Will Rather Than Walter Smith - Come On Down

THE Fourth of July, Independence Day - or is it?

This afternoon, the SPL will announce whether or not Continuing Rangers/New Rangers/Sevco/That shower of cheating bar stewards from Govan/Ra Peepul - please delete according to your personal level of bigotry - will be allowed to play in their league next season.

At the time of writing and not knowing how many arms have been twisted, and how hard, how many bribes have been offered, and to which level and what other skeletons will be brought out of cupboards, I would say, if public utterances are to be believed - and if 40-years of sports-writing have taught me one thing it is: never believe what a sports administrator tells you he is going to do prior to a meeting - they will vote to be a "Rangers"-free zone next season.

There again, the whole basis of the SPL being greed - "Rangers" could well still be in there next season. Nobody knows.

And that has been the problem all along. This blog has never deviated from its view, there are too-many ifs, buts, maybes, unanswered questions, unresolved issues, unexploded bombs - from anti-personnel land mines up to nuclear - still to go off, for any sort of speedy decision on the Rangers problem.

"Rangers" stand condemned in the Court of Public Opinion, which has labelled them as cheats, bullies, arrogant and self-important, self-interested, and a blight on Scottish football.

Rangers may well have cheated for years; they could have been cheating when Bill Struth ran the club; they might have been cheating through the years when the Lawrence family ran the club. The Scottish football public certainly  believes they cheated during the Murray years - but nothing has been proved.

We have had more conspiracy theories than around the shooting of JFK, so lurid has been some of the allegations I am surprised Rangers are not due in court in the Hague - or perhaps at Nuremburg. Had it not been for the general fall in circulation of the Scottish-based newspapers, Finland would now be a tree-less, barren "moonscape", but, if not yet at the end of the day - where we are now is - we are none-the-wiser as to what happened, or what will happen.

We are in the information gap, which spreads speculation, half-truths, outright lies and chaos.

Had the SFA and the two senior leagues got on top of Rangers' problems lang syne, they would have saved themselves, and us, the fans, a lot of heart ache and pain. But they didn't.

Had they operated their own rules properly, they would have saved themselves, and us, the fans, a lot of heart ache and pain. But they didn't.

Had they shown some leadership, they would have saved themselves, and us, the fans, a lot of heart ache and pain. But they didn't.

Today, they have a chance to start putting things right, at this SPL meeting - I hope they take this chance, but, I am not holding my breath. But, I will return, once we know what the SPL has decided.