2011/2012 Scottish Football Thread

[FUM]

Another point, why the fuck should any club be allowed "special allowances"? There is rules, and just because you're a bigger club, it doesn't mean they shouldn't be applied. Regardless of any "business point of view".

[BiffingtonClyro]

Still don't believe that the SPL needs Rangers/Old Firm to survive. Funny how this argument wasn't going about when the other ten threatened to quit the league, or from what I've been told, when Celtic were going bust.Hibernian vs Dunfermline at Easter Road last week had an attendance of over 15,000. Where do Rangers feature in that?

How often does Easter Road have 15,000 people in it?

[ColinBollocks]

Another point, why the fuck should any club be allowed "special allowances"? There is rules, and just because you're a bigger club, it doesn't mean they shouldn't be applied. Regardless of any "business point of view".

I'm just being somewhat realistic. It's all well and good playing by the rules, but do you really want Scottish football to fall further behind just to teach Rangers a lesson? This may eat the up more teams.

You're making it sound like others make a decision on whether they live or die. They don't. The 3rd division or SPL argument is one thing, but that's all dependant on them sorting out their business, paying the 300 organisations they owe, and being able to survive themselves or start up a new club. If they go bust, it's a natural process brought on by their years of cheating, financial scams, and not paying debts. It's not for someone to make a decision on.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the layers involved in this, what I object too is the punishments involved - all of which are incredibly short sighted.

What you say with regards to the consequences of them being out of the SPL is probably true, but you omit the other side of the argument, which most fans of every other Scottish team believe; Let them back in the SPL and integrity and fair play is out the window.

I really think this is a small factor. While there will be an initial outcry after such a 'scandal' (like in Italy), the long term future is surely more important? Are people going to start watching Rugby and stop supporting their team because of this? I doubt it.

Scottish football's fucked for the foreseeable future anyway thanks to them. Many Celtic and wee team fans have indicated that they'd be through with it all (or at least putting money into the game) in the event of a newco being given a spot, so revenue's going to be lost either way (albeit it's probably just bluster by many of them). The difference is, if it's lost through Rangers not being part of the league, it's only going to last 3 years. If it's through other teams fans chucking it because the league has been proven to be nothing but a sham, then that money's out the game permanently and Scottish football is tarnished forever. If it's considered a joke league now, then god knows what it would be like in the future after rewarding cheating and punishing fair play for the sake of a few years tv deal.

That's all well and good, but three years is a long time. Three years of lost revenue, in a league rife with 'football poverty'. I think you're over egging the 'tarnished reputation' thing, a higher profile (and more widely reported) league like Italy is doing ok and they've had to deal with bigger scandals than this Rangers one.

I think the sky deal's up next week. There's a new one on the table for

[FUM]

Still don't believe that the SPL needs Rangers/Old Firm to survive. Funny how this argument wasn't going about when the other ten threatened to quit the league, or from what I've been told, when Celtic were going bust.Hibernian vs Dunfermline at Easter Road last week had an attendance of over 15,000. Where do Rangers feature in that?

How often does Easter Road have 15,000 people in it?

The average attendance for the last two seasons is just under 12,000. For the football on display, just under 12,000 average crowd is decent over a full season considering the last Easter Road game against Rangers only attracted just over 11,000.

[David]

What I was getting at was, I believe that the saving of Rangers is vital in protecting the long term future of Scottish football. The money coming in to the league is already meagre, the idea of them trying to run a decent standard league without the money Rangers bring in is scary. TV deals, sponsorship, gate money, all of that will be severely effected, and you have the potential snow ball effect of other teams finding themselves in a similar situation. Rangers should be allowed special allowances by those that handed them their punishments, and other clubs need to think long term about this too - looking at this from a business point of view, of course.Speaking of which, how long until the Sky deal is up?

So, Sky & ESPN are going to drop the SPL if Rangers go bust? They'll continue showing the likes of the MLS, The Irish league and the Russian league though, eh? It's all bollocks and scaremongering by the Scottish media in my opinion. Sure, the other Scottish clubs may have to cut their cloth accordingly, but with a fairer distribution of the television money that we do get, and a fairer league (with more teams in it hopefully).In fact, the lack of a Rangers & Celtic stranglehold on the league may actually result in some fresh interest in the game, with attendances increasing accordingly.In short, fuck Rangers. They made the mistakes, and in their arrogance they probably thought they wouldn't be caught & punished. Even now they're still arrogant enough to consider themselves special and above the rest in Scotland.

