IT appears any hope Rangers had of forcing a postponement of the rescheduled Celtic clash in February has been shattered.
The derby match was moved to February 2, from January 2, after the SPFL brought the winter break forward to begin after today's matches.
And the shift in fixture scheduling left Giovanni van Bronckhorst sweating over Bassey, Joe Aribo and Leon Balogun's availability for the Old Firm clash.
However, SPFL rule G7 was a possible lifeline to Ibrox chiefs as it allows clubs to request postponement if three or more players are unavailable through international competition.
There was no guarantee the request would be granted, especially with the fixture list already congested and no wriggle room for further fixture swaps according to SPFL chief Neil Doncaster.
But it was a possible avenue which could, if granted, have allowed for Rangers' Nigerian international to be back for the Glasgow derby.
However, Bassey has been left out of the AFCON squad meaning it's just Joe Aribo and Leon Balogun heading to Cameroon for the tournament next month.
That looks to have left any postponement appeal under rule G7 doomed with just two players on international duty.
It means while Bassey will be available for the Old Firm, Balogun and Aribo will miss out should Nigeria progress far enough in the competition.
SPFL rule G7 states: "A Club shall be entitled to apply to the Board for the postponement of any Official Match where three or more of its Players who would otherwise have participated in such match are unavailable through international selection and, following receipt of such an application, the Board may postpone and rearrange the relevant Official Match in accordance with Rule G3."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel