Gaffer

RANGERS Football Club contract with Ladbrokes as a provider of in-stadia betting services will come to an end in advance of next Season 2020/2021. Director of Commercial & Marketing, James Bisgrove, commented “Following a number of supporter enquiries over the Easter weekend, we can confirm the arrangement with Ladbrokes, who provide betting facilities at Ibrox stadium, will not continue next season.” In anticipation of our 150th anniversary, Rangers will continue to grow its Commercial Partnerships programme, both domestically and internationally. Well done Rangers!!!!

If a Dundee official has been offered anything like this to change their vote, it is BRIBERY. As far as I'm aware, bribery has been a criminal offence since 2010. Equally, organisations can be held criminally liable if they do not do what they can to prevent bribery. If this all turns out to be true, I'd like to see criminal cases coming up. Dundee, the SPFL, and the other clubs involved in any bribery should be up on charges against if evidence exists of this.

I hope the Rangers management team has a plan here. I am very happy with the statements and the stand we are taking against this very obvious corruption, but I can't see clubs backing the club's call for an inquiry. The clubs need the money asap and that will be the only thing the majority of them will be focussing on. They will vote to secure the funding as quickly as possible. If we can get that issue sorted I am sure the inquiry is a certainty. Otherwise, few clubs will risk going out of business for the sake of sporting integrity. Whatever happens here, I am begging my fellow supporters to remember this behaviour from the other clubs and please do not give them any money in any way ever again. They are all happy to take our money, but none of them willing to give any respect to our club when it matters. All we asked was to be treated fairly but time and time again they demonstrate that sporting integrity is only a phrase used when it can be applied negatively to our club. I care not one bit how many of these clubs go to the wall. Indeed, I hope many of them do.

I just hope such a young fit lad can survive a dose of the flu. I suspect he will be fine in a couple of days, just like the majority of others who get it, or had it.

This is the big question that I'd love to see answered. All opinions would be welcomed. As I see it, we have tried bridge building behind closed doors. Some of it has worked, in particular with the compliance officer, however most of it seems to have been wasted energy. We have also tried what appears to me to be a charm offensive. I was all for this, but it seems to have had no effect, and in fact the media is even more anti Rangers now. The 'Everyone, Anyone' campaign should not only have attracted some praise, but should also have resulted in a softening of the bigoted and racist hatred directed towards the club, its players and fans. However this too has failed completely in getting any sort of constructive response from outside the club. Since it was launched, the racism shown towards Morelos is nothing short of disgusting. I am all for us trying to do the right thing by being collegiate as the major force in this country, but there comes a time when the energy wasted on this has to stop and we just have to bring out the big guns. I for one hope that we can bring bigger guns to this fight than our enemies. It seems that's the only route left now. Let us get right in their faces to expose the lies, corruption, racism, and bigotry which causes harm to our club and our game. If this guy can do that, I'm 100% behind that strategy, and him!!

I expect there will be a vis major clause, but although it removes or reduces liability, I still can't see it resulting in the clubs being paid in full. The clause isn't used for this purpose so I doubt it applies. I think you're right that many season ticket holders will, however I expect many others will not claim compensations or refunds, recognising the damage it will do to the club. Certainly @compo is understandably looking for something, given the number of tickets he has paid for. I think the TV companies will try to be seen to be helpful but if I'm a shareholder of those companies, I'd expect the management team to recover costs or establish some sort of future value. Either way, the clubs will have to pay for this, especially in England. The panic created at the moment has far more serious consequences than its impact on football clubs but since this is our Rangers forum it makes sense to discuss the possible impacts on our club. Providing the majority of ST holders don't expect much of a refund, I think we should be in a decent position. I read somewhere (maybe in last year's annual report?) that the cost of matchdays meant that our gate receipts were almost all swallowed up by those costs. If that's still the case then we should not be impacted so much by the loss of games. Our income would be zero but the matchday costs are zero too. It'll be sponsorship commitments that will be damaged so again it's down to our contracts with them. Up to now our ability to have decent contracts is in question so that might be a problem. The most immediate battle however is ensuring that the east end mob don't get away with stealing this title. p.s. I understand that the expectation of this virus is that it will continue for the next year infecting around 10-15% of the population. I know the chief medic and adviser had hoped it was a winter virus but if this continues into the summer and beyond, as experts are now claiming it will, and players are included in that, I can't see how we will have any meaningful league next season either. That's disastrous for football, and even worse for the wider economy.

