Handsome_Devil

Not unreasonable but as much as losing Rangers fans is bad financially, it's far from fatal. It's the television deal which is the defining factor of how much shit hits the fan and until we know how much sky will cough up and what the potential rearrangement of the prize money will be, it's best guess time. Or rather worst guess time since regardless of the final number it certainly won't be pretty.

Aside from the fact you shouldn't sell integrity, there's a strong case that keeping a crippled Rangers in the league won't make much money either. Rangers fans will, quite rightly, not pay extortionate prices at Easter Road, Fir Park etc to watch their side play friendlies (and I'm not even convinced they'll bother with season tickets) so that's that income gone and Sky will almost certainly demand to renegotiate the contract given the product has become a procession. And a procession which may even have the 'crown jewels' of the OF games devalued if Rangers fans aren't turning up.

I'd assume the SFL television deal which would suddenly seem so attractive to channels would ensure everyone benefits to some extent.

Plenty of fans are thick, hypocritical and utterly unrealistic - the clubs are quite right to spell out the situation in black and white.

The supporters forums (at Motherwell and everywhere else) are more about the clubs telling the fans the implications than the other way around. It's one thing the fans saying they'd accept short-term pain, the reality is fans are fickle and will moan like bitches as soon as something happens they don't like. If Motherwell, for example, put it in black and white that we have to sell our two best players half-price to urgently fund this season's shortfall and we won't even consider renewing the contracts of the seven or eight first teamers who can leave next summer, they can then point out they told everyone this was the price of integrity.

Oh aye, but allowing us making a loss last season (having not sold anyone) and a new shortfall this term, Hutchinson and Randolph will still bring in about £1.5m - we may not be able to invest that as we would have done otherwise but it will plug the gap. You can read the statement as saying we'll vote yes, I think it reads much more like we'll vote no but this is what it means in real terms. We'll see!

Exactly. The SPL were hoping for 1) Rangers emerging via CVA - phew, nothing to worry about! 2) HMRC building flats on Ibrox - shite, plenty to worry about but not our fault! 3) The SFA suspending them - perfect! Some short term panic but we can ask our fans to back us and honestly tell the banks it's not our fault.

They won't...they just want to be able to cover themselves and say 'we told you the implications' when we have to sell Randolph/Hutchinson on the cheap to balance the books. Motherwell will vote no - anything else will f**k us overnight much more than a one season shortfall.

Agree, this is by no means a great move by the SPL in terms of their own reputation but they're just praying hard that they can delay making any kind of decision until after the SFA step up and hopefully boot them out making the double contracts thing pretty academic. The complete refusal of the SPL to take any kind of action here though shows them up to be a shambles. The SFA should soon be pressing to have the league disbanded and return to the auspicies of the SFL.

The problem is we'd get that anyway if they weren't allowed in. Celtic would push for a points deduction but on the basis the other ten won't challenge for the title with Celtic there and Rangers irrelevant to the European race, no one else has an interest in this. That leaves cold, hard cash. A slice of Rangers home gate money or them forfeiting a right to their share of the telly money would be likely - but there's surely no way the new owners, whoever they are, could sell that deal to their fans who will (quite rightly) not pay to turn up and watch a competition they can't win simply to provide money to everyone else.

I imagine this will be one of the conditions to successfully transferring their SFA membership.

Quite frankly it shouldn't matter if Rangers can vote or not. I initially thought Celtic would let them in, now I'm not so sure. They'd know any hit they had to take would only be three years, they'd keep their fans on board and are guaranteed cracks at the Champions League each season. Motherwell haven't said either way yet but statements made so far hint at no. Dundee United are also hinting no while Inverness and St Mirren seemed very hostile to Rangers going to the CofS. That's the five votes needed there to stop Rangers getting in already. Beyond that, the Hibs guy seemed far from convinced and Mad Vlad is a complete unknown - you can imagine he'd take great delight in shafting one of the Glasgow teams. Aberdeen fans would surely go mental if their board voted yes. Who does that leave, Killie and St Johnstone? They've made mixed noises and previously hinted at commercial benefit considerations but regardless of what way they fall, I suspect we'll find the five from somewhere.

They won't need top quality players, they'll need any type of promising youth or seasoned pro willing to play for £500 a week and their squad will be vastly superior to everyone else. I like putting the boot in as much as anyone and I hope Rangers are properly punished but suggesting they won't walk through the lower leagues is simply silly.

