It's Chico time

CELTIC legend Charlie Nicholas believes Rangers must be DUMPED into the Third Division.
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The ex-striker has urged Hampden top brass not to hesitate in delivering the harshest punishment possible on his former Old Firm rivals.

Nicholas knows relegation would put an end to Old Firm games and shake Scottish football to its foundations.

But the 50-year-old, now a TV pundit, says the Ibrox club MUST be cast out.

He said: “Rangers should be sent all the way to the lowest division and ordered to work their way back up.

“They don’t deserve to remain in the SPL. They don’t deserve to walk away from something like £70million of debt and carry on as if nothing has happened.

“It will be SCANDALOUS if they get away with it.

“I’m fairly sure my views won’t go down well with the Rangers support. I really couldn’t care less.

“I’ve never been one to hold back in my criticism of a club or a player if I believed it is deserved, and the Ibrox club more than deserve everything that is coming to them. This is a club which has lived beyond its means for a long, long period while others have had to play by the rules.

“Why should they be allowed to leave all their debts behind and start again as a newco without further punishment?

“What about the small businesses who might go to the wall as a result of Rangers not paying them what they are due?

“So, I can say what most people involved in the game in Scotland feel, but can’t admit freely.

“Rangers deserve everything coming to them and definitely shouldn’t be treated with kid gloves.”

SPL top brass debated the issue at a high-level summit at Hampden yesterday.

They’ll meet again next month for the crucial vote on whether the newco Gers can return to the SPL.

Nicholas said: “Allow me to go back to my days at Celtic when the club were struggling badly.

“Under the old board there was no money, the club was right up against it.

“When I think back to those times it was horrible for everyone involved — the players, the staff and the supporters.

“At the same time, Rangers were spending like it was going out of fashion.

“I remember playing against an Ibrox side that boasted Brian Laudrup and Paul Gascoigne.

“At the time, like most people, I wondered how the hell they could afford such players.

“Now, with more facts available, they clearly couldn’t.

“In a bid to continually fund big-name signings, Rangers were effectively signing cheques they couldn’t cash.

“David Murray was the man to blame for that. His ego got the better of him.

“There is no one who can criticise Celtic for the way they recovered from the dark days.

“I was there when we were signing the likes of Wayne Biggins and Martin Hayes — and no disrespect to those lads — but it was all the club could afford.

“The recovery was a long, painful process but it was done within the rules — and it was done with dignity.

“The same can’t be said about Rangers. Where is the dignity in leaving a wake of financial destruction and threatening every other top-flight club in the process?”

Nicholas blames Gers’ spectacular downfall on Murray and Craig Whyte.

He said: “Whyte took over from Murray and after the club failed to qualify for the Champions League the roof fell in.

“However, it would be wrong to say he is solely responsible. The slide started under Murray’s reign.

“The administration process has been a complete and utter shambles.

“But we are now at a stage where Charles Green is in control and a consortium led by Walter Smith is trying to force him to sell to them.

“However, it is the outcome of the SPL vote which is the most important thing.

“Rangers need an 8-4 vote, of which they can cast a vote themselves, to keep them in the top league.

“For me, they should be booted out. They broke the rules, ran up incredible debts and the Third Division is where they should go.

“That is not me talking as a Celtic fan. Listen, as the Celtic supporters know, I’m not slow to have a go at my team when I think it is deserved.

“But what I’m saying is what most football fans outside Rangers think, not just Celtic fans but the ones who follow Aberdeen, Dundee United, St Johnstone, Hibs and the rest.

“So will most chairmen — but can they afford to vote Rangers out? Sadly, I don’t think they can.

“Celtic, too, are in a no-win situation. With Rangers not playing in the SPL it will hit hard financially.

“No Old Firm games, not as much demand for season tickets, not as much TV money, either.

“So that is why I won’t criticise Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell or any of the other chairmen.

“Unfortunately, if they decide not to vote Rangers out in the current financial climate it will be difficult for them.

“But Rangers, without doubt, should be heading to the Third Division.”

Read more: http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sco...candal-if-Gers-dodge-Div-3.html#ixzz1yEG9Dgq4

 

It should really be the rangers supporters who are asking for the league to maintain its integrity.

What is the point in winning 54 titles in a league without integrity? If they want the old clubs achievements to mean anything then it should be 3rd division.

 

Too logical Timmy

 

I agree with Charlie but he's still a dick.

 

Monday 18 June 2012

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Sorry seems the hardest word as Rangers create sense of victimhood
Michael Grant
Chief football writer

THE Rangers story has become the equivalent of a washing machine.

