I Come To Bury Rangers - Not To Praise Them

I RATHER hope the latest twist in Rangersgate - the Daily Mirror piece by the excellent Alan Nixon which suggests that Charles Green's version of "Rangers" (TRFC) are considering buying Bury FC, moving them from Gigg Lane to Ibrox and competing in the English League in future - pans out, for various reasons.

Bury Rangers: what Celtic fan, or given the way goodwill towards Rangers has evaporated elsewhere in Scotland, ANY Scottish fan, would not wish to do that?

Rangers out of Scottish football and potentially heading towards the riches of the EPL - what Rangers fan would not vote for that?

Rangers, walking away from - if the forums on various Scottish football-related websites and newspaper chat rooms are to be believed - the total hatred of everyone else: what Rangers fan wouldn't gladly walk away with a departing V sign?

Rangers heading to England - which Scottish police force wouldn't relish that - although perhaps missing the overtime?

Rangers heading to England - that might play well with SFA, SPL and SFL administrators, struggling with "sporting integrity" and "commercial considerations".

Rangers heading for England, playing every second game in the south. My, how "the A Team", that dedicated band of "top" Scottish sportswriters who only cover Rangers, Celtic and Scotland would relish the additional expenses to be garnered from trips to such football hot spots as: Swindon (Paolo de Cannio), Scunthorpe (a Tuesday night visit there is on the cards), Yeovil and Milton Keynes.

Of course, it might all be "paper talk", this is the "silly season" for football rumours after all, but, Nixon usually has his finger on the pulse on his patch. And Andy Goram did start his career at Gigg Lane.

Mind you, we will no doubt be told today: "It cannot happen - the SFA/SPL/SFL/FA/Football League/UEFA?FIFA/Scottish Government/Westminster Government/EU/United Nations will never allow it". PLEASE, in professional football today, money talks, and if enough cash speaks loudly enough - it will happen.

Of course, the directors of Bury were quick to issue a statement saying that while they welcomed investment, they saw their club moving forward as "Bury FC, playing in the town of Bury". Aye right - notice anything? The talk of investment came before any mention of the town of Bury.

Of course there are supposed to be rules about clubs not playing in "countries" other than those in which they are situated. But, Cardiff and Swansea play in the English League and last time I looked Cardiff and Swansea were in Wales, not England. Berwick Rangers play in Scotland, Berwick is in England and Derry City play in the League of Ireland, whilst their ground is in Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom.

FIFA likes to pretend its laws - football's laws - are superior to the law of the land in whatever country any of its member FAs is situated - should they try to stop a  merger between TRFC and Bury, I imagine a quick visit to the law courts with a restraint of trade action would put them off. If, for instance, Charles Green was running a bakery in Bury making and selling a particular niche market product and he felt he could better run that bakery in Govan, nobody could, or would, stop him from moving. Bakery, football club - both commerical operations, where's the difference in moving?

The thing is - I WAS FIRST. I wrote months ago that moving Rangers to England made commercial sense. The vultures circling the dying corpse of Rangers, gravelly wounded by the mis-management of David Murray and the non-nursing of Craig Whyte have become the flies crawling over the corpse. No Lazarus-like revival can be achieved in the fetid swamp which is Scottish football.

To get Rangers back to where they were as a major force in European football will require access to the single quick-acting drug necessary - BIG MONEY - and that can only be accessed in the necessary quantities in English football.

Moving to England is the only way entrepreneurs such as Green can get the quick pay-back they want and the longer the SFA/SPL and SFL stall on sorting out the status of TRFC and where they will play in Scotland, the more-likely a merger with Bury or a similarly-destitute English club becomes.

For so-long as Mr Green has a major stadium and a major club not in membership of the SFA and either of the two Scottish senior leagues, he can look at the move to England. The moment the SFA and either the SPL or the SFL clasp TRFC to their bosum, that move dies.

Time for action and a definite decision from the men inside Hampden - something which has been sorely lacking since this whole Rangersgate nonsense kicked off.