Fans say no to newco- and trust
Yesterday afternoon, the rumours doing the rounds online were that the SPL were going to change the rules to allow a newly formed company to take the current Rangers’ place in the SPL if they end up being liquidated (or liquidised as someone called it on the radio).
Part of the potential new rules would state that a newco would be allowed automatic entry into the SPL and that they would start their first 2 seasons with a 10 point deduction.
A second part is suggesting that a 75% reduction in TV money will be allocated to the new company.
That’s not really a punishment when you consider that being in administration would end up having more strict sanctions than liquidating and reforming as a newco.
Celtic’s TV revenue make up approximately 3% of our income so I’d have to hazard a guess and suggest that Rangers will have something similar so for a team who almost always finish in first or second place in the league by more than 10 points, they will be unlikely to suffer.
Of course, I’m no finance expert and I understand that I’ve made it sound slightly less difficult than it’s likely to actually be. However, on the face of it, ordinary fans like myself will see it as unfair.
For anyone who is a regular reader of what I write, you will know that I tend to just pick a subject and give an opinion on it. This time round, I have created a survey online and have asked fans of various clubs to respond to it.
At the time of writing this, the survey has collected a pretty decent haul of responses, if you’ve not read it, you can do so by going to http://stevenmallon.co.uk/splsurvey.html.
The basic part of the survey is to find out what fans would think of any newco SPL team being allowed into the SPL if Rangers are liquidated. The majority, at the time of writing this, 95.9% of respondents have said they would not welcome a newco version of Rangers back into the SPL.
Even more worrying is that so far, 100% of respondents have said that they do not trust the SFA / SPL to act in the best interest of Scottish football.
I wont bore you all with the full results of the survey but moving forward, as a Celtic fan, I feel that there is no way that anyone can compete in a fair league if the rules are rewritten to allow a newco into the league at the expense of an existing tax paying club.
Over the last year or so, various things affecting Celtic have come up where some fans have suggested a boycott of any matches that are not at Celtic park. The thinking behind that is to hit the other teams in the pocket.
We have to be aware that if a newco Rangers are allowed in then it will happen because other SPL chairmen have voted for such a thing to happen.
I don’t know the answers and I don’t even know what will be happening to Rangers but I would like to know what other fans think. So thanks to everyone who has already replied to the survey. Please be sure to leave comments on this or give me a shout on Twitter.
Follow Steven on twitter