Not a great surprise really, but the SFA have today announced that they will have an enquiry into just what on earth has gone wrong at Rangers.
Other clubs go into administration – for example Portsmouth have gone into administration last week for the third time – and some clubs even go out of business, as Gretna did in Scotland a couple of years ago. But this is different. This is Rangers.
Glasgow Rangers are one of the biggest and most recognisable clubs in the world, never mind the UK, and for something like this to happen is bordering on the ridiculous.
The Chief Executive of the Scottish Football Association (SFA), Stuart Regan, is a veteran of these types of crises – albeit in other Sports – he was formally the Chief Exec of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, who had to make staff redundant after losing a fortune on an ill fated test match with Australia a couple of years ago.
But Regan was bullish today when announcing the appointment of Lord Nimmo to head the inquiry. Nimmo has immense experience; indeed in 2002 he was part of the panel which heard the appeal of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the convicted Lockerbie bomber. The Chief Exec is certain he made the right choice, telling the BBC he was delighted the veteran judge had agreed to head the panel and adding: “I am certain the experience contained within the panel will enable us to achieve more clarity on the situation regarding Rangers FC.”
Clarity is a good word, because recently, it seems, where Rangers are concerned that has been sadly lacking. There were reports last week that the money gained from a £24 million loan from the firm Ticketus had disappeared and although former owner Craig Whyte has insisted there is no criminal wrong-doing and he has “nothing to fear” from the investigation, questions still persist as to how exactly a club of the size of Rangers has been allowed to slide into these sort of problems.
As might be expected there has been much recrimination. Ranging from former Chairman Alistair Johnston who was scathing when he said: "What do you know now, Mr Whyte that you did not know before you bought it?
“What is it you missed in due diligence that would have indicated that you are in situation that you did not anticipate?'
He then continued his attack by concluding: “For whatever else he [Whyte] is, his expertise is in distressed companies and making them survive, or not survive, to his benefit.”
But amongst all the rancour is an inescapable fact – somebody will save Rangers. It is too big a club not to. There is already talk about exactly who will lead the club into their next era, with names like Milan Mandaric and the owner of Sale Sharks, Brian Kennedy being mentioned.
Moreover, Rangers will not die because Scottish football needs them to survive, both in terms of the money they make, the prestige, the TV deals and so forth. Former St Johnstone Chairman Geoff Brown painted a dire picture of what would happen if the famous old club was to die, saying: “"The importance of the Old Firm to the lesser clubs is the Old Firm's buying power - their supporters coming to your ground, hospitality, your TV deal, which is based on effectively four Old Firm games.
"For that to go out, it would make life very, very difficult for Scottish football.
"You just have to adapt. The biggest losers would certainly be the quality of Scottish football.
"We wouldn't be able to afford players at all and that would probably go back to part-time and amateur, which would be sad to see.”
Not just sad, you suspect, but unthinkable. And in a sport so dominated by money, it is just not going to happen, whatever the rights and wrongs of what happened in the Business dealings of Rangers FC.