Rangers

Sandy Jardine: Rangers supporters will take sanctions against other clubs

Sandy Jardine has said that Rangers have been unfairly punished for the actions of Craig Whyte and are being “kicked” by outsiders while in a weak state.

Jardine was speaking at an event promoting the Rangers Fans Fighting Fund and stated that employees at Rangers were being punished for Whyte’s actions though they were oblivious to them at the time.

The club ambassador said that harsh penalties for Rangers would hurt other clubs but also said that he would be meeting with supporters associations ahead of action against clubs they felt had been unhelpful

“It wasn’t Rangers Football Club, it was Craig Whyte who put us in this situation,” Jardine said.

“I’m still at the club, I worked under Craig Whyte and I have to say that nobody knew that he wasn’t paying bills. It was as big a shock to us as to everybody in Scottish football.

“The players did nothing wrong, the management of the club did nothing wrong, the supporters did nothing wrong and the staff did nothing wrong.

“The person that did something wrong was Craig Whyte and unfortunately he’s getting a penalty which he’s laughed off. They’ll never get the money but the people still at this club are going to have to pay a penalty because of that.

The SFA have imposed a signing embargo on the club for bringing the game into disrepute and the SPL are to consider new rules that could effect Rangers should a “newco” plan be implemented.

Jardine said that the club should be treated differently because of the club’s stature and said that the outcome had implications for other clubs, including direct action taken by Rangers supporters groups.

“I know from talking to the supporters, and the feeling within the club is, that we can’t do any more than put our case forward,” he said. “If they [the SPL and SFA] are starting to ignore us and not take it into consideration then ok, we’ll go down a division.

“Rangers are a special case mainly because of the size of the club within Scottish football and what it delivers.

“We’ll get a bit of pain, but everybody else is going to get a bit of pain too.”

He added that details of supporter’s sanctions against the unnamed clubs would be announced this weekend.

He explained: “Having gone round and met a lot of the supporters and people within the club, I think people are absolutely sick and tired of everybody having a kick at us when we’re down.

"We are going to have a meeting with all the delegates from the whole of Britain, and some of them will be flying in from abroad, on Saturday.

“Out of that, the supporters will take sanctions against clubs which we deem have been unfair to ourselves.

"I'm not going to go into the actual details but we will probably announce that after the meeting with the supporters clubs.”

"Also the Fighting Fund last night sanctioned money to fund a QC to fight the case against the SFA.

"Everybody is sick and tired of just accepting everything that everybody is throwing at us and it's about starting to fight back.

"The size of our club and the size of our supporter base, it can be a powerful weapon."

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There are 22 comments

Let them have a kick, because when we're back (make no mistakes we will be) those clubs will suffer.

bluenoseam 26/04/2012 Report this place
What are we thinking about boycott every away game send them back there tickets and spend our cash at Ibrox then we will see how big these clubs and the SFA think they are.Its a no brainer put the cat in amongst the pigeons

pony2027 26/04/2012 Report this place
Do they not have accountants and book keepers to make sure bills are paid.

anniemac54 26/04/2012 Report this place
Boycott all away games

pony2027 26/04/2012 Report this place
"Jardine said that the club should be treated differently because of the club’s stature"

What a ludicrous statement. Is he seriously suggesting that there should be a different rule for Rangers compared to other clubs in the league?

"the supporters will take sanctions against clubs which we deem have been unfair to ourselves"

The sanctions against Rangers have been imposed by the SFA which collectively represents all of the clubs.

I do not believe that it is wise for a Rangers official to be instigating such action and actualy could prejudice their current appeal.

FREAKSTAR 26/04/2012 Report this place
I love the "We didnae know, it was all him" argument, yet there are many other employees of the club who knew what was going on, who knew what was not being paid. How many of them stood up and complained at the time? How many reported the actions of the owner to the SFA or SPL? They are able to leak stories to the press now, but did not do it then.

When the owner is at fault, the whole company is at fault & the company is punished too. That is the way it works in every other industry and Football should be no different.

