IF.............................

Rangers do go into liquidation and a new Phoenix club arise it is assumed too often that they would be voted into the SPL by the existing clubs, but would that necessarily be the case?
1. Clubs like Hibs, Aberdeen, Dundee United would see an opportunity to gain a place in the CL for a couple or few seasons. OK they would be out in the 2nd or 3rd QR, but if they drew one of the big clubs from Spain, England, Italy or Germany, then the monies earned could compensate, along with Europe League money, for the loss of 2 home games against rangers and Sky tv money.
2. The new Phoenix club could gain access to the SPL in three years and all would be back to normal, assuming the Phoenix club do get good support, which I doubt they would, given the rangers fans preference to support only a winning superior team.
3. SKy TV will determine who plays in the EPL and the Championship. Would Sky sit and watch a global brand like Celtic go untapped and deteriorate in the SPL? Possibly not. