calscot

Unless you've been to every cup game at Ibrox this season the money aspect is just erroneous - you could have given Rangers the money by attending a home game you missed without giving any money to the likes of Dundee United. But that's a big point - you might be giving money to Rangers but you're also giving it to an enemy. I expect with ticket, travel and other expenses a fan will spend around 50 quid for the game - and out of that Rangers will be lucky to get a tenner. There's a lot of other ways to give the club that kind of money without spending so much while watching the game down the pub with a few pints. It can't exactly be hard to ask people not to spend their money when there is a far cheaper alternative. The weird thing is that it seemed harder to get donations for RFFF. Elland Road showed we don’t need support to win against the odds. If we lose then that's just football but a boycott will achieve something regardless. If you really want to give money to the club then buy a share of the IPO. None of that will go to our enemies.

Queen of the South put us out at Ibrox against a partisan crowd. I still remember Leeds vividly. It could be a good learning experience for the youngsters as you shouldn't rely 100% on having a huge support behind you. It won't always be there. And when if return whatever the new top league will be, there will be plenty of boycotts at away grounds.

I really can't see how the SFA can do anything due to fans not buying tickets. Let's not get worked up about something which just isn't going to happen. (If the SFA stole money from our club for our fans boycotting the game, I'd say, 'Oi! SFA! No!')

Funny how Celtic fans seem to keep turning up in numbers that exactly round to a thousand... We have numbers like 23,195, they have 15,000. Are they into numerology or something and plan this as it's good feng shui? Are you not allowed in if you're the 15,001st and it looks like it won't reach 16k? Just how DO they do it?

Problem is that time and again it is shown that Scottish football is driven by green and self interest. The SFL are not immune as shown by Elgin. In fact in the so called big show of integrity, you still have to question the motives of putting us into division three. Yes, we wanted to go there as the alternative was more unpalatable and this expunged any fake "favours" to us; however, it also meant almost every SFL club would have at least two home games against Rangers plus extra chances of meeting us in the two big cups and also the Ramsden cup - preferably for them at Ibrox. Not even content with bumper home crowds they also put the prices up as well - the worst of this is Queens Park who gave us the lamest of excuses in trying to justify higher prices when they are planning for a crowd that is probably going to be something like 50 times their normal gate. They are going to take three seasons worth of takings in one game but although the cost per head will surely be down due to economies of scale, they want to charge Rangers fans extra to pay for the extra costs for a big crowd that are obviously already paid for in the normal ticket price. What kind of logic is that? So dangling some pound signs in front of a bunch of SFL clubs, looks to me as if it has a good chance of mesmerising them. The only spanner in the works that could change things is that Rangers won't be there.

It's hard to compare Scotland with biigger nations as we only have two large clubs. We then have four clubs that are the equivalent of the bottom of the Championship or top of League One and then about 10 that are about bottom of League One, top of League Two, few that are about bottom of league two and the rest are not even Football League standard. So if we take the top 18 clubs like we're supposed to, it would give us a league where the resources from attendances varied between the Premiership and the Conference playing each other twice. It just doesn't work. At the tail end of the season you have about eight very small, similar resourced clubs with nothing much to play for and a lead in to the title and relegation by teams that may be playing them while their rivals are playing teams with something to play for. We are too small a country for a top 18 team league and so anything we do will be a huge compromise to try and make a more exciting and interesting league to watch - which also brings in more fans, more TV and more money. That either means a ten team league playing each other four times, a similar 12 team league which brings 44 games, or some kind of 12 to 16 team league with a split.

Maybe we should promote and relegate more teams (3/4) but keep the better teams safe by introducing a relegation exemption if you finish in the top two of the second phase. So the split for the bottom eigtht of the second division have the result that the top two are exempt from relegation next season, the bottom three are relegated and the fourth bottom play off against the fourth of the third division. That should give all the teams something to play for - except the teams with exemptions who have no chance of achieving that again. But then you could make only an exemption if you don't finish last...

