Charles Green has returned to his contention that Rangers (and probably Celtic as well) will be playing south of the border within five years. He claims that two English clubs have approached him and offered their shares in the Football League if Rangers were prepared to take on all their liabilities.
Charles Green has returned to his contention that Rangers (and probably Celtic as well) will be playing south of the border within five years. He claims that two English clubs have approached him and offered their shares in the Football League if Rangers were prepared to take on all their liabilities.
Not surprisingly, he is not following this route as it is doubtful whether the Football League would allow the ‘golden share’ to be transferred in this way and there would be a storm of protest from the fans of the club concerned who would have backing from across football.
I think there is something in his claim that preventing Rangers from playing south of the border is not permissible under European law. As for starting off in the Conference, this has caused excitement in places like Tamworth, where it has been pointed out that Welsh teams are already members. However, it would pose big crowd control problems, not just in the grounds.
There may be another route. There are increasing signs that Fifa and Uefa are recognising that being in denial about globalisation or europeanisation is not helping the game. They are considering allowing clubs to play in leagues in adjacent countries (there is already a precedent in the case of Liechtenstein) or even allowing leagues to merge.
The interesting test case is the merger of the top divisions of the Russian and Ukranian leagues in an attempt to replicate the commercial success of the Barclays Premier League. Russian natural gas monopolyh Gazprom has offered no less than $5bn in sponsorship.
Gazprom also sponsors the Champions League which is perhaps why Uefa have left the door open while Fifa dinasour Sepp Blatter has attempted to close it. The extra money would be a welcome boost to Spartak Moscow and other Russian clubs that run at a deficit. In aggregate, players in the Russian top division earn a tenth of those in the Premier League.
The oligarchs who run the top Ukranian clubs have been a little more cautious about welcoming the plan than Spartak Moscow. But they can see benefits as well, although they think the merger will take some years to realise.
Russia and Ukraine are both part of the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States and were once bound together in the Soviet Union. England and Scotland are for now part of the UK, but then they have separate football federations and distinct national teams. That is the biggest complication in the Rangers plan.