Most football clubs are in the proverbial house of cards at the moment. It doesn't matter how 'rich' the league appears to be, the margins between sustainability and collapse are tiny. I just reread both the Deloitte and KPMG reports on the financials at the English Premier League. It suggests that a small downturn in TV revenues (my rough calculations show less than 10%) could spell disaster for at least 14 of the 20 clubs. This is quite possible so unless the TV companies prop up that league in particular (as @JohnMc suggests), some major football clubs could potentially collapse. Of course football clubs are relatively unimportant in comparison with the wider social and economic challenges we will face, but it all has a knock on effect. I can't remember who said it (possibly @Bill) but I too suspect that there will be very little transfer activity in the summer. I can't see how clubs can afford to take the risk.

When this season is formally cancelled I wonder how many clubs will collapse. Perhaps this will be the final nail in the coffin for those who rely on our supporters to keep them afloat. Maybe this will finally be the end of a lot of those horrid clubs that wanted to cut off their nose to spit even their face when they voted to send us down. I don't want any of them saved, unless their own supporters bail them out themselves. What is much more worrying however is the thousands of businesses that will collapse if this panic continues. It could end up with us facing a much bigger economic and social problem. The media has a lot to answer for here, and of course it may then contribute to their collapse too. I also wonder what is happening with the legal teams at the likes of BTsport, Sky, etc. They've paid for a product that hasn't been delivered so will they attempt to recoup the money they've paid to the various leagues? It wouldn't take much of a swing to cause collapse of some huge clubs in England, Spain, Italy, France and Germany. Maybe the lack of television based funding could be a blessing in disguise for our league.

I've been told that La Liga officials are discussing their proposals with UEFA. They are proposing to cancel the championship this season, including all promotions and relegations. The European competition places will be given to the same teams as last year. They are asking UEFA to confirm that this is acceptable so they can announce it. That would certainly set a precedent. Apparently they discussed this with the clubs in the top division, all of which agreed. I doubt we would get such a unanimous agreement here but if this becomes the norm it'll be difficult for the SPFL to do something different.

Smoking is not a risk factor! Great, now let's move on. If you believe that and feel comforted with that, I'm glad. Ignorance is bliss, t'is folly to be wise. All this because I made a couple of points about our league season and stupidly used facts from experts rather than the daily record.

I was going to withdraw but for some reason you seem to want to engage further, so at the risk of distressing you further ... 1. I gave some scientific facts from experts around the world. They were not my facts. They are the facts from 8 specialists I just happened to be given the names of (work related). 2. In using the 2.4, I was trying to demonstrate that in a stadium with 10 infected people, there wouldn't likely be hundreds who would then be subsequently infected. I accept it might be 3, but that means 30. Why would you get so annoyed about that margin of error, and why does that change the point I made? 3. You may not have wanted to hear about the smoking point, but it is one that many experts are pointing out. I didn't say it to alarm anyone, or to upset anyone. I said it because they claimed it was a major factor in both China and Italy. 4. On the seasonal point, I did not want to go by one scientist. Instead we chose a few to compare and contrast. I can't find another one who thinks this is a winter virus, and in fact evidence from previous coronavirus outbreaks suggests it is not, because for months it survived the high temperatures of the Middle East, Singapore and Australia. Again, my point was that the summer heat would be unlikely to kill it and we'd be facing this for months to come. Please check my original point. I don't know why you're getting annoyed at that either. I am sorry you're feeling hurt at your semi final tickets, but try not to take aim at me. I was trying to give people the benefit of some analysis I've had my team do for me. I understand it might be unpalatable if it's true. I can even accept that this strain may be quite different from that which is experienced in other regions. Like many people, I am trying to make the right decisions based on as much evidence as I can collect. My original point was that there is so much conjecture in the press, most of it designed to alarm people just for the clicks and hits. My only motive in posting this was to save others the time and to help.

I honestly thought I was helping. I'll withdraw now before I cause you any more distress.

Did anyone see the interview with the "biosecurity and infectious disease" expert Michael Osterholm just now? It was excellent because he made it simple to understand and answered lots of the common questions. Based on what he said, there is no doubt that this is going to continue for a few months, meaning there is a serious doubt about the start of next season too. In particular, I hoped @blueflagheard it as Dr. Osterholm revealed some very interesting facts and stats about the virus. If it's repeated on BBC or CNN later it's worth listening to if you are concerned about it, or want to know more.

The first domestic league to declare a formal position on this will set an important precedent. It'll be hard for other leagues to do something different.

Excellent @craig, that's exactly the sort of logic I was looking for ??

Obviously I want that to be the case as far as our league is concerned. I just want to be given licence to be a little hypocritical because I'd like our win bonuses and coefficient points to stand from the Europa this season. I'm trying to convince myself that there's a logical difference between the two, so we can justify this. The only reason I can come up with is that we are the people and they are just filthy soap dodging criminals.

