Duff & Phelps, BDO - Why Not Burke and Hare?

AT SOME point later this morning, the representative of HMRC will formally refuse to accept the details of the CVA being proposed by Messers Duff & Phelps; in effect the life-support system plug will be pulled out and Rangers will die.

The question then is, will Duff & Phelps the attending physicians, who failed to keep the patient alive, have time to sell-off the saleable organs (Ibrox, Murray Park etc) to Charles Green, or will the HMRC-appointed undertakers - BDO - take possession of the corpse and in turn become responsible for the organ harvesting?

I don't know enough about how these things work to say definitely, but I sincerely hope BDO has charge of the corpse, otherwise - things may get decidedly messy. Whatever happens, the accountants and m'learned friends will continue to live high on the hog, whilst the estate of the dear departed is divided up.

And, by the way, since he is a grade one chancer who has spent most of his life living on the edges of legality, don't be surprised if Craig Whyte hasn't left a few booby traps in the path of BDO and HMRC - I have a feeling they will find out that the deeds to Ibrox and Murray Parks are lying in some office in the Cayman Islands for instance.

SO, I intend saying no more about the corporate business side of things, I'll leave that to the guys on the business desks - other than a parting comment; the two pieces of real estate - three if you count the Albion car park MUST be worth more than the £5.5 million which messers Green and Duff & Phelps have valued them at.

What about the footballing side of things? What happens now? I honestly believe the demise of Rangers 1872 offers Scottish football a once-in-a-life-time chance to sort itself out. Will they take it?

Probably not - Scottish football is good at tinkering round the edges, not so good at real and meaningful change.

For a start, any thoughts of "New" Rangers continuing to occupy a place in the SPL have to be kicked into touch. I am not in the "They've cheated for years" camp. I appreciate these things don't have to be proven "beyond reasonable doubt", as is the case in criminal courts; the non-payment of tax/legality of EBTs issue is one for the civil courts, where it's the "balance of probabilities" rather than "beyond reasonable doubt" which counts. But, given that EBTs were legal when Rangers went down that route, it may be that Rangers use of them has been flawed rather than illegal and that difference is just the sort of area the legal brains love getting into - it can keep them talking and arguing for years. Then there is the area of what is and what isn't a contract - again sorting out the difference between a second contract and a side note will keep the guys in the silk gowns in school fees for Fettes and the Edinburgh Academy well into the 2020s.

So what do the admittedly duller brains within Hampden's corridors of power do in the meantime? Well a good start would be for the SPL to declare that since Rangers are in liquidation, their membership of the SPL falls. There is already evidence that Duff & Phelps' pairing of Sooty and Sweep have failed to even keep up to date with the less-than-taxing standards of administration demanded of them by the SFA or SPL.

The accounts are not up to date, certain necessary pieces of paperwork have not been completed - ergo with "Old" Rangers dead and "New" Rangers failing to meet the SFA's paper work demands, then the "New" Rangers cannot as things stand compete in the SPL in season 2012-2013. Get Dundee in - now.

But, what happens as regards the newco? On the face of it, they ought to be asked to apply for the vacant place in SFL Division Three which has caused by the promotions in the wake of the oldco's demise. Dundee's elevation will leave a gap in the SFL Division One, which should go to Airdrie - the losing side in the play-off final; their Division Two place will then go to Stranraer, who lost the Division Two-Three play-off final, leaving the Division Three vacancy to be filled.

This ought to be done by invitation. Spartans could apply, ditto one or more Highland League Clubs, perhaps Gala Fairydean or Preston Athletic might fancy a go, although I don't see any of the junior giants such as Talbot, Irvine Meadow or Linlithgow Rose throwing their bunnets into the ring.

"New" Rangers will. It will then be a case of the SFL deciding: do we want those awfully nice Rangers fans trampling all over our grounds or not? In that case, £ signs will flash in front of eyes and "New" Rangers will be in.

