Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, the sharks have started circling once again. This, of course, has nothing to do with Jaws: The Revenge. No, this is another horror story entirely, the seemingly never-ending saga that has engulfed Rangers – and now, Scottish football – since the turn of the year.
The European Championships offered temporary respite, but normal service has been resumed with the news we’d all been expecting – Rangers will not be playing in the SPL this coming season.
Last week, the SPL club chairmen voted overwhelmingly to reject Charles Green’s ‘newco’ Rangers’ application to join the top tier of Scottish football in 2012/13.
So, no place at the top table for Scotland’s most successful club; no Old Firm clashes in the season ahead; and, almost certainly, Sky Sports executives looking nervously over their TV contract’s small print.
In the lead-up to last week’s historic vote, the choice associated with the Rangers bid came down to one of sporting integrity versus financial prudence – what was considered more important for the future of the beautiful game north of the border. Given the decision to oust Rangers’ bid, can we assume that sporting integrity won the day? Well, yes and no.
Firstly, it’s clear that SPL chairmen were effectively left with no choice at all, given the thinly-veiled threats of large numbers of supporters who had threatened to cancel their season ticket subscriptions for the forthcoming season.
Secondly, integrity stretches so far, in that most chairmen are strongly advocating a drop of just one league into the first division for next season, as opposed to the far reaches of the third. This sop, of course, extends neatly towards the broadcasters, who it is hoped will not walk away with their money on the basis that Rangers’ omission from the top flight will be for a solitary year.
One slight spanner in the works, however, could be that many of the lower league clubs are equally ambivalent toward the prospect of Rangers joining their ranks. This includes first division clubs, who are opposed to the Ibrox club being parachuted into their league, and this despite the promise of additional, much-needed revenue during these trying financial times.
All of this, in turn, has sparked some pretty emotive language from within the corridors of power at Hampden. Stewart Regan, the SFA’s increasingly embattled chief executive, recently talked of a ‘slow, painful death for Scottish football’ in the event that Rangers are forced to occupy a place in the third division from August.
If that weren’t enough, Regan then made the rather startling revelation that ‘social unrest’ could follow suit. Leaving aside the fact that we don’t exactly know what he meant by that – a flurry of anti-depressant prescriptions and looting around Govan, perhaps? – it made us think of the far-reaching consequences of all this.
What we can decipher about Regan’s words is this – sporting integrity is right and proper, but at what cost? In other words, yes, Rangers must be punished, but it would do well to remember the greater good when dishing out the sentence. That is, the very future of Scottish football, where the finances are already in a parlous state, is at stake here.
Meanwhile, the Rangers squad – what’s left of it, that is – looks increasingly threadbare, as several players have elected not to transfer their contracts across to the newco, electing to move on to pastures new instead. Top players are leaving in their droves, and not a bean has swelled the Ibrox coffers as a consequence.
Steven Naysmith, Steven Whittaker and former captain Steven Davis have landed in the Premiership, and highly-rated goalkeeper Alan McGregor will almost certainly join them before too much longer.
Across the city, Celtic have largely maintained a dignified silence as their great rivals descend into the abyss, although a few comments emanating lately to the effect that they will be unaffected by Rangers’ plight has sounded increasingly hollow. The suspicion remains, surely, that Celtic will suffer from the absence of Rangers, on the basis that rivalry is the very essence of sport.
Whenever a side is rated at 50 – 1 on to win a league (as Celtic currently are) it simply can’t bode well for the game. Suddenly a former two-horse race doesn’t appear quite so predictable after all!
We will discover Rangers’ fate following an SFL meeting this Friday, the 13th July. Friday the 13th? Wasn’t that a series of big screen horror shows from years past that ran for several seasons…………….