Cold feet have changed the nature of this end game.

The sensation of numbness spreading from the nether regions is what compromised the Scottish Premier League's decision to exclude Rangers from their league. The idea of parachuting them into the Irn-Bru First Division is the equivalent of the sharp intake of breath which comes along with the sudden onset of pain. But for an organisation to apply for first-aid from the lower ranks, which is essentially what they are trying to do to deflect commercial consequences, is like a surgeon asking the district nurse for help in a kidney transplant. Or perhaps, in a more apposite analogy, frontal lobotomy.

Since the belated discovery that David Murray believed he could circumvent Lord Acton's dictum that "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely," there has been a call for transparency. Sadly, it has produced a vision that is as useful as astigmatism. For in a country that has been bedevilled in the past by assorted divisions and conflicting football attitudes we now have one of the most bizarre splits the game has ever experienced: Armageddonists against the Rejuvenists, for want of better expressions.

The former predict disaster, the latter sound like Scottish football has undergone a Damascene conversion. Who's right? Or, to cut to the chase, which route will Sky television follow? The one 'less travelled by'? Will they resort to using their undoubted ingenuity to seek out the nooks and crannies of third-division football which they could also market on their Travel Channel, with the Scottish Tourist Board as sponsors? Given that they now have a hugely expensive new contract in England and, for the first time, a really serious competitor in BT for the Barclays Premier League, they might be inclined to look at this mess and ultimately walk away from 'sic a parcel o' rogues'.

One thing is certain. Sky do not do benevolence. If they started that practise in our fair land then Rupert Murdoch would be over here like a shot without an invite from Alex Salmond. They are a subscription service not a public service broadcaster. At which point come the interventions of the Rejuvenists, whose almost charmingly ingenuous view is that we shouldn't even consider this aspect and that the fair and balanced new structure will guarantee the continuing existence of Scottish football. In the sense that there will be no immediate collapse into a black hole, they are of course right. But it overlooks what has largely been ignored in this long period of introspection that has gone on. The product we have watched over the years is simply not good enough. The game was already in decline.

This becomes more glaringly obvious in the constant comparisons made with games beamed into our homes from other quarters and the consideration that the Barclays Premier League is about to raid the talent of the European Championships and decrease the paltry percentage of English nationals at those clubs, standing at just over 30%, even further, in their pursuit of glamour.

It works. Just listen to the names of players that kids talk about in the streets. If we can't get them talking about our own players in a television age then, frankly, there is no future. This is as tall an order for Scottish football now as selling aftershave to flower people. Under any circumstances, including letting Rangers off the hook and giving them an award for probity into the bargain, it would still be the ultimate challenge.

For we should not simply be pursuing survival, but tracking prosperity. And since gate receipts long ago ceased to be the vital source of revenue, the arithmetic that the Rejuvenists are indulging in about money at the turnstiles, without Rangers, and their claims that suffering will only be marginal, is missing the point. How will you attract the other absolutely essential sources of revenue, television and sponsorship, if the product eventually palls?

Like it or not, Sky is a big player in all of this and I cannot believe that they are not alarmed by the single fact that Rangers might not even start competitive football next season. I believe it is touch and go and their position is probably more precarious than some of their supporters realise. If that occurs then it is an entirely new ball game. This has produced language from Neil Doncaster that is not pretty to hear and prompted Clyde to issue one sentence in their long summary of their SFL special meeting which clings almost in desperation to the issue: 'There will be no winners.'

There is another scenario. Rangers, although the rules for inclusion in the SFL do not automatically state that entry must be at the bottom level, should opt for exactly that and stop the begging game. Then we will all be put to the test to see how our theories of longevity play out.

I am not an Armageddonist. Nor am I a Rejuvenist. After years of watching decline I am a self-confessed Miserabilist who tends to feel, if we don't get this right, that the Scottish footballing landscape will lend credibility to Tom Stoppard's definition of our capital city: the Reykjavik of the South.