hysterix

I doubt the SFA could organise a piss-up in a brewery on a 4 week deadline, never mind an entire league reconstruction. There are still plenty of potential showstoppers to even the SFL3 option, and if I were a gambling man - which by a happy coincidence I am - I'd say that Sevco was odds-on not to be playing any senior football in 2012/13. A year on the naughty step would be a very positive start to their eventual rehabilitation, and a practical solution that would give them time to sort things out for 2013/14.

Rangers are in liquidation and the dregs of the company currently hold the SPL share. Obviously, they aren't going to be in a position to play football at any level next season. The vote scheduled for tomorrow wasn't to expel Rangers from the SPL, it was to vote on allowing Sevco to acquire Rangers' share in the SPL, and there's now no way that vote will pass. If Sevco do not get Rangers' SPL share, they have to apply to the SFL. As a result of today's meeting, it looks as if there will be a shit-or-bust attempt to railroad a vote allowing Sevco to enter the SFL in Division One. If that vote goes against Sevco, I'd question if there was enough time for them to be accepted into SFL 3 for next season, so it looks like it's a last desperate gamble between SFL 1 or Sweet FA.

Indeed. And when I read the opening heading of today's SFL document - "WHY DOES RESISTANCE TO CHANGE IN FOOTBALL EXIST?" - the irony meter on my computer screen exploded.

HMRC head goes back. Charlie G.: "HMRC are giving us the nod!" HMRC head comes forward in classic Glasgow Kiss - CRACK - "stitch that, you fucker, you're not in Manchester now!"

I don't believe it's going to be possible. There's not a snowball's chance of Sevco being in the SPL next season, and even membership of the SFA is looking far from assured. At the moment, all Sevco have is a stadium and a cash flow problem. They are sadly deficient in the player department, a department where 11 would seem to be the minimum requirement. At this point, a time-out for a year would be less of a punishment and more an act of mercy.

I read a very good golf analogy of the situation yesterday in which the point was made that you could buy Jack Nicklaus' old golf clubs, but that the PGA wouldn't transfer Jack's tour card to you and allow you to play as The Jack Nicklaus. My initial thought was: I bet they would if Neil Doncaster were in charge of the PGA. In fact, going by his form, I'm pretty sure that if I bought the late Seve Ballesteros' golf clubs Mr Doncaster would be encouraging me to join the PGA and change my name to The Seve Ballesteros, on the basis that golf needs a strongly competitive Seve Ballesteros. He'd also be showering the other PGA golfers with charts and spreadsheets showing just how much Seve had historically been worth to the tour in terms of sponsorship, TV money and extra spectators. The inconvenient fact that Seve is dead is no barrier to the efficient sports administrator. How so? Well, it's a little-known fact that Neil Doncaster is a world-class master of Administration Yoga. This requires many years of dedicated practice and meditation, but if you apply yourself diligently enough eventually you will be able to master the Administration Position, where your head is inserted so far up your own arse that you believe you can perform Resurrection by Administration. Yes, with every muscle quivering to push your head into the upper reaches of your colon, chanting the sacred mantras of management bullshit and with your hands shuffling the Holy Forms of Bureaucracy you can attain the ultimate mastery - the power to Administer the dead back to life! Or so they say, in the Administration Yoga world. Back on Planet Reality, unfortunately, death is final, and the view from the inside of your own arse doesn't permit the necessary perspective to see the bigger picture. It might enable you to say that you haven't seen or heard much in the way of fans' protests, because the sound is muffled too, but it isn't a sustainable position. It may well be true that in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king; but in the land of the fully-sighted, a man with his head up his arse is at a serious disadvantage.

Here's the relevant section from the original JP case: You may have missed it originally as it's down near the end of the document. The SFA determinations have the full force of a decree of the court.

The BBC actually say: "Duff and Phelps' fees and charges now stand at more than £5.5m." Paul Clark's statement "The BBC has also got its figures wrong when stating our fees are now more than 10 times this amount" is total bollocks disingenuous in the extreme. He either hasn't read the BBC article correctly, or he's blowing smoke.

Absolutely - D&P are beyond parody now. Supposed professionals, operating under strict rules of accountability and protocol, and they are trying to persuade creditors that the outcome of a highly speculative lawsuit is as good as money in the bank. Priceless. D&P are presenting HMRC with the equivalent of a betting slip for a long-shot gamble and asking them to count it as cash. Worse than that, they are ignoring the fact that lawsuits, unlike betting slips, have a nasty habit of turning round and biting you in the bollocks - if you lose a bet, you lose your stake, but if you lose a lawsuit you end up with even more liabilities. Add into that the irony of punting all your financial hopes on a court case that may or may not occur in October, while ignoring the fact that today's case at the Court of Session could trigger a chain of events that sees Rangers dead by Friday. What sort of parallel universe do D&P inhabit?