Maybe these folks should all be looking at themselves and asking why they did nothing when all the reports and stories about Whyte were being published all over the internet. Maybe they should be asking themselves, why they blamed the BBC for telling the truth about Whyte instead of rising up against him. They sat back and drank the cool aid of Whyte & at the end of the day the Executives, Management, Shareholders & fans have no one to blame but themselves for their own inaction when all the stories broke last year.

Just because you put your case forward and the case goes against you, it does not mean you are being ignored. It means you are in the wrong.

For Sandy to say no one knew Whyte was not paying the bills is a LIE. Do you think that Whyte was the many opening all the mail with the bills showing no payment? Do you think that Whyte was the one doing the data entry in the Purchase Ledger System? Do you think that Whyte was taking the phone calls from the companies looking for payment of past due bills? If anyone actually believes that for one minute, they need their head examined.

All these people upset at the SFA, need to take a look at themselves & start pointing their fingers in the direction of the folks who are to blame...Murray, Whyte, Club Executives & even the regular folks who work in the accounting department of the club, who all sat back and did / said nothing.

maccyjohn 26/04/2012 Report this place
Freakstar - if the rules are passed then essentially Rangers & Celtic WILL be treated differently to those who make up the numbers.

I believe they're calling for 30% of the average of the last three seasons OR 15 points, whichever is higher.

Context - Rangers would be docked 25 points (assuming they finish on 72 points this season)

Hibs would be docked 15.

If the rest of the SPL want to be treated like equals then they should show they're willing to be held as equal as Rangers. A flat X point deduction is the ONLY way this can be achieved - but they won't do that as they only want equality when it SUITS them.

bluenoseam 26/04/2012 Report this place
bluenoseam - I agree, it should be a flat deduction that is applied to the clubs who file for Administration or NewCo.

maccyjohn 26/04/2012 Report this place
Sandy, Bad idea. The supporters should be very careful at this very emotional time and back away from knee jerk reactions.

I would prefer a more moderate responsible plan of action. The employee ignorance argument is a non starter as the action taken is against the board and shareholders not the wage earners. there has been many a good employee laid off by the actions of company owners.

May I suggest a more positive action would be to hold town hall meetings in the various cities and towns around the league with the city Club chairing the meetings to explain the impact of the SFA and future SPL actions on their clubs and also have you or someone like Ally or Walter to be in attendance and give your POV on the situation. By cooperating with other fans and clubs who have been variously hit with non payments and future economic impact of liquidation, it just might get the point through that they cannot look at this in isolation as the whole of Scottish Football is at stake. I think also that Ally 's point Bout punishing us fairly is very much in order. That would be my plan of attack. it could be very powerful and takes it to the streets.

Deedledoddle 26/04/2012 Report this place
re previous post....

By a spirit of cooperation and problem solving, I believe that meetings of this sort old provide two huge opportunities. The first is that hometown fans have the chance to ask their particular Club " how does this affect our club and what plans have you made for worst case scenarios." It also gives RFC and RST a platform to show that cooperation is the only way to a solution. To come equipped to show the facts and figures to other clubs would emphasise the economic impact. It just might also influence the other clubs in the league to show our willingness to find better solutions and affect the way they vote at SPL meetings.

Anything is worth a try and I believe this is an honest approach worthy f a big club like Rangers.

Deedledoddle 26/04/2012 Report this place
Fantastic posts, goround the country and show them the figures and how much it will cost them to uphold the rules. Once they understand that they will be economically affected by a fans boycott they will then rise up along with Rangers Supporters and demand that a different set of rules be applied to RFC.

The Administrators have stated that the sanctions would be unfair as it would affect the ability of Rangers FC to qualify for European football next year, and that their business case is based on receiving that money. All other clubs need to be shown those figures also and made to understand that they aren't entitled to play in Europe just because they abide by the rules - they are only there to make up the numbers.

Yes go round the country and put the case to them why they need to accept that they are the second class teams and fans and that Rules only apply to small people. Go for RFC.

Sour 26/04/2012 Report this place
What a ridiculous statement from Jardine, complete bias and all a deflection. Rangers problems were well documented before Whyte took over and it's a legacy of financial mismanagement that's brought them here, not some clumsy takeover.

