Mountain Bear

Rangers need a man of Steel! Maybe see you in The Thick of It sometime...

Perhaps we need a Truth & Reconciliation Commission first, Chaired by Kofi Annan or Senator George Mitchell! A broad based membership scheme, with democratically elected reps would be a start. The Trust, Assembly and Association could all be accommodated under that umbrella in my view (perhaps in a TUC- like arrangement) retaining their current structure or merging in time as they see fit. The key point is that they would be an Independant voice (or voices) advising the Club's members and influencing the elected reps.

The only long term solution is for supporters to own a very sizeable proportion of the Club.

Celtic fans going appoplectic on Twitter at their posterboy's failure to agree with their fantasies.

Exactly. It's all very well playing to the Rangers gallery with our PR, but we need to remember that our broader perception matters too, especially to sponsors.

Happens today. It's called Income Tax.

I agree that there's no magic bullet for rejuvenating the game, but I end up back at the same place; you'll get a better atmosphere where the outcome of individual matches and competitions are in doubt more often. The other aspects you mention would certainly help though. I think we're starting to see signs that the football authorities are waking up to the issue of imbalance (UEFA's financial fair play rules for example). I just hope things don't have to get worse before we start to explore the more difficult options like salary caps and gate sharing.

Fair enough Zappa, I acknowledge that most of our fans would take a lot of persuasion, especially as we're not on the best of terms with the ex SPL teams at the moment. But I'm 100% convinced that we need to do something to reduce imbalance in the game, in OUR long term interests as much as everyone else's. Hopefully we won't have to wait for Celtic to win 10 in a row before it starts to look like a better idea...

Fundamentally, i think we should consider this because you need tension about the outcome of a sports competition to get people interested. Without it the quality of the product suffers and eventually, even the powerful start to diminish. I'm not aware of any European Leagues who still use gate sharing, but many North American sports do (the NFL being the most obvious). Remember there are other ways in which the principle of competitive balance is or can be furthered; collective sales of media rights, salary caps, or even the US college draft system. Unfortunately, there's some kind of "cost" to each of these options as far as the powerful clubs are concerned - that's their purpose. However we do it, I think sooner or later we'll end up having to come up with ways of enhancing the competitiveness of the top league in Scotland (irrespective of our feelings towards individual clubs) or watch the game as a whole wither. It's something I've felt strongly about ever since the 9 in a row days. It's never likely to be popular, but it I think something along those lines needs to happen soon.

Zappa, I'm sure your views would be shared by many, but Alex Smith for one believes the decision to end gate sharing marked the start of the decline in the Scottish game. There's certainly no evidence that when it was in place fans gave two hoots about the other team getting some of the benefit from their money. When anti-Rangers fans of other clubs blackmailed their boards into voting Rangers out of the SPL last summer, many of us struggled to understand how they could deliberately damage their own team, just to ensure that we were "punished". I honestly don't believe our fans would decide not to go to a home game because of the gate distribution. Nor do I believe that it would make THAT big a difference to Rangers overall income in the top flight. In the same way that reducing the Income Tax rate can increase the overall tax take, I think it would raise the general standard of football, bring the crowds back to other clubs, make TV and sponsorship deals more lucrative and therefore increase total income for the game as a whole. For me it comes down to whether we want to take an ever larger slice of an ever shrinking cake, or whether we believe that a more competitive league is necessary for our own long term sustainability. There isn't exactly a queue of businesses looking to sponsor the one horse race that is our Premiership, is there? Rather than viewing it as charity or a donation, I think gate sharing would be an investment into the long term future of the game. Surely when we talk about the product on the pitch, we mean both teams? Is the recipe for healthy crowds at Ibrox or Celtic park really to watch one sided humpings each week, or have teams parking the bus to keep the score respectable? I'd much rather teams had the ability and confidence to come and play open, expansive football and where the result of the game and the season wasn't a foregone conclusion. To paraphrase Cecil Rhodes (founder of Rhodesia) i'd describe it as "Philanthropy plus 5%".

