Wait goes on for Rangers´ fate

The ‘crisis situation’ at Rangers is set to continue after news that the club’s tax tribunal has been postponed until early 2012.

The First Tier Tribunal was expected be concluded this month, but is now unlikely to be finished before January 16, 2012. It means the Scottish Premier League champions will not be due to learn their fate until the end of the current season.

If they lose the case, the club could be handed a 49 million-pound tax bill and potentially thrown into administration, and owner Craig Whyte – who completed a takeover of the club in May – has stressed that the issue must be taken seriously and dealt with properly.

He told both The Herald and The Scottish Sun: “What we have to remember is that Rangers are in a crisis situation.”

“It’s a hard thing to live with. I think we need to get finality on it.”

“We need to move forward and, even though it may be a tough process, we must try to remove the uncertainty that is hanging over us. The club is paralysed right now.”

Rangers are yet to resolve a separate dispute with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs over a 2.8 million-pound tax bill, which came to light a month before Whyte’s takeover.

The field problems have not resonated on the pitch, however, with Ally McCoist’s side top of the SPL table.