‘Left themselves wide open’ – Top lawyer delivers verdict on £50m Rangers threat
Top sports lawyer David Winnie has claimed that UEFA’s threat of potentially banning Rangers and Celtic from continental competition next season is an empty one.
The European governing body’s president Aleksander Ceferin recently claimed that the SPFL could see their sides removed from Champions League and Europa League action next term if they decide to just hand the Premiership title to the Hoops instead of playing the campaign to completion.
It is understood that such a drastic course of action could cost the Scottish game up to £50 million.
But Winnie, who played for both St. Mirren and Aberdeen before moving into his current profession, has suggested that the threat is likely to be an idle one.
As per the Scottish Sun, he said: “Uefa have left themselves wide open to legal challenge.
“In their statement they said that clubs are at risk of being effectively banned if they don’t complete a full season. Two words jumped out at me from that — one was ‘risk’ and the other was ‘full’.
“Saying clubs risk missing out on next season’s European competition is a veiled threat. They haven’t said, ‘You will miss out’.
“They have left themselves wriggle room with their statement and it’s clearly open to challenge.”
What can we make of this?
These are strange, strange times, and they are leading to some strange, strange situations.
Ultimately, none of us truly know how the rest of the campaign will be resolved, if it is resolved at all, but it’s clear that the threat of removing Scottish sides from European competition is a tactic aimed at getting the SPFL to kowtow to UEFA’s will.
But Winnie’s verdict on the update would seemingly suggest that Scottish authorities have little to be worried about.
If UEFA’s threat is open to legal challenges, then you would assume that it is just an idle piece of scaremongering angled towards frightening the SPFL, rather than an iron-clad expression of the governing body’s intentions.
In other Rangers news, Foreign manager: Gerrard made personal plea to take ‘incredible’ 22y/o to Gers in January.