Rangers takeover: Walter Smith defends Ally McCoist over SFA outburst

Attack on sanctions panel shows passion, says former manager

FORMER Rangers manager Walter Smith has defended Ally McCoist’s outspoken outburst against the sanctions imposed on the club by the Scottish Football Association.

Smith, who handed the reins over to McCoist at the end of last season, said he understood the frustration expressed by his successor, who has been widely criticised this week for going too far in his condemnation of the governing body.

“He’s passionate about Rangers Football Club,” Smith said yesterday of McCoist. “Never mind the fact he has the job of manager to do, he has also been a supporter since he was a boy. He doesn’t like to see what is happening to his club at the present moment.

“If you add the frustrations he will feel in his first year as a manager – and finding himself dealing with circumstances that very few of us, regardless of how experienced we are, have had to handle – there will be a lot of frustration there. And that came out the other day, and came out quite rightly in my opinion.

“I think he’s handled himself extremely well, and no-one has been able to help him, because how can anyone help him when you have never been in those circumstances? The frustration came to the fore the other day, but there was a point to what he was saying.

“I don’t think anyone, especially if you are a Rangers supporter, would disagree with what he said. What you have to remember is it affects his job and it affects his life. He’s starting his first year in management, and he wants to be a manager at Rangers Football Club.

“He knew it was going to be tough, because circumstances weren’t settled when I left last year. But it’s his career that is on the line as well.

“He has given up a lot to come into football and he finds himself in this circumstance. So he was only reacting to something he felt was an injustice for the club and in many ways that impacts personally on him as well.”

Smith also criticised the proposed financial reforms which will be debated by the Scottish Premier League on Monday, arguing that it was unfair for the other clubs in the top flight to try to retain the benefits of having Rangers in the league while simultaneously wanting to hit them with heavier sanctions if they go from their present state of administration into liquidation. “The sanctions don’t include Rangers not being in the league, so there is a certain hypocrisy among the whole lot of them there,” Smith added.

“They have a situation where they still want the money that Rangers bring to the SPL, but they will try to impose sanctions that will make it impossible for them to be competitive, or as competitive as they should be. I think the SPL have to be very careful in terms of how they handle the overall situation in case something similar could happen to other clubs.

“I don’t think we’ve seen the worst. If the sanctions that were imposed take place, and there are no new owners at the club, then there is obviously worse to come.”

Asked if he felt liquidation was now almost inevitable for Rangers, Smith added: “The longer the situation goes on, it starts to become more inevitable it will happen. I don’t think there is any doubt about that.”

Speaking on Tuesday, McCoist lambasted the SFA for fining Rangers £160,000 and placing a year-long transfer embargo on the club. That punishment – which the club are appealing against – came in addition to a stiffer sentence on the club’s majority shareholder Craig Whyte.

“Plain and simply, I think it is an absolutely shocking decision,” McCoist said of the action against Rangers. “I was shocked and absolutely appalled by the way this supposedly independent judicial panel was coming down on us in this form.”

If McCoist had left his criticism of the three-man panel there, his words might have been accepted as understandable. But he went further, demanding the panel be identified – something which has since happened, and which has resulted in the men in question receiving numerous threats.

“Who are these people?” McCoist continued. “I want to know who these people are. I’m a Rangers supporter, and the Rangers supporters and the Scottish public deserve to know who these people are, people who are working for the SFA.”

The use of the word “frustration” was as close as Smith came to implicitly accepting that his former assistant manager had gone too far. But McCoist himself yesterday issued another statement, explaining that his call for “clarity” did not extend to hoping that any kind of threat would be made against the panel.

“I would like to make quite clear my position in relation to the decision by the SFA’s judicial panel which earlier this week imposed sanctions against Rangers which have far reaching consequences for our club and Scottish football,” he said. “I firmly believe that decisions of this magnitude should be fully transparent and everyone should have confidence in the system that has been created to deliver such a finding.

“When I called for full transparency on Tuesday I took the view that the decision by the judicial panel should be subject to proper scrutiny. It is unthinkable in any walk of life that such a significant punishment would be meted out without full transparency. I fully understand that there are difficult decisions to be taken in football and they will never suit everyone but, in this day and age, clarity and transparency are surely of paramount importance.

“That said, I would not for one moment want anyone to interpret my remarks as a signal to engage in any form of threatening behaviour. Such activity disgusts me and anyone who engages in it does Rangers Football Club nothing but harm. No Rangers supporter should get themselves involved in it – not now nor at any time.

“Our focus has got to be firmly on ensuring that the club’s case in appealing the sanctions imposed on us is put forward robustly and in the appropriate manner.

“Rangers Football Club was a victim of what happened during the tenure of Craig Whyte. The club was not an accomplice, a co-conspirator nor a perpetrator of wrongdoing.

“We suffered from it and still are. I hope that our appeal can be dealt with by the SFA as quickly as possible as the situation for the club and the possible ramifications for Scottish football are very serious.”