Guarranteed £3.5m rising to £4m on appearances. Will any club accept an appearance-linked deal from Rangers after the Michael ball episode?

Scotty, you have got this pretty mixed up. I pointed out that there is a pattern in these transfers where the selling club gets 80% of the number it first asked for. Ergo, if Rovers want £6.5m, ask for £8.5m. I don't believe I ever forecast we would get £8.5m. In the event the club delayed naming a price and then went straight to a last and final number- guarranteed £6m. Rovers is owned by a Trust- the Trustees are lawyers and accountants. If we were owned like Rangers or Newcastle by metal merchants I'd look at this a different way. But we are controlled by lawyers and accountants. Our owners- the Trustees know that as reluctant sellers they can probably force (if they want to) recovery of £6.5m as the club which sold Ferguson to them is also the club wanting to buy him back in somewhat confusing circumstances. So the Trustees knocked off a notional £500K for unrecoverable legal fees and the cost of hassle and stuck the stake in the ground at £6m. Unless Rovers suddenly need the Ferguson cash for another transfer deal, they will not shift. That leaves us with tapping up. What do you call a tap up? Would you like to be Viola or Rangers answering a barrister holding a newspaper dated 7 January- "Barry- my family and I are very happy in Blackburn" and another newspaper dated 10 January- "Rangers- we were made aware by the player's agent that he wanted to come to Rangers" and then innumerable articles since October from Rangers' directors and Managers trumpeting "Now we have got the financing done, we can bring Barry back home"? I keep saying, this will not go to a Court of Law or to FIFA. But the very fact the Rovers went to Court against the Insurance Industry sends a clear message to Scotland that they cannot count on Rovers not turning litigious. It makes the threat credible and that is what counts in getting whatever the Rovers Board want out of this Ferguson situation. All I have sought to do is explain that the Rovers have a bloody big stick to help them get what they want!

jim, that as they say is the £2.5m question! If its £4m plus the £2.1m (the true number written off), bye bye Bazza. If not, go away Gers.

A well-reasoned and awesomely logical ripost Read Article 8 "Maintenance of Contractual Stability" in the FIFA Regulations governing the transfer and registration of players. These regulations very rarely get used. Usually the club or agent doing the destabilising (tapping up) has the good sense to make sure it has the resources to pay the unwilling seller's price to secure the player. When that happens, as Gordon Taylor observed, the selling club has used the player's contract to make a decent profit. As thing stands at the moment, Rangers and Viola haven't got the resources to pay and so are at risk from the Rovers acting against them- Ferguson is under 28 years old which is the age limit at which FIFA Article 8 ceases to apply. What makes Ferguson an even more unusual and clear cut case is that Rangers have no defence that Rovers are asking for an artificial or unreasonable price- it is Rangers' own price set when they sold Ferguson to us! FIFA have used the sanctions specified in their Regulations on the rare occasions these cases reach them- fines and/or transfer ban and/or ban from entering international competitions. Quite apart from the FIFA Regulation, if Rovers can prove damage to their business directly as a result of improper behaviour, they have the basis for a civil case for damages. Again, this has not previously been invoked in football because invariably the tapper up makes sure the seller does not make a commercial loss. But in this case, Rangers don't have the financial resources to avoid the Rovers making a loss. And they might have picked the wrong club because Rovers have shown that they fight (the insurance industry over Dahlin) where others don't. What is @#/? about that?

den, you are right and to all those who derided me for suggesting the Rovers might seek legal redress for this mess or file appropriate reports with UEFA and FIFA, please bear in mind that the Rovers have a track record of acting litigiously where others have meekly sat back and accepted their losses: Many players have retired with non-injury related complaints. But it was Blackburn Rovers who had the balls, intelligence and cash to take on the insurance industry (four defendant companies being some of the insurance "heavyweights") in Court on the Martin Dahlin case. So given Rovers have gone where no other football club dared to tred in respect of the High Court once already, if Rovers have a case against either (or both) of Rangers and Viola, and consider on balance it is in our interests (football or commercial) not to let it lie, I would expect some "afters" in February if Ferguson does not get transferred in this window. I am sure Rovers will not feel constrained in seeking an agreement to make sure a farce with the same player, agent and "buying" club is never repeated. Rovers will not be without ammunition for getting what they want and almost certainly any agreement would be unlikely to be made public. This afternoon's Glasgow papers suggests some movement by Rangers but surely not enough to tempt the resolute Rovers Board. here

Savage is eligible, Bellamy is not and Ferguson's groin is playing him up again Has to be a very close to full strength side. Would like to see Nissa and Nelsen start and give Jansen a run alongside Dickov. Dangerous game for us- Lawrenson has gone for Rovers 2 Colchester 0. I think I'll join him as the dingles have got the "I can't see where the goals are going to come from" soubriquet this week.

