It often seems to be one step forward two steps backward at Rangers. After yesterday’s court victory, Sepp Blatter and his bunch of cronies in Switzerland have stuck their oar in and are issuing all sorts of threats to the Scottish Football Association (SFA).
It often seems to be one step forward two steps backward at Rangers. After yesterday’s court victory, Sepp Blatter and his bunch of cronies in Switzerland have stuck their oar in and are issuing all sorts of threats to the Scottish Football Association (SFA).
Fifa’s basic beef is that they don’t like clubs taking their national associations to court (and winning). They believe that the rules of sport should have priority over law. This is really nonsense. The notion that the ‘world of football’ is and should be apart from society is outdated. Football is an important part of society and the economy and its rules have to conform to those of society as a whole as expressed in the law.
Unfortunately, Fifa have a number of sanctions to hand. There has even been talk of booting Scotland out of the World Cup which would result from a suspension or expulsion of the SFA. The situation where each of the four ‘home countries’ is separately represented in Fifa, which reflects the historic origins of the codified game, has attracted some criticism. Indeed, Sepp Blatter believes the game came from China. However, altering this arrangement would not go down well at a time of rising nationalist sentiment in Scotland, indeed England would not want it either.
As far as additional sanctions for Rangers are concerned, apart from being thrown out of the FA Cup, there is now talk of a harsh deduction of 30 or 40 points. When will this saga end?