[ColinBollocks]

What I was getting at was, I believe that the saving of Rangers is vital in protecting the long term future of Scottish football. The money coming in to the league is already meagre, the idea of them trying to run a decent standard league without the money Rangers bring in is scary. TV deals, sponsorship, gate money, all of that will be severely effected, and you have the potential snow ball effect of other teams finding themselves in a similar situation. Rangers should be allowed special allowances by those that handed them their punishments, and other clubs need to think long term about this too - looking at this from a business point of view, of course.Speaking of which, how long until the Sky deal is up?

So, Sky & ESPN are going to drop the SPL if Rangers go bust? They'll continue showing the likes of the MLS, The Irish league and the Russian league though, eh?

I never typed that, my point was less revenue coming in to the already struggling teams. That's the whole point of my argument.

[David]

I never typed that, my point was much less revenue coming in to the already struggling teams. That's the whole point of my argument.

The key is getting the revenue we get from any television deal to be distributed more evenly. As things stand it's basically Rangers & Celtic who take most of the cash, and this won't change as a vote of 11-2 is enough to throw any changes to such matters out.We need to drop Rangers and use the opportunity for the other eleven clubs to sit down and make some changes for the benefit of the game in Scotland. If Rangers survive and things carry on as is nothing will change, and the game has been dying on its arse for years under the current set-up.

[ColinBollocks]

I get your points, and in an ideal World the Scottish game would feature a more even battleground, but surely you must also see the huge negatives that can come of this?Rangers are box office.

[Reznor]

Surely if Rangers are allowed to stay in as a newco, doesn't that give the green light for any club to do the same as they've done? Won't a precedent have been set?

Not really, because no one's under any pretence that there's any kind of justifiable reason for letting a newco into the top division under any established rules or understandings. Their argument is purely that they're a special case for whom the rules should be bent for. The only informal precedent it could set would be that Celtic also couldn't be relegated in future, but that's academic because Celtic aren't going to be in such a position, thanks to their 'biscuit tin' policy which made them the butt of Rangers jokes for years.

What you say with regards to the consequences of them being out of the SPL is probably true, but you omit the other side of the argument, which most fans of every other Scottish team believe; Let them back in the SPL and integrity and fair play is out the window.

I really think this is a small factor. While there will be an initial outcry after such a 'scandal' (like in Italy), the long term future is surely more important? Are people going to start watching Rugby and stop supporting their team because of this? I doubt it.

Well from this forum alone, the resident Well fan and I think a couple of the sheep lads have hinted that there'd be little point in going back, at least if their club voted 'yes'. The overwhelming consensus online is much the same - the opinions from a recent online poll of 17,000 Scottish football fans yielded startling results. In addition, I can only speak for my own club here, but the predominant view of Celtic fans in the real world is consistent with that train of thought. So with all that considered, we can't just disregard that strength of feeling and signal of intent even if less than half of those fans back up their words with actions.

Scottish football's fucked for the foreseeable future anyway thanks to them. Many Celtic and wee team fans have indicated that they'd be through with it all (or at least putting money into the game) in the event of a newco being given a spot, so revenue's going to be lost either way (albeit it's probably just bluster by many of them). The difference is, if it's lost through Rangers not being part of the league, it's only going to last 3 years. If it's through other teams fans chucking it because the league has been proven to be nothing but a sham, then that money's out the game permanently and Scottish football is tarnished forever. If it's considered a joke league now, then god knows what it would be like in the future after rewarding cheating and punishing fair play for the sake of a few years tv deal.

That's all well and good, but three years is a long time. Three years of lost revenue, in a league rife with 'football poverty. I think you're over egging the 'tarnished reputation' thing, a higher profile (and more widely reported) league like Italy is doing ok and they've had to deal with bigger scandals than this Rangers one.

