Thinker

Yeah, CG mentioned this yesterday - used it as an example of the agenda against us. Check the STV clip of him outside Ibrox, he wasn't happy about it at all.

I've got my ST this afternoon / evening - queued for 6 hours. I'd be amazed if the sales haven't topped 30,000 - that queue was unreal. I've never known anything like it.

"Off the radar"? We're certainly not off the telly. And if everyone's sick of this story why don't they shut the f*ck up about EBTs and gie us peace?

The more people who come out and say, "No-one at the club has wittingly breached any rules or laws, or tried to conceal anything.", the better. It cannot be said often enough or loudly enough. Otherwise we get idiotic, poorly informed statements like the one made by the Morton chairman (I think it was) who stated something along the lines of, "they've admitted they've been cheating for years". He was completely wrong, but his words were still published, and some simple folks believe every quote they read.

Hopefully it'll play out this way. As 'Eck says - there was no attempt to conceal the existence of EBTs. If the parties involved believed (or even suspected) they were breaking the rules they wouldn't have published the details.

Och, come off it. Statements like that (even made in jest) are liable to be taken out of context to make it seem like our objections are unreasonable. As long as there's a proper appeal process to an international body I think we'll be fine. Even the most biased Scottish panel will be too embarassed to give a decision that would be over-turned on appeal. And if you put the sanctions that are being suggested into a European context, they stand out as being insanely over-the-top. Think about what's gone on in Italy and our alleged "crimes" pale into insignificance.

It would have been unwise if he'd said religious bigotry or sectarianism but he didn't. The resounding voice of the fans of the other SPL clubs was to punish Rangers - and their motivation for wanting that was NOT because any wrong-doing had been proven, it was because they hate Rangers. That's bigotry - in it's broadest sense anyway: blind hatred of a group or creed of people. A St Mirren fan I argued the case with eventually cracked and said one of his main motivations for wanting to see Rangers suffer was bitterness about the slaggings he got as a kid in the playground: "What have your team ever won?" etc. This guy's in his late 40s. When I pointed out that the decision to eject Rangers from the SPL could lead to redundancies at his own club, he merely shrugged. Blind hatred. Bigotry.

O let us not, like snarling tykes, In wrangling be divided; Till slap come in an unco loon And wi' a rung decide it. Be Britain still to Britain true, Amang oursels united; For never but by British hands Maun British wrangs be righted!

That's still a damn sight better than I thought they were going to get. The SPL were due to pay the £2m / yr compensation to the SFL with or without our presence, so it's only the £1m for 3 years for TV to SFL which is an additional conseqence to the decreased Sky payment. They would have got £80m - £10m (£2m/yr to the SFL for 5 yrs) = £70m They now get £63m - £10m (£2m/yr to the SFL for 5 yrs) - £3m (£1m/yr to the SFL for TV right for 3 yrs) = £50m That's a fall of only 29%. I'd expected a fall of well over 50%

I think his motivation has always been publicity, but I suppose he may have done some good along the way. Even though I didn't give much credence to his claims about D&P's super-scam, going through their paperwork with a fine-toothed comb was definitely worthwhile. Just to make sure everything's above board. And the same is true of cross-checking the legality of anything the SFA might try to pull.

As long as they say the old Rangers company then they're more or less correct. Or will be when it's actually liquidated (but that's pretty much inevitable). The original Rangers club is still going strong. And we have a new Rangers company. EDIT: Sorry - just realised you're pointing out they misquoted him. That is out-of-line. STV have been pretty reasonable in their coverage so far, I thought.

On the one hand we're going to have to accept jibes from virtually every club we face for the foreseeable. We're just going to have to learn to deal with that, ideally in a dignified manner. On the other hand, with respect to any distasteful stuff on message boards, you can't hold a club and its entire support accountable for the crap that nutters post online.

Apparently they had 10,000 ST holders last season (according to the DR anyway). I know they've lost some players, but that's still a shocking drop after their cup win.

Dunno. Innocent until proven guilty though.

It's never been proven that he knew, as far as I'm aware, plus he's not here to defend himself. It seems poor form to single out one dead guy. Plus, the few times I resort to mentioning it I'm generally trying to lay the blame on CFC as a whole rather than an individual. Generally as a counter to "The whole of Rangers have to take the rap for CW's wrong-doing."

Bringing this up always seems like a low-blow to me - although we've been on the receiving end of so many low-blows recently it's hard to resist. Whenever I've resorted to mentioning it in an argument I've always done it in an oblique way: "Would you be happy if someone were to rake through all the dirty laundry of your club?" And of course, the massive fine, title stripping, and 4 year ban that Penn State just got makes it a good counter to any EBT outrage I hear from them. I draw the line at bringing Big Jock's name into it though.

Personally, I think we should sing positive stuff about our club and country. (And, BTW, I wasn't too chuffed when the Brechin fans booed the national anthem.) It bugs me when Septic fans who've most likely never set foot in Ireland, apart from the odd stag-do, sing sonds about Irish history - and to be even-handed I'd have to say the same about some of our lot. If you're from Northern Ireland fair enough, if you're born and raised in Scotland sing songs about Scotland.

I think most people are in agreement with you on this, they're just looking at it from a different angle. There's very little chance of a fair trial in Scotland from the SFA, so we have to insist on the right to appeal to someone truly neutral. The other points you make are undeniably true, and should be taken into account by whoever the appeal goes to. I'd expect a neutral appeals board to rule that, yes, it is unfair to apply such vague rules retrospectively, and so clear us.

It's not a case of deciding we're guilty without a trial - it's more believing that we need a trial - a fair one - and to abide by its results so that the matter is laid to rest. Do I believe Rangers have deliberately broken any rules? I don't think so - I hope not but wouldn't put it past SDM. Do I believe Rangers have commited a crime worthy of the most servere punishment ever handed out in football? No, I don't. Do I have all the facts necessary to confidently make these calls? No. Do I want Rangers to go through a fair disciplinary process and abide by the results? Absolutely.

On the face of it we haven't done anything wrong, so bring on the investigation. The problem is, we don't really know what's gone on any more then the people who are accusing us. I used to believe that SDM wouldn't do anything so stupid that it could cast doubt on our titles, but now I'm not 100% confident of that. It might turn out (and that's just a very slim might) that he's done something seriously wrong financially. I don't think it's very likely, but it's possible. So when I say "bang to rights" I'm talking about the unlikely event that both the SFA and a proper independent body, (ideally the International Court for the Arbitration of Sport) find that something so serious has gone on that we should have titles stripped.

The only way I would accept the stripping of titles is if we were caught bang to rights, and the decision was upheld following a proper appeal. Under no circumstances should the titles be awarded to someone else. There's no precedent for that in European football as far as I'm aware.

This is the point I don't think a lot of anti-rangers got when they demanded their respective clubs voted us out of the SPL. Yes, they can surivive without us, but only by cutting back big style - and that's not something they could achieve on such a short time scale. They were so out-raged by the though of us living "outside our means", yet they can't sustain even the mediocre standard that they were operating at without leeching off the interest and money we bring to the Scottish game.

'moan the non-bibs!

I'm not accusing you of accusing them. Just trying to illustrate the distinction.

Yeah, but there's a difference between someone trying to pass on information for no personal gain (as in the VBs' statement) and a journalist using "understands" to present unsubstantiated evidence in order to sensationalise a story. Either the VBs are right or they're wrong in what they understand. They're not trying to insinuate anything or alter anyone's opinion.