NOBODY at Rangers, not the manager, not the players, not the supporters and not the directors, wants the Ibrox club to be simply handed a place in the Premiership next summer as a result of some hastily-arranged league reconstruction.
But if Mark Warburton’s side fails to secure promotion this season – a fate that is, given their decidedly patchy form of recent weeks, now not inconceivable – is it really so implausible?
Peter Houston, the Falkirk manager, may have been making mischief when he suggested the top flight would be expanded if Rangers and Hibs failed to go up at the end of the 2015/16 campaign. There may, though, have been more truth in his words than he realised.
Scotland’s leading clubs could quite easily continue for another season without Rangers. They have done so for over three years now without, as so many had predicted they would, imploding. A fair few of them, in fact, have positively flourished.
Inverness Caledonian Thistle, for example, posted a record profit of £254,240 earlier this year. That figure, too, did not include the takings from their Scottish Cup final victory or the sale of Ryan Christie to Celtic for £500,000. Financial Armageddon? Not really.
But it is not at all difficult to sense a growing desire for a return to normality in boardrooms across the land. Peter Lawwell, the Celtic chief executive, has estimated the absence of Rangers from the top flight costs his side £10 million a season. Stewart Milne, the Aberdeen chairman and owner, has openly expressed the desire to see all of the top clubs in the top division. Clubs have grown weary of simply getting by.
The impact that Rangers coming up would have would be considerable. The money accrued from broadcasting, season ticket sales, gate receipts, sponsorship and hospitality would all increase significantly. That would, in turn, improve the quality of the product.
It is the repercussions that remaining in the second tier will have on the finances of the Ibrox club, however, which may be of more concern to those charged with balancing the books at the likes of Aberdeen, Celtic and Hearts.
Dave King admitted at the Rangers AGM last month that their current business plan – wealthy supporters offsetting sizeable losses with loans which will be converted into equity at some point in the future – is unsustainable going forward. There is a limit to their benefactors’ benevolence.
Yet, if Rangers remain in the Championship for another season the chances they will continue to operate at a loss. So somebody somewhere will have to come up with the funds needed to keep the club afloat.
The repayment of the £5 million Sports Direct loan may result in Mike Ashley adopting a less confrontational approach in his dealings with the club. But the English billionaire is mercurial. There is no guarantee he will be prepared to renegotiate a retail deal which is, by all accounts, weighted heavily in his favour.
It is unlikely Rangers will, despite their increased crowds, be able to live within their means playing their league football against the likes of Alloa, Dumbarton, and Queen of the South while banking negligible sums from the sales of their official merchandise.
The prospect of Rangers suffering more difficulties and hardship may be too much for their counterparts to bear. Radical action could very well be taken.
AND ANOTHER THING
THE revelation that all young Rangers players must be clean shaven when they report for training at Auchenhowie caused quite a rumpus this week.
How can, many of the Ibrox club’s supporters asked, such a draconian measure possibly be of any benefit to aspiring stars?
After all, as those Light Blues fans who knew their history pointed out, John Greig sported a rather impressive beard when he lifted the European Cup Winners’ Cup back in 1972.
Indeed, Greig was, with his three-piece suit, substantial sideburns and carefully-coiffured goatee, the epitome of 1970s cool as he returned to Glasgow from Barcelona following that historic success.
Yet, that was the only occasion the Rangers captain grew facial hair in the course of his entire 18 year playing career - and he had no other choice but to.
An accident during a training session in Largs before the first leg of the second round match against Sporting Lisbon resulted in him requiring nine stitches in his chin and being unable to shave.
After a 3-2 win over the Portuguese club, he joked to reporters that it had been good luck and pledged to keep it until his side was knocked out of the competition. Seven months later it was still there. “I hated it,” he later recalled. “I was desperate to get that beard off.”
The Greatest Ever Ranger will, you suspect, wholeheartedly approve of the high standards of personal appearance currently being demanded of the youths at Ibrox.
ONE LAST THING
Speaking of chins and beards, it was sad to learn of the passing of the legendary English broadcaster Jimmy Hill at the age of 87 on Saturday.
Hill’s scandalous description of David Narey’s long-range strike for Scotland against Brazil in the 1982 World Cup as a “toe poke” was never been forgotten by the Tartan Army.
But his overall contribution to the game, as a trade union leader, a club director, an innovator and a moderniser, was vast and we owe him a debt of gratitude in this country.
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