By Tony Attwood
Ray Parlour and Martin Keown will play in the FA Cup this season, with David Seaman as the side’s goal keeping coach.
Budweiser has signed our old chums to play/coach for Wembley FC, the non-league side it sponsors, in the FA Cup, which it sponsors. Also.
Bud give the Racist-by-Association (see previous article) Football Association £24m or so over 3 years for the FA Cup.
Terry Venables (remember him?) is the club’s technical adviser. The club plays in the Cherry Red Records Combined Counties Football League and has also signed Graeme Le Saux, Claudio Caniggia and Brian McBride with David Seaman as the goalkeeping coach.
Rangers need 8 votes to get back in, and 12 teams including Rangers vote. So they can only afford four teams to say no, and so far two have said no. Nine teams left to declare, and Rangers need seven to say yes.
Inverness and Motherwell are both leaving the vote up to their supporters, which looks rather interesting and democratic. But I may have missed something in this, since I am English not Scottish – however it does look like both sets of fans will say no.
So what then? If Rangers do get back in, they still have to face the consequences of previous actions – including the court case they took to overturn the ban on signing players – a new punishment is needed there. So they could get in via the clubs’ vote and then immediately be thrown out as the new punishment for past misbehaviour. (I really think that going to law against that “no new signings” thing was silly – it really opened the gate for further, harsher punishments.)
But if Rangers do not get back in to the Premier League, it means Rangers would apply to the Scottish Football League – and hope to get into Division 1. But the League might say no, Division 3 it is. So their big local rival match would be Rangers v Queens Park.
But what does this mean for the TV deal – always an important consideration. That TV deal is based on mostly showing Rangers and Celtic matches, including of course Rangers v Celtic four times a year at least. I guess the TV companies could pull out – but they might say, “if it is just one year in Division 1, and then presumably a promotion, we’ll keep the deal in place.” So TV could determine what happens since the clubs don’t want to lose the TV money.
But on the other hand those clubs that will play in Division 1, might say no, hold on, that makes Division 1 a dead league next season, for a full strength Rangers with no restrictions on signings will be bound to go up. What are the rest of us playing for?
And is it relevant to England? I still think so, because I think we are going to see some of these happen in England too. Portsmouth maybe – but if not Birmingham maybe, and if not there will be others. You can almost see the queue of bankrupt sides at lining up.
What a strange story re Wembley FC.
Obviously (I guess) picked (by sponsor) for their name.
Wembley reportedly have also have Claudio Cannigia (whoever he is).
ESPN are owned by Disney – so no wonder they cannot be taken seriously.
Although Bury have strongly denied the Rangers link, that was a ‘nice’ silly story – coming, as it did, a day or two after the history article on Tottenham and Stoke.
On the serious story of Rangers:
You mention that they could incur further penalty for the legal challenge to overturn the ban on signing players.
Would that not be, though, some sort of Contempt of Court on the part of the SFA if they were to do so?
Punishing someone for a successful (I am assuming that they were successful) legal challenge seems a bit dodgy to me anyway.
Living in the US, I strongly prefer to watch soccer broadcasts on the Spanish-language channels (Univision, Telefutura, et al) rather than espn. Their announcers are truly awful, and their attempts to dumb down the game for an audience they presume unfamiliar with the game are embarrassing.
Happy Birthday, Tony! Here’s a link to an article about the Rangers to buy Bury rumour. I liked the following quote from Bury. Strange story 🙂
“‘Whilst investment into Bury Football Club is always welcome, any offer of investment will only be viewed at taking the club forward in its only one guise possible – based in the town of Bury, and as Bury Football Club,” said the club’s board in a statement.
“Bury is a proud historical club and, as such, proudly represents the town, community, people and, above all, supporters of Bury.
“The directors of Bury place the integrity and morality of the club, and football as a whole, way above and beyond any possible financial gain and, as such, wish to reassure all Shakers fans of this fact.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/rangers/9346342/Rangers-proposed-purchase-of-Bury-roundly-rejected-by-the-League-One-club.html
This was also kind of funny:
“Rangers may find it difficult to argue successfully that Bury has traditionally deep ties with Glasgow.”
@rusty:
I agree completely. I always prefer the Spanish commentary in the US to Ian Darke and Steve McManaman on ESPN. Particularly when Arsenal is playing. Ian Darke is so terrible to us that even Steve McManaman sometimes seems a little bit ashamed by what he’s saying. Of course, we get the Sky commentary on Fox Soccer Channel, which is no better.
Have you noticed that FSC over the summer is showing replays of EPL matches, but they never show Arsenal? Like Ever? Aside from the 8-2 defeat. I’ve caught that twice now. I finally went and looked at their schedule, and all of the Arsenal matches that they show are off-hours, and either a loss or a draw.
Just sickening.
Oh, and happy birthday to Woolwich Arsenal as well as Tony 🙂
rusty, anne..
You guyz are lucky, alteast you have some alternative to ESPN. In India, we have only ESPN. And we dont get to see all the (ARSENAL)games. And then they have their pundits….Steve McMahon (ex Liverpool manager), Shebby Singh (Spurs fan, Now Blackburn director), Parker (Man Utd)….who talk carp.
And guess what, last season we were to finish 6th or 8th. End of season, their stinking face was worth a look. And their reason for Arsenal finishing 3rd….RVP (one man team).
@Arsenal 13
Bang-on mate!!! I am too from India and am also sick of these TV pundits…in their books of do’s and dont’s, I think praising Arsenal is a sin. The only thing that came in a bit of praise was Arsenal’s ability to come back from behind to win the game and that too they would make it seem as if it was the other team’s fault rather than our ability. Ignore these morons….
@Arsenal 13 yeah the ESPNstar team are awful bunch and dont get me started on their review show the monday night verdict..i do have an alternative though with AbuDhabi sports but then they have Andy Townsend, Craig Burley, Gareth Southgate and Gordon Stratchan as pundits most of the time so a no win situation there
Tony – it’s all about money.
I’m assuming that Bendtner was fined as much as he was because the sponsors complained about breach of contract/loss of revenue to Uefa. It’s a funny old world (not funny ha ha) when the commercial aspects of Euro 2012 elicit a sterner response than racist chants. I would be surprised (pleasantly so) if Uefa banned a team for racist chanting. I can’t see it happening though.
As for Rangers joining the English league…. I said as much in a reply to your post last week. It is the obvious threat from Rangers and is clearly posturing and a negotiation stance…i.e vote us in or we’re off but don’t for one minute think that the FA wont welcome them in the third division….it will all be about money. What then Celtic? Will the SPL teams call Rangers bluff?
TV pundits and commentators..Sky are tops, especially with Gary Neville. The BBC are OK (I can’t get on with Alan Shearer though) – I like Jonathan Pearce but I’m not sure he understands what he is watching at times. The combination of him and Martin Keown is very good. ITV are poor….I can’t watch Adrian Chiles and as for Andy Townsend, Gareth Southgate et al…Very poor. And ESPN….. I wont pay to watch it.
Tony,
While I understand your criticism of ESPN, you should appreciate that for many folk outside the environs of London, the broadcaster provides an essential look at our team in action.
As for the commentaries, I should think most Gooners are able to separate wheat from chaff (and to switch off sound if there’s too much chaff).
I always prefer to watch football with the tv on mute and radio commentary on the go. Much more detailed.