Ally McCoist, manager of fallen giants Rangers, blasted the Scottish Premier League and the Scottish Football Association over conditions regarding the transfer of the club's membership of the governing body after it assigned only temporary membership to owners Sevco Scotland.
That means McCoist feels he is in the dark as the team head for a weekend Challenge Cup date with Brechin awaiting the full membership transfer, expected next week.
The newco club are subject to a delayed one-year transfer embargo and liability for Rangers' football debts while the SPL probe into alleged undisclosed payments to Rangers players since 1998 could yet see Rangers stripped of titles.
McCoist blasted the conditions which hang over the club as they prepare for life in the Third Division.
In a club statement, McCoist said: "Forty-eight hours from now, we are supposed to start the season with a game at Brechin and, as I sit here today, I don't know exactly what our status in the game is, where our players that we have should be registered - and what the future holds for us going into next week.
"It's a ludicrous situation - and I owe it to our fans to make my views known on it.
"No-one is denying that Rangers were badly mismanaged for 10 months. Nor are we disputing that we should be punished for that. We have been. We accept that punishment and want to start putting the past behind us and move forward.
"But that is not being allowed to happen - and I have to ask myself why?
"In recent days, I have been in a number of meetings with Stewart Regan, Rod Petrie and other senior SFA figures - and (I) despair at the lack of leadership shown."
He went on: "As for the SPL, they seem determined to pursue as hostile an agenda as possible towards Rangers.
"They kicked us out of the SPL - which was their right - and we acknowledge that - but that doesn't seem enough for Neil Doncaster and some of his board.
"Not only as they are withholding our SPL prize money for last season - they won't tell us how much it is but we reckon it to be about £1.3million."
Blasting what he termed vested interests in the SPL, McCoist welcomed the support for his club from the Scottish Football League in voting for their inclusion in the lower leagues after the original Rangers were liquidated.
But he said the SPL establishment seemed "determined to strip us of every bit of our dignity."
He concluded: "In recent days I have bumped into Celtic, Hearts and Motherwell fans, and they were saying the same thing: It's time to stop kicking Rangers and start getting Scottish football looking forward not back.
"I couldn't agree more."
Source: AFP