Well...everyone other than Rangers fans can consider their current entity dead. Bust. Finito. An ex-parrot. So that's something. Pluses include the absolute certain change in voting structure in the SPL and reorganising the television deal along with an extra European spot to be chased for the next three years. Rangers may even decide not to bother applying for the SPL place and starting again in Division Three voluntarily - with their players set to leave, no European football and a heavy punishment if admitted, they would simply be killing time for three years. Why bother spending unnecessary money to do that? The appeal panel still have to hand down punishment for Rangers bringing the game into disrepute and the SPL will report on their double contract findings. HMRC don't care about the football implications of what comes next, not unreasonably. Rangers were never going to die completely - the fanbase ensures someone will always run them and there would always be a way back for them. However, they are certainly goosed - in whatever form they emerge - for at least the next three years, it's down to the other clubs now to make hay when the sun is shining.

The reason HMRC hates is football is they get bumped while the game looks after its own - there are various reasons they'll reject the CVA, the strong possibility of Rangers paying up Hearts, Rapid etc afterwards regardless of an 8p in the £ deal is one of them.

They got an extension to Friday.

There's no way UEFA or the SFA will allow Rangers to get away with bumping clubs. Which is one of the things which will stop the CVA being approved. Can't remember tbh. With us there was an initial burst which raised tens of thousands within a few weeks but it pretty quickly became clear it wasn't needed.

Outcome will be known almost immediately. Lunch time at the latest, I imagine.

HMRC had the liquidator appointed before the CVA proposal came out (though we only heard about it afterwards) so that's not a fair assumption. However, suggesting HMRC will accept the CVA for their share in an extra £4m seems highly optimistic. If their share of the debt is just over 25 per cent, you're talking about an extra million quid (for an organisation which deals in billions) in exchange for altering the rules of engagement with every company in debt and setting an astonishing precedent for a company getting away with simply not paying PAYE and VAT and breaking their agreement in paying the wee tax case.

Like some of the more recent posts, I don't think a fire sale of assets would raise a huge amount of money. More than Green's £5m? Mibbes aye, mibbes naw but far from certain. The creditors as a whole don't matter, it's down to Ticketus and HMRC. Ticketus don't care what Rangers do and seem to reckon they'll get cash from Craig Whyte. HMRC on the other hand do care since they know the example this sets to everyone else. I can't imagine they'll consider this CVA anything other than a piss take (retaining money to fund the business is not unreasonable, retaining money so the business isn't just funded but thriving in a sporting context is completely unreasonable) even ignoring the fact it fails various points on their check list to accept it. Incidentally, given HMRC must have goodness knows how many people working on the Rangers issues, the fact that absolutely none of them ever seem is leak anything to the press is hugely impressive.

Could be wrong but would it not have been possible for the AT to increase the original punishment had it seen fit? That's usually the case in the SFA appeals process.

The wifey who appears on Newsnight seems to doubt it will go through. Most of the media types I've seen comment have said they don't know - but given the shocking ignorance shown on financial matters but most of them that's hardly surprising. But you can make your own mind up - there's the link to the factors HMRC consider in accepting/rejecting a CVA and Rangers fail (at least) two of them so until someone can convince me why they should make an exception, I'm expecting it to fail.

Fair play for having doubts about following a club which had killed another. Though I agree Airdrie United are at least more fair game than the rest. At least it would settle the squabbling about honours, I'm sure Rangers fans would treasure that Second Division championship from 1976 and pair of Stirlingshire Cups .

Perhaps I'm interpreting this wrongly but given Ticketus hinted they'd accept a CVA* (they're getting bumped by Rangers either way and can chase Whyte directly), is this not a big indication that HMRC will reject the CVA? If they were going to wave it through there'd be no need for a liquidation process...or is this just a formality they throw in just in case? * I'm sure I read this somewhere but a quick google couldn't find it so maybe I'm talking rot.

I've not read every page here so may have missed it but hysteria about clubs/national team being thrown out seemed to be the main stream media rather than folk on P+B. It was the most theoretical of possibilities and was never going to happen. As I said at the time, the comment from Jane Lewis was so brief you can take whatever you want from it. Can Rangers be pleased FIFA won't take action on them directly? Sure. Can Rangers know for sure FIFA aren't glad the issue is back within football because they're aware the SFA will punish them suitably on their behalf? No. The whole Rangers case has plenty of 'wait and see' questions and given the scant information provided on this particular topic, this one is probably one of the biggest of them. Hence the lack of substantial comment.