Alan Stubbs wants ‘cleaner’ future for clubs in light of Ibrox crisis

HAVING played many times against Rangers, former Celtic player Alan Stubbs has savoured the intense rivalry between the Old Firm clubs at first hand.

Almost 11 years after leaving Scotland and now that he’s a coach with Everton, Stubbs is able to take a dispassionate view of the crisis at Ibrox, and he immediately discounts the notion that top English clubs are laughing at Rangers.

That’s not surprising – Portsmouth have gone into administration for a second time, Birmingham FC’s accounts are in disarray, and a number of English Premier League clubs who used the Employee Benefit Trust tax system face bills totalling possibly hundreds of millions should the current Rangers case go in favour of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.

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Stubbs said: “Rangers is going through a bit of a travesty at the moment, and it’s not just for the club but for Scottish football – it doesn’t look good.

“I don’t think anyone likes to see this type of situation, because I have got to say that there could be a few clubs in England that are close to this.

Football as a whole has to have a real good look at itself at the moment, and try and not let this happen. There’s been too much blase thinking about ‘we’ll be able to do this with it, or we’ll push it under the carpet and we‘ll address that in a year’s time, or we might be able to get rid of this through this or that means’ – it’s got to be a lot more stringent.

“There’s no ducking the taxman, no pushing stuff to one side and trying to find a loophole in this or that. I think everyone’s books have got to become a lot cleaner.”

For Rangers and manager Ally McCoist, Stubbs feels it is a case of the sooner, the better, for there to be some sort of resolution of the club’s future.

He said: “The longer the situation doesn’t get addressed at Ibrox, it will make it more difficult for Rangers to bounce back from this. ’Coisty will be thinking ‘the sooner this is over the better so I can address everything and move on from it’.

“At this moment in time all their dirty linen is getting dragged out in public and that’s the last thing you want as a club, because rather than looking at the next result, you’re thinking about what the next headline in the papers will be about the club.”

Stubbs knows that this weekend’s Old Firm match will be historic for the fans of his old club, if they win the SPL title on Sunday.

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“From a Celtic point of view it will be fantastic for them to win it at Rangers,” said Stubbs. “It just heightens the damning effect that is going on at Rangers at the moment. It just tops it all off. The Celtic fans know that they are going to win the league anyway, and first and foremost they would want it to be at Celtic Park, but second to that, winning at Ibrox would come very close.”

Stubbs said Celtic would have won the league in any case: “Whether Rangers went into administration or not, Celtic had momentum and would have won the league anyway. The situation at Rangers has made it a lot easier for them, but you shouldn’t take credit away from Celtic. Rangers haven’t given it to them, Celtic have won it, and I don’t think you can have any doubt about that.”