Saturday, January 12th, 2013 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

By Tony Attwood

The story of Rangers has long fascinated Untold, not least because we were one of the first (I can’t really say ‘the first’ since I don’t know who was first) to suggest that big clubs could start to fall to bits for all sorts of reasons.

Somehow, in the minds of many football followers, the demise of Leeds United either didn’t count, or was seen as a one-off.   The impending collapse of Portsmouth was also dismissed – although this time because they were not deemed really a big club.

But Rangers, that was a different matter.  When the stories started to emerge that they were going to go out of business, there were many who simply would not or could not believe it – but go bust they most certainly did.  Even now many fans in England still don’t believe that there will be further collapses.  Rangers are, after all, Scottish and it is different in Scotland.

But they are continuing to make waves, and it is just possible that they will in the next year or two make a wave so big, that it could affect all of football.

The issue involves what league Rangers might play in.  At the moment they are in the fourth tier of Scottish football (Scottish League Division 3).   But for many years they have been saying that they should not be in Scottish football at all.

At the moment there is a plan to change Scottish football’s structure yet again and have a first division of 12, a second division of 12, and a third division (which would include Rangers no matter where they end up at the end of the season – and winning their league looks a formality).

What Rangers want to do is join or set up a league with clubs in other countries where there are just a few clubs who can win the league each y ear.  Standard Liège are the club often cited in this regard as they are looking to see if they can find a way to leave the Belgium league and play in the French League. Fifa however have said that this would not be allowed.  (Swansea playing in the Premier League, and Berwick playing in the Scottish League are seen to be anomalies from the past, and allowable anyway because they are actually in the country of the United Kingdom).

Now this argument is one that Rangers could exploit – since at different times the clubs cited above, and others, have played outside their part of the UK – although of course Rangers would have to persuade the Football League to let them in.

But there have been previous attempts to expand the number of clubs playing across the borders within the UK.   In 1972 for example, fed up with endlessly being refused a place within the Football League Wigan applied to join the Scottish League.  The application was refused by the Scottish League but not for non-qualification reasons.

So no way forward then… except that Charles Green, the Rangers CEO has said he might try and utilise EU sex discrimination laws against Uefa.

His argument is that there is a cross-border league which is sanctioned by Uefa: a professional women’s league that takes in Belgium and the Netherlands.   He has also said that Rangers could apply to join the Conference in England.   Obviously some Conference clubs would welcome the once a season pay-out from playing Rangers.  I don’t know if Conference clubs keep all their home gate money or if they share it with the away club, as the Football League clubs used to do, but even one full-house (quite possibly at double prices) is better than nothing.

But the problem is that football is seen by the EU as an exception to its normal rules because of its unique nature.   Women’s teams are not seen as a breach of sex-discrimination policies any more than women’s athletics is seen as discrimination.   Sport in general has exemptions from the strict adherence to certain rules because it is different from the rest of society.

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Quite probably Uefa could do nothing about Rangers playing in an English league, but the problem is, in England there is a complete pyramid of leagues and although one can be relegated down several divisions for failure to complete fixtures and failure to meet financial regulations, there is nothing in the rules that allows a club to parachute into a league from elsewhere.  But then there is probably nothing in the rules to forbid it either.

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But there is another way in because there are leagues in England which are not part of the pyramid system, but are recognised by county football associations.   There is a long history of clubs from these leagues applying to  join a league which is in the pyramid.

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The bottom level of the fully structured pyramid is level 8 which includes, Northern Premier League Division One North, Northern Premier League Division One South, Southern Football League Division One Central, Southern Football League Division One South & West, Isthmian League Division One North and Isthmian League Division One South.  There are 22 teams in each league.

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Now I can’t see Rangers dropping that low down, and of course the grounds for clubs in these leagues could not take the number of away supporters Rangers would want to bring… but you never know – I suspect if they applied to the Conference North (the league in which my local club, Corby Town, plays) they might well get in.

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And I for one would be at the match if I could get a ticket – not least because Corby (being an ex-steel town) is packed with Rangers supporters.