership. If Rangers survive their extremely grim situation its pretty clear Celtic are heading the same way without their big rivals and so both clubs will be penniless and broke together, rusting and riddled with green weeds and grey wildlife, derelicts like the once productive Glasgow docklands. Even if Rangers do get back up to speed there’s clearly no model that allows these two Glasgow teams to be competitive in Europe that doesn’t include running up massive debt, let alone the tacit allowance of personal tax avoidance by the players so to attract foreign talent this far up north, which set the taxman’s nose sniffing. Some of the antics by the club to help the players evade tax were extraordinary. The Sky TV money that powers the English premiership to be seen around the world is just not there in Scotland and so they can only borrow against their assets to be vaguely competitive. This method is exhausted. They have to change radically. They have to get access to that money to function.
The selfish English Premiership players, as it stands, have collectively made up their mind what they are going to do to avoid a Rangers style meltdown. Absolutely nothing, the plan to not entertain a wage cap or pay cuts and so get as much cash as they can – so what if it all goes bust? We all know its going to go bust but no one intends to stop it, Rangers just the warm up act. The cliff edge is there but salivating players and agents are asking for more and more as the drop nears ad so their foot on the accelerator. Nothing can now stop the premiership implosion, especially if Rupert Murdoch gets prosecuted by the Americans for his woes. Unless we learn the Rangers lesson now and start to cut wages fast. If Rangers are in the English leagues then we can see the lesson. If the bulk of Rangers tax debts are not paid by June the club will go bust and the padlocks and chains will be on the gate, simple as. They have already spent the next three years season ticket money (mostly used to pay off Lloyds’ bank debt), and all the players’ contracts will be annulled and so no sell on value there. It will be all over and so the team will be flung down the leagues and have to put out amateurs and youth team apprentices to fulfill fixtures. If that happens even the mocking Celtic fans will twig that they will be next to crumble without that rivalry, TV not interested in the game anymore up north and where’s the fun in Celtic winning the league by twenty points every year?
The other teams in Scotland all rely on the Old Firm gate money and glamour to stay in business so their current budget models, of course, and as there’s zero chance of any mergers in Glasgow maybe now is the chance to cut the Firm lose, an opportunity to reboot Scottish football with more realistic wage levels and expectation so they don’t rely on that monopoly. A lot of that 156 million debt at Rangers is the money owed to other clubs. If the rest of the clubs didn’t have to rely on them then the league can grow.

Edinburgh is a big city yet it has little clout as far as football goes because of that shadow they live in, the chance of making the Champions League proper still very slim. But with Rangers in trouble this year we have seen the first all Edinburgh Cup Final for 87 years, Hearts to play Hibernian at Hampden Park, all rather refreshing. The other clubs will blossom if they feel they can win something and go further in Europe. If Rangers were bought out and the debt paid down enough to function and they made the move now and applied to the English league they could easily work their way up to the championship in the next five years. Their travelling fan base would be huge and TV interested in them for sure. It would be a great experiment if nothing else. If Rangers jumped then Celtic would have to follow. They would have the chance to get access to that Sky millions. Would you rather Blackpool and Wigan in the Premiership or Celtic and Rangers? I’m sure some Russian or Arabic billionaire will pounce in time and the club will survive at the death but they will only go through this all again if the game isn’t fixed before it’s too late. We must take the lesson of Rangers that football is about to crash if we dot act. Players should pay their tax ad owners should suffer more due diligence. The club belongs to the fans and the community, not tax dodgers.