The club must already cost significantly more to operate than it can deliver in matchday revenues and sponsorship, therefore the question arises of where Charles Green’s remarkable consortium are finding the cash to finance SPL players playing in the depths of the third division.
Perhaps, just perhaps, their business model is based around winning the cups? This could be feasible with an SPL level squad, but would even the limited revenues from winning the Ramsdens Cup, or even the Scottish Cup, be enough to offset the wages of the likes of Lee McCulloch?
And what of the players?
Can anyone really tell me that Lee Wallace, Lee McCulloch, Dorin Goian or the rest of their ilk couldn’t stroll into contracts in the SPL and play competitive football?
Are these players content with the sporting challenge of competing against such luminaries of the third division as young Kyle Gillespie of East Stirlingshire, or Clyde’s Stefan McCluskey?
Perhaps they are? After all, none of the current The Rangers FC squad are internationals are they? Oops, it appears that some of them are….well, probably not for long unless they move to a competitive club or competition. I’ve got to be absolutely honest with everyone who reads this and state that if someone wanted to pay me SPL wages to go and kick a ball around Glebe Park on a Saturday afternoon, I’d probably jump at the chance too.
This smacks of money over sporting integrity, to drag up that old phrase that seems to have gone away since Rangers descended into the Third. Dean Shiels is one player who has personally turned my stomach. He walks away from a contract with his own father at Kilmarnock – an SPL side, of all things – and goes to The Rangers FC to play against part-timers, veterans at the end of their career and young boys who aren’t good enough to compete at a higher level. Such are the actions of a mercenary.
I apologise to Third Division players for any offence that the above comments may have caused.
It is so very disappointing to see Rangers taking this approach. The opportunity was, and still is, there for them to raise their own youngsters through the ranks and give them experience in preparation for their SPL return – if the SPL even exists by then.
Which brings me nicely to the possible conspiracy theory, namely, perhaps the death of the SPL is so imminent that it has already been agreed. Charles Green already KNOWS that there will be a new league formed, one way or another, in the near future and that The Rangers FC will be invited to play. Why else would he invest so heavily in SPL level playing staff to “compete” in the Third Division?
It wouldn’t be the first time that secret handshakes have been exchanged behind closed doors to decide on the direction of Scottish Football.
Motherwell, St. Johnstone and Dundee United could certainly have benefitted from players like McCulloch, or even Shiels, for their respective challenges in Europe. Sadly, these clubs are faced with a massive challenge (or have failed already) to proceed in Europe – but don’t worry, Rangers third division players are still apparently content that they are getting “competition”. Well, nobody in the SPL would pay a 34-year-old the same wages that Rangers would pay him, so I guess Lee McCulloch has a valid excuse – doesn’t he?
