Doc

Rangers should make it clear that we until the SFA pull their finger out and grant us a licence to play we cannot be invited to play in any future Glasgow Cup. We will only consider the matter when we get our licence. Then we'll consider it and say "naah".

Yes that's the one.

 

Jeez that's a trip down memory lane. They don't make 'em like that any more (thank goodness).

Charles Green, Chief Executive of The Rangers Football Club, said:

 

"We are grateful to be accepted as members of the SFL and accept their decision to vote us into Division 3.

 

"It is a matter of regret for all of us involved with Rangers that the issues surrounding the Club resulted in the SFL and its members being placed in a very difficult position not of their own making.

 

"From the outset, we made clear we would play where we were told to play and we just want to get back to playing football.

 

"This decision maintains the sporting integrity that clubs and fans across Scotland have been calling for but it also impacts massively on Scottish football as a whole and only time will tell what the consequences will be.

 

"Rangers has been handed the ultimate punishment of starting again from the bottom of the leagues but there is an overwhelming feeling among fans and within the Club of 'wiping the slate clean' as a club free of sanctions.

 

"The people who brought shame on this great Club are no longer part of it and everyone at Rangers is focused on rebuilding the club on top of a solid financial foundation.

 

"We wish to play a constructive part in Division 3 and encourage our fans to support the other clubs within the league by attending matches and delivering to them the benefits of having Rangers within their league.

 

"We have been greatly encouraged by the number of supporters who have committed to buying season tickets no matter where we ended up playing and I personally want to thank them for their continued loyalty to the club.

 

"We are a football club and we just want to get back to playing football. Now is the time to move on and start afresh."

 

"Our task to rebuild the Club will take longer now but we are committed to the job and fully believe we will bring success back to Rangers.

 

Manager Ally McCoist said: "I fully accept the decision of the SFL today and thank them for allowing us into the SFL.

 

"Clearly, starting again from the bottom league is not ideal and makes the task of rebuilding Rangers a longer one but the SFL was placed in an impossible situation and I respect its decision.

 

"I fully supported the fans views that starting again in Division 3 maintains the sporting integrity that the SPL clubs were so keen on.

 

"The SPL clubs and the SFA have made their positions clear over the last few weeks and it remains to be seen what the long term effects of their decisions will be.

 

"Rangers has been severely punished for the actions of some individuals who previously ran the Club and it will take time for us to recover but we will come back stronger thanks to the loyalty of the fans and the commitment of everyone at Ibrox who are working tirelessly to bring stability and success back to Rangers."

 

"I will be carefully monitoring events and reactions over the new few days and will be making further comments probably early next week."

Makes it clear what the majority of us fans think. Well said. Although you'd never believe it listening to BBC Five Live today. Repeated references to Rangers fans against Division 3 and boycotting away games in some kind of protest.

This is the first day of rest of our lives. We owe the SFL Chairman a huge vote of thanks for holding to their principles and sticking two fingers up to Regan and his scam to save the SPL clubs who were so quick to stick the knife in. Lets all get behind Rangers and our new neighbours in Division 3. Give them every reason to appreciate our presence and to be part of our club's history.

This is the classiest and fairest Rangers forum that I have ever visited.

Hats off to Frankie, Zappa and the others who do all the hard work so the rest of us can enjoy what they have created. Long may it continue.

Great article. We were all duped by Murray and Whyte although some like Gersnet legend Cammy-F spotted it sooner than most.

The hypocrisy of the SPL voting us out and then expecting the SFL to rubber stamp a deal to preserve their TV deal is simply breathtaking. You could not make this up. We the supporters are the real victims here. Victims of robber-baron dictator owners who seem to have got off scot-free while the media have concentrated on doing their best to destroy our chances of recovering for years to come. All the bears I know want to start again in the 3rd division because it's the right thing to do. You don't hear that amid all the clamour for penalties and sanctions on the BBC. They abandoned their own "integrity" ages ago.

The only fans not crawled to for their opinions over our debacle has been us. This needs to be challenged!

 

With the quality of writers on this site - and I mean everyone, not the people you mention above - we should be putting out articles from our point of view which destroy the myths and legends, challenge preconceptions (amongst ourselves and others), offer a fresh take on events as they happen at least every couple of days.

 

Berliner's piece has already led to more than one news outlet in Germany amending their 'facts', which they get from the Bheeb, in order to give a more accurate picture. Not a rosy one, given our position, but accurate. We can make a difference, and we should do so.

Absolutely spot on. We have let the haters spin their lies unchallenged for too long. Lying down and taking it isn't an option because no amounts of regret and remorse on the part of Rangers supporters, no amount of wanting to do the right thing, take our medicine at start again in Division 3, and no amount of flaws in their simple world view that RANGERS = BAD is going to make any difference.

Give us fairness and a league to play in and we'll answer you in ways you can't deny or lie about.

No doubt the O2 network crash yesterday was our fault as well due to all the calls being made to try and sort out our future

And the shit weather and the washout summer, that must be our fault as well.

I know it's an aside but what about the money that Everton paid for Jelavic? Where did that go and if it was meant to be paid in instalments, does that come to the newco or go to pay the creditors of the oldco? If it's the former it would make a big difference to what we can do in the SFL.

Division 3 hopefully. Given the player exodus we may struggle to get out of the 1st Division but Division 3 should be manageable and a new chapter of the club's history as we rise from the ashes. It's the right thing to do and the majority of fans have made it clear that we want to do this as the correct way of rising again.