Of course, this scenario overlooks the on-going saga of the SAF Appeals Tribunal's decision on the crimes of "Old" Rangers; the transfer ban was kicked into touch, so the tribunal has to come up with some new sanction, which will apply to the newco. This has to be a hefty one, to appease the wolves at UEFA and FIFA and, as I have said before on these pages - I don't see Zurich and Nyon being satisfied with anything short of suspension for at least one year.

This, actually, is the SFA's get-out-of-jail card. Accept "New" Rangers into membership, but, suspend that membership sine die - with a commitment to review at the end of the 2012-13 season, to see what has been done to de-toxify the Rangers brand, allow for the Big Tax Case to be determined and to see what steps have been taken to sort-out the football debts of the "Old" Rangers.

If sufficient steps have been shown to have been taken - "New" Rangers goes into SFL Division Three at the start of season 2013-2014.

Meanwhile, Scottish football will have a season to see how we get on without them and, just maybe, the necessary changes can be put in place - three governing bodies into one - fewer "national" league teams - better "district" leagues, with (finally) a Scottish pyramid in place and an emphasis on bringing-through good, young, skilled, Scottish players.

The cure will be difficult, at times painful and could be a lengthy one - but - it just might work in terms of Champions League, European Championship and Champions League and Europa League success, some years in the future.

It's (finally) Over

AS A child of the sixties, I think I know my pop music. I've always been a fan of Roy Orbison and one of the Big O's iconic numbers: "It's Over" is surely apt this morning; certainly the clearing-up has still to be done - and may take years - but, in effect, for Rangers, it's over, bang bang, you're deid, as we said during our games of cowboys and indians back in the day.

Another of my favourite sixties numbers comes to mind - "Heroes and Villains" by the Beach Boys. For in the case of the decline and fall of Rangers FC, we poor wordsmiths, who toil in the fields of sports journalism invariably look for heroes and villains, and in the case of the late Rangers FC and how they died, there are no heroes, but plenty of villains.

The list will be long, but at its head will be David Murray, whose reputation as one of Scotland's "great" business men will surely be trashed once all the details of his mis-management of the club are revealed. Then there will be Craig Whyte, the spiv/chancer/con man/crook/misguided dreamer (delete as appropriate) who took the club into administration; Duff & Phelps, the administrators who apparently botched the administration, the various Rangers' directors who failed to give the club direction during the Murray Years and the Whyte Months, the various managers - Souness, Smith, Advocaat, Le Guen, McLeish and McCoist - whose idea of managing was basically spend, spend, spend and to hell with where the money comes from. The various bankers who allowed the spending to get out of control, the fans who gloried in the days of: "for every £5 Celtic spend - we will spend £10" and whose "We Are The People" mantra encouraged the madness to continue.

One might even add HMRC to all this, perhaps if they had acted sooner, pulled the plug quicker, the damage might not have been as bad - but, that, like so much which has happened over the past season, has been pure speculation.

Even the "good guys" come out of it less-well than they might have. Alistair Johnson, the former Chairman is a high-flyer with IMG, one of the biggest players in corporate sport. IMG can put together deals which set-up multi-million dollar golf and other sports tournaments. As one of its main players, Johnson has connections amongst the money men of London and New York - yet he couldn't or maybe wouldn't put together a deal which might have saved Rangers. Nobody will ever convince me that there isn't, somewhere in corporate North America a sort of Rangers Fergus McCann, a genuine off the radar super rich "Bear" who could have come in and put a stop to this nonsense.

Nobody will furthermore convince me that Johnson couldn't have found that man and made it right - but maybe that's the son of a Rangers fan in me speaking.

Anyway - what happens next. Well, in the short term, very little. BDO will come in as official liquidators and they will take some time to do their due diligence, to go through the books, find out what assets there are and how best to use them.

The trouble is, in football terms, they don't have a lot of time. This is where the SFA comes in. That body now has to show real leadership,by knocking heads together and sorting-out the footballing side of Rangers, while BDO handle the money side. I can see no legitimate means whereby Rangers, even as a new company or "newco" can be allowed to continue in the SPL next season.

