Comment: Rest of the SPL must respond to Rangers' sanction in correct manner

Sports Journalist

Thursday 5 July 2012

Charles Green's claim that Rangers had been offered "false hope" following their ejection from the Scottish Premier League was as perplexing as it was disingenuous.

Rangers demise should be a catalyst for change

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Neil Drysdale

Who exactly has been talking up the Ibrox club's chances of remaining in the top flight, since they plunged into administration, then liquidation, in February and June? Not the thousands of Scottish football fans, who wrote to their clubs, threatening to withhold their season-ticket money if a Rangers newco was allowed to stay in the top flight ranks.

Not the chairmen of such clubs as Dundee United, St Johnstone, Aberdeen and Hearts, who made clear their opposition to the regulations being changed to suit any one club. And certainly not Rangers' leading players, who have dashed to the lifeboats and sailed to Sion, Everton, Coventry City and elsewhere during the last few days of this protracted saga.From a personal perspective, justice has been done and the only honest action has been implemented against an institution, which flouted the rules, lived beyond their means for more than a decade, and only chose to resort to an (unconvincing) apology for their actions on the eve of the SPL meeting at Hampden Park. Many questions remain unanswered, of course, and it appears absurd that the lesser lights of the SFL have been entrusted with a decision which should have been taken out of their hands by the SFA, but whether Rangers start afresh in the first division or the third, they are only following in the footsteps of other teams, including Juventus in Italy, and, to a lesser extent, Livingston, who were punished according to the statute book and subsequently recovered from the blow by investing in youth, and essentially re-inventing themselves.No doubt, this morning's papers will be filled with doom-laden predictions about how the SPL will wither on the vine, and how Sky TV are ready to pull the plug on their Scottish broadcasting operation. So, let's nail a few of these suppositions. Firstly, if the rest of the SPL responds to Rangers' sanction in the correct manner, this could actually be a defining moment and a catalyst for a renaissance, as well as demonstrating to anybody who doubted it, that there is life beyond the Old Firm. For too long, clubs in the mould of Aberdeen and Hibernian have bumped along on a tide of mediocrity, whilst arguing that they lack the financial clout to challenge the big two. Well, now there is only one, for at least the next year, and if that is not a major incentive to the administrators at Pittodrie and Easter Road to aspire to European competition and generate new ways to generate revenue, rather than depending on hand-outs from the Old Firm, then the wrong people are clearly in charge of these establishments and should make way for those with innovation and invention in their armoury.As for the Sky issue, I spoke to somebody involved with the company recently and he expressed excitement at the prospect of the satellite firm being able to escape the predictable environs of the SPL several times during the season and transforming Rangers' rise through the lower leagues into a story of redemption and rehabilitation, which might grip football supporters throughout the world; hardly an accusation which you would level at the average Kilmarnock versus St Johnstone encounter.Yes, there will be at least one league campaign without the Old Firm squaring up – a state of affairs which will assuredly cause delight among Glasgow's A & E departments, underground staff, battered wives' refuges, and the anti-sectarian camp – but the notion of the newco striving to reach the summit again surely has appeal for anybody bored with the status quo of the same two sides utterly dominating their compatriots.Sky, too, have plenty of experience of covering lower-league fixtures in England, so will have few qualms about taking their cameras to Peterhead or Elgin City if Ally McCoist's personnel end up in the third tier, or Raith Rovers and Partick Thistle if the SPL elects – against the odds – to permit them to re-start in the first division.Ultimately, Rangers have been laid low by their own failings and misdemeanours, but they have enough fans to clamber up the standings again, who will get behind McCoist and his bunch of young tyros, who will have to grow up quickly. Various Ibrox panjandrums always talked about leaving the SPL, en route to England or an Atlantic League, so this new journey shouldn't be a total surprise to their devotees, even if it is in the opposite direction. And the remaining SPL members shouldn't start penning their obituaries, or not unless they are admitting they have no ideas of their own.

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Comment: Rest of the SPL must respond to Rangers' sanction in correct manner

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