The Scottish Premier League has cut off its nose to spite its face and rejected The Rangers FC from joining it next year.
Rangers needed an 8-4 majority in Wednesday’s vote but St. Johnstone, St. Mirren, Aberdeen, Hearts, Hibernian, Dundee United and Inverness had already declared their opposition. On Tuesday, Motherwell announced their fans had voted to reject the application.
The Glasgow-based club has not commented on the decision.
A club from the First Division — most likely to be Dundee following its second-place finish last season — could take Rangers’ place in the 12-team SPL. Dunfermline, which was the only club relegated from the SPL, could also take Rangers’ spot by staying in the top tier.
It is unclear which league Rangers will drop down into, although the chief executive of the Scottish Football League, David Longmuir, proposed that should Rangers be entered into the Third Division, 16 million pounds ($25.2 million) in television money would be lost to the Scottish game.
The news comes as a shock to few but is nonetheless sadly hilarious. (And, with their division still undecided, you can still join our prediction game! The winner receives the good feeling knowing that their rec team could probably finish 2nd in next year’s SPL.)
One has to imagine that Maurice Edu (linked to France and Turkey), vice-captain Carlos Bocanegra (a Ligue 1 and EPL veteran), and Alejandro Bedoya (who they technically don’t really fully own) will be finding new homes next year. Hopefully, their departures close a generally ugly chapter on Americans in Scotland.
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Ugly? Claudio Reyna spent some time at ibrox. The current trio of Edu, Carlos, and Bedoya are not chopped liver. If you have a problem with the Rangers organization, say so. Don’t bundle the Yanks who served for them into your angst.
Claudio Reyna played more than half a season (approximately) one out of 3.5 seasons (and he only played six games in his half season after moving from Wolfsburg). (He didn’t really become injury-prone until after the move.)
DaMarcus Beasley played a full season’s worth of games over three seasons.
Mo Edu was hurt most of his first two years and spent the next two years mastering back passes and hospital balls.
Alejandro Bedoya went from up-and-coming to afterthought on a team that bombed out of Europe.
Boca has played, but he went from a team that contended for qualifying for Europa League (in a top 5 league) to a complete mess of a club.
Rangers has overall not been full of positive developments for Americans. I’m not really one to dictate what players “should” do with their professional careers, but I’d rather we not see a national teamer play in Scotland unless Rangers and Celtic are joining the EPL/Football League.
There are a number of Celtic and Rangers fans on these boards, so I’d rather not see you denigrate the league.
This is not denigrating the league Trent. As Howie pointed out it was generally injuries that blighted the Americans’ time in Scotland. The relegation of Rangers is probably going to take Scotland the better part of the next decade to recover from as most of the sponsorship deals are going to devalue very quickly. Many have specific provisions in them requiring the presence of both members of the Old Firm. They were inserted because of the fear of the “super league” but will now trigger to choke the Scottish game because of this short-sighted move.
Trent, good sir, I didn’t denigerate Celtic or Rangers. Just Hearts, Dundee, and St. Mirren.
Didn’t say you denigrated Celtic or Rangers. The League has a lot of quality, though, it’s simply a feeder league dominated by two teams. It’s a good league that I love following.