This is end of the season. I just hope the NHS can get to the point where it can cope with the demand on it's services, otherwise they will have to maintain this for a few months more, meaning the start of next season could be delayed also. Now comes the tricky part. All of the leagues and competitions need to work out how they will handle awards of prizes, money, coefficient points, etc.

That's what UEFA will be trying to work out at the moment before they concede that this year's competitions are over. Equally, now that the game this weekend is postponed, I suspect the league is now over this season. It'll now be interesting to see what they do about awarding the leagues to Liverpool and Celtic.

There's actually a lot of information out there on coronaviruses if you care to look. Rather than suggesting that I'm contradicting myself, or claiming the facts are false, or calling me an "armchair biologist", maybe spend a bit of time looking into it yourself. I thought this helped, but if not, feel free to delete my post. I won't post anything further on the matter.

There is a lot of panic and a lot of misinformation at the moment. I've found that very little makes sense to me, as much of the guidance appears contradictory. I started to look into this for myself rather than relying on politicians, newspapers and others. It's now starting to make more sense and this is what I've found out.: - The main reason it is regarded as being more serious is because of the transmission rates. For normal flu it's around 1.6 people being infected by each previously affected person, whereas its 2.4 for this one. That is actually a big difference, but makes sense why it really doesn't matter if we have large football stadiums. Even if 10 people are infected it means only 24 others will be, regardless of the size of crowd. - The virus is not dangerous to the vast majority of people, and in fact in itself it will be unlikely to kill anyone. The reason the NHS is concerned is because it affects the breathing in some people. As there are many people with heart conditions, high blood pressure and obesity, it is likely that they will require additional respiratory support and with these being in limited supply it is this lack of supply that will result in deaths, not the virus. Apparently there are also drugs that can help with respiratory problems, but they are not manufactured in enough quantity to support this spike in demand. - It is NOT seasonal. In other words, it is unlikely to be killed in the summer. This means that all such stories suggesting it will disappear in the next few weeks are nonsense. - It is not yet clear if the same person can catch it twice. There is strong evidence from previous coronavirus outbreaks that our bodies build a defence to prevent it but there's no guarantee this strain is the same. Then again, there's no guarantee it won't. - The reason China has had such a high death rate (3%) is because there is a high majority of people who smoke there. Apparently it's the same in Italy where approximately 60% of people smoke. I had no idea it was so high. Again this is the reason why children are largely unaffected. Unless they have an underlying health problem, most will not even know they have it. It's the respiratory problems that kill people, or make them very unwell. - International travel makes no difference at all. The experts predict it's already in every country now anyway so it makes no difference. Couple this with the fact that transmission is only likely to be 2.4 further people, it's very low risk of this making it worse than remaining in your own country. - This works like all other airborne viruses so face masks will not work. The funny thing is that washing hands is not nearly as effective as I thought it would be. As it's airborne you can wash your hands as much as you want but it will do only a little to reduce your chances apparently. Remaining isolated will stop you from getting it, but of course if we all do that there will be other problems when the country grinds to a halt. I suppose that's the balance the experts are wrestling with. I've got my own conclusions and recommendations based on what I've found out but didn't want to mix facts with opinions on this particular post. I just wanted to share the facts with my fellow Gersnetters. What this does suggest is that we need to create a new operating model that works. Delaying matches is not the answer because this will not go away anytime soon. Equally, banning large gatherings is not the answer either. I don't know what the answers are but at least now I feel I understand the problem better. I hope this helps you too.

Quoting the Guardian?!?! ?????

That's a bit dramatic. I've heard the government say repeatedly that there is very little risk if you're attending large sporting events. The only reason they want to stop them is because they require police, ambulance and other resources to be on site as standard, and they'd rather not have them used like this for now. Like everyone on here, I'd find it hilarious if Celtic were denied their title, but they do deserve it. We are not even close to them at the moment so I don't have a problem if they're awarded it before the split takes place. As I've said though, it would be great fun if they didn't.

I chose to self isolate and not watch the match as soon as I saw the teamsheet again. However, I think it is important to acknowledge that our run in Europe has been excellent and I've thoroughly enjoyed the journey. I just wish we'd not imploded this year because it would have been great to have looked forward to this game. Anyway, I know many like me will be fed up with the players and manager but let's give them the credit for achieving what they have done. It's more than any of us could have expected in the Europa league.

1-0 Aribo

That's correct, but if he had done that after a few bad results it would have sent the right signal to the rest of the players, and it would have kept the crowd behind the team. Now he's losing the respect of the players and he's lost the crowd (at least I believe he's lost the confidence of a growing minority like me).