Recovering Rangers eyes move to English league

[ian1964 10,532]

LONDON (AP) - Scotland's most successful football club is trying to attract potential investors with an eye on someday playing in the English Premier League.

 

Rangers, a 54-time Scottish champion, feels less loyalty to its homeland after being forced to start again this season in the fourth tier as punishment for a financial meltdown. And now the Glasgow club's new ownership believes an exit route from the Scottish leagues is becoming possible as UEFA explores changing cross-border rules.

 

"The SPL told us face-to-face, 'We don't want you, you aren't welcome,'" Rangers chief executive Charles Green said in an interview with The Associated Press ahead of the club's planned flotation on a London Stock Exchange market.

 

And a planned revamp of the Scottish Premier League and three professional divisions below could be Rangers' chance to escape. The overhaul was announced during the offseason just as Rangers was going into liquidation with tax debts exceeding $30 million.

 

"What we understand is that any restructuring will also revisit the taboo," Green said. "A bit like, 'Don't talk about the war to the Germans.' 'Don't mention Rangers and Celtic leaving Scotland.' It was always 'Shhh don't mention that.'

 

"I think the taboo of that is going to be lifted ... Scottish football without Rangers and Celtic might actually become more competitive within the remaining clubs rather than having these two monsters sat above them."

 

Rangers is due to float on London's AIM market by the end of the year, and Green has been trying to persuade financial institutions this week that the club has a realistic chance of playing in the English Premier League.

 

"As a football club, if Rangers were in the Premier League only Manchester United would be bigger," Green said. "Because Arsenal haven't got more fans than Rangers ... the fan base is so big."

 

But the barriers to joining the world's richest football league are also vast, with the English Premier League already resisting previous overtures from both Rangers and Glasgow rival Celtic.

 

"I don't believe the Premier League are hostile towards it because I think it's a generalization," Green said. "Speak to Manchester United. They are not hostile to Rangers joining."

 

But United disputed Green's claims.

 

"We are not in favor of it at all. We are against it," United spokesman Phil Townsend said. "Our view is it's the English Premier League and should remain that way."

 

Green, though, pointed to the financial advantages of United being able to play at the 50,000-capacity Ibrox.

 

"Why would Man United want to play Southampton? Why, when they could play Rangers? Sixty percent of the Premier League don't want Rangers. Of course they don't want Rangers," Green said. "Why would Southampton, Swansea, Wigan, Aston Villa? Why would any of them want Rangers or Celtic in their league. Why would they? It threatens their existence ... but if you asked the big clubs, 'Would you like Rangers?"

 

They would, according to Green. Even in Spain.

 

"Ask Barcelona and Real Madrid if they would like Rangers and Celtic in their league," Green said. "They definitely would. Why wouldn't Barcelona want to play Rangers home and away as opposed to playing Getafe. They would sell (those) games out."

 

In the presentation to potential investors, Green features a quote from Barcelona President Sandro Rosell highlighting the virtue of playing European rivals on weekends.

 

"What will change football over 5-to-10 years is this insatiable demand for the big clubs to play each other," Green said. "And this is not the insatiable demand from the west Midlands or from north London. This is the demand from the Middle East, Asia, the Far East."

 

Green is putting his faith in a UEFA experiment that could remove a key barrier to Rangers leaving the Scottish league. European football's governing body has allowed 16 women's teams in Belgium and the Netherlands to form a cross-border league in a three-year trial.

 

"The difficulty is that historically I don't think Celtic and Rangers would have been allowed to consider leaving Scotland," Green said. "What is now going to change things ... is now we've got this cross-border league for women."

 

Rangers' demotion means that Scotland's only internationally attractive fixture is off the calendar - the Old Firm derby against Celtic.

 

And at Celtic's annual general meeting on Friday, chief executive Peter Lawwell said he believed expanding leagues beyond borders could become a reality.

 

"We are committed to the SPL but nothing stays the same," Lawwell said. "There are initiatives in Europe. UEFA have opened their mind up to some form of regional leagues.

