The Scottish Football thread

[Christain#1]

Today is the day that rangers players can leave at cut price deals that were written into their contracts as a result of them agreeing to a wage cut. Their wages also go back to what they were before the agreement.

I would imagine Naismith and Davis will be attracting attention.

[Lineker]

Celtic say first-team coach Alan Thompson was sacked during a telephone conversation because he "refused" a meeting with manager Neil Lennon.

Thompson's lawyer revealed her client was informed of his sacking during a phonecall with Lennon on Sunday.

"Alan refused to meet with Neil, hence the reason for the discussion being conducted by telephone," said the club.

"The matter is now in the hands of lawyers and, therefore, we are unable to go into any further details."

The spokesman for the Scottish Premier League champions claimed a planned meeting of the two men had been set up in Newcastle on Sunday.

Thompson was appointed by Lennon in June 2010 alongside assistant manager Johan Mjallby following the sacking of Tony Mowbray earlier that year.

The Englishman previously won four Scottish Premier League titles and five domestic cups as a player during a six-and-a-half-year spell at Celtic.

He was also was capped once for England and featured in Celtic's run to the Uefa Cup final against Porto in 2003.

He had a coaching role with Newcastle, with whom he started his playing career, before he returned to Glasgow to be reunited with former team-mates Lennon and Mjallby at Celtic.

[Christain#1]

I wonder which former player we can replace him with. Its a shame but there must have been a reason why he was let go. I'm sure it will come out in a few days.

[Lineker]

Rangers director Dave King is urging creditors to reject Charles Green's company voluntary arrangement when they meet on 14 June.

South Africa-based King has also called on the club's supporters not to renew their season tickets until Green's consortium details its plans.

"I am opposing the CVA and urge all loyal fans to do the same," said the exiled Scot.

"We don't want to be back in a similar situation next season."

And King, Rangers' second largest shareholder, added: "I also believe that all true Rangers fans should not buy any season tickets until full and frank disclosure has been provided by Duff & Phelps, Mr Green, and Mr [Craig] Whyte, as to what is truly going on behind the scenes."

King argues that the CVA should be rejected by creditors because neither administrators Duff & Phelps or Green's consortium has not provided enough information about how it would fund the acquisition of the club or invest in it in the future.

Nor, he claims, does the consortium's £8.5m offer give him comfort that the consortium has the "requisite business skills", appreciate that "the club cannot be run on purely business principles" or "recognise that the fans are key stakeholders in the club".

Duff and Phelps published revised and approved proposals to creditors on Thursday.

Among the revised proposals was that HMRC would nominate Malcolm Cohen and James Bernard Stephen of BDO as joint liquidators, rather than Duff & Phelps, if the club was to be wound up.

Meanwhile, Whyte, who has agreed to sell his 85% shareholding to Green's consortium for £2, has stated that the CVA "is the best way forward for the club and it will leave Rangers in an excellent situation".

Rangers entered administration in mid-February, nine months after Whyte acquired the majority shareholding from Sir David Murray.

"My shares will form part of the consortium's shareholding and after that I will focus on other activities.

"It has certainly been an eventful year but I did what needed to be done, unpopular as it was. There was no alternative. It had to be done.

"If it wasn't me it would have been someone else.

"People will look back in a year or two with a different view. People have conveniently forgotten the state Rangers were in at that time.

"I should have taken the club into administration on completion of the deal.

"But there was no way the situation would have been avoided unless someone came in and put in £100m and we have seen in recent weeks how difficult it is to get anyone to put money into a football club."

Whyte is threatening to take legal action against the Scottish Football Associationo, who deemed the businessman unfit to hold an official position in the game when he was handed fines totalling £200,000 for bringing the game into disrepute.

"I will be going after them," he said. "I will be looking at legal options against the SFA.

"They have a lot to answer for with their defamatory statements about me which formed the basis of their so-called investigation.

"Scottish football's regulators are inept and have showed themselves up. But they have no jurisdiction over me."

More to follow...

[Cadj]

Paulo Sergio has left after rejecting Hearts (probably rubbish) contract offer

[METALMAN]

[brenchill]

Rangers will be finished by Friday.

[Hobo]

So it seems.

[Matt]

Rangers will be finished by Friday.

They'll get out of it somehow. The SPL clubs will probably vote that a newly formed FC Rangers can play in the SPL or some bollocks.

[brenchill]

Real shame I hope there will be a successful last ditch effort to save them.

[Grounded Wingman]

Rangers will be finished by Friday.

They'll get out of it somehow. The SPL clubs will probably vote that a newly formed FC Rangers can play in the SPL or some bollocks.

It's pretty much guaranteed that will happen - because it's an SPL vote, not one across all leagues, and SPL clubs will generate a lot more income playing against Rangers three or four times a year than they will against Raith Rovers or Dundee.

[Matt]

Rangers will be finished by Friday.

They'll get out of it somehow. The SPL clubs will probably vote that a newly formed FC Rangers can play in the SPL or some bollocks.

It's pretty much guaranteed that will happen - because it's an SPL vote, not one across all leagues, and SPL clubs will generate a lot more income playing against Rangers three or four times a year than they will against Raith Rovers or Dundee.

Well you'd like to think 3-4 teams would think they've got a chance of taking the second champions league spot and maybe that Celtic would become weaker without any real competition, leading to a more competitive league in a few years time... highly unlikely but I'd like to think that clubs would think as idealistic as that.

What percentage will be needed to pass the vote? I'd hope it's 75%, in which case they'd need 9/11 teams to vote for it.

[Grounded Wingman]

Well you'd like to think 3-4 teams would think they've got a chance of taking the second champions league spot and maybe that Celtic would become weaker without any real competition, leading to a more competitive league in a few years time... highly unlikely but I'd like to think that clubs would think as idealistic as that.

What percentage will be needed to pass the vote? I'd hope it's 75%, in which case they'd need 9/11 teams to vote for it.

From the last meeting, Neil Doncaster quoted “Most of the votes in the SPL are 8-4. A few issues are 11-1. In the event the voting structure is changed at our AGM on July 16, it would make everything 9-3.”

When Rangers are liquidated and reformed, then they are out of Europe for 3 years, so the Champions League spot opens up anyway. What would be interesting would be to see a non Old Firm club get to the group stage, because that could generate enough income to make them think about competing, rather than the standard practice of giving up and aiming for third before the season has even started.

Of course, the team would go into the Best Placed playoff, and wouldn't be seeded. So, this year, for example, Motherwell could end up having to eliminate Dinamo Kiev, and then one of Udinese, Malaga or Lille, just to get into the groups.

[Hobo]

If a new club is formed I assume they'll have to sign a whole new team and it'll be a whole before the new Rangers could challenge Celtic again?

[Grounded Wingman]

If a new club is formed I assume they'll have to sign a whole new team and it'll be a whole before the new Rangers could challenge Celtic again?

As I understand it, it's not a new club, it's a new company. So Rangers Football Club PLC will cease to trade but Charles Green will form a new company which will take over Rangers assets (which I would guess would basically be Ibrox and the staff contracts, and possibly Murray Park)

[Christain#1]

SO Green gets everything and then hopefully will want to keep rangers as a club and not sell the assets himself. I wouldnt count on it.

[The Kraig]

As a Rangers fan, I'm glad it's over. If this is the only way to rid the club of the crooks that run it, hooray.

But fuck the SPL. We've been wanting to join the English leagues for years and now we have no reason not to do it, without Celtic and without being a good enough position to ask for a top-tier entry. We'd be better off applying to join the Football League and starting from League Two and working our way up gradually.

The SPL is one of the reasons Rangers got into so much debt in the first place. The main reason of course is being fucked over by our owners, this I will not deny.

Businessmen need to stay out of football. They have no interest in the sport. Glasgow FC in League Two in 2013 please.

[Lineker]

You can't "just join" League Two. If you were to join the English league system then you'd have to start right at the bottom, where AFC Wimbledon and FC United did.

[Adam]

What Lineker said. If you really want to join the English pyramid, then get applying to the Evo-Stik First Division North. Seriously. There would be so much uproar if you came into League 2 and it would be a heinous travesty.

If justice is to truly prevail, then this 'new' Rangers will be cucked into the Scottish Third Division. Livingston were demoted to that league by the SFL when they went bust in the First Division, and teams like Clydebank just fell into oblivion. I hope the SPL clubs vote them out but I'm not going to bank on it.

[METALMAN]

Rangers fans really are awful. Greedy, selfish and also smelly.