FINAL WHISTLE: Ian Bell

Be careful what you wish for: good advice, seldom heeded. Those not aligned to the Old Firm have wished for many things down the years. The disenchanted have rarely stopped to wonder, though, about what might follow should dreams come true.

A respite from those predatory raids on playing staffs: that sounded nice. An end to the tedium of a two-horse SPL race every year: even better. A break from the arrogance and the divine-right claim on European football: a good start. A cessation of the surreal bigot wars: best, perhaps, of all.

It was not so long ago that talk of Rangers and Celtic finding a future in the English game was still semi-serious.

The idea, or some second-tier European alternative, was almost plausible.

Among those with no affiliations to Ibrox or Parkhead the reaction was near-unanimous: hell mend them.

Let them go, we said. Let's see how they enjoy scuffling in the bottom half of the Premiership, or worse. Let's see how Scottish football develops with some real competition. But tears, or fears? Precious few.

No one thought it through. No one really wondered what the sport in Scotland would be like if Rangers and Celtic departed, or - and now we re-enter the real world - became so diminished as to lose all credibility as senior European clubs. Wonder now.

Last week Gordon Strachan was admitting Celtic can no longer afford the sort of wages being paid by Stoke City, or any of the English Premier League clubs. Walter Smith had, meanwhile, sat his squad down for a chat about financial realities. When it comes to money, both members of the Old Firm are, these days, out of the game. They differ in a single respect: for Celtic, it's a problem; for Rangers - or so a good many fans now believe - it's a crisis.

A terminal crisis? Sir David Murray says Ibrox is operating comfortably within its overdraft facility. Everyone says that - until they don't. The chairman, lecturing critics on his financial acumen, also says that the possible (likely?) sale of Kris Boyd is "immaterial" to the club's long-term financial future. Yet a sale would be accepted (welcomed?) to "send a message" about the nature of that future.

Rangers have made no bones over the need to reduce the senior squad to about 20 individuals. Could Walter Smith regain the league title, or even pretend to compete in Europe, with that number? Without Boyd? Without Barry Ferguson? How have Rangers done without Alan Hutton and Carlos Cuellar? And how - though it seems cruel to ask - has the quest for that lovely, essential European money gone lately?

All clubs have bad runs. Celtic, too, are vulnerable to cross-border transfer raids, and Strachan knows it. But Rangers are accumulating debts again without accumulating titles. Good players depart and makeweights, in fact lightweights, are hired as expedients. Smith sounds rattled by anonymous fans with keyboards - hacks get those too, Mr Smith - while criticism is levelled even at the Murray Park facility and the youth policy it is meant to represent.

"We Deserve Better" asserts one group of supporters' organisations. "Murray Must Go" say the freelance protesters. But plainly, he would if he could. Would that be "better"? If Sir David saved Rangers once before, as some still manage to recall, why can't he be trusted to do it again until such time as a suitable new owner is found?

The answer has to do with a fear as old as football. It lies in the near-superstitious dread of the decline that becomes irreversible, the decay that becomes unstoppable. It can be captured in a question once unthinkable to supporters: have Rangers become a selling club?

It looks very like it and that trap, once entered, is escaped only rarely. It means that the books can never be balanced by diligence alone. It means that you depend on odd bits of luck or the arrival of an unexpected benefactor. You live in hope, rather than expectation, of the good run. It means you pray for the TV money to improve. And it means you are never done flogging your prime assets before they have matured.

Clubs outside the Old Firm know all about it, of course. Hence the absence of a single shred of sympathy from the fans across Scotland who have endured Rangers in their pomp.

Once upon a time I would have agreed. I am no longer so sure. This is not, no disrespect, because I have come to love Rangers, or because I lose sleep over Parkhead pay structures. I wonder, nevertheless, what might happen to the ecosystem of the Scottish game if the Old Firm suddenly got their come-uppance.

For one thing, even their relative poverty would tend to magnify the poverty of the rest. Take Hibs, my usual example. Those books at Easter Road would be a bit less balanced were it not for the Glasgow raiders so often cursed, understandably enough, by the local support. Selling to England is not always an option.

What if Rangers being cut down to size means having Scotland cut down to size, the country being turned, finally, into a true backwater of European football? That is the distinct possibility.

Love them or loathe them the Old Firm are the only plausible means we have of marking the difference between mere national winners and recognised national champions.