Short-termism & self-interest on Aberdeen's part. I'm sure they saw an opportunity to increase their influence & share of future income by siding with Celtic in our absence. It certainly wasn't a decision based on the long term vitality of the game in Scotland. Unfortunately, you may be right that the moment has gone, but I'd still like us to show some thought leadership on the subject. Apart from anything else, it would be great to watch our friends across the city squirm as the try and reconcile saying "no" with their "egalitarian" heritage!

Great article Andy and spot on in my view. There are two fundamental changes required to the way Scottish league football is run which those involved in the recent SPFL negotiations lacked the vision to grasp. The first is to move to a more democratic voting structure. The second was excellently articulated by Richard Bath in the Scotsman last July. I'd love to see Rangers show the type of leadership which made us "Scotland's club" in the first place and suggest the re-introduction of gate sharing. Here's Richard's article in full: RANGERS’ likely expulsion from the SPL is that rarest of opportunities to change the status quo, and it should be grabbed with both hands. Rangers’ disappearance from the top flight means that the Old Firm no longer have an inbuilt veto, and if all of the other clubs – the so-called “Gang of Ten” – can come up with something that is in the long-term strategic interest of the game in this country, then they can no longer be stymied by the combined votes of the two Glasgow giants. The “something” they should now be considering is a measure to make this a more competitive, vibrant league with the capacity to grow and strengthen. That something is abandoning the current system where each club keeps all of its home gate receipts and season ticket revenue. Instead, as with the Scottish Cup, they should be shared: ideally equally, but if not then with maybe 60 per cent going to the home team and 40 per cent going to the away team. Any income earned by the entity of the SPL – such as television revenues and the sponsorship of the League itself – should also be split evenly between all 12 teams. Although all clubs except the Old Firm would benefit (at least on the basis of the 2011-12 attendance figures) any idea that this would produce a level playing field is well wide of the mark. The Old Firm would still have huge sponsorship deals, lucrative merchandising and their own in-house publications and online TV stations. And, of course, every other week they would still have half the income from a full Celtic Park or Ibrox. Last season almost two thirds of the gate and season ticket money spent by supporters of SPL teams was spent by those two clubs’ supporters, which means that, even after a 50-50 split was implemented, the Old Firm would retain an income which would be a multiple of that enjoyed by all the other SPL clubs, allowing them to retain a huge inbuilt advantage over the ten make-weights. And make no mistake, make-weights is exactly what the other ten clubs are. Apart from Hearts coming second to Celtic in 2006, the Old Firm have finished first and second in the SPL in each of the 14 years since its inception in 1998. Even worse than the Old Firm’s domination is the fact that the situation is gradually getting worse. The long-term, 50-year picture is of shrinking attendances across Scottish football except at the Old Firm (where their unfettered dominance has seen average attendances at the two grounds rise from 66,353 in 1967 to 94,272 today) but even in the era of the SPL there has been a steady but unmistakeable decline among the top clubs. The average total attendance across all 12 SPL clubs in 2001-2, for example, was 187,901, which by last season had shrunk to 162,064, a drop of almost 14 per cent. Of the nine clubs who were in the SPL in both seasons, only Hibs and Hearts have seen an increase in average attendances. Nor is it just about attendances. Although many of the developments that have conspired against Scottish football – primarily the rise of pay-television, which favours leagues in countries with bigger populations – it’s worth thinking back to where we were in 1967-8. In that season, Celtic were European Champions and Rangers were European Cup Winners’ Cup finalists, but it wasn’t just the Old Firm who were doing well – Scotland were fifth in the UEFA coefficients partly because there was so much competition in the domestic game and because several clubs from outside the Old Firm had done so well in Europe. Kilmarnock were Fairs Cup semi-finalists, Dundee United beat Barcelona home and away on their European debut and Dunfermline lost in the Fairs Cup on away goals to eventual winners Dynamo Zagreb. Thanks partly to a virtuoso performance by Jim Baxter, massive underdogs Scotland had just beaten World Cup winners England at Wembley. It is surely no coincidence that the most successful post-war era for Scottish football was one where the league was genuinely competitive, and one where gate receipts were split equitably. Back then the Old Firm’s support still dwarfed that of the other ten teams, yet within the previous 15 years Motherwell, Clyde (three times), Falkirk, St Mirren, Hearts and Dunfermline (twice) had all won the cup (indeed there was one ten-year period when Rangers won just one cup and Celtic none). It was the same in the league, with Kilmarnock, Dundee and Hearts (twice) all winning the title in the decade leading up to 1967. The point is simply this. That genuine competition improves the product, which in turn puts more bums on seats, sells more merchandise and persuades broadcasters to part with more cash. Instead of the dreaded downward spiral, where kids – and, let’s face it, tomorrow’s fans always follow winners – continually migrate towards the Old Firm or just shun the game entirely because they don’t want to identify with their local team of perennial also-rans, there would at least be a chance of a virtuous circle. There would, inevitably, be howls of indignation from Old Firm fans at such a proposal. So far the SPL has been run largely for the benefit of the two superpowers, and neither they nor their fans would appreciate a change to that status quo (although there should also be other changes, such as a mandatory youth structure and the banning of the practice of charging Old Firm fans through the nose at away games). Yet to be successful every league needs genuine competition, which is a point that even those free-marketeers in the American major leagues such as the NFL and NBA understand, which is why their franchise system is backed up with a whole raft of measures (such as the draft and salary cap) to ensure a playing field which is level enough for their leagues to remain competitive. And before any fans complain that it’s morally wrong to take the money spent by one club’s fans and give it to another, that’s exactly how general taxation works: we effectively take from the rich and give to the poor in the interests of a fairer and more cohesive society because this benefits everyone. So why the fuss about a more equitable division of the SPL’s resources? After all, without another ten clubs strong enough to at least occasionally upset the Old Firm, there would actually be no Old Firm. Therein lies the point. The game in this country is gradually atrophying. The dominance of the Old Firm is, bit by bit, strangling the SPL – but it doesn’t have to be this way.

