Can Bill Miller get Rangers his way?
OK so they have a robust cultural approach to all manner of things in the US – but this is ridiculous.
Bill Miller clearly believes he’s the only credible pitch to take over Rangers but he also seems to believe he can hang any number if patently ridiculous conditions to secure preferred bidder status.
The administrators must be having a Friday afty laff a minute – were it not for the fact that their nightmare world is already imploding into a mire if law-suits and smoky-mirrored bids – a land of posture and bragging.
So today Windy Miller – windy in the Chicago sense? – said he’d buy the stricken club but only if the Scottish football authorities abandon current possible plans to impose greater points penalties on clubs which cannot manage their money.
Oh – and just to get the party jumpin’ he’s demanding that Rangers stays in the SPL, with no loss of previous titles. i.e. which effectively means the outcome of any SPL investigation into player registration be decided in Rangers favour or be stopped.
Perhaps somebody told Mr Miller that in Scotland they’ll just tear up the entire rule-book just to let you buy the club. That Scottish football’s governing bodies are just a bunch of patsies who’ll roll over and die just to conserve Rangers in the Scottish Premier League at whatever cost?
I think a case could indeed once have been made along such lines but evidence today that things are getting a wee bit more robust these days at the Hampden Park stadium where Scotland’s football bosses are based.
Today they were not quite laughing at Mr Miller’s proverbial gun-at-the-temple. Not quite. The Scottish Football Association pointed out that whatever Mr Miller said he has not, in fact, made any contact with the SFA.
Miller says he will do so by Monday, and whatever Rangers’ Administrators may have to say this is from the SFA direct – double sourced and on the record. My money’s with Hampden.
Mr Miller himself seems to be dumping shares and going liquid across the board if recent New York Stock Exchange activity means what it seems.
The Scottish Premier League won’t comment officially as yet, which is a little odd. My hunch would have been that very public rejection of anybody trying to hand conditions like this on a bid serves the interests of football. It’s a no brainer.
That’s the only worrying part, the unwillingness of Scottish football to openly laugh off someone who wants to own a club on these terms.
What’s alarming is that anyone out there – even in the land of soccer – can think for one second that Rangers (if they are liable on tax and registration issues) can possibly exist in the Premier League without major points deduction and loss of a lot of silverware – as a bare minimum for what they would have been liable for.
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