Wings Over Scotland

As we predicted a few days ago, Sevco Scotland Limited has accepted the SFA’s condition of a 12-month transfer embargo in return for the company being allowed to take over the Association membership of the old Rangers Football Club PLC. In a novel twist, though, the SFA will not enforce the sanction until AFTER the closure of the summer transfer window on September 1st, allowing the Ibrox club to sign new players for the next six weeks, despite the embargo having been imposed in May.

Despite some of the wilder conspiracy theories circulating on the internet in recent days, the agreement was always going to happen, although we’re a little surprised (only a little, mind) at how blatantly the SFA has gone easy on the club – with over 40 players available to manager Ally McCoist even with the embargo in place, the deferral makes a mockery of the notion of punishment.

(An alert reader points out to us that the club will also be able to sign players, albeit briefly, in next summer’s transfer window, because a quirk of the calendar means it’ll be open for a day after Sevco’s embargo expires. There’s nothing to stop “Rangers” negotiating transfers next summer, then doing all the actual signings on September 2nd, so the punishment only really applies to the January 2013 window. In effect, rather than a 12-month ban it’s actually a four-week one.)

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There are, we’re certain, some twists to come yet in the “Rangers” story. But while we’ve been able to pretty clearly identify and understand the motivations of all the concerned parties in events to date (and our assessments and predictions have accordingly almost always been bang on the money), we’ve finally run into a logical roadblock where we just can’t make sense of anything.

Because we can no longer for the life of us figure out what the SFA is playing at.

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Charles Green’s new football club, currently registered under the name Sevco Scotland Ltd, is scheduled to play its first ever competitive game on July 28th, away to Brechin City in the Ramsden’s Cup. Three days after that, on July 31st, a meeting of the shareholders of Rangers Football Club PLC is due to take place.

The purpose of the meeting is to change the name of said Rangers Football Club PLC (the old about-to-be-liquidated Rangers) to RFC2012, in order that Sevco Scotland can then legally be renamed “The Rangers Football Club Limited”. (That name being too similar to that of the old Rangers for the two to be allowed to exist simultaneously.)

An interesting question therefore arises: What will be the name of the team that takes the field against Brechin on the 28th?

It can’t be “Rangers”. It has to be called something. What will it be?

We’re deeply flattered to be described as both a “key website” and part of “a renaissance in Scottish media” by the Guardian today, and to be mentioned in the same breath as such esteemed and high-quality entities as the Orwell Prize-winning Rangers Tax Case blog, the vibrant all-club news site/forum Pie And Bovril, the forensic and authoritative Random Thoughts Re Scots Law and more.

So we hope you’ll bear with us as we embark on what should be one of the very last few posts on the Rangers Fiasco. Events may overtake us as we write this, with the SPL meeting going on as we speak, but for the record we’ve rubbished the idea of an SPL2 being in any way feasible before and we absolutely don’t expect anything to have changed in that regard by the time we get to the end of this feature.

As things stand, and as we expect them to continue to stand for at least the next 24 hours, a football club of some sort and some name, owned by Sevco Scotland Ltd, will play in Division 3 of the Scottish Football League this coming season. More than that, though, it’s really not possible to say.

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The Clyde FC website is struggling to cope with the weight of traffic again after it released a statement on yesterday’s events. It took us ten minutes and many reloads to reach the page, so here it is for anyone who can’t get through. All emphasis ours.

“The club chairman attended a very sobering meeting of the SFL today where the 30 clubs voted on resolutions in the manner that they felt were, on balance, for the good of the game. Nobody had arrived at decisions easily and all had been placed in intolerable positions of having to decide without the basic information that would reflect good governance and having to speculate about unresolved matters around sanctions and membership of the SFA that other bodies had so far failed to deal with.

The outcome was never going to be a good one, but it was one of significant unity amongst the clubs, and even where clubs voted differently, it was not a divisive difference of views, everyone understood the complex mix of circumstances facing each club would never deliver unanimity of voting.

We reported this morning prior to the vote of all clubs that “Sevco Scotland Ltd will not be playing in the Third Division in the coming season”. Nothing heard today altered that opinion, in fact, it strengthened it.

For the good of the game we need to see the SFA accept the will of its members, who all voted today, as members of the SFL, in the clear knowledge that the SFA had it in its power to refuse to transfer SFA membership to Sevco Scotland Ltd should the vote support the entry of Sevco Scotland Ltd into SFL3.

We were asked to respect the confidentiality of those presenting today as only that agreement would allow them to be as candid as they were, we cannot therefore share what was said, however Mr Green left the SFL member clubs in no doubt about what he had been told by the SFA.

The SFL saw a level of unity and unselfishness that owes significant credit to the first division clubs who stated their intention to seek a 42 club solution and not to take part in a divisive alternative. This kind of unity if maintained will help deliver the change that the game so badly needs and the first division clubs in particular will merit.

If the SFA now act to support any process to undermine the clear views of the SFL members, who are also members of the SFA, then this club will join others in questioning those in leadership.

Sadly for our game, this saga is not over, teams cannot plan and that includes Rangers, who may yet be denied the opportunity to play football in SFL 3 because it suits the interests of others.”

Friday 13th July, 00.18am:

“Dorin Goian has personally assured Ally McCoist and Charles Green that he will stick it out with Rangers, according to his agent. The Romanian defender, who has been paid his full wages for June, is on his way back to Glasgow today to start pre-season training. Goian has continually pledged over the summer that he wants to stay with Rangers.