This brings us to the thorny question of status. The Celtic-minded, as they party on down in celebration of the demise of their bette noir have been shouting that 140 years of tainted history has just died. Let's look seriously at this. As I have said before Rolls Royce was started in 1906 by Messrs Rolls and Royce; it became a public company, owned by share holders; the company then took over rivals Bentley and diversified into aero engines as well as other forms of propulsion.

It was briefly nationalised and therefore owned by us - the British people. It was then taken over by Vickers Ltd and today while the engines division continues as a separate plc, the car-making side is split, with Rolls Royce owned by Volkswagen, who make Bentleys, while BMW makes Rolls Royce cars.

Yet, for all this, whether it was made by Rolls and Royce in Manchester, by the original plc in Derby or Crewe, by the Vickers-owned company or by BMW - to the general public, there is the perception of a continuation from the pre-1906 Royce cars, through the various Rolls Royces - Silver Ghost, Phantoms I to VI - to the Corniche to today's Phantom and Silver Wraith.

Only the small number of still bitter Clydebank fans cast doubts as to the legitemacy of Airdrie United, to the general public, because they play in the white strip with the red diamond, at "New Broomfield" or whatever the ground is called this week, Airdrie United is the continuation of the Airdrieonians of Hughie Gallacher, Bob McPhail, Ian McMillan, Lawrie Leslie, Paul Jonquin and so-on.

Thus it will with Rangers. For as-long as a team wearing light blue shirts, white shorts and red socks with black tops runs onto the field at Ibrox Park, in the eyes of the public there will be a line from Moses McNeill, Tom Vallance and "the Gallant Pioneers" via Nicol Smith, Neil Gibson, Alan Morton and Davie Meiklejohn, Bob McPhail, Jimmy Simpson and George Brown, Dougie Gray, Jerry Dawson, Brown, Young and Shaw, McColl, Woodburn, Cox, Waddell and Thornton, Shearer and Caldow, Baxter, Scott, McMillan, Millar, Brand and Wilson, McKinnon and Greig, McCloy and Jardine, Derek Johnstone, Davie Cooper, Butcher, Gascoigne, Laudrup, the de Boers and McCoist  and Durrant to whichever players are on the field.

I have no doubt that a properly managed Rangers, and here I mean management at board room rather than technical area level, can overcome present difficulties and rise again. However, I am equally certain that Charles Green is not the man to provide that level of management - to me he is as big a chancer, if not as rich a one as Messrs Murray and Whyte.

I don't know what will happen next. But, I am certain, the SFA now has to become heavily involved in Rangers. I would suggest that Rangers should be suspended from playing next season - if this means Division Three of the SFL becomes an 11-team league, then so be it.

All the many outstanding questions - double contracts? Lack of accounts? Illegal payments? These MUST be sorted out, something HAS to be done about the football debts and only when these matters have been properly dealt with, should Rangers, new or continuing, be allowed back into the game - starting in Division Three.

There might even be a case for those players and management team members who are still contracted to Rangers, being allowed to play in Division Three of the SFL next season, on a not-for-profit basis, with the team overseen by an SFA-approved management team. This would hold Rangers' position pending the resolution of the outstanding issues and would keep the many decent Rangers' fans who have been badly hurt - and their cash, inside Scottish football.

I know, this is a wee bit off-the-wall, but it could work.

But, for all these different owners

England - a Diversion in Troubled Times

I NEVER thought I would write this, but: thanks England. The entry of the Master Race into Euro 2012 has given us Scots something to focus on, to take our minds away from the over-riding issue in Scottish football in 2012 - the long, slow, lingering death of Rangers.

Ra Peepul may be history in something like 50 hours, or, Hughie Green's brazen effort to double his money may get the go-ahead via the CVA. Right now, we - the general public - don't know, and with this financial world split on what may happen at the creditors meeting, the experts apparently don't know either.

So, England's Euro-quest at least gives us some football to talk about. This time, it has been difficult to justify the Scot's normal stance on these big tournaments: ABE (anyone but England), simply because, for once, my dear friends in the English media haven't gone to the front line convinced it will be all over by Christmas and God for Roy, England and St George will carry the day. Come to think about, maybe it was the headline writers who were pushing for 'Arry all along? Gave them a chance to roll out their Shakespearean lines.