Everything whirls around in a cycle, sometimes slowly, occasionally at chaotic full pelt. And now and again things get lost. On the days when the tumble of developments is at its fastest, what would normally be a significant event can become submerged by the bigger stuff.

It happened four days ago when Rangers appointed Malcolm Murray as chairman. Usually that would be a big deal. This time it was met with a general "yeah, yeah, whatever -"

Murray could turn out to be a chairman whose reign does not cover a single Rangers match. If the Charles Green consortium is open to a quick sale – and of course it is, if the price is right – then the new regime could be gone before they've warmed the seats. Forces are being mobilised against them and crucially they have secured assets rather than goodwill. But even if there is a sense of transience and impermanence about Green, Murray, director Imran Ahmad and finance director Brian Stockbridge, that may be misleading. And they are hugely significant while they have control.

Right now these guys are Rangers (or The Rangers, or Club 12, or whatever). Green, in particular, is lobbying other clubs on Rangers' behalf, a process which could kill or preserve their hope of securing enough support to be voted into the SPL next season.

Even if Walter Smith's rival consortium succeeds in taking over the club, it will be Green and his associates who can shape its short and medium-term future by saying all the right things to the other SPL chairmen before voting day.

So far, pretty much everyone at Rangers has been guilty of badly misjudging how others see them. Murray, the newcomer, was at it, too, when he said his piece for the first time in the Sunday papers. This was his view on the SPL vote to allow the newco to join: "For me, there is no point in killing the patient while he's trying to recover. Do that and the whole ward dies. It would be like a mass suicide pact and that doesn't make any sense. Overdoing punishment would be a nonsense."

Even now – liquidated and broken, with new voices piping up on their behalf – the message is unrepentant and challenging. You can't survive without Rangers. Sky will disappear without us. Keep us out and you'll die next. We've been punished enough. Craig Whyte did all of this, take it out on him. Vote us in . . . or else.

Opinions are now so entrenched that Green's charm offensive towards other clubs – he began with Hibernian chairman Rod Petrie on Friday – may be pointless. The lack of public contrition and humility from Rangers has been a damaging constant throughout this saga. In the rush to distance themselves from Whyte they've never sounded like they've seen others as their victims.

Under Whyte they bought players and gave lucrative contracts they could afford only by not paying their taxes. They were in a league in which every club they played – and usually beat – did pay the revenue. Helped by Whyte's financial doping they got £2.6m for finishing second, almost a million more than Motherwell, who were third. No wonder it rankles other supporters.

It could do Rangers no harm to publicly acknowledge that they need others to help them now. Why not say they want to earn back the trust and respect of other clubs? Why not say they understand why other fans are angry, but that as a newco they're determined to reinvent themselves and fully commit to improving the SPL as a whole? That would be something.

Instead, Murray said: "It's like the French Revolution where people are demanding heads be cut off anyone involved in Rangers even though 99.9% are innocent. Further extreme punishments – and remember the club has already suffered hugely – would be an emotional reaction. Bitterness isn't good and, hopefully, people will look at compromise because it won't help any other club if there is less revenue from television or anywhere else about the game."

Murray overlooked the fact that so far there has not been a single SFA or SPL punishment which has materially affected Rangers at all, let alone been "extreme": they finished the season second, the same position they were in when 10 points were docked for going into administration. Their three-year European exclusion may feel like a punishment but actually it is merely a consequence of failing to meet Uefa entry criteria as a newco. The SFA's year-long transfer embargo no longer applies as things stand (although, of course, Lord Carloway will revisit the case and a strong sanction is expected). Liquidation, the stress and madness of the takeover saga, players being free to leave if they wish, being out of Europe: none of that is down to the SFA, SPL or any rival club.

The thing is, others do recognise that Rangers have suffered enormously from the chaos of Sir David Murray, then Whyte's mismanagement. The club has been humiliated and its historic timeline fractured. Good, innocent people at Ibrox and Murray Park have spent the past four months fearing for their jobs. Fans are being taunted about "losing" their history.

Yet the general lack of sympathy from outsiders has been profound, partly because Rangers – under Murray, Whyte, and now another Murray – have failed to sound sorry for anyone but themselves.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport...s-rangers-create-sense-of-victimhood.17896457

 

First time I have seen New Murray's statements.

"For me, there is no point in killing the patient while he's trying to recover. Do that and the whole ward dies. It would be like a mass suicide pact and that doesn't make any sense. Overdoing punishment would be a nonsense."


What a ludicrous and totally baffling analogy?

Unless the patients in his particular Hospital ward are symbiotically connected.

 

It is now starting to look like the SPL doesn't need "the rangers". Its "the rangers" that need the SPL.

No way they can sustain a healthy financial model in the 3rd division. Wonder why the press won't admit that?