Even this week, the former Palermo stopper has had offers to move, says his agent Florin Manea. But he has revealed that Goian has communicated directly with manager McCoist and owner Green that he wants to remain at Ibrox — no matter what division they end up in. He said: “We have given Rangers our word that Dorin will remain and he will honour his contract.”“

Friday 13th July, 10.30pm:

“Dorin Goian has become the first Rangers player to walk away from the Third Division — just 24 hours after insisting he would stay no matter what. The Romanian defender had claimed he wanted to stay at Ibrox and even revealed he’d given a verbal assurance to both owner Charles Green and manager Ally McCoist.

But Goian, who is due to arrive back in Scotland on Saturday after an extended summer break, performed a spectacular U-turn as news broke of Rangers’ tumble into the Third Division broke. Goian said: ‘I am not playing in the fourth division of Scottish football — there’s no question of that.”“

A possible watershed: Annan Athletic have declared their opposition to admitting Sevco Scotland FC (change of name pending) to Division 1 of the Scottish Football League. By our calculations, that means that the Charles Green-owned company can NOT now obtain the 15 votes it needs to secure admission – 14 clubs are opposed, two have declared in favour, two are abstaining and 12 have not made their position known, leaving Sevco with a maximum of 14 votes.

Much water remains to pass under the bridge before Friday’s meeting, of course. The SFA, SPL and SFL might yet pull some desperate new trick with the rulebook, or increase their bribes to the lower-league clubs enough to turn some heads. But at the present moment in time, Sevco FC will be playing – at best – in SFL3 next season.

Dear Chairman,

You are, it appears, being placed under almost intolerable pressure to do Scottish football’s dirty work for it. You’ve been handed the responsibility for dealing with a farcical mess of a situation despite having had no part in creating it. You’ve been threatened, cajoled and bullied into doing what the SFA and SPL didn’t have the guts to do for themselves. Over recent days you’ve been fed a great deal of misinformation, scaremongering and outright abuse designed to intimidate you into going along with a course of action that undermines every principle of sporting integrity.

I understand, however, that as chairman your job is to take hard-headed business decisions in your club’s interests, rather than to uphold lofty ideals even where doing so would lead your club into bankruptcy. So I hope you’ll consider the following facts before you decide how to vote at the SFL’s Special General Meeting on July 13.

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It’s becoming impossible to keep track of all the lies, disinformation, smoke and mirrors surrounding the Rangers fiasco at the moment. We’ll try to update this page with at least the more egregious ones as they arise. Let’s get started.

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For any of you sick of football talk (to be honest, that includes us) and questioning this blog’s oft-stated belief that the fate of Rangers FC (IL) and the fate of the independence campaign are intertwined, we attach below the minutes of the Rangers Fans’ Fighting Fund meeting held earlier this week at Ibrox Stadium. As far as we’re able to ascertain they’re genuine, and we thank the alert reader who sent us the link. The entire document is below, but we’ll highlight the relevant passage right here:

“A representative from Denny then informed the panel that he had four reasons why we should go into Division 3. First he believed it would test Charles Green resolve; secondly he believed it would show the benefit of Auchenhowie and allow the management team to gain experience. Third, it would galvanise and unite the Rangers support, and lastly it would allow us to move on and concentrate on defeating the SNP’s fight for independence.”

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Sky TV has somewhere in the region of 1 million subscribers in Scotland, of whom approximately 50% will also be Sky Sports subscribers.

Assuming all subscribers, both Sports and non-Sports, have the most basic package available (£21.50/month without Sports, £42.50/month with), that means Sky’s gross domestic-viewer revenue in Scotland is roughly £32m/month, or £384m/year.

The deal Sky signed with the Scottish Premier League for live broadcast rights over the next five years will see it pay the SPL around £1.3m/month, or £16m/year.

Should Sky pull out of the TV deal entirely in the event of Sevco Rangers FC being placed in SFL3 (or worse), and some subscribers cancel their service – either in anger or simply because it no longer includes Scottish football – the proportion of Scottish customers leaving which would lead to Sky making a net loss is just over 4%.

If we restrict ourselves to Sky Sports subscribers alone, and assume that they only cancel their Sports package (keeping their other channels), the figure is 13%. Or put another way, if Sky completely abandon Scottish football they need to still hang onto almost 90% of their Sports subscribers in Scotland in order not to lose money.

Simplified, obviously. Just thinking out loud.

We’re sure yesterday was a trying day for SFA chief executive Stewart Regan. Indeed, on the basis of the evidence you’re about to read below, it’s sent him stark raving mad. It’s a story which appeared briefly on the Scotsman website, only to vanish again minutes later. (EDIT: It’s back now, slightly edited where Regan claimed the Scotsman had misrepresented his position – most noticeably in the opening paragraph – and boasting a new and slightly less apocalyptic headline.)

It’s several steps past the sober, measured impartiality that might be reasonably expected of an administrator, some distance beyond outright dereliction of duty, and even wildly-irresponsible lunacy is just a tiny dot receding fast in the rear-view mirror as Regan hurtles off into the distance, towards the edge of a cliff.

Try as we might, we cannot see how he can possibly now remain in his position until the weekend and still have the universe make any sense at all. Judge for yourself.

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