Rangers poised to back down on transfers

Newco Rangers owner Charles Green admits the club may have to accept the demands of the SFA to play next season.

The Gers were hit with a 12-month transfer embargo when the club went into liquidation in May, before Green’s company Sevco Scotland bought the club’s assets.

Since then, the club has had the ban overturned in the Court of Sessions. However, an appeal to the ruling could see an alternative punishment dealt out to Rangers, with one outcome seeing the Glasgow-based club having their membership to the SFA terminated, a possibility that Green is keen to avoid.

Green told Sky Sports News: “The real key now for Rangers fans are the issues outstanding with the SFA – most of the agenda items that have been talked about for weeks and weeks: the transfer embargo, fines that were put out there, and payments to football clubs that had happened for previous transfers.

“The difficulty we have is we’ve been working for many, many weeks now on these issues and there is a point where unless I, as CEO, accept sanctions then we won’t be granted permission to join the SFA.”

Rangers have seen the majority of their playing squad reject the transfer of their contracts to the newly-formed outfit and, as a consequence, have sought to move.

And Green feels that the reality of the situation could take its toll on their manager, Ally McCoist, who will have a tough task rebuilding the squad.

“It does increase the pressure on Ally even further. We’re asking him to manage a club where the SFA still want to put some transfer embargo on us and we haven’t got any players at all,” Green said.

“We need to draw this matter to an end now. We need the SFA to agree membership for us now so we can all rebuild and get on with our lives.”

If their request for membership is granted by the SFA in the next few days, Rangers could play their first game of the season in the Ramsden Cup against Brechin on July 28.