No, the attitude of the media cheer-leaders has been closer to that of the Tartan Army - the English are seemingly coming round to the notion: We may well be shite, but we're not quite ready to say we are - yet.

I felt the men in white were second-best to France yesterday - but, the got a draw. In fact, you might well ask: "Were you Scotland in disguise"? They did play a wee bit like us, they got the run-around from a technically-superior team, but, by dint of hard work and spirit, managed to get a draw.

I don't see England getting to the sharp end of the event - the last four, but, they could well make it to the quarter-finals, I don't see a lot between the four teams in Group D, so they may well survive. But, at least this time, not even Clive Tyldesley and Adrian Childs is as yet in full-on, volume 11 INGERLUND, INGERLUND, INGERLUND mode.

I CANNOT recall which talking head came up with it, but there was one nugget of truth amidst the torrent of words around the England game - when someone suggested that the proposal, which, naturally the SFA backs to the hilt, that future European Championship finals should be contested by 24 rather than 16 countries, would bring about a lot more dull games.

The reasoning behind this statement was simple, but true - there is a lack of quality. This is evident already, since there isn't an outstanding team in the 16-strong field in Poland and Ukraine. Certainly these are the opening skirmishes, but, let's look at the usual suspects.

As outlined above, the English have realised their squad is rather ordinary, particularly without Rooney for the two opening games. Germany is perhaps one tournament short of looking like champions-in-waiting. Italy is even further removed from being seen as potential winners, ditto Holland. Spain is perhaps one tournament past being special and could revert to type, flattering to deceive - a desription which could be given to the traditional "second-top shelf" teams, such as Portugal and France - while none of the "wild card" countries - Croatia, Denmark, Sweden - looks likely to stage a shock.

But, with no surprise failures to qualify, these are indeed the top 16 nations in Europe; of course from today's second round of games on, they could produce breath-taking game after breath-taking game and I would be left with egg on my face.

But, I feel, since there is barely enough quality in the 16 top teams to produce a consistently stimulating and entertaining series of games - what's the point in bringing in a further eight teams, thereby further diluting the already poor quality of football on offer?

The World Cup Finals are contested by 32 of FIFA's 200-plus member countries - 16%; this is fair enough. There is no way whereby the actual top 16% can be got there, since this would mean a tournament for European sides, plus the Brazilians, Argentinians and a couple of other nations - which would hardly be a World Cup.

The European Championships are contested by 16 of the 53 UEFA member countries, roughly one-third, and some of these countries are there as cannon-fodder. To increase that number to 24, or just under half of the membership, makes no sense whatsoever - it should not happen.

However, money talks - so it propbably will, where it would probably be better for football if the Euros reverted to being contested by the top eight nations. You never know, being further out in the cold, our noses pressed against the glass - might finally persuade the SFA to do something about the lowly state of Scottish football.

Messrs, Red, Whyte, Blue - and Green are taking a long while to die

STILL it drags on - Rangers have now taken longer to die than the entire cast of Reservoir Dogs, plus Mel Gibson in Braveheart; will nobody deliver the coup de grace?

How has it come to this? Why is it that shares, once considered amongst the strongest in the Stock Exchange are now in the possession of a bunch of spivs and wide boys? Please, somebody - HMRC, SPL, SFA, just kill them off and be done, there is no sense in dragging this thing out any longer.

MEANWHILE, life goes on and the Euros have kicked off. I watched both opening games on Friday and while the Spanish referee in the Poland v Greece game was little better than Craig Thomson or Willie Collum on an average SPL Saturday, he made his decisions and stuck to them. OK, you might argue about some of the cards and in particular the red one to the Greek, but, the Laws of the Game do not insist the referee is correct, merely that he gives his opinion and once he has given his opinion, the decision sticks.