Our number one consideration should be what gives the Rangers team on the park the best chance of winning; a raucous away support, or banks of empty seats in the away end? Anything else is self indulgent at best.

My reading of this document is that it represents the agreement which Green & Co DID eventually sign up to. It's obviously not the notorious 5-way agreement which would have seen Rangers concede titles in order to retain SPL status. Now THAT's the document I'd like to see...

I wonder where they got that particular "fact" from?

Yes, it's probably "a first"!

I'm prepared to give it a go for the game against Stenhousemuir. It's my local club and I take in the occasional game when the Gers aren't playing. The recent standard has been pretty daunting, so be gentle with me as a pre match reviewer virgin! Assume you simply post it as a new thread on the Thursday before the game, correct?

If it's an old co contract, surely it's now void? If we're still paying them, then the current Board are every bit as much to blame as whoever signed up in the first place.

It's very simple, if the shareholders think the current board are doing a good job, they'll carry the day at the AGM / GM. If not they'll be out. Wasting money on PR briefings against other Rangers people isn't going to help them one iota. You don't need PR plans to put right any misconceptions, you need directors who provide transparency.

Perhaps Ally thinks any savings versus the player budget will just go towards dividends rather than be ringfenced for 2 years' time...

I'd have hoped that the Club assessed potential first team players against more than just physical and technical criteria, particularly those who have spent a lot of time around the place. Some of these guys clearly don't have a clue what is expected of a Ranger. Can you imagine a Greig or a Gough betting against the team, or having a sulk and not showing for a minor fixture? Unless he has the mother of all excuses it should be game over for Darren, as that behaviour is far worse than Sandaza's in my book.

Totally agree. You could argue we're still short of another out and out striker, another quality centre half and a backup goalie who won't have his development hindered by a lack of game time, but we have lots of players who can cover several positions. Any more signings would be an extravagance as far as I'm concerned.

A 25% yield on the property and 15% debt interest? Total, complete and utter p**h. A Celtic wet dream / wind up, nothing more.

Would be a massive risk. Purchaser would want a double digit yield if they were picking up maintenance costs, so in less than a decade the money raised would be gone forever. More importantly, we'd be offering a hostage to fortune - what would we do when the initial lease comes up for renewal and the owner decides to jack up the price? Move to another 50,000 seat stadium in Glasgow? Think this one is just nonsense.

Absolutely. The main thing was that he kept on appearing in the right place to get the chances.