Rangers administration 25-point penalty threat

Rangers would be deducted 25 points should they be forced into administration this season – even though Hearts were given just a 15-point penalty last year.

Under new rules introduced last summer when the SPL took over the Scottish Football League to form the SPFL, clubs which suffer more than one insolvency event in the space of five years will be hit with a 25-point penalty.

The SPFL board believes that, since Lord Nimmo Smith ruled, at a hearing last February, that the current club was a continuation of the same entity which went into liquidation in October 2012 when finding them guilty of not disclosing payments to their players, Rangers should face the heavier sanction.

Rangers are currently 23 points clear of second-placed Dunfermline at the top of League One.

The Ibrox club first entered administration in February 2012 and former director Dave King has warned that it could happen again.

SPFL sources also confirmed that Hearts will start 2014-15 on minus 15 points if they have not emerged from administration before the beginning of the season.