Somebody ought to tell messrs Hansen, Lineker & Co that. I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that, amongst the BBC pundits, if you kill an opponent it's only a foul; hanging said opponent without a full jury trial merits a yellow card and lining-up your midfield and using them as a firing squad is, maybe a red.

Guys - the referee is the sole judge of fact - live with this.

Then we switch to ITV for the Howard Webb Show. Now I like the big South Yorkshire policeman, I think he's a good referee. He ought, perhaps, to have got his red card out early-on in the 2010 World Cup Final, but that one was a case of damned if he did, damned if he didn't and since he wasn't the one doing the kicking, I think we can allow him a bit of leeway.

I thought he did ok on Friday; he certainly made every effort to let he game flow and one of his advantages was as good a use of that often-overlooked example of refereeing deiscretion as I've seen in years.

But, while Webb had a good game, he wasn't as wonderful as ITV's Peter Drury made him out to be in another wonderful example of talking-up the English dimension, and ignoring everything else.

Russia looked good though, but, that said - it just goes to show how bad we now are that we couldn't beat the Czech's; and makes 4-6-0 even more of an abberation.

THE FA/BOA junta which is running the Team GB football portion of the UK's Olympic Games effort have, apparently, sent the long list of 35 players from whom the final 18 for the Games proper will be selected, to FIFA.

I sincerely hope there are no Northern Irish, Scottish or Welsh names on that list, or there could be bother. It is fairly common knowledge that the four Home Nations are lacking in true friends inside Sunny Hill, Zurich - the FIFA headquarters.

Certainly, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales do have some friends down the road at UEFA. However, the UEFA guys are somewhat distracted by events in Poland and Ukraine at the moment, so those enemies of the UK within the world body can perhaps make hay while the sun shines.

I spotted some months ago that, should the FA and BOA, as they seem determined to do, go down the road of selecting Olympics squads, male and female, which include players from all four of the Home Nations, then they would be breaching FIFA statute 8/iii. This says (briefly): "If England is picking the squad and they pick Northern Irish, Scottish or Welsh players without the written permission of the IFA, SFA and FAW, they are screwed - they have broken our rules".

I pointed this out to the FA, the BOA, the IFA, the SFA and the FAW, in writing. Not one of these bodies even acknowledged by missive. And I wasn't alone in doing this, others have made the same point. The three Celtic FAs have told the English, repeatedly: "We don't want you picking our players", but, apparently, the FA is going merrily along, backed by the BOA, who are insisting the two squads have to reflect all four Home Nations in their make-up.

I have pointed-out this breach of rules to various national newspapers, but, just as they ignored warnings about Rangers going into free-fall, so they have ignored this one.

Now, I do not for one moment, believe UEFA will want to chuck-out four of their oldest members, but there are those outwith Europe who crave the end of separate independent membership for all four, and who want a single UKFA - or FA -since they think we are all English any way.

But, where UEFA might play along with the Africans, South Americans and Caribbeans who want the four to go into one, is on the matter of the Home Nations' right to have four places on IFAB, the International Football Board, the body which oversees the Laws of the Game.

If Sepp Blatter could get his hands on say three of these and give one to a mate in South America, another to one of his African backers and one to perhaps the Asian confederation - he would cement, ever-more-firmly, his despotic control of the world game.

That's a prize worth fighting for and an own-goal such as a breach of statute 8/iii just might be worth taking advantage of.

You have been warned.

It's ABE time again

IT'S that time again - the Scots football fan has got himself into ABE (Anybody But England) mode, we're in our usual place - outside looking in - and the big summer tournament is about to kick-off. So, before the TV pundits get down to discussing the main topic of the Polanyd v Greece opener: just how will England cope without Wayne for the first two games? Followed by the supplementary question: should Rio have gone? How do we find escape from wall-to-wall Ingerlund, Ingerlund, Ingerlund - and that's merely Clive Tyldesly?

This year might be even worse, between Diamond Jubilee fever and Olympic expectations. After all, an "English" club did win the Champions League, "the lads" are under the command of an Englishman- none of these mercenary foreign johnnies, yes, hope springs eternal in the land of the three lions.

