Graham clark - wonders whether the spl clubs have thought through rangers' punishment

[ian1964 10,626]

Sunday Express

 

GRAHAM CLARK WONDERS WHETHER THE SPL CLUBS HAVE THOUGHT THROUGH RANGERS' PUNISHMENT

 

 

CONTROVERSIAL: Last week's column provoked a strong reaction; DIVISION OF LABOUR: Where will Ally McCoist'side be playing this season?

THIS new-found morality in Scottish football is all very worthwhile and creditable, but I must admit it is such a departure from the norm that it has left me somewhat bemused.

 

Just when you think you have seen all our national sport has to offer, along comes a bout of sporting integrity.

 

My column last week kicked up a veritable storm as readers and, indeed, some club officials piled praise on my cynical view of that latest in-phrase in the game - sporting integrity.

 

It should be said, however, that many more took issue with my opinions!

 

But Scottish football is all about opinions and certainly not integrity.

 

At the risk of flogging a dead horse it's time to re-visit this vexed question after another remarkable week.

 

SPL clubs, who through history have never really listened to their fans until the threat came that they might withhold season ticket money, fell over themselves to vote Rangers out in midweek, bleating all the while about the need for sporting integrity to prevail over all else. Well, apart from money, that is.

 

It is hypothetical, of course, but it's fair to surmise these clubs might well have allowed the Gers back in, albeit with sanctions, but for the intervention of their supporters.

 

But it appears they are keen to get the Ibrox side into some kind of second tier so they might get their hands back on real cash again in just 12 months' time if Rangers were to gain promotion back to the SPL.

 

But this desire to hand the Gers a year-long punishment exercise, then get the Ibrox cash circulating once more in the SPL could come horribly undone if SFL clubs decide the Third Division is where Ally WATTIE CHEUNG McCoist's team belong. Then it will be a minimum of three years before Rangers return to the top flight - no guarantee about that timescale either - and by then it's entirely conceivable the landscape of the game here will be devoid of at least a couple of the clubs who made the midweek decision in the first place.

 

A few of the SPL sides are operating so close to the breadline they should be sponsored by Hovis or Warburtons.

 

And if elephants have long memories, how about bears? The Motherwells, Dundee Uniteds, Hibs, Hearts, Aberdeens etc who have always relied to an extent on cash from visiting Old Firm fans may find that whenever Rangers return, their supporters might just think twice about making the turnstiles twirl at Tynecastle or polishing off the pies at Pittodrie.

 

I wonder if these chairmen and officials have taken the boulders off their shoulders long enough to seriously analyse all the consequences, because to claim sporting integrity has been behind all this is to say Jack the Ripper was innocent.

 

Many of the things these clubs have done in the past don't really qualify them to occupy the moral high ground.

 

And if, heaven forbid, any of their clubs goes to the wall in the coming months or years I just hope they are as quick to stand up and take the rap for their part in the downfall.

 

Many have themselves been involved in an awful mix of mismanagement and mistakes through the years, and if that sounds a bit like how it's been at Ibrox, then, as they say, if the cap fits...

 

It has all been a thoroughly unedifying spectacle from back on February 14 when Rangers went into administration after David Murray and Craig Whyte's follies finally came home to roost.

 

Since then, the Gers have been a veritable shambles as they have stumbled from one crisis to another, seemingly without pausing for breath. It has not been a pretty sight.

 

But equally stomach-churning has been the all-too-obvious desire of clubs and their fans to exact a measure of revenge through jealousy, spite, bigotry, foolishness or simple downright badness.

 

I said it last week and I'll say it again - very few chairmen, chief executives or leading officials of SPL clubs in this country can hold their heads high.

 

Now, unfairly, they have dumped the onus on what to do next on the SFL clubs and plenty of their chairmen have focused on integrity as well, despite the fact they couldn't organise a stag night in a brewery, far less run a football club properly.

 

Still, it might as well be someone else's turn now, because everyone must surely have had a bellyful of the SPL clubs' so-called integrity.

[andy steel 0]

Would have been a lot more useful some months ago! Bit late now.

[Blue Moon 1,191]

Sums up my feelings pretty well, unfortunately for us it is too little, too late. When all of this is over and the post mortems begin, the media have a lot to answer for. I am in despair that they are not giving the SFA and SPL the same treatment that they gave us. Yes, it is the substance of this article but what about the rest of them? They should be ripping them apart, but then I am deluded because they don't have any integrity.