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Gordon Waddell: In the greediest economy on the planet...


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I fail to see why so many Rangers fans are happy for us to give cash away to all of these clubs who so recently shafted us.

 

Systematically blackened our Club's name, shafted us for millions of pounds, tried to have us stripped of silverware and made sure we were punished more than any other club in Scottish football had ever been for an insolvency event.

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I fail to see why so many Rangers fans are happy for us to give cash away to all of these clubs who so recently shafted us.

 

We can get back at them by simply being successful. The question is whether we want to be part of a competitive league, or a shit league as we are now. We can be successful either way. Our income will still far outstrip any other side, except one.

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We can get back at them by simply being successful. The question is whether we want to be part of a competitive league, or a shit league as we are now. We can be successful either way. Our income will still far outstrip any other side, except one.

 

Will it make it competitive? I very much doubt it, given your last sentence, so all we are doing is giving away cash.

 

If we can be successful either way, we can do it by giving those who shafted us more money and making their life easier or less money.

 

It also seems crazy that we can't afford to get proper facilities for our disabled fans, our stadium is in dire need of a face lift and we are going to make another multi million pound loss this year and we still have fans wanting to reduce our income/increase our loss even further to try and improve those who hate us.

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I actually agree. Overlooking his clear hatred for a moment, the idea that every team should get an equal share is a good one. It would allow everyone to start on an even footing, and would put the good of the game over any individuals. The money is minuscule anyway -- how much are we really giving up? We would still have bigger revenues because of the ST sales, but the increased competition -- that's still a big 'if', no matter what happens -- could give us better TV deals etc.

 

If things are going to change, the ones that benefit the most have to take a hit for the good of the game. (We've almost been restructured towards lower income streams, so it could benefit us anyway!)

 

I think most people recognise that change is required, but I don't think an even split of "prize" money is the way to go (if that's what you're suggesting).

 

There has to be some incentive to move up the rungs of the league table as the season progresses otherwise you end up with a ton of pointless, dead rubber matches at the end of the season. Outside of the European qulification / promotion and relegation spots, there has to be something left to aim for in the last couple of months, and the best way to do this is for the prize money to increase as a club climbs the table. The "mid-table dead zone" would be even more of an issue if (as has been suggested) we moved to an expanded 16 team top tier - there would be no effective difference between finishing 5th and finishing 13th. That's not exciting or competetive.

 

The best work-around for this is probably the Belgian top flight which ends the season with an elaborate split and play-off system to decide Champions League, Europa League and relegation spots - but it is horribly contrived and IMHO pretty unsatisfactory.

 

My own personal preference (an idea which takes a hell of lot of explaining) would be for the smaller nations of Europe to form NFL style conferences. For example, a top flight of six clubs (or eight or whatever number is deemed most workable) from Scotland play each other twice, and play enough additional identical fixtures against teams from a couple of other national conferences (which would differ each season) to make a decent length of season. European qualification and relegation spots make up a high proportion of the 6 places in the conference - there's as good a chance as you can get of there being something to play for right until the end of the season. There would also be greater interest in matches (and therefore more sponsorship opportunity) as the games would draw viewers from more than one nation.

 

If you make the prize money for the second tier champions in each nation enough that they have a fighting chance of staying up, you've got an interesing and exciting competition year on year.

 

I admit that it's mnost probably too radical a suggestion to ever be taken seriously, but I genuinely believe it could be workable.

Edited by Thinker
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I fail to see why so many Rangers fans are happy for us to give cash away to all of these clubs who so recently shafted us.

 

Feck them all,they tried to kill our club,if ever there was a reason to boycot clubs then this is it,yet some fans want to keep feeding these clubs thier cash!

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I think most people recognise that change is required, but I don't think an even split of "prize" money is the way to go (if that's what you're suggesting).

 

There has to be some incentive to move up the rungs of the league table as the season progresses otherwise you end up with a ton of pointless, dead rubber matches at the end of the season. Outside of the European qulification / promotion and relegation spots, there has to be something left to aim for in the last couple of months, and the best way to do this is for the prize money to increase as a club climbs the table. The "mid-table dead zone" would be even more of an issue if (as has been suggested) we moved to an expanded 16 team top tier - there would be no effective difference between finishing 5th and finishing 13th. That's not exciting or competetive.

 

The best work-around for this is probably the Belgian top flight which ends the season with an elaborate split and play-off system to decide Champions League, Europa League and relegation spots - but it is horribly contrived and IMHO pretty unsatisfactory.

 

My own personal preference (an idea which takes a hell of lot of explaining) would be for the smaller nations of Europe to form NFL style conferences. For example, a top flight of six clubs (or eight or whatever number is deemed most workable) from Scotland play each other twice, and play enough additional identical fixtures against teams from a couple of other national conferences (which would differ each season) to make a decent length of season. European qualification and relegation spots make up a high proportion of the 6 places in the conference - there's as good a chance as you can get of there being something to play for right until the end of the season. There would also be greater interest in matches (and therefore more sponsorship opportunity) as the games would draw viewers from more than one nation.

 

If you make the prize money for the second tier champions in each nation enough that they have a fighting chance of staying up, you've got an interesing and exciting competition year on year.

 

I admit that it's mnost probably too radical a suggestion to ever be taken seriously, but I genuinely believe it could be workable.

 

You know what? You've convinced me. There does have to be an incentive for teams. I had assumed 'winning' would be the incentive, but perhaps cash is the only way to go. I'm not really interested in 'the rest shafted us and so we should just f*** them' argument. The league as a whole must come together to sort this out. Rangers being successful in a 'diddy' league does no one any good, least of all us. The Belgian example has some merits, but, as you say, is a little unsatisfactory. Perhaps just some tweaking though? Allowing more teams to realistically challenge for a European spot would provide incentive, and provide teams with more money through qualification. A European solution -- because there are a few teams throughout Europe who are in a similar situation -- could be very intriguing; it would certainly deal with most of the problems.

Edited by Rousseau
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You know what? You've convinced me. There does have to be an incentive for teams. I had assumed 'winning' would be the incentive, but perhaps cash is the only way to go. I'm not really interested in 'the rest shafted us and so we should just f*** them' argument. The league as a whole must come together to sort this out. Rangers being successful in a 'diddy' league does no one any good, least of all us. The Belgian example has some merits, but, as you say, is a little unsatisfactory. Perhaps just some tweaking though? Allowing more teams to realistically challenge for a European spot would provide incentive, and provide teams with more money through qualification. A European solution -- because there are a few teams throughout Europe who are in a similar situation -- could be very intriguing; it would certainly deal with most of the problems.

 

How will you measure the success?

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I'm not really interested in 'the rest shafted us and so we should just f*** them' argument. The league as a whole must come together to sort this out. Rangers being successful in a 'diddy' league does no one any good, least of all us.

 

It's obvious clubs like Motherwell and Hibs don't need money. They would rather have empty seats than sell tickets to Rangers fans.

 

Sharing out money to other clubs isn't going to prevent the SPL from being a diddy league. It's just going to give those small-minded idiots in charge of other clubs the opportunity to try and shaft us more. The other clubs are not going to come together with Rangers. They are continuing to demonstrate hatred for us.

 

We have seen in another thread that there are claims that we are perilously short of money and I wouldn't be surprised if that claim had a fair degree of veracity. We are not in a position to reduce any income stream and we are nowhere near a break-even position and all that reducing our income is going to do is drag us down to the "diddy" level of others and make European success of any degree less likely.

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