If you want to be a fast draw, you should shoot first instead of wasting time insulting your target...

PS If nothing else it will receive a response as it's passed 10k signatures.

29,221 and slowing a bit. It's the law of diminishing returns means that the most likely to vote have already done so and so the rate will tail off. That doesn't mean to say that it will not get to 100k but means that it will take much longer for the last 70% than the first 30%. However, it's only been 6 days and the petition has one year to meet the target. What we need is to get all Rangers fans and their families to sign and work on fair-minded others.

You don't do anyone any favours by increasing their chances of being crushed to possibly dangerous levels. Rangers fans know about this more than anyone. There are safety regulations for a reason and many come about not because of bureaucracy but lesson learned from deaths and severe injuries.

Do you really have to write like that? It does you no favours whatsoever in my eyes and lowers the tone and quality on here. I'm ambivalent about Green so not defending him per se, but surely you could have worded it something like, "I think he is wrong about the CVA as HMRC had had the 25% they needed to block it"? Why the need for the phrase, "pile of utter shite"? That kind of stuff is one of the big problems with the forum these days IMHO.

I don't think many clubs down south are dying to get their hands on SPL talent from middling sides. They don't see the league as strong enough to show if the player is of a high caliber and the wage demands are pretty high.

Good point but you missed out the SPL...

There is a difference between making money and ripping certain people off.

They are also due a big chunk of the Scottish Cup takings this weekend at Ibrox. Just how much money do they want to cream off Rangers fans?

It's been proven that optimists are more realistic than pessimists. Being a "realistic" realist would mean that you would wait and see what happens rather than passing a negative prediction - which may well happen, but that doesn't make it realistic.

I don't know how strong that precedent would be considering they lost the first tier. All it does is say that the whole thing is muddied and unfair for pursuing companies for the tax. The need to stop offering tax breaks that are based on "discretionary" notions.

Don't get you, Rangers are re-energising Scottish football by filling out grounds that are usually empty. That brings them a massive windfall. Why should Rangers fans pay more than other people for the same thing just so they can increase their windfall due to greed? You could argue Rangers get far less space and comfort for their money already. Would you be happy to go into a pub in another town and just after a local pays £3 for a pint, you order one and they say - "Oh, you're a Rangers fan? That will be £4 please." Would you be happy to re-energise the pub?

Those excuses are terrible - "we have to pay to have the ticket printed"; don't they normally pay? Surely the printing of the ticket is included in the cost - and a larger order usually makes it cheaper. Same goes for cleaning and policing - proportionally more fans and so proportionally more costs - but that's included in the ticket price whether it's 600 or 30,000; and there is usually a proportional cost reduction with greater scale. One person standing around twiddling their thumbs for a lot of the time selling programmes costs no more than one who is non-stop selling them. If you make a profit selling programmes to 600 people you will make more selling to 30k and your costs will be proportionately less. But in the end - how can you say you're costs have gone up when you're going to make more profit than you normally do in a whole season? That is certainly profiteering. They are due a massive windfall if they charge normal prices but that's just not enough for them, they really have to milk it.

I always used to think of Dortmund as a biggish German club but thought that we were bigger and thought we should beat them and would be pleased but not that chuffed if we did. The only German club I thought was bigger than us was Bayern and that would be a win I'd want to really celebrate - except I was only 3 at the time we actually did.

I think what he means by "more open" is that Rangers don't win it most of the time now and it gives another team - Celtic, a chance to win it a few times.

I think he was bitter we didn't sign him due to failing a medical - and was out to prove a pointwith Celtic. He was then opento all the indoctrination there. However, maybe we should give credit where it's due...

The only thing I could catch was that he kept saying 'muchas gentes' which means 'loads of people'...

PS Maybe that could be our way of competing financially. We can't compete with the tv money but we could earn as much from gate sales as Dortmund and then go for their standard of commercial revenue.