The last few months has seen one of the most iconic football
clubs in the world fall victim to the financial mismanagement that is rife
within football. Its consequences have left the 54 times Scottish Championship
winners dumped into division 3, though even this is yet to be settled. However, the plight of Rangers may not only
be catastrophic to them, but to Scottish football as a whole.
The past year has seen a dark cloud descend over Rangers,
paradoxically accompanied by a light highlighting the dangers of financial negligence;
even the biggest clubs are at risk. Rangers went into administration owing up
to £134 million to unsecure creditors and will ultimately be liquidated,
resulting in expulsion by the Scottish Football Association and Scottish
Premier league.
The club however have been bought by a Charles Green-led
consortium who aims to make Rangers a new company or ‘newco’. Nevertheless they
did not acquire enough votes to be re-admitted into the SPL, and now will look
to enter into Division 3, though further sanctions are likely to be handed to
them by the SFA.
Despite Ranger’s cataclysmic demise, greater problems could
be on the horizon for Scottish football. The world renowned Old-Firm Derby, one
of Scottish football’s biggest draws, could only take place if Celtic and
Rangers met in Scottish Cup competitions, this in stark contrast to last season
where they met three times and 2010/11 season where they met an impressive
seven times.
Losing something as synonymous as the Old Firm Derby is to
Scottish Football will lose considerable amounts of money through television
rights and media interest from overseas. Due to their frequent and exciting
meetings in the past it has become not only a source of income to Scottish
Football but a highlight in every season; at home and abroad. With this now out
of the picture, not only are there financial implications but it will turn off
interest from other countries, decreasing the reputation of Scottish Football
and therefore resulting in more future financial losses.
However the Celtic-Rangers dual is not the only fixture that
may be financially adversely affected by Rangers demotion. A lot of clubs in
the SPL are in precarious financial positions at present, and losing potential
gate-receipts from a fixture against a club with a reputation such as Rangers
possesses could make clearing their margins a whole lot harder in seasons to
come.
Despite the difficulties the decision to vote Rangers into the
third division may cause to sides at the top of Scottish football, the result
will benefit the current participants at the bottom end of Scottish football.
These smaller sides including the likes of Stirling Albion and Montrose will
benefit enormously from their matches against the stricken Glasgow based side.
Greater interest when they play a formerly regular outfit of
European football means they are more likely to fully fill their terraces;
something that is a rare occurrence at the lower end of Scottish Football.
These consequent extra funds can benefit the future of these clubs and the
future of Scottish football, as they can be reinvested into better facilities as
well as bringing in and producing better quality players resulting in a better
standard of football in years to come.
Nevertheless, despite these positives, they are overshadowed
by what Scottish Football will lose at it’s top level. The implications of the
empty void left at the pinnacle of the Scottish Football will reverberate across
the footballing spectrum in the country of the next few years. Hopefully, one
positive to come out of this Crisis will be that a stark warning has been sent
out to clubs the world over of the importance of financial security.
Especially emphasising: that no club is too big to be infallible.
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