 

"I think they recognize the polarization between the top leagues and the smaller leagues in terms of media values. There are very early proposals that may look at regional leagues."

 

Green bought Rangers' assets for 5.5 million pounds ($8.7 million), and four months later he is already hopeful of raising about 30 million pounds ($48 million) from a flotation on London's AIM exchange. Fans are expected to invest 21 million pounds (about $33 million) in shares.

 

ROB HARRIS

Published: 33 minutes ago

___

 

Rob Harris can be reached at http://twitter.com/RobHarris

 

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_15877/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=4KDiALOg

[calscot 0]

"We are not in favor of it at all. We are against it," United spokesman Phil Townsend said. "Our view is it's the English Premier League and should remain that way."

 

A. Why is not call the the "English Premier League", it's the Premier League with whatever sponsor as a prefix.

 

B. What about that Welsh team in this English league?

[calscot 0]

The thing is that with the SPL something we want to avoid and having to play in the lower leagues in order to get back to the top, why not just start in the Conference if they'll have us...

 

It's a long road to the Premier League and even getting to the Championship is not easy (just ask MK Dons) but I think we will have the resources, the support and the sheer bloody mindedness to do it within a decade.

 

We may miss some years of European football but we'd be playing teams we haven't played before instead which with the way things are going would be more enjoyable than a future of entering Europe from a moribund Scottish game that will mean we will struggle against less than glamorous opposition and get out played and beaten by the glamorous ones.

 

I'd rather finish 6th in the Premiership and take their £75m in TV money to build a team capable of winning it than be in the CL qualifiers with a total turnover of half that and pray you get to the league stage to prop up the table and bank £15m.

 

Two games against Man U, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool would compensate if we didn't qualify for Europe. Even games against Newcastle, Sunderland, Everton, Aston Villa, West Ham and Spurs would be a box office hit.

[the gunslinger 3,366]

it is the epl isnt it?

[Zappa 0]

The thing is that with the SPL something we want to avoid and having to play in the lower leagues in order to get back to the top, why not just start in the Conference if they'll have us...

 

It's a long road to the Premier League and even getting to the Championship is not easy (just ask MK Dons) but I think we will have the resources, the support and the sheer bloody mindedness to do it within a decade.

 

The club should have applied to join the Conference immediately after the other SPL clubs effectively booted us out and left us without a league this summer, but the new owners missed the boat.

[simplythebest 0]

"We are not in favor of it at all. We are against it," United spokesman Phil Townsend said. "Our view is it's the English Premier League and should remain that way."

 

A. Why is not call the the "English Premier League", it's the Premier League with whatever sponsor as a prefix.

 

B. What about that Welsh team in this English league?

Because England is where football started, hence why the don't need to call themselves the 'English FA'.

[54andcounting 0]

They should call it the "Barclays English with Some Welsh but Definitely No Scots Premier League."

[simplythebest 0]

The welsh teams thing is pretty easy to answer in that they've been there from the beginning.

[UCF2008 0]

Green needs to stop opening his mouth and letting his belly rumble. In that statement he not only makes himself look foolish by naming a supporter to our cause only to have them immediately shoot down the notion, but has also managed to cause offense to other clubs including Villa yet again.

 

I don't want to give Liewell any credit but if you compare the statements from the two chief execs on the subject it's embarassingly obvious which one has the better debating and no doubt negotiating skills.

[RANGERRAB 3,363]

Absolotely no chance us or them from the east end will ever get to the EPL. The English clubs wouldn't have us for a start. They've just signed a new, very lucrative TV deal and don't need us either.

I see Liewell was going on about European regional leagues today. Me thinks the Japanese General may be realising the folly of voting us out the SPL last summer and getting the other SPL stooge chairmen to do the same. Attendances at SPL games at the girodome will soon be in 4 figures if they continue as they are................

And Lemmon was saying it'll be hard to convince his players to stay in the SPL (or that's how I interpret it).

All not rosy in the SP Hell garden is it? Oh wait there's a BBC Alba SPL TV contract... they can but try I suppose