Rangers in Wonderland

[andy steel 0]

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.

[aweebluesoandso 290]

Good read Andy, we've always have had a feudal system in this country were might is right, the SFA is just another extension of that system. But and it's a crucial 'but' through the RFFF we have the funds to take the mighty on in the courts, if this ends up in the European court of justice i think they will have a more sympathetic attitude of the David versus the Goliath battle, where might is not always right.