Three years is a lot of lost revenue, but is it more than what will be lost by losing so many fans to the game, many of whom will never return? Why pay money to support something that you feel is fixed, rotten and corrupt? The bottom line is the Scottish game is goosed financially whatever way you look at it. No one option is going to please everyone, so in that case, who deserves to be punished? Those who caused it all, or the others who played by the rules? Is it fair that the 11 teams get shafted over by Rangers for at least a couple of years (probably a decade or more) then get shafted over by them again when they get away with it and waltz back into the league unpunished?The difference with Italy is that they punished teams who were found guilty, to restore some integrity to the league (or at least they were seen to be acting to improve perception and win back some confidence among fans)It's a bit of an invalid comparison anyway, because it didn't concern teams going out of business then restarting and trying to leapfrog their way back into the top league in their country. You have to remember, Rangers being liquidated then a newco being admitted to the 3rd division wouldn't be a punishment. It's what everyone would expect, and is the way things are generally done when you kill a club then apply to join a league - you start at the bottom and work your way up

I think the sky deal's up next week. There's a new one on the table for

[David]

Rangers are box office.

Even If the majority of their better players are sold or walk away at the end of the season, and they can't buy any new ones? They'll be a mid-table side at best.

[Keith Houchen]

Thanks for your post, Reznor, it explains a lot. Cheers.

[mikey]

The others made my point. Rangers are part of the problem rather than the solution. They drove the costs up so nobody else could compete with them and when Celtic finally caught them and then overtook them, they resorted to ever more sophisticated tax fraud and ran up unsustainable debts. They bully, bribe or discredit the press depending on what they want or need from them and enjoy ridiculous levels of institutional bias. Their actions have seen pretty much every team who has been in the top division in financial peril at some point, such was the cost to compete when Rangers were at their peak, damaging the fanbase and reputation of those clubs and stifling youth development. They're bad for the game. In other sports and other situations, a club that did these things would have sanctions brought against them but, instead, the SPL will somehow reward them.

[Kenny McBride]

Worth a read. Basically covers stuff I've said here before, but with evidence'n'shit.Why Scotland Doesn't Need Rangers.

Every fan of Scottish football should read this. It's very, very important when discussing how much the league "needs" Rangers.

[David]

The others made my point. Rangers are part of the problem rather than the solution. They drove the costs up so nobody else could compete with them and when Celtic finally caught them and then overtook them, they resorted to ever more sophisticated tax fraud and ran up unsustainable debts. They bully, bribe or discredit the press depending on what they want or need from them and enjoy ridiculous levels of institutional bias. Their actions have seen pretty much every team who has been in the top division in financial peril at some point, such was the cost to compete when Rangers were at their peak, damaging the fanbase and reputation of those clubs and stifling youth development. They're bad for the game. In other sports and other situations, a club that did these things would have sanctions brought against them but, instead, the SPL will somehow reward them.

I'm assuming that your interest in the SPL in pretty minimal Mikey? This will be the reason why you're opinion is pretty much bang on the money. The Scottish media, and those who run the SPL have been telling us since all of this shit broke that we need Rangers and simply cannot survive without them.This was the same media and personalities that were salivating when both of the Old Firm were making noises about walking into the EPL. Scottish football was deemed able to survive back then without either of the old firm, but now apparently we can't survive without a weakened Rangers.

[mikey]

I follow Scottish football, I just don't buy into all the bullshit surrounding it, mainly because I don't live there. I read some of the websites of the Scottish papers, my former Total MMA editor advised me to read the Herald as he wanted stuff in their style. I was a big Aberdeen fan as a kid and I think I've said on this forum before that I think the game could be administered much better. The need for separate senior, junior, amateur and welfare football associations being one.My views are fairly extreme when it comes to football finance, as you've seen on the PL thread. My view is that if the FTT rules that Rangers have deliberately evaded tax, then they've broken the law of the land and acted in bad faith. They would have committed a crime so heinous and so ruinous to Scottish football, they should be given a death penalty. As such, they should have to compensate their fellow SPL members, they should be stripped of every SPL title they won whilst operating these tax evasion schemes and they should be relegated from the SPL and not allowed to come back until they have shown they can run a football club properly.And for people who say that's harsh, let's look at the Melbourne Storm. The Storm were the NRL's attempt to break into Aussie Rules country. For five seasons, they operated a dual-contract system that saw them pay their top stars off the books so they wouldn't break the salary cap. They were stripped of their two Premierships, three minor Premierships and their World Club Challenge win. They were also stripped of their points in 2010, forcing them to finish last, and fined AU$1.7m. What Rangers did was much much worse because they didn't break competition rules but the law of the land.