I thought the original judgement was harsh at the time, but having read the both it and the appeal, not so sure about that.
Deliberately withholding £13m tax & PAYE to use to pay players is not a minor offence - as the panel said, the only thing worse would be match fixing.
In law, the argument that it was the actions of an individual not the corporate entity doesn't hold water (there was a case involving Tesco which set the president on that).
As for the sanctions, the panel were empowered to make up a new sanction if they felt that none of the existing ones were suitable. Personally, I don't think a ban from the Scottish Cup for 1 season would be sufficient deterrent for other clubs (let's face it many clubs would expect to go out in round 1 anyway).
Instead of blaming everyone else for the mess we're in, let's face facts, our Club has been run in the most shockingly poor way. Taking massive risks on a tax avoidance scheme, the owner responsible for that then selling the club to a dodgy character whom everyone in the know said we should avoid, the new guy sets a budget that required Champions League football to avoid a £10m loss, he then dishes out contracts we couldn't afford and then the Club fraudulently withholds tax to pay for it. If that's not enough then we should remember that people withing the club have been falsifying invoices using Clipart for God's sake.
I know it's hard to take, and I love Rangers as much as the rest of you, but i think some people need to look at the massive wrongdoing and accept that if any other club had done that, we'd expect them to be hammered. Let's take some responsibility for the mess we're in rather than just blame everyone else.
Anyone seriously thinking about marching on Hampden on Saturday, needs to stop and think about the facts rather than the emotion, before they make a nightmare situation even worse.