Bit of a hickup for Rangers. The Serb, understandably unimpressed with being bundled out to make an inadequate contribution to the "Bring Barry back home" collection, has said he wants to take his time to think about it all. No doubt a bit of cash will help him to hurry up, but that's not the point of the exercise.

Completely agree jim Two cringeworthy thoughts - For once I hope Ferguson is right about Chelsea crumbling on a cold night in the North West! - It is actually an honour to have such a fabulous team come to Ewood Park. Realistically: Rovers 0 Chelsea 3 but Rovers to give it more of a go than some of Chelsea's recent opponents.

Yes it is. He only needs to buy another five players from Rangers (Klos, Ricksen? ) and Rangers will be able to afford Ferguson.

Yes. But JW is saying £6m guarranteed. That last word is important because the contractual terms are going to be very important- if Rangers find the £6m, it will push them significantly closer to insolvency in the event of them not making it to Champs League Group Stage next season.

The latest from Bonnie Scotland. I won't risk a flaming by telling you what I read in a number of Scottish sources- you can read it yourself! Everton emerging empty handed from yet another transfer attempt worries me far more than Rangers earning £500K from forcing out a clearly upset Serb. Rangers have not budged off offering £3m by the way.

Report this morning that Rovers have rejected Rangers offer of Michael Ball in part payment for Ferguson.

Yes you are paupers. The dingles will get as much for their domestic football coverage as Rangers do (for a superior product). As for the Sky deal, there is a new EU Commission in place and a monpoly deal has just been allowed through for French football. I thought the original deal negotiated with Sky hit the right balance between coverage and payments but that got upset by a wierd interpretation of sporting IP rights by the EU Competition Commissioner who really didn't understand what he was doing. It is possible that the EPL could succeed in putting that particular genie back in the bottle. Even if that doesn't happen, the economics of EPL broadcasting are such that the degradation in revenues will perhaps be 10% at most- the decline in domestic TV revenues being partly offset by the explosion in overseas payments. At the moment, the EPL earns a touch under £200m pa from global TV sales. Here in Malta, I can watch EPL games on Sky but also Maltese, Italian, Tunisian, Egyptian and Turkish TV channels. We get to see Maltese, Italian, African, Spanish and Turkish football on TV but EPL dominates. I saw something which I thought might have been SPL once but it turned out to be the Iceland v Norway women's international. In the next round of broadcast negotiations, the Chinese are likely to start paying big numbers for EPL games.

I have had a chuckle to myself having really enjoyed Dado's pop at me. The reaction over Stefan Klos is so typical of the supporter of a little club who is scared a big club will come in for a star player. There is no doubt that the likes of Arsenal and Man U had him watched and that probably his age (33) was a determining factor in them not moving for him. Had they done so, the prospect of playing in the Premiership, as close to guarranteed Champs League later stages each year as you can get and at least a 50% jump in wages (despite being one of Rangers' highest earners) would have been tempting. Set against that, turning down Advocaat at Monchoengladbac to stay at Rangers bears no comparisson. Make no mistake, financially Rangers are a little club, under financed and facing cripplingly bad trading conditions- £29m annual losses tend to recur, especially if you lose one third of your income by getting knocked out in the Champs League preliminaries. Every one of the 20 English Premier League clubs will have a higher revenue than Rangers this season. Quite probably, Rangers turn over in the current season will dip below £30m. That would make Rangers only 60% to 70% the size of Blackburn Rovers. Newcastle are three times bigger than Rangers. Arsenal four times bigger Chelsea have a new sponsorship deal which will be about the same size as the whole of Rangers football club. Oh and Manchester United are more than six times as big as Rangers. I still expect that Rangers' extremely weak financial position will result in them failing to find the cash to tempt Rovers to sell Ferguson.

