Rangers launch legal challenge to SFA registration embargo

Rangers were fined £160,000 and handed a 12-month registration embargo.© SNS Group

Rangers have gone to court in an attempt to prove that the registration embargo imposed on them by the Scottish Football Association is unlawful.

The Ibrox club were handed a fine and a one-year ban on signing players over the age of 17 after an SFA Judicial Panel found that they were guilty of bringing the game into disrepute.

An appeal to the Scottish game’s governing body failed to overturn the decision.

Rangers have now taken the matter to the Court of Session seeking a Judicial Review of the sanction.

Paul Clark of Rangers' administrators Duff and Phelps said: "The club started proceedings at the Court of Session today in an attempt to challenge the imposition by an SFA Judicial Panel of a player signing embargo.

"The process will continue at the court on Tuesday and it is the club's position that the Judicial Panel did not have the powers to impose such a sanction."

In court on Friday, Richard Keen QC represented Rangers and said that the punishment was particularly severe when Rangers players who had taken a pay cut this season would be able to leave for "knockdown prices".

With a registration embargo in place, Rangers would not be able to replace departing players adequately, Keen argued.

"In reality they could not just draw on a junior team to replace their senior players for the Scottish Premier League," he said.

He asked for a suspension of the ban while the case was heard.

"If the additional sanction was to be suspended they would be able to sign replacement players for those who are in all probability leaving ," Keen said.

Aidan O'Neill QC, representing the SFA, said that the governing body had sought to find a fair punishment for the breaches of their rules.

"They did not want to be in a situation of giving a sanction which is not effective and not dissuasive or a disproportionate sanction which is suspension or expulsion," he said.

A Scottish FA spokesperson said: “We note Rangers FC’s initiation of proceedings at the Court of Session in relation to the sanctions imposed by an independent Judicial Panel, which were subsequently upheld by an Appellate Tribunal chaired by Lord Carloway.

“With the hearing continued until Tuesday, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage.”

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