In their move to take the transfer sanctions appeal to the Court of Session, we are witnessing the Rangers Football Club version of Suicide by Cop. An interesting historical snippet from that article: I am sure that D&P and the Rangers legal team must be well aware that the likely consequence for this action is to force the SFA's hand, and compel them to expel Rangers from the SFA. That's a meltdown scenario for Rangers - without a licence to play in Scotland, there won't be enough meat left on the bones to interest even the scabbiest of the financial vultures circling the corpse of the club. Vaporising any remaining value in the club may not be the sort of tactic you'd expect from Administrators, but D&P have repeatedly demonstrated that they are not your ordinary Administrators. However, since the BBC got on their case, they have been slapped across the face with the large wet haddock of reality. Their tone has changed to scared and defensive. They are in the shit up to their necks, and the tide of shit is still rising. So why the self-immolation on the day after the SPL told them to produce the dual contracts documentation or face sanctions? Maybe they have a Cunning Plan for survival that doesn't depend on membership of the SFA. Or is expulsion from the SFA and the permanent death of Rangers Football Club a more attractive option for RFC (IA), D&P, the SPL and the SFA than subjecting the dual contracts case to the forensic legal analysis of Lord Nimmo Smith? If they'd rather kill themselves off than face the music on that one, I reckon that reflects some fairly major sphincter-twitching among the main players. The sort of sphincter-twitching that would occur when contemplating the loss of one's job, one's reputation, expulsion from one's professional body, or even a spell of enforced hospitality as a guest of Her Majesty. Interesting times.

Rangers are hit by another couple of body-blows at the conclusion of the BTC and the SPL double contracts investigation. Rangers, despite having played the "Scottish Football is nothing without us" card as hard as they can, jump before they are pushed and resign from the SFA/SPL. Rangers attempt to set up a European/Atlantis/Orange League from scratch, it all turns to shit in short order and everyone gets to point and laugh. Meanwhile, back in Scotland, Celtic realise that it makes no commercial sense to piss money away on a one-horse race of a league. They cut back their spending accordingly. The differential between Celtic and the rest of the league, in terms of both player quality and wages, narrows. Suddenly, the league is more competitive and the other clubs realise that with a run of decent results, just about any club could be challenging for top 3 finishes. The league becomes much tighter and more competitive, racking up wider local support, interest, and spectator numbers. The sectarian nonsense that has plagued Scottish football is reduced to the sound of one hand clapping now that one half of the problem has left the building. As it fizzles out and stops, Scottish Football becomes a much more attractive option for a Saturday afternoon family outing. Clubs aren't slow in taking advantage of the marketing opportunities. Average spectator numbers double. There's a real buzz around Scottish Football. Clubs increase their local involvement by encouraging their players to obtain coaching qualifications, and running football coaching sessions with local schools and community groups. All the kids in the coaching groups are offered discounted family tickets to the club. Local interest rises to an all time high. Spectator numbers treble. Club Chairmen look at the figures and see that they are getting three times the spectator income for no more expenditure on the park. They thank their lucky stars that Rangers walked, because they know in their heart of hearts that this wouldn't have happened if they had voted to keep them in. Nobody misses Rangers.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. The SFA Note of Reasons nailed its colours firmly to the mast. It's all too serious and too big to be swept under the carpet.

That's just wrong, isn't it? Insisting on £1 in the £1 from all your own debtors, while simultaneously shafting your creditors to the tune of a few pennies in the £1, if they are lucky. Don't forget that they've also had full value for the £14M of PAYE/VAT/NI they chose to stop remitting in November, despite having the money to pay it at the time. No matter how I look at that, I can't see HMRC being happy with the proposition "I know we've burned through £14M of your cash in the last six months, but how's about we call it quits for this £700K I've got left? It's a great deal for you because it's a shit load better than nothing!" If Green has access to serious, serious money then the honourable thing to do would be to settle all the debts in full while accepting and working stoically through any period of sanctions. At that point, Rangers could be generally regarded as rehabilitated. ...sorry, have to stop there, just saw something pass the window and I'm going to check if it was a flying pig.

...meanwhile, I wonder if the St Johnstone tannoy announcer has this one in his collection?

I take it the SPL and the SFA will be wanting to clarify the details of the deal before they allow "Rangers" to run out on the park at St Johnstone? Maybe it will all be explained at the 10am Press Conference, but you'd be negligent not to at least consider the possibility that someone was trying to pull off a fast one with the timing of this announcement - 2 hours before the final match of the season, on a Sunday - when businesses, government and legal offices are traditionally closed.