By Andrew Warshaw
March 5 – The idea of the two Glasgow giants abandoning Scottish football and being integrated into the English league has once again been raised – this time by Rangers chief executive Charles Green.
UEFA doesn’t take kindly to clubs joining other domestic leagues but Green stressed that Rangers and Celtic would only be copying Welsh clubs Cardiff and Swansea who could both be playing in the English Premier League next season if Cardiff are promoted.
Despite Rangers currently playing in the fourth tier of the Scottish game after their humiliating cash and demotion crisis, Green said he believed that the two big Glasgow clubs should be admitted to the English game – although not straight into the Premier League – and leave their junior sides to play in Scotland.
“The parents would play in a different league, I believe that would be England,” said Green, when asked where Rangers saw themselves in five years’ time. The alternative for Rangers would be a place in any cross-border European league, he added, a remark UEFA are bound to take exception to.
The idea of the so-called ‘Old Firm’ clubs switching to south of the border has been rejected in the past. Although bringing in the crowds, it would inevitably lead to two English teams being squeezed out of whichever division is involved. Rangers still draw crowds of 45,000 and have recently agreed a new five-year kit supply deal with German sportswear company Puma.
Meanwhile, Scottish Football Association chief executive Stewart Regan has urged a line to be drawn under the recent saga involving Rangers. Last week a commission delivered a verdict that no sanctions other than a fine should be levied to punish the old club for non-disclosure of payments. The commission’s verdict sparked angry debate and there have been renewed calls for the resignation of high-ranking officials including both Regan and Scottish Premier League chief executive, Neil Doncaster.
“There’s been an awful lot of animosity and ill-will expressed,” said Regan. “When you look at the bones that are being picked over, it’s not particularly helpful. If we were as good at promoting and growing the game on the field as we are at picking over the bones and the negative issues and the animosity and the conspiracy theories, we would be really world class.”
Regan admitted it was highly unlikely any of the fine imposed on Oldco Rangers would be recovered but added: “The whole focus for Scottish football over the last 12 months has been about doing what’s right for the good of the game. It’s not about trying to find scapegoats to take responsibility for what’s happened in the last 12 months.”
“It was an incredibly difficult situation where you have a club the size of Rangers getting into financial difficulties and, if the authorities hadn’t fully investigated the situation, and that situation involved a number of matters including bringing the game into disrepute and a number of then unknowns which involved tax matters and EBTs, if they hadn’t been treated seriously and fully investigated then the same people who are criticising the leadership now, would be criticising the leadership for not taking things seriously enough.”
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