andy steel

The countries we are holding up as examples have a tradition of social democracy; Spain and France, in the periods mentioned, were further to the left than that. I can't see any chance of Scotland, or the UK, embracing that sort of culture. It's one of the downsides to Mrs Thatcher's revolution, the concept of instant return on your investment. An idea like investing and getting a return 30 years later isn't going to fly in Britain anymore. Sorry about the politics but I think we ought to be clear that, while these examples are the perfect ones for us to follow, in Britain it simply will not happen for cultural reasons. Not now, and not in the future. So if we're stuck with what we've got, the only alternative has to be a generation of coaches who don't buy into the cosy merry-go-round of clubs/media. Sorry to be gloomy, but I can't see it.

Quality analysis. Well said, that man.

Who is McGuire from Phoenix Honda?

I don't think there's going to be a Rangers next season, GA. We may be able to stagger from the wreckage in season 2013-24, but the way it looks I doubt if we'll be at the table next year. With that in mind, I seriously want to avoid Green's strategy - I don't think it is ethical, fair, or honest, but more importantly I don't think it will work. If he goes ahead, we'll be back in square one before you know it.

There are countlesss European laws under which FIFA could be challenged. The only trouble is, whoever does the challenging will be thanked by the same clubs who will stand by and let it go to the wall as punishment. Football people really are the worst of the worst. This week, the chairs of two SPL clubs have openly said Rangers have acted dangerously by the outrageous act of using the law of the land. This kind of warped, perverted thinking is beyond me, but I suppose it accurately sums up the mindset of the people who run fitba clubs. Craig Whyte is not the only crazy owner in these parts, it seems. I'm totally disillusioned with the game.

Seems fair enough.

You feel that if we were bringing through two or three quality players every year or so, but thought they may struggle with the demand for success from the stands, we'd be sending them out to diddy clubs a la Charlie Adam at St Mirren. Our loaned out players haven't shown anything at all afaics. I don't think Murray Park has been that bad overall. And I also don't think we should change the name. Stalinist air-brushing out of history the bits you don't like is the surest way to make the same mistakes over and over again. The catastrophe of Murray must never be forgotten; we should buy new gates, with 'Murray Park' in sixty foot high red letters above them.

They're not considering the case. It is the punishment to be levied that is under review; I doubt if any of us think we ought to avoid punishment altogether! I agree with GA. Chuck us out. We need a massive shakedown in football, Scottish and European, and it will take something seismic like this to make it happen. Revolution!!

A shame Alan's wizardry doesn't extend to calling the RFFF and seeing if they can help him out with what is, relatively, a small amount. Easier to bitch in the papers, I suppose.

Ugh. Enough to make you go back to the SFA and ask them to reinstate the transfer ban.

I may be trying to be too smart-alecky here - but I read that as 'Dear Mr Daly, here's where you were way wrong. A wee apology will do, failing that we will see you in court.' It's like an offer to meet, maybe not halfway, but 70-30.

Odd one out, here. I'd like to see Regan go, but of his own volition and because he's made a balls up of everything he's touched since moving north. I just ain't into actively trying to get people sacked, even people like him.

Well, they're not going to as long as there's a pro league in Scotland.

Only way that's going to happen is if we have no professional league in Scotland...and if that happened, we'd we down south like a shot as well. Seems a long shot to expect every professional club in the land to fold, though.

In fairness, Lawwell is doing a first class job for his team.

Why does Gilmour think it is Rangers who have gone to the courts? Does he not know we are run by administrators?

I always had this thought, that if we bought some land immediately over the border we could fling up a stadium and start at the very bottom of English football. Expulsion might just force us to! There ought to be some farmers in Northumbria or Cumbria or somewhere who would value a couple of million in their bank. Imagine it, Rangerstown. All the shops that would open up around the ground. Year Zero! And we get away from them!!

Been a bit stunned at how Traynor has covered the whole shambles. I never thought I'd consider him balanced and sane.

