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Record warning to Lawwell

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Keith Jackson has warned Peter Lawwell of the consequences of any title stripping of Rangers (IL).

The Daily Record man has enjoyed the ear of various Ibrox regimes with his newspaper praised for it’s courageous journalism when Paul Murray regained a blazer in 2015 alongside Dave King.

While Jackson welcomes a thorough review of the SFA he fears what a review may throw up.

At the heart of the matter isn’t title stripping, tax evasion or sporting advantages.

What clubs and supporters want answered is why ineligible players were fielded without punishment.

The SFA have been happy to push the baton back to the SPL/SPFL but have taken NO action on ineligible players playing in and lifting the Scottish Cup.

Every Rangers (IL) team throughout this decade fielded players paid through side contracts that weren’t declared to the SFA.

Why are those breaches not being dealt with in the same way that Spartans and East Stirling get booted out of competitions?

Explaining his thinking Jackson writes: “What exactly is Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell hoping to achieve by pointing his missiles at Hampden’s sixth floor?

And what are the SFA so doggedly determined to keep hidden in their bunker?

“If the answer to the first question is – as some of Celtic’s hard core dearly wish it to be – the stripping of titles from the Ibrox trophy cabinet then Lawwell is playing with fire.

If that is his end game and if he is successful then one day he will be deemed worthy of his very own statue on the Celtic Way. But at what price to the rest of the Scottish game?

Because, in doing so, he will open up wounds which will never heal over and also force his club’s relationship with Rangers into a whole new world of bitterness and hostility.

Yes, the next door neighbours deserved to be punished for the financial meltdown which was a result of their own reckless hubris and which cast a huge shadow over the entire Scottish game. But the Ibrox club will argue, with some justification, that they have already paid an enormous price for the crimes which were carried out in their name.

Craig Whyte, administration, Duff and Phelps, liquidation, Charles Green, League Two, Bilel Mohsni. There is a strong argument here that Rangers and their supporters have had to suffer indignity like few others in the history of the sport since Sir David Murray took them to the brink.”

Jackson adds: “In the middle of this period of unsurpassed empire building, are we really to believe that Lawwell is still spitefully lusting for the blood and the titles of his long since vanquished rivals?

I’m sorry but that just doesn’t seem logical especially given the circumstances of the Rangers demise. The misuse of EBTs is what brought this club to its knees. A tax avoidance scheme which was ultimately exposed as a vulgar scam.

For the normal working man on the street, of course, such blatant attempts at stiffening the tax man and robbing the public purse are morally reprehensible.

But this is how big business works. And football is big business.

Yes, without question some of the big names lured to Scotland by Rangers during that period were attracted by the financial inducements that the club was ultimately unable to afford. So, yes, it follows that Rangers almost certainly did gain a sporting advantage by the use of these EBTs.

But they’ve more than paid the price for this recklessness. To strip them of titles won on the pitch because of the financial jiggery pokery which was going on off it, wouldn’t just seem needlessly heavy handed. It would also be hypocritical given the lengths so many others in Scottish football go to in the name of running rings around Hector.”

Sevco have suffered for horrendous appointments in the dug-out and the boardroom in the same way as other clubs do.

The old Rangers club suffered only a 10 point deduction for going into administration. Their trophies gained through ineligible players sit in the record books. Some within the SFA have transferred those titles to the club formed and given SFA membership in 2012!

When the workings of the SFA are exposed, including publication of the Five Way Agreement from 2012, there will inevitably be consequences.

While the deluded fans followed the Daily Record in cheering Whyte, Green and the current regime into Ibrox they may reflect on those errors of judgement.

When the reality of liquidation is explained and the consequences of more than a decade of fielding ineligible players is reflected in the record books perhaps the spotlight may fall on Murray and his cheerleaders.

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