The biggest joke is to say that to make Rangers uncompetitive is somehow unfair. The whole point of points docking for an insolvency event is because the team involved weren't playing fair i.e. paying more than they can afford to put a better team on the field. As such making them uncompetitive to compensate is the most correct punishment and it's the monetary fines that are more debatable.

An "ambassador" should never be threatening to boycott other clubs and to hurt them. No other club got them in this position or even influenced it, and it's the SFA who handed down the punishments, nothing to do with the clubs! Maybe he's just doing a rallying call for the troops, or maybe he is as blinkered as this video makes out. But Sandy, you were once a legend, but you're an embarrassment today.

Playing the "you need us for the money" card is very dangerous too, especially when used to threaten clubs who have apparently wronged them. Let me guess, Hearts/Dunfermline/ICT/Dundee United for trying to get their own money from them, or are we going as petty as the Dundee United abandoned game again. The problem with that threat is that if Rangers don't get back into the SPL, the clubs will all cut their cloth accordingly. Yes the SPL will no doubt suffer, but then the SPL clubs won't NEED Rangers money any more, and won't have to cowtow to them like they do now.

frisnit 26/04/2012 Report this place
As to other comments about Rangers being treated differently to other clubs with points being docked by a percentage, you're right I do think that is unfair. It's also a stupid idea because if a club knows it will happen to them, they might as well lose as many points as they can for the following season, so they don't lose as many. On the other hand, I'm surprised that the Rangers fans complaining about that can't see that it's just a tradeoff deal, with the end goal of keeping a new Rangers (if it happens) in the SPL. They need to change the mechanism so that any team that goes into liquidation is simply thrown out of the SPL, nothing else is fair. If this happened to Hearts, Dundee United, Dunfermline etc. they'd simply be wound up, a new club would form and they'd most likely get into the SFL, probably at the bottom. It's not about Rangers being treated differently - it's about them being treated specially.

frisnit 26/04/2012 Report this place
no mysterious parcels through the post ?

vikingnz 27/04/2012 Report this place
All the queens horses could not put humpty together again

vikingnz 27/04/2012 Report this place
all the queens horses could not put humpty back again

vikingnz 27/04/2012 Report this place
Typical response from a died in the wool bluenose,whyte only exposed the rotten under hand pratices used by previous admistrations,how dare they think that they are bigger than the SPL,it will still be there in a smaller and hopefully more honest league

ecky 27/04/2012 Report this place
So its Sandy Jardine and Keith Jacksons turn to feed

the ostriches .

Terence Causer 27/04/2012 Report this place
Walter Smith says the sanctions are going to make Rangers uncompetitive Rangers and Celtic have been making all the rest of the teams in the league uncompetitive through the biased voting system and the fact that Rangers and Celtic receive the lions share of end of season payments.When was the last time another team split Rangers and Celtic ???

The SPL is an uncompetitive league run purely for the benefit of the Old Firm high time it was re-organised from top to bottom

Drawdem 27/04/2012 Report this place
This is a very sensible thing to say. Imagine if these words came out of Neil Lennon's mouth days before a derby match. You are a fool Jardine!

Please boycott all away games, can you start by doing it on Sunday please, we'd appreciate not having your ill thought ways in our presence :-)

Seriously though..... Can any sensible Rangers fan explain to me what exactly they want the other clubs to do? I'd appreciate it if someone (with half a brain) answered this question.

MNG 27/04/2012 Report this place
Still no answer to the above I see :-)

MNG 28/04/2012 Report this place
These comments from Jardine defy logic and belief. A big(wee) guy did it and ran away,blame Whytey for everything. Truth is,they have to be punished for ripping everyone off for years.Just for info Sandy,we still await the SPL/EBTs/FTT Tax Tribunal cases so a lot more in store.

Just as an aside,should Mr W Pullar Jardine,as a paid employee of RFC(IA) not be taken to task by the SFA for bringing the game into disrepute by his words and actions regarding the proposed sanctions against other member clubs.

Just to finish,have this club NO SHAME?

Coogy 29/04/2012 Report this place

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Sandy Jardine: Rangers supporters will take sanctions against other clubs

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Rangers

Sandy Jardine: Rangers supporters will take sanctions against other clubs

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