Of course, this time round, even the English media doesn't think they merely have to turn-up to collect the trophy, but, if England do get through their group, with Wayne restored, expect full-on England Expects rhetoric, 24/7 - until the inevitable failure.

So, how do we escape, or at least find relief. Well, can I suggest we all become Shotts fans for the next week. The boys from Hannah Park done good, performing Mission Impossible to beat Auchinleck Talbot and win the Emirates Scottish Junior Cup the other Sunday. They have since followed-up on this by making inroads into a dreadful fixtures backlog to secure promotion back into the West of Scotland Superleague's Premier Division. They and Glenafton Athletic will go up, all that needs to be resolved is which club will be promoted as champions.

The Glen have completed their league programme, Shotts still have three games to play and they need five of the nine available points to pip the Glen for the title. Tomorrow afternoon, at Hannah Park, they entertain Girvan in the first of these three games - which will be played inside the next seven days.

This one is, on-paper, a cracker, Shotts obviously don't want their title challenge to go down to the last match, so will wish to make home advantage count; but Girvan have something to play for too, in this their final league game. They go into the match in second-bottom spot in the Superleague First Division, with the bottom four clubs going down into the Ayrshire or Central League, dependant on where they are from.

If Girvan can beat Shotts, they stay up and Hurlford United will go down; even if they can get a draw, they will stay up, since both they and Hurlford will have 34 points and a goal difference of minus five, however, Girvan will have scored more goals and will go above Hurlford in the final standings.

Hannah Park is therefore, well worth a visit, to see some REAL, meaningful football tomorrow afternoon.



Rangers, like diamonds, are apparently for ever

THE Diamond Jubilee long weekend allowed me an opportunity to go away and forget about football for a time. This was a break I enjoyed, but, back before the lap top this morning, what do I discover? Plus ca change blah de blah.

Yesterday saw the SFA's annual meeting. I glanced through The Scotsman - still the best sports pages in Scotland and what did I find? For the firs time in what seemed like years, there wasn't a Rangers story in the paper. Not that the troubled Glasgow giants were entirely absent, much of the paper's preview of the agm was concerned with matters pertaining to Rangers.

Switch to scotsman.com, the website and which matter was most exciting the on-line cyber warriors? Got it in one - the continuing Rangers saga.

I wager there are some alleged members of the wider Celtic family who will perchance lose the will to live when, if ever, the Rangers saga ends. I can still see no outcome other than liquidation for the club. Nothing else adds up. But, if liquidation happens, or if, as seemse increasingly unlikely, Rangers do the Saturday morning matinee cliche and: "with one bound they are free", there will be a lot of people with nothing left to live for.

Maybe, just maybe, Rangers are too big to be allowed to fail - in which case, see my survival without losing too much face scenario of a few days ago. If they do fail, then the landscape of Scottish football will be changed for ever. However, even if some sort of compromise is cobbled together, which allows the club to continue, major earthworks on the fabric of Scottish football will have to be undertaken.

Interestingly, I noticed in this morning's Herald, a piece from my big mate Shuggie MacDonald, in the course of writing which, be took advice from some insolvency and tax experts - one of whom mentioned that he had been involved in a First Tier Tax Tribunal - you know, the guys who are handling "the Big Tax Case" against Rangers. This case concluded in January, 2011 and judgement was issued in August, 2011. The new season could well be underway before the 10,000 lb gorilla shits on Rangers - very interesting.

Of course, with Charlie Green's credibility - of which he never had much - waning by the day, the question is: will there still be a Rangers by then?

Speaking of Green's loss of cridibility - re-naming Murray Park!!! FFS - is that the biggest issue facing Rangers right now? Thought not.

THE Olympic Games football tournament kicks-off in seven weeks' time. Stuart Pearce, the team manager of the Team GB men's squad, is due to name his squad within the next week - the likelihood is it will be "Sir" David Beckham and 22 others and that Scottish input or interest will be minimal.

I have, of course, already warned ad infenitum about the illegality of Pearce's likely squad and of the threat to the independence of the four Home Nations - so don't blame me when the smelly stuff hits the fan.