In between ploughing through my university textbooks, I've been trying to get through a most interesting but difficult book called 'The Poor Had No Lawyers' by Andy Wightman. In it, he examines land ownership in Scotland and how those who possess land came to do so. It's fascinating but grim reading; an initial impression is that throughout the middle ages,and, amazingly, right up until 1974, those with power simply seized ground then established their right to it by framing the law to suit themselves. A land grab, basically. Such land as was held in common by local communities was redistributed to existing elites through the establishment of the Burgh system, resulting in the vast estates owned by single families we see today, all made fit and proper by a legal system designed to facilitate such shady dealings. I certainly knew that there was only a thin justification for land ownership passing down through centuries of ownership by the same family, but I was unaware of how they manipulated the legal system to give a sheen of respectability to what was fairly blatant theft. Might was right. I like to think that we live in more enlightened times. Should we have recourse to the law today, I would hope it would be available regardless of ability to pay and without fear of reprisal for daring to do so. This seems a bit of a utopian view this morning, in light of FIFA's anticipated wrath descending upon us for having dared to use the law in our defence. I remain optimistic; I think FIFA have asked the matter to be taken out of ordinary courts and returned to a footballing one. From what I can see, this has happened; end of story, you'd think. Well, maybe not so fast. A failure of the SFA and/or FIFA to punish us with fines, suspensions, turning to pillars of salt etc. will be greeted as yet more proof of a vast Europe wide conspiracy to 'let us off with it'. That this ignores all existing and ongoing punishments I don't have to remind you; but we're not dealing with logical people here. That's not so bad - sport, after all, is an escape from the everyday, so why bother bringing logic with it? Clive James, in his memoir 'May Week Was in June', wrote that 'obsessions are what we have instead of normaility'. He was referring to the movies, but football is no different. If, though, we take that escapism to mean the law of the land can be ignored or, worse, carry with its use the threat of punishment, we have gone too far. Just as some thespians appear to inhabit an alternative moral universe - not least Clive James himself, at least in his early years - it seems some sports fans and bodies have left the real world far behind and hurtled headlong through the looking glass. Lewis Carroll, indeed, would probably have rejected FIFA as a character on the grounds that it was too outlandish even for Wonderland. In the year 2012, it seems inconceivable that an individual, bodies or bodies can be threatened with sanction for taking recourse to the law. Consider someone other than ourselves for a moment. What right would FIFA have to deny Motherwell a place in Europe this season on the grounds that a third party, namely us, has taken legal action against the SFA? Even the most corrupt Norman Baron would have had to think long and hard before coming up with that level of disproportionate injustice. Yet the outcry has begun, with emails to FIFA from the usual suspects and articles in the papers about what may or may not happen. We will be punished by the SFA, again, of that there's no doubt; whether we survive or not remains to be seen. But to be punished by FIFA, or for others to be punished due to our actions in the courts, is a step far too far. It must be fought tooth and nail. The laws that allow you to go to work this morning, or get your messages in, did not appear ready made out of the mist one day. They had to be bitterly wrung from those who saw the law as nothing more than a means by which they could protect their own interests. It is slightly incredible that in this day and age a body exists which operates along this principle; it is less incredible that such a body, used to absolute power, should be as corrupt and shoddy a gang as operated in the middle ages. If it falls to Rangers to destroy the flabby, flaccid nest of graft that is FIFA, so be it. Having taken the initial step, Rangers must be braver than they have ever been in my lifetime. They must be willing to stand fast against threat of sanction, and withstand the pressures that will inevitably be brought to bear upon them. Regardless of the reasons it came about, taking on FIFA and debagging them of their ability to ignore the laws of Scotland, the UK and Europe would be the most noble act in the history of football. There is certainly the prospect of anarchy, as clubs take to the courts over the most trifling of matters, but there are mechanisms in place to stop frivolous cases coming before the law and football related cases would be no exception. Do we have the leaders at the club at the moment to follow such a course? We don't even have an owner! It's ironic that, at the a time when we don't really exist as a body, being in administration, we may have started on the most important fight in our history.

I admit, says the mhedia. But Wilson of the Herald is, apparently, level headed enough to seem credible.

"And a spokesman warned: “In such a case, FIFA will ask the Member Association to take action so that the club withdraws its request from the ordinary courts." Lucky the request has been sent back from the ordinary courts to the SFA's kangaroo one, then, isn't it? How can they possibly not have noticed this? Really, what a load of nonsense. There's more than enough meat in this story, surely, for the Record to fill a dozen pages without resorting to febble attempts at scaremongering.

" If successful, Rangers will exit administration on 12 July." It's a conspiracy, I tells ya! edit: no fan of the OO, but this would be a supersweet twist of the knife for the haters.

Problem is, GA, he appears to be still trying to cobble together funding. At this stage in the proceedings, that's pretty worrying.

Far, far too many unanswered questions. I can only view Green with the deepest suspicion. In fact, having tried to get my head around all this, I'd be very surprised if Mr Green is able to complete this process.

This same thought occurred to me while watching that. well, they have set out their stall pretty clearly in the last five years: anything RFC connected is unacceptable in the game anymore. I didn't actually think they would go to the extent of killing the whole game in their attempts to shaft RFC, but plainly I underestimated the level of their stupidity.