Just done a quick scan of the Glasgow papers- the indications are that Rangers are going to sell the Serbian who cost them £1.2m in the summer to either a German or Russian club and chuck in Michael Ball in the deal for Rovers to try and achieve something to breach "the country mile". Ricksen will go to the Premiership this summer on a Bosman, Rangers are already fighting to hang onto Klos and as for Arveladze, I don't know. For all those Rovers supporters saying we won't get our price, I can only repeat that in these situations, the reluctant selling club doesn't keep the player but it does get its price. If the price is not met, it keeps the player who leaves later but not to the club who originally bid as the player is usually too angry or loses faith with the bidder for putting him through some weeks of hell and still not being able to secure him. There is nothing in the Ferguson situation which would suggest that Rovers will lose out TWICE- both on player and price.

Let's see which clubs in the North West of England hold the registrations of Thatcher and Ferguson on 1 February, shall we? I don't take this homesick guff- its about business dealings. Ferguson is worth more to Viola under his nose in Glasgow than he is in England.

The Guardian report on the stalemate. Very clearly there has been no movement but there is speculation that Rangers need to ship four players out of Ibrox during this window to get the wage bill down. That is the language of a business which thought it had bid £440,000 cash. Not the stance of a business which is capable of offering £2.4m now (the amount needed now if the fondly rumoured bid of £4.5m is true which frankly I doubt) or of one remotely serious about negotiating on the terms of the seller. The relevant points are: -Murray restructured the Rangers finances three months ago so no doubt has little if any personal room of manoeuvre to put any more of his own cash in now -virtually nobody joined him in investing so he has ended up with 92% of the company and an under-financed result -the remaining £23m debt was restructured to become long term but no doubt at a cost to Murray personally -Murray stated that Rangers would be debt free within the year -Rangers LOST £29m last year; I have no idea how they are going to turn last year's loss into a surplus big enough to wipe the debts- that is a turn around in corporate performance of over £50m - Rangers' turn over in a Champions League season was under £40m. That will have fallen by £10m to £15m this year with the failure to make the Group Stages. - even with our poor gates and league position, Rovers in 2004/5 will be 25% larger a business than Rangers are Rangers could not afford Ferguson when they embarked on this malarky and they cannot afford him now. That is why the word GUARRANTEED has come into Williams' language. He knows that Rangers' financial future is far from secure and the success of the Murray restructuring is dependent upon winning the SPL title this year to an alarming extent. From what I can see, no Rangers supporter believes they will be able to do the decent thing and swap Ferguson for the original transfer fee. They either do not believe Ferguson is going back or have kidded themselves Rovers will take a £2m+ hit on the deal. The legal structure of Blackburn Rovers could make that a dangerous thing to do (the responsibilities on the Trustees) even if the club wanted to which it clearly doesn't. My guess is that Hughes identified Savage/Ferguson as the midfield formation he wanted and is being as stubborn and resolute about keeping Ferguson as he was about securing Savage. The Board may well alienate their Manager as well if they let Ferguson go on the cheap. If Ben Thatcher can go back into the Man City team, what is the problem with Barry Ferguson re-joining the Rovers squad? Two points to the Rovers fans saying let Ferguson go on the cheap: - will Rovers now get the quality of players within this window they need? Without being ripped off? - does Ferguson make a difference to the team? How many £500,000 place money prizes will be lost through his transfer and how greater is the percentage chance of relegation if he goes? Those financial factors compound the calculation of the valuation of the player from a Rovers' standpoint. Is anyone going to argue with me that Rovers will probably finish at least two places lower without Ferguson and increase the chance of relegation from, say, 15% now to 30% without him. Factor those numbers in and next season the probability is that losing Ferguson now costs us over £3m in consequential losses. I don't think this is an "ordinary" case of keeping an unhappy player. Rangers are saying "Can't pay, No pay". Rovers are saying "No pay, Can't sell"; not "No pay, Won't sell". Rovers have little choice but to keep Ferguson for the next few months if they don't get their valuation.

Rangers still nowhere near Rovers' asking price.

The move of Ben Thatcher (whose family could not settle in the North West) to Fulham has broken down. So he is straight back in the Man City squad for Saturday.