Unfortunately while we may want to do the right thing and behave with "integrity" the masters of the game in Scotland seem to care about saving their arses in a mess of their own making. If it's 1st division with backdated crippling sanctions we should have nothing to do with it.

History will judge who really behaved with integrity in this sorry affair.

I think many people who on the surface, think of themselves as fans, have to actually work out if they are more like customers after all.

 

People have to realise that for the team to compete the way they would like, needs money and patronage - so while people baulk at £400 for div 3 football you have to realise you get what you pay for and the fans have the biggest ownership in this.

 

Do you want a half decent team that sweeps all before them on a march back to the SPL, or to pay for an above average div 3 team and battle your way to the top watching that level of football? And at that level of spend, it may take a long time.

 

If you're a fan rather than a customer you're part of team and your money decides what level of "equipment" the team has. If you started competing at something yourself and seen your level as a lot higher than where you start would you pay for the level of equipment for where you aspire to be, or think, "I'm only in the lower division so I'm only prepared to buy cheap stuff".

 

Say it's cycling, do you buy a bike from Halfords or a proper carbon framed bike from a decent shop with decent components? It depends on your level of ambition I suppose and how much you can afford.

 

Our level of ambition is the SPL and so we need an SPL team to get there and so we need to pay SPL prices. Paying less for lower quality is only sabotaging your own goals and I can't see how that will be satisfying.

 

People have to decide whether they are part of the team, in ownership of the club, or merely spectators looking for value for money.

Absolutely agree. I support Man City as my English team and remember when City went down to the equivalent of the old English 3rd division in 1998. City cut their season ticket prices a bit but not by much because they knew they had an infrastructure to protect and only one season to turn things around or they would be in an even deeper hole. It was a horrible but strangely exhilarating season. All my City mates and I thought we'd blown it many times over the course of it and in the end we just made it through on penalties against Gillingham in the playoff at the old Wembley. That day was so important to me and all my friends who support City. It was the first day in a long time that we as fans got our self-respect back. There were generations of supporters - grandads, fathers and sons who'd been kicked and laughed at by Man United and others for decades. We came away from Wembley that day knowing that something had changed. From then on it was going to be different.

The point is that City held it together (albeit JUST) in that crisis season and that day at Wembley was the turning point. None of the stuff you see with the club today would have been possible without that season down among the dead men (to quote a book written about it). If Rangers do end up in the 3rd division we have will have to experience the same thing and it can be a scary time. We'll lose to Brechin or a few others and it may be shaky but believe me if we do get out of it through our own sweat and hard work and back to the SPL, it will be deeply treasured by those fans who were along for the ride. Those that really love our club need to stand up and follow the team and pay the money to get us through the dark time. Keep the faith. We'll be back.

Can just remember him when I first started going to the games some of his put downs were classic. Of course he might have trouble with today's Internet age.

 

Does show that they must be worried with the drop in listening figures, for them to go to this length.

"And your point is caller?" Sanderson loved the sound of his own voice too much but he was a giant compared to the pygmies that occupy the world of football journalism today

How ridiculous would that be? Celtic claiming the league isn't competitive any more knowing damn well that they and their placemen have done their best to clobber Rangers and make it that way. UEFA would hopefully tell them that they made the bed and they should bloody well lie in it.

It really is a fantastic achievement by the mutants that we are seen so unilaterally as cheats and are guilty of heinous crimes against sporting integrity. Only one clubs fans are capable of such a witch hunt and smear campaign on the scale of what we're subjected to now and it's not us. Sectarian hatred is an ugly beast.

You see it every day on the comments that follow reports on Rangers in the online sections of papers like the Herald. Celtic fans fill every comment section with claims of cheating, financial doping, etc and they will go on like this until they get blood. Even if we win the tax case it will be another masonic conspiracy to add to long list that they imagine in their tiny minds.

As others have said we've been punished by the 10 points docked for going into administration and there are more points to be docked if we stay in administration. That's fair what the rules say and that's fair. What gets on my goat is the constant clamour for retrospective punishment and the rewriting of the rules to make it as difficult as possible for us to continue in anything but a hamstrung form. None of the stuff about transfer bans, docking income and the rest was in the original rules. It's a spiteful agenda to hammer Rangers while they are down.

Teams in admin in England get hammered with points penalties under the FA and Football League rules. The English authorities don't keep wading in with other penalties on top that effectively prevent clubs continuing in business. Why is it different in Scotland?

Where were the SFA and the SPL wading with sanctions when Hearts weren't paying their players and the taxman earlier in the season? If nothing else we've continued to pay our players! To hear chairmen of clubs that have been in or flirted with administration in the past calling for draconian penalties for us makes me sick.

Believe it or not, I actually think we would see more departures if TBK were successful because the club would remain in a period of uncertainty and possible liquidation all summer while D&P tried to sort out a CVA. The sheer uncertainty would force players to jump ship.

Totally agree. TBK have pissed about with this for too long. At least Miller's bid comes with a route forward and the players can decide for themselves whether they want to be part of it.

All the BK's talk about not having european football for 3 years rings pretty hollow as well. Offically we've been in europe this year but you'd hardly have noticed, we were out on our arses so quick. Who's to say we wouldn't suffer the same next season and the one after if we were allowed to play? Two more seasons in europe like this one and it would almost be the same as being banned for 3 years. Put the business back together properly first. That's got to be the priority before we worry about luxuries like Europe.