[St Charles Owl]

There is a line that needs drawing under a number of issues surrounding Rangers, problem is whenever lines are drawn by whatever authority draws them, its never accepted by one side or the other!!!  King is right in one thing he said in his statement, for the good of Scottish Football, this stuff needs resolving and put in the rear view mirror and the game needs to move forward together.  Armageddon was a strong word to use for the fate of Scottish football when Rangers first hit the rocks, but from what I see at the moment its a bit like suicide by asphyxiation!!

I don't see a single club that is struggling in the present climate because of the Rangers situation, and there are plenty examples of smaller clubs who have been able to make sums of money that would only have been available to them if they'd been drawn against Rangers in a one off cup tie. The light has been shone on the lower divisions this past 3 years and that has never happened in the past and won't happen again.
I totally understand why Rangers want back to the top league, and I also understand why the media do too, I even get why Celtic (secretly) miss their biggest rivals, but Scottish Football is NOT suffering.......not even a wee bit

I wasn't particularly referring to the financial state of the clubs, although  the whole of Scottish football suffered when the TV deal was negotiated without Rangers in the top flight, hopefully that one will be put right next time round!!  And with a few exceptions it was the clubs banks willingness to write off debt and settle for much less that saved a few clubs as well.  

I was really referring to the reputation of the game in Scotland both within Scotland and by those looking in from outside her borders.  Constant court cases, bickering between fans and clubs, incompetent or downright cheating refs, lack of good home grown talent, struggling National side etc etc.  Not all these things are the fault of, or indeed anything to do with Rangers, but there situation has certainly played a part due to its profile, but the decisions, or in a lot of cases the non-decisions made at the top of the game has hurt the sport in general.  Everyone from outside Scotland knows of the rivalries within the game and that sometimes those rivalries go well beyond football in their creation and execution, the hatred that exists between clubs and fans is well known and its something that you do not see in other countries on the mass scale you see in Scotland.  At the moment Rangers are the target for many of this hatred, but others clubs have been on the end of it for different reasons in the past, I just can't help thinking that the image that Scottish football portrays to the outside world is simply hurting it and until some of these issues are put to bed from a football perspective, this "perception" will continue.