Even as death approaches it would appear that Scotland’s establishment club still has some of the old power.
It would appear that the cultural clout of Rangers still can still make amoral fools out of the people who run the game.
As the club established in 1872 is about to be liquidated then the status of a new company utilising the Ibrox brand has to be addressed.
Any new club in Scottish football should apply to the Scottish Football league for admittance to Division 3.
The morality of that case is unanswerable if a NewCo is created in these circumstances.
If you were to write a case study of bad behaviour by a football club over a protracted period then it would look rather like Rangers over the last decade or so.
Even some of the laptop loyal have conceded on this.
Instead what is being planned is for the NewCo to be parachuted into the SPL with minimal penalties, if any.
What we have seen recently with the intimidation of the “Hampden three” is the nasty side of a sense of entitlement.
I would not be surprised if those original sanctions are overturned.
If that is the case then it could be argued that intimidation has been successful.
If after more than a decade of cheating a new club utilising the Rangers brand is allowed into the SPL as if nothing had happened then that Herrenvolk swagger of the Ibrox support will be fed steroids.
The belief system that felt authorised to trash Manchester and urinate of war memorials in Barcelona will KNOW that it is above the law in Scottish football.
This is a time for the people in charge of the national game to act with good authority.
What is needed are people of courage with a serviceable moral compass.
John Yorkston has made a stand.
Kilmarnock chairman Michael Johnston has already presented his excuses for capitulating.
“There is a feeling that member clubs see the commercial benefits of having Rangers in SPL, even if it is a NewCo.
“Member clubs are mindful of a sporting integrity aspect but the commercial benefits outweigh that.”
The supporters of Rangers are outraged that anyone has the temerity to suggest that they should be subject to the same rules as everyone else.
They believe they are a special case because they have been just that in the past.
Rangers have always enjoyed an elevated status within the corridors of power in Scottish football.
They marched in anger to Hampden because they fear that the old order is dying.
We are now at a watershed moment.
It remains to be seen if money and the mob will triumph over what is morally correct.
People in the rest of Britain are agog at the extent to which Scottish football appears to be a Rotten Borough.
Thanks to the excellent journalism of Alex Thomson of Channel 4 news the quintessentially British football club has been truly revealed to people in England.
I am not surprised that there appears to be zero contrition coming out of the blue half of Glasgow.
There are no expressions of remorse or embarrassment that their club has behaved “like spivs” as Graham Spiers put it on Clyde recently.
Instead there is a defiant “we’re too big to be punished” attitude from the supporters of the Ibrox club.
It would appear that they enjoy a victory on the field of play even when it was achieved through an unfair financial advantage.
Apparently cheating isn’t undignified in these circumstances.
With the leaders of Scottish football lining up to capitulate to the Ibrox mob it may require intervention from Switzerland.
As with the famine song choir it took UEFA to act with good authority.
The SPL leadership shrugged impotently as the law was broken in a racist karaoke wherever Rangers supporters congregated.
Match delegates reported the singing of the Famine song, but the people at the top of the SPL refused to act.
Now UEFA appears to be the only guarantor of any sanction on this football delinquent.
The new club will have no European football for three years.
If some chaps in the SPL hierarchy get their way that will be only real penalty imposed on a NewCo using the Rangers brand.
I know that important types in Nyon are watching the Rangers situation closely.
The Scottish authorities have the opportunity to do the correct thing.
In the last week SPL chief Neil Doncaster sent out soothing messages to the Ibrox mob.
Amid all of this turmoil I find the silence of Celtic FC rather puzzling.
