McCoist - Put us in third

Ally McCoist: Happy to see Rangers newco start life in the Third Division

Ally McCoist has voiced his support for newco Rangers joining the Irn-Bru Third Division.

McCoist declared that the "sporting integrity" argument that saw 10 Scottish Premier League clubs reject their top-flight application means Rangers cannot then be relaunched in the First Division.

The Ibrox manager also revealed he needs to sign about a dozen new players and claimed he would have a better chance of rebuilding the club from the bottom as he called for an end to the "punishment".

McCoist followed chief executive Charles Green's lead in saying the club would accept whatever fate the Scottish Football League deal them - but he added his weight to calls from the majority of fans that they should start in the Third.

"We had a meeting with our supporters last night and the vast majority of them - in the region of 75-80% - have said enough is enough, let's go to SFL 3. "
Ally McCoist Quotes of the week

Reacting to Wednesday's SPL rejection in an interview with RangersTV, McCoist said: "Like everyone else involved at our club extremely disappointed is putting it mildly.

"We are now in the hands of David Longmuir at the SFL who is certainly a man that Charles and I trust implicitly.

"He is a good honest man that I firmly believe has the best interests of Scottish football at heart, of that there is no doubt.

"Out of all the characters involved in this situation I think David and his member clubs have been very unfortunate to have been put in a position where they have to make a decision.

"Whatever decision they reach we will accept. Having said that from my meetings with our supporters, and the vast majority of SPL chairmen have been listening to their supporters, which is great, I'm all for it.

"We had a meeting with our supporters last night and the vast majority of them - in the region of 75-80% - have said enough is enough, let's go to SFL 3.

"Our good friends at Celtic across the city issued a statement that stated that integrity was of paramount importance to Scottish football and we totally agree with that, and I would imagine the vast majority of all SPL chairmen agree with that statement."

Stenhousemuir support

Meanwhile, Stenhousemuir have become the first club to confirm they will vote for newco Rangers to join the Scottish First Division.

SFL clubs will decide on 13 July which division the newly-formed club will launch in - with either the Scottish First Division or Third Division both possibilities.

The Warriors, who play in Division Two, have calculated that they will lose £50,000 a year if newco Rangers are placed in Division Three, a loss they say they cannot make without substantial cuts.

"The impact for Stenhousemuir FC of this option would be the loss of the SFL central payment aligned to the SPL settlement payment. That would total £50,000 a season," the club said in a statement.

"This is a significant amount of money for the football club and we would have to find ways to cut our costs to cover this shortfall.

"Given that we have made commitments to playing staff for this season the playing budget cannot be reduced.

"Therefore the only option open to us to make significant savings would be in scrapping our youth system to release the pitch for hire to the general public, together with a reduction in staff who oversee our community programme.

"The club does not feel any decision should be based on 'punishing' any other football clubs; that is neither our role nor our priority."