Rumor: Bocanegra to the rapids?!?!?!?!?!

I believe that Wales has the same amount of autonomy as Scotland, although Scotland may have a bit more due to the fact the whole "United Kingdom" thing is with Scotland and NOT Wales. Anyway, if Swansea and Cardiff and play in the the English league system, than shouldn't a couple of Scottish team be able to?

The difference is that Swansea and Cardiff starting playing in the English system because there was non Welsh system at the time. By the time the Welsh system started Swansea and Cardiff had played in the English system for so long they were grandfathered in to continue.

Ah, THAT'S the difference.

Wales has an independent Football Association the same as Scotland but as Jason correctly points out, there were teams that started in the first leagues in England from Wales, so, FIFA said the current teams can play where they are, hence Cardiff, Swansea and Wrexham in the English leagues and Berwick being in the Scottish. Under no circumstances can Rangers join the English league, soccer in Europe is not built on the franchise system, you can't just up sticks and move to a different league because you smell more money.

Old Rangers do not exist right now, they are dead, their 140 year history ended upon liquidation. The new Rangers company are trying to get a place to play and that is proving difficult because of the money Sky puts into soccer. Just one point, the EBT's used by old company Rangers to avoid tax, and the issue that has contributed to their demise, has also been used by Man Utd, Chelsea and Arsenal as well as a small number of other major English clubs, this will spread to them if Rangers lose the Big Tax case.

SPL gives Rangers the boot, will get interesting now.

It appears that most if not all of the SPL's commercial contracts include exit clauses for sponsors and partners allowing them to pull out or renegotiate if the Old Firm are not present.

http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer/...clubs-reject-newco-rangers-application-070412-

A must read on the SPL - SFL situation with Rangers.

http://sport.stv.tv/football/109292...atement-after-sfl-meeting-over-newco-rangers/

thats a total goddamn mess

Its Doncaster the head of the SPL trying to keep his, very highly paid, job as head of the SPL who are in a fight for survival now with the SFL. The SPL will likely die and go back to a fairer league structure. EPL beware, this is what happens when you have a small group of huge clubs taking an unfair share of the pot. Not all the contracts contain exit clauses, despite numerous statements from Sky to the contrary, journalists still feed off the claims of some Rangers fans that such exit clauses exist. Most fair minded Rangers fans know that the club has died and must now start in Div 3 as a new entity.

Wow Rangers voted into Scotlands 4th League (1st is Premier, then 1st, 2nd, 3rd). I think that for sure is like Beer league here.

No way any of the US players stay there.

The right result for Rangers. And its a bit better than beer league, barely. I'd put it somewhere between the amateur PDL and the USL (and honestly, if they were paid so they could have more practice time together, the Colorado Foxes could probably hold their own in the 3rd Division).

A few years back some Rapids fans got together and bought a block of shares in Queen of the South (more for fun than anything). Well they were one of 4 clubs to vote for Rangers into the 1st Division today, while 25 clubs voted to put them into the 3rd (Dundee, as the team most likely to take Rangers' SPL spot, abstained).

Another way to put it in perspective is to look at average 3rd Division attendances from last year.http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/socce...ponents-different-193956420--sow.html#more-id

Jason just wondering if you have been to watch a lot of the Scottish 3rd division games to be able to create such a frame of reference?

if you really take issue with broad sweeping generalizations get off the internet

No, but I follow a (now) second division team, Queen of the South, watching what games I can find (not many) and highlights on-line, and I have done this for 14 years. So I feel like I have a decent frame of reference for lower-league Scottish soccer.

Whenever I see new posts in the thread I open it expecting to see an update on Bocanegra coming to MLS. Instead, all I read are posts about lower division Scottish leagues Then I saw this post and it made it all worthwhile

Just got less likely Bocanegra is going to Whitecaps. They just signed their 3rd DP (Kenny Miller- also captain of Scotland), so unless he will play for under DP $, he will have to find another team.

So who's next in line?

It's official, Bocanegra and Edu leaving Rangers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18865402

How about renting Bocanegra for two years, getting him to the World Cup one last time, and while he is gone Serna claims the LB spot as his own?

Or how about Serna just skips Akron and claims it now...

I'm pretty sure Serna is a midfielder, an attacking one. He's pretty small as well, smaller then Kimura I believe.

Can teams still buy DP slots? Or did they go away when they expended the rule? I sure know one team that'd sell if they could.

BLAST! I don't know where I got the idea that he plays LB. Seems like somewhere along the line someone mentioned him playing there maybe in a reserve game or something. Maybe he would be the Dani Alves of this league small and attacking....yeah probably not.

Well there goes that idea

No, they did away with that when they expanded the program. Now every team gets 2 spots, and a team can get a 3rd by buying one from the league ($250K split up around the league in the form of allocation money among all the teams who haven't bought a third yet).

So if every other team in MLS signed 3 up, we might get our first?