Scottish Premier League chief executive Neil Doncaster has given a strong hint that today's scheduled vote on a newco Rangers admission will be deferred.
Most SPL clubs have confirmed they plan to reject the application from Charles Green's Sevco consortium amid pressure from their own supporters.
But Doncaster has been trying to persuade Scottish Football League clubs to accept the Ibrox club in the Irn-Bru First Division and it appears the SPL clubs will put off a decision until their lower-league colleagues can make things clearer. He told Sky Sports News: "There may be a decision, there may not be."
He added: "There was a good meeting yesterday with the Scottish Football League, in which the possibility of Rangers going into the second tier of Scottish football was discussed. And ultimately, if that option remains in play, that may be a reason to defer the vote today."
Doncaster continued: "It's important clubs don't close off any options. They have got the best interests of their own clubs to think about and also the best interests of the game as a whole."
The SPL, SFL and Scottish Football Association executives are all pushing for the First Division package, which also includes merger of the leagues, promotion play-offs to the top flight and a £1million payment for the second tier's television rights.
At least 10 SFL clubs came out against the plan before Tuesday's meeting but all Scottish football clubs have been given stark warnings over the financial implications of Rangers being relaunched in the Third Division.
The document presented to SFL clubs claims £16million would be lost to the Scottish game in such a scenario with all of the SPL's commercial contracts apparently containing an exit clause should Rangers and/or Celtic not be in the league. Fears have been raised that five or six SPL clubs would be forced into administration.
Doncaster said: "There are probably three options for dealing with Rangers. Rangers coming into the SPL with an appropriate range of sanctions is one option. Rangers going into the second tier is another option.
"The option that a lot of people have talked about, Rangers in the fourth tier, ultimately that would wreak huge financial damage on the whole game and it's difficult to see why 41 innocent clubs should pay the price for the misdeeds of one. So I think there are really two viable options that are in play at the moment."
Source: PA