However, following a posting by former SFA communications chief Andy Mitchell on the excellent SCOTTISH LEAGUE website, I dug out my old "Rothman's" for season 1971-72, the last in which a British men's team entered the Olympic Games football tournament.

They lost to Bulgaria in the pre-tournament qualifiers and didn't make it to Munich, while just one Scot - Albion Rovers' Bill Currie - was involved.

Of course, times were simpler then, the selected squad was strictly amateur, but I noticed that, prior to the two games with Bulgaria, Team GB played ten trial games between November 1970 and April 1971. The actual qualifying games were played on 24 March, 1971, at Wembley (Team GB won 1-0) and on 4 May, 1971 in Sofia (Bulgaria won 5-0).

 In all, 28 players were used in these ten games; only three of them - the aforementioned Bill Currie and the Queen's Park duo of Eddie Hunter and Ian Robertson were Scots, while, as far as I can ascertain from scant information, goalkeeper Grenville Millington was the solitary Welshman tried-out, while Distillery's Savage was the only Northern Irishman to get a look-in - interestingly the Irish Amateur international side of that year included a certain Martin O'Neill of Distillery in its ranks. Scotland were rank rotten that year, finishing bottom of the amateur Home International championship, so only having three players near the team was pretty good.

Compare those preparations: ten games, 28 players tried-out, with the shambles of 2012 - one game, pencilled-in for the week before the Games kick-off. It's a vanity project for the FA and, by the SFA not fully sticking-up for Scotland, we risk losing our international independence to the forces within FIFA pushing for a single United Kingdom FA. We are sleep-walking to disaster.

Time To Close The Doors - Temporarily

I FEAR the time has finally come for somebody within Hampden to call in Duff & Phelps and tell them - hand your ball back, you're not playing any more. While I admit I am largely working from a state of true ignorance and like everyone else reacting to leaks, statements and conjecture, I feel the time has come to close-down Rangers.

Here is a once proud club, reduced to impotency, with the supposed owner - Craig Whyte - deemed unfit to own it and with another potential owner - Charles Green - who like the previous owner - David Murray - is intent on purchasing the club using other people's money.

We don't know if Rangers FC owns its own ground, or if Whyte has transferred ownership of Ibrox to some other company based in the Cayman Islands or some other tax bolt hole.

We don't know if the club's better players will be playing there next season. We don't know if the money is in place to get the club through the close season. Sure, Duff & Phelps say the cash is there - does anyone out there still beleve a word that company's representatives come out with.

Indeed, given the allegations from the recent Rangers documentary on BBC Scotland and the interest being shown by the Insolvency Practitioners Association (IPA), will Duff & Phelps be able to see out the administration?

The answer lies in the hands of the SFA. After D&P's monumental own goal in going to the Court of Session to overturn the SFA's transfer ban on Rangers, Lord Glennie passed the ball back to is colleague, Lord Carloway and the SFA's Appeals Tribunal, the accompanying shout was apparently: "Hammer the bastards": Rangers are now looking at one of three options: one season's band from the Scottish Cup, suspension of SFA membership for a period or expulsion from the game.

Given Spartans were chucked out of the Scottish Cup for omitting a single signature, Rangers commiting a crime which the Appeals Tribunal said: "Was in their opinion second only to match-fixing in its severity", I think we can take it, option one is a non-starter.

No, I reckon Rangers will be suspended from playing for at least one season.

In theory, this will allow things to be sorted-out. The BTC (big tax case) result can come through, the IPA can - if they wish - get involved in Duff & Phelps and either clear them, or clear them out. I accept it will perhaps mean a longer wait for resolution, but, perhaps in the end, the time Rangers spend in suspension might be used to sort out a really tangled mess.

I would like to see, protocols put in place whereby a fans' buy-out could be achieved, with some long-term strategy for debt clearance and with, at the end, a new and better Rangers emerging.

We might loath them at times, but, in all honesty - while we will not miss a minority, can Scottish football really do without these thousands of Rangers fans and the money they put into the game?