Glasgow Rangers prominently announced that Barry Ferguson had been granted a transfer request on their web site this morning. They pulled it off the site very quickly and now there is nothing about Ferguson on there. Perhaps the piggy bank is bear?

It is very disappointing and worrisome but I think there are several OTT reactions. The Sky Sports stats for the First Half were: Shots on Target- Rovers 2 Bolton 0 Shots off Target- Rovers 3 Bolton 0 Bolton did not have an attempt on goal of any sort until the 59th minute!!! For all the impotence of the front two, the lack of cohesion in the middle of the park and the occasional Mokoena and Matteo collywobbles, the Rovers were very tight defensively again. Is the FA going to charge Diouf? By my count, there were two premeditated elbows on Todd, an attempted decapitation of MGP, one cynical dive and only one yellow card. The slomo of the elbow on Todd for which he got booked was sickening- it showed Diouf's face contorted with hatred looking at Todd as he ran at him clearly shaping up to elbow him in the neck from two or three paces away. Plenty of unpunished offences to warrant a trip to Soho Square.

I would think the message is cough up or go away with a couple of options on how they could meet Rovers' valuation thrown in - one straight transfer fee, one with dependencies on SPL Championships and Champs League Group stages adding to a greater number if all triggered. After slow, slow, its time for quick quick. I agree that Ferguson would leave a huge hole. It comes down to whether Murray is willing to gamble big. If he listens to his accountants, Ferguson will stay at Rovers.

Worrying... Matteo and Mokoena Ok, just- would be punished by a better team. We have to hang out for every penny of the £6.5m from Rangers for Ferguson because missing him was where we lost it. As previously commented, for Thompson's occasional good runs nobody was putting their foot on the ball or giving the Rovers fluency. Nobody can dare criticise Dickov after what we saw tonight from Bothroyd, Gally, Stead or Johnson. Sod the Rangers/Viola/Ferguson situation, Messrs Hughes, Ferguson, Finn and Coar should be dispatched to every corner of the globe and not let back into the country unless accompanied by an in ternational striker, ink drive on the loan agreement. In the meantime, BRING BACK MATTY! The game, as always swung on refereeing decisions. Diouf should have walked for the premeditated decapitation attempt on MGP early in the game. Nolan should have walked for the two footed assault on Savage. Those are decisions that D'Urso might not have d'ucked. The commentators, myself and everyone else in the Bar said penalty when Diouf went down. It should have been second yellow, red but instead we went 0-1 down. It was only the slomo replay which showed it was a triple salko with added twist and that Brad had not made contact. Is there any provision for the FA to review that decision? I know its too late for us but a retrospective ill dispute charge and three match suspension would help to put a stop to such brilliant trickery. Final word... MGP really is the biz. Not anywhere near his full potential yet but the kid has got it.

If he plays, Barry has got to produce as big a performance as he has ever done for Rovers- then he'll be fine with the fans. After all, with Savage making his debut and the w**** Wanderers on the Park, its hardly as though the crowd are going to have nothing to think about except boo Barry. If we are at the point of awarding medals: Heroes John Williams got the timing right, brought the issue into the open in the first place, some wonderful calm professional statements using just the right language. Mark Hughes took up the public relations phase since Friday- handled it perfectly. Now has to smooth Barry's way back into the Rovers' squad and the acceptance of the fans. Big Villains John Viola- middle man wind up merchant. Selling hot air rather than a business deal. Should stick to buying plots in Bothwell with Margaret Ferguson. David Murray- got suckered by the Viola guff when most in the SPL would treat it with much more circumspection. As a result made a fool of himself getting the timing of when Ferguson would be on a Bosman wrong. Unforgiveably shoddy treatment of Barry Ferguson- encouraged him to make a transfer request then was then totally lacking in funds and loyalty to buy Barry out of Ewood. Little Villain Barry Ferguson- would have been a big one if he hadn't consistently said he is happy at Ewood. Understandably failed to realise that David Murray's statements were not negotiating ploys- he actually said the truth about not increasing his offer! Stooge Eck McLeish- sloppy talk about Ferguson when Murray reduced Rangers' debts started this whole thing. Rab Nesbitt performance on the radio but not as lucid as the string vest, not got his Bazza lifebuoy to help save his job.

Rangers moving onto Plan B. They are scouting a French midfielder.