The original Rangers are no more. Gone. Dead. Kaput. Numerous other phrases from Monty Python's dead parrot sketch. In their place we have a different company that owns their assets but, at the moment, has not been given permission to play in the SPL next season. Nor should they be.
I do not intend to go into great depth about what has happened in the Rangers saga since they went into administration in February. However, what is clear is that they haven't been paying numerous people - from the tax man to the local newsagent. A decision on the big tax case has still to be made and the footballing authorities could well impose further punishments after that. But even without that it's obvious Rangers have been cheating Scottish football for years.
For the past goodness knows how many years they have been spending money they didn't have to buy success - just as Gretna did, just as Livingston did and just as Dundee tried to do but missed out on the success part. The BBC documentary a few weeks ago made out that former chairman David Murray didn't even put any of his own cash into the club but used bank loans to fund nine in a row and all the rest of the success. Meanwhile, the rest of us have been trying to pay our bills and taken the steps necessary to achieve that - cutting budgets, selling grounds and the like. It seems we shouldn't have bothered. What we should have done was spent wildly beyond our means, achieved lots of success, put the company out of business, hit the reset button and carried on our merry ways.
Think about how crazy that sounds. It is wrong. If Rangers are allowed back in having done exactly that then the rest of us might as well just give up - or just do the same on the knowledge we'll be allowed to carry on a few months later. A precedent needs to be set to act as a deterrent. Rangers should not be treated differently just because they are "the Rangers". A few years ago when Airdrieonians went bust and tried to be voted back into the league they were told where to go for fear it would see other teams run up debt, go to the wall and try to start again. That is what should happen here - and lets be honest, if it was any team out with the Old Firm it's exactly what would happen.
Since Rangers went into administration we have been treated to numerous horror stories about how Scottish football will die if they are booted out with some disgraceful scaremongering from certain journalist. Nonsense. We were told this when Setanta went bust a few years ago and yet we're all still here. The loss of TV and sponsorship deals will hit us all, but we can adapt. New deals will be created. We'll all just have to cut our cloth - something Rangers have never even tried to do. And don't forget, they weren't exactly worried about the rest of us when they were desperately trying to join any other league that would have them. There are numerous quotes attributed to Walter Smith saying Scottish football would thrive if the Old Firm went elsewhere. Mysteriously he has now changed his tune.
Despite all that you are given the impression - from large chunks of the media and Rangers themselves - that they are the ones that have been wronged. They have been as arrogant as ever and yet can't understand why everyone seems to be against them. HMRC are a disgrace because they have dared ask for their money. The SFA should be helping them rather than punishing them for their rule breaking. It's all an individual's fault so the club should get off. One moment they are happy to be punished - although seem to want to pick their own punishment - the next they say they have been punished enough. Must have missed that as no footballing penalty has been imposed. Ally McCoist and Sandy Jardine are among those to make disgraceful comments, while the administrators ran to the Court of Session when they knew that wasn't the correct course of action.
And that may prove to be their undoing. Before that it looked as if the chairmen would vote zombie Rangers straight back into the league. The anger that has generated among the other clubs makes you wonder if they'll take revenge and vote them straight out of the SPL. That should have been the decision even without the court case. Clubs should not be allowed to buy success on the never never, run up debts and then be allowed to start again with a clean slate. They should be made to start at the bottom and work their way up.
When the possibility of Rangers being booted down the leagues first arose I joked there would be a sudden reorganisation and we would have a 42 team top flight. Well blow me down if the SFA isn't trying to push through a restructure of the leagues by merging the SPL and SFL. We have all craved 16 or 18 team divisions for years but for it to be done in a bid to minimise the amount of time Rangers spend out of the top flight is wrong. It's the sort of thing you expect from the Italian or Brazilian FAs, not our own.
This whole farce has given me some good laughs. Some of the humour on other websites has been fantastic - not just the "big house must stay open" guy. Deep down, I've known all along they would probably be able to continue scot free but I've enjoyed the ride. However, now we're getting to crunch time - and as more and more facts emerge it is becoming increasingly clear that letting them off is not an option. The SPL chairmen must stand strong and vote no to a newco because, despite what the media would have you believe, voting yes, rather than no, will be the death of Scottish football.
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