Rangers Kicked Out of the SPL

The Scottish Premier League have voted 'overwhelmingly' against newco Rangers from playing in the top division.

The other clubs in the SPL voted on 4 June against letting a soon-to-be liquidated club to play in the top tier when they are reformed as a newco.

SPL chief Neil Doncaster previously hinted the vote could be deferred over fears of the consequences of the Ibrox club playing in the lower divisions.

An SPL statement read: "At today's General Meeting, SPL clubs today voted overwhelmingly to reject the application from Rangers newco to join the SPL."

The soon-to-be liquidated club are now set for demotion to the football league, but it is not yet known what division they will play in.

A vote to decide which division the newco Rangers wil play in is to take place on 12 July. 11

It is also uncertain who will replace the old Rangers in the league. The choice is either Dunfermline, who were relegated from the SPL last season, or First Division runners-up Dundee.

Eight SPL clubs had already publicly announced they would vote against Charles Green's application, meaning they would all but certainly not achieve the 8-4 majority needed to remain in the league.

The decision comes after warnings that the warnings that to cast the newco Rangers into the Third Division would have disastrous financial consequences for the rest of the league.

Before the vote, chief executive Neil 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."

Rangers Chief Executive Green said after the announcement confirmed he will now apply to join the Scottish Football league following the annoucement.

He said: "We are deeply disappointed that our application to rejoin the SPL has been rejected overwhelmingly by the member clubs.

We made a presentation to the SPL clubs this morning, detailing our proposals in support of our application and this included what we believed to be penalties and sanctions that would have dealt fairly with the difficulties caused by events at Rangers prior to our acquisition of the Club on June 14.

"Sadly this was rejected by the other clubs and we regret that our Club and our supporters were given false hope by this initiative.

"We will now proceed as we had planned from late June to apply for membership of the SF.

"If our application were to be accepted, Rangers will play in whichever division the SFL sees fit and we will move forward from there."

Rangers entered into administration in February having owed up to £134m in unsecured creditors.

Green's Sevco firm bought the assets of Rangers for £5.5million when the debt-riddled club was already consigned to liquidation.