When I published the article on how UEFA had sent Celtic shareholders a letter which confirmed that Sevco were a new club, the reaction to that was pretty cynical in some quarters. Whatever the issues that surrounded it, that claim was dynamite.
Today, that letter has appeared online and any further doubts about its existence, or UEFA’s stance, should be erased completely. I’ve checked it out with some folk and this is the real deal, and it is as definitive as I said at the time.
This closes the book on this matter as far as I’m concerned.
Sevco is a new club. Their history was erased with liquidation.
This isn’t anything we’re not already aware of, but the simple fact of it has been confirmed by European football’s governing agency and that seals the deal. Let their fans say what they want, let the media write (or not write) whatever they like, but this ought to be the Final Word.
Sevco was born in the aftermath of scandal and disgrace.
They could – and they should – have accepted that they were a NewCo and started again. Freed from the shame and the stigma, and all the baggage that went with the name Rangers, they could have been better for it.
Playing out of Ibrox, they could have done what they’d planned and built a team based on youth instead of scrabbling about in the bargain bin for has-beens.
They could have ditched the sectarian element of their support.
They could have done away with the thuggish element that follows them around like a bad smell.
Shorn of their “cultural heritage” they never would have attracted a shark like Green and men like Ashley would have kept clear.
Eventually they’d have taken a place in the top flight, but they’d have done it clean.
I’ve written extensively on how much trouble the NewCo is in and they can trace every single bit of that trouble back to the decision that they would masquerade as the club that died in 2012. Scottish football was plunged into crisis, but the game recovered. Sevco dug its own grave, and now as the depth of their hole becomes clear the club’s reaction is to treat every setback like an outbreak of war. They can’t take criticism.
Look at their reaction to the Lescott snub; where was the need to turn that into a slagging match with Aston Villa? The same thing applies to the way they handled – and continue to handle – the Scottish Cup Final. Where’s the need to launch an all-out offensive against the SFA? The club itself knows its own fans were partly to blame, otherwise it wouldn’t have banned so many of them. And it applies to their argument with Sports Direct, which has swollen to include a full-on fight with their kit manufacturer Puma. It’s like they can’t help it.
Their club is floundering and they know it.
Bills will soon be piling up, including those for repairing the stadium roof, a job bigger than any they can afford. All the brash talk and “big name signings” won’t change it. When the next bunch of creditors come due we’re looking at Rangers III if they are very, very lucky.
They won’t get that lucky again.
Rangers is dead. Sevco is dying.
That’s the truth they simply do not want to have to face.
Today, UEFA confirmed at least part of this reality.
Read it and weep.
