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Nonces get what nonces want. Why am I unsurprised by this? Why am I no longer disappointed by the catamites of the SPFL?

Rangers first priority should be the health of our supporters, players and staff, everything else should be secondary. Based on the available public health advice the game on Boxing Day shouldn't have a crowd at it. As has been pointed out by others the likelihood of these crowd reduction measures being reversed by mid-January seem slim, so for me whether we go into a winter break now or in early January as planned is fairly moot, we'll all be playing behind closed doors at some point I think. The argument that a delay to mid-January will benefit Celtic as it allows them more time to get players fit is fair, but with Balugun, Barasic, Davis and Roofe, all potential starters if fit, also in danger of missing out perhaps a delay might not be that bad for us either. The African Cup of Nations taking possibly 3 of our players away for nearly a month is a problem. Losing 3 players does mean we can legitimately ask for postponements of matches but that would really cause fixture chaos, particularly if our next 3 matches are postponed as well. The club is well within its rights to point that out. I suspect Rangers, and every other club in Scotland, will be looking to minimise the number of matches played with few or no spectators allowed in. A look at last year's accounts shows just how important having a full Ibrox is for the club's finances, and that applies to every club up here. There's no fat for us to fall back on, losing our biggest revenue stream, again, provides some significant challenges for our board. I can understand why bringing the winter break forward is appealing to many boardrooms, if it means there's a chance of fewer matches being played behind closed doors. Of course no one actually knows the answer to that. Politically these recent measures have been unpopular, and with populist governments in place in Edinburgh and Westminster, it maybe that opinion polls rather than health advice carry more weight around cabinet tables this time round. So maybe restrictions won't last as long as they did last year. Or maybe they will, no one knows for sure. (I'm not trying to make a political point or agree or disagree with Government and public health advice. So don't @ me, I don't care.) All we can expect of anyone in our boardroom, or any other club's, is to deal with what they know, not what they suspect. For now that means a loss of crowds and revenue for 3 matches. That being the case bringing the winter break forward and so moving those 3 matches to later in the season is the sensible thing to do, even for Rangers. As an aside, as none of us really know what will happen, it's worth remembering that Celtic are in the Vauxhall Conference Euro Cup. Despite everything that's a tournament they could reasonably expect to progress quite far in. It's not inconceivable that come March and April Celtic are still playing European matches while trying to fit in 5 postponed SPFL matches around a diminishing fixture calendar. I think our board should be looking to book a tour of Japan for this summer, just in case.

Finished 0-0 in Paisley

Karma strikes early and hard.

Let's face it, with the horrible incompetent folk in charge of both the SPFL and the kiddy on government in Edinburgh, there is absolutely no chance in hell this is a 3 week window with no fans and then we are back at 50,000 at Ibrox. I dont think we will get inside a full Ibrox again until Easter at the earliest. Obviously hope i'm wrong but wee Nippy and her cohorts have plenty of previous. The bheasts will know this also and are only wanting the break brought forward to get their squad back fit before they play us. Everyone else in the SPFL will of course vote along with the bheasts, as they will swallow the empty promises of an early break and full houses straight afterwards, which is virtually impossible to make happen. The only thing we can do about it is not allow our players to go to Africa if/when the fixtures are rescheduled for the same timeframe as the African Cup, and other than that, just keep winning and have up our sleeve that the bheasts were running scared of us and use it as incentive to knock them over at full strength in their own midden when we finally get the chance.

no way will there be crowds by then but they will be hoping to have half a new team by then. maybe they will get a covid outbreak by then though

The public doesn't 'deserve' any investigation and least of all the truth. The public insists on voting for people who piss all over it year after year. The public swallows every political fantasy set in front of it. The public is greedy, shortsighted and tribal. The public is beyond stupid and deserves exactly what it gets.

No sign of McGuire being prosecuted for sectarian behaviour? any comments from Humza Yousaf ? James Dornan? what a nasty wee, horrible one-sided country we live in

I'm not really understanding the panic about who will and who won't be available. Injuries can crop up at any time and we have first team players due back in the next few weeks. The internationals situation is all a bit muddy too. Will Balogun get picked, do we need him - will any big bids come in for Aribo? Let's just see how it all goes. One thing's for sure, the scum will be absolutely devastated if we're still top of the league on 3rd February.

Japan play Australia in a World Cup Qualifier on Feb 1st..... Wonder if Celtic will ask for it to be moved again.......🤷‍♂️ should just let them tell us all when it's suitable for them and we'll fit it in to our diaries

SPFL a football entity who continually vote to stop football from being played. You couldn't make it up. Wonder if our board will say something? Anything? Against the people ruining/running our game? 0

that was beyond wrong.

so the spfl board shaft more than half the teams in the league in order to let celtc bottle out an old firm game. you would imagine that the clubs will wake up to them at some point but no sign of it yet.

The board can't say much. What they going to say we smell blood and want you all to take empty stadiums to suit us. we just need to go out and Win again and again. We all know celtc are running scared here. Lets make that fear real it's a good sign.

And that's why I think we really need to find a way to get him game time or we need to sell. If he doesn't get game time he wont develop. A loan at this point isn't worth while either.

At 30 years old and a ready made replacement waiting in the wings, I'd take any good offer for Tavernier but I reckon that particular boat has sailed.

In an ideal world I'd sell Tav, keep NP and potentially sell him for more than that in a few years, but there has never really been much interest in Tav....

Realise there is somewhat of an overlap here but can we keep the political/social commentary stuff separate from the football chat. We all have our opinions on vaccinations, boosters, etc but these can be saved for the Lounge.

According to figures, the implementation of passport requirements has had a minimal impact on vaccine uptake (if you read football forums you'll be aware that many fans were getting into matches with fakes) and the latest restrictions now mean that the vaccinated can't get into matches anyway. The vaccine doesn't seem to be having much impact on the spread lf omicron either. Will these restrictions be curtailed after three weeks - I have my doubts.

Where did he say that being vaccinated stopped the spread? EDIT; To add, some studies have shown that it can reduce transmission. That said, I agree with the sentiment - those unwilling to get vaccinated are delaying the progress. We’re not going to get back to normality any time soon, but everyone needs to do their part to help society be as normal as possible as it can lead to bigger and longer term issues. Relevancy to this thread is that football is a life source to many people and we should be playing our parts to keep it alive.

I found the Hampden DJ playing the Wolfetones more concerning that what she said. Does that mean we can get a flute band on next time we win there?

Ha f**king ha. Truth to be told, I didn't even know they were playing tonight. What a nice wee surprise before hitting the hay.

BBC reporting St Mirren and Celtic are back out on the pitch ready for the 3rd half to kick off

Even 5 is way too much! no stoppages! no injuries! scandalous!

We should be asking why you can have 500 in a 500 capacity but we are limited to 500 in our glorious home.

Aberdeen Chairman Dave Cormack writes to Nicola Sturgeon asking her to revoke "500 fans limit for Boxing Day" now that games are going ahead. Once again our board are shown up by tinpot club - I don't expect an overturn but at least he is seen to be exploring the possibility

if the 3 of them are picked we can get the games postponed if we want.

By 'most' she means 'any word that isn't a derogatory slur on Irish Republicans or Scottish pretend-Irish Republicans'. I wish we could all go back to calling each other whatever we want.

Don't forget that some Rangers fans couldn't figure out that this would be bad.

The clubs to wake up? Some Rangers fans can't even wake up.

we better hope 3 don't go or celtc will be able to run away again.

What a load of rubbish, honestly! I did warn earlier to watch out for the, ahem, kind of person that would fall for it.

Exactly, everyone lost out on TV revenue so Celtic could be awarded a title. And the other clubs voted this madness through.

For Patterson? I think someone who can't even get a regular first team place is never going to command high valuations. In that respect, while I'd want more, I think £10m is in the right ballpark.

Didn't sky agree to lose the games of 2019/2020 to award half a league title to Celtic then strangely agree a long term TV deal with the SPFL at extremely agreeable terms to SKY? Anything is possible. Sky are not our friends.

How much does it cost the SPFL for cancelled games? how much do they need to repay SKY for each game? anyone know?

I note Sellik have issued a new statement on the 500 supporters allowed to attend the Stade de Gadd for the upcoming old firm match. Today, the Club has decided to award every season ticket holder who is NOT on the Sex Offenders Register a ticket for the game against Rangers. The 50 tickets remaining will be offered to Glasgow City Council.

I see the national embarrassment, Ian Blackford, has demanded the Winter break is brought forward. All the problems in Scotland just now and that's what he's bothered about!? Jesus wept.

Before we turn this thread into a non-Rangers-related one ... So that is just the "wrongful prosecution scandal". You wonder what the figure of the whole EBT-HMRC chase through the courts has cost the government (i.e. the taxpayer) ... and given the challenge of sums due by BDO, what can actually be expected in return. Likewise, I was under the assumption that the last court rule on the EBTs said that we had to pay some sort of tax for it, since it was deemed some sort of income/wage/whatever after all (due to side-letters, common sense or, again, whatever). So of the 70-90m which were quoted and made us toxic, 30m are already off (you wonder why that was not done/possible before admin et al) and BDO are even challenging the rest too ... which I thought was ruled correct by the last court case?

Noticed that while NBM condemned the singing, they never mentioned that it was sectarian. Wonder why?