Gordon Smith: Would Rangers be happy starting season with sanctions?

Gordon Smith has confessed that he finds is "difficult" to judge the future of Rangers football club.

The club's former director of football told STV News he could imagine a scenario where the team plays at a lower level rather than face points deductions or financial sanctions.

Mr Smith said: "On some clubs, the chairman will see Rangers being in the Premier League as important for them financially. Whereas the fans of some of these clubs, and maybe some of the chairmen too, will not want Rangers to continue at the highest level.

"If it comes down to a vote, and Rangers need eight votes out of 12 to stay in the league, that would create a difficulty. Would Rangers be happy starting each season with a points deduction, or a financial sanction?

"Maybe at that point Rangers would be happy starting at a lower level and not having any sanctions to hold them back. It's difficult to judge."

Mr Smith said he was disappointed that Rangers have been revived as a newco after "signs" of a CVA agreement being reached.

He said: "I'm obviously sad that Rangers have had to go into liquidation and start afresh as a newco.

"The way the signs were it looked like Rangers would have come out of this whole process with a CVA which would have allowed them to continue. So obviously it's very disappointing that the club is starting again from scratch."

He also expressed surprise about rumours of manager Ally McCoist potentially leaving the club, but stressed that it was still just speculation.

"I would have thought there would be no question that Ally McCoist would be kept on in the manager's position," Mr Smith said.

He added: "Since February, he's played a very important role – Rangers needed someone to be a spokesman and to continue with the PR, the administrators can't really do that. He was trying to be positive at all times, saying he wouldn't walk away, he was going to stay and take the club forward to the next level.

"Maybe he's been disappointed that he's not going to be the manager of a team that's continued under the previous regime, it's going to be a new company.

"The biggest problem he'll have to face is where do Rangers go from here, whether they'll be in the Premier League going forward or whether they'll have to apply to join the Scottish Football League. But it still has to be identified if the speculation is true or not."

Asked whether the club's fans have been treated fairly over the past months, Mr Smith said: "It's hard to say. In terms of the past management of the club, I think the fans would have a belief that the club was being run in a sensible manner. They're great supporters, they turn up in numbers, and let's be honest – everyone on the outside just assumes naturally that things are being done properly.

"When Lloyds took over the bank of Scotland, all of a sudden they had a different attitude to the debt problem and how Rangers were being managed financially.

"That started to throw up some concerns. David Murray was looking for a buyer, and a buyer came in. There wasn't a great queue of people looking to take over the club, so when Craig Whyte took over you thought that things were going to move on from there.

"All of a sudden, what's happened over the past few months has come to pass and I think that's the big problem Rangers have had. It's come out of the blue – people didn't see this coming."

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