I am neither shocked nor surprised by today’s ruling, just saddened.
Anyone who has read any of my previous posts will know that I have long since concluded that the football authorities in this country are corrupt beyond redemption and I began to see this as a microcosm of the corporate malaise infecting our society in general. Any faith I once had that justice would eventually be exacted on the ‘wrongdoers’ in the Rangers saga had gradually dissipated throughout this last year and I awaited, more in hope than expectation, the correct interpretation of the rules by the ‘unbiased’ legal minds from outside of the football arena.
Well, today these faint hopes have been dashed, permanently, with Lord Nimmo Smith’s ruling finally putting an end to any optimism for the salvation of our once beautiful game. In the opinion of the authorities and those with responsibility for ruining (sorry, running) our game, Rangers (in one form or another) were quite simply ‘too big to fail’. In one fell swoop, all clubs/companies (I can’t work out which is which anymore) have now been provided with a legal precedent to fall back on and an unprecedented licence to deceive, dupe and delude their customers. The SFA and the SPL have made a mockery of our understanding of the words ‘rules’, ‘sportsmanship’ and ‘fair play’.
We have debated endlessly on these pages about the interpretation, application and the ‘spirit’ of the rules of Scottish football and had, at least to my mind, reached a consensus that there was indeed wilful ‘cheatery’ going on at Ibrox for over a decade. The only issue that remained to be determined was whether or not they would ‘get away with it’. Well, now we all know the answer to that one. Sir David Murray got away with it, Campbell Ogilvie got away with it, Martin Bain got away with it, Gordon Smith got away with it etc, etc, etc, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. The problem for me is that the SFA and the SPL (and that includes my own club) conspired to allow the investigation just enough wiggle room for these corrupt individuals to ‘get away with it’.
Rangers, on the other hand, did not really get away with anything. Rangers FC are dead and their illegitimate offspring The Rangers languish in the bottom tier of our league system.
You could argue (as the eminent judge has ruled) that the use of EBT’s did not give old Rangers an unfair advantage on the field of play (even Bob Malcolm got one FFS!), however there can be no dispute that their use certainly gave the club an unfair financial advantage, allowing them to buy players they could not have otherwise afforded, which included buying star players from competing teams only to warm their benches and to stop their rivals from having them.
It is probably as pointless stripping ethereal titles from a deceased club as it is imposing a fine on a liquidated company anyway. All we were really looking for was a fleeting symbol of justice, small sign of fairness and equity in the application of the rules and laws of the sport. Instead we were treated to a good old-fashioned ‘slap in the face’ and a timely reminder of just ‘who’s boss’ around these parts. And do you know what ? we probably deserve it.
In my humble opinion, it’s our own fault (yes, you and me) for thinking we could change anything by battering a few postings onto this blog or by having reasoned debate with like-minded people whose opinions have never been and will never be listened to. We could’ve petitioned en masse to insist on application of the rules ‘without fear or favour’, but we didn’t. We could’ve held a rally outside Hampden to demand the resignation of the conflicted President and CEO, but we didn’t. We could’ve even lobbied or (dog forbid) boycotted our own clubs until the board complied with our requests to ensure everyone was treated the same, but again we didn’t. Most of us just opined, complained, argued and grumbled, smug in the certainty that ‘someone will do something about this’. Well they didn’t and neither did we.
To his eternal credit, Auldheid has spent a lot of time and effort trying to construct a ‘manifesto’ of sorts for fans of all clubs to sign up to demanding the primacy of ‘sporting integrity’ in Scottish football. Sadly, for us all, this has more or less fallen on deaf ears. Ignorance and apathy appears rife amongst the Scottish Football faithful, either that or they are all just stupid.
I also fear that the brighter brains on this forum may have actually supplied the authorities with some of the ammunition required to help them implement this fudge ruling. The use of the terms ‘Newco’ and ‘Oldco’, for example, which first arose on RTC, have become widely used by the SFA, SPL and the mainstream media in order to confuse the actual status of The Rangers FC and allowed the notion of an ethereal ‘club’ existing outside the bounds of legal culpability to be perpetuated to the ignorant masses. Even Lord Nimmo Smith used these terms frequently in his final judgement.
In the end, everyone who financially supports the SFA or any club in the SPL has, up until now, unwittingly contributed to this fiasco. To continue to do so is to willingly participate in full awareness and knowledge that it is corrupt. If you know that the opposition don’t play by the rules and yet you continue to play by these same rules – you are simply asking for your own demise. This was never just about football rivalry, this was about taking a stand to stop corporate corruption running rampage through our game and our society in general. We failed and we failed spectacularly.
Corporate greed and the single-minded pursuit of profit has killed Scottish football.
They are laughing at us and, if we are honest, we merit their scorn.
“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre.” Frank Zappa
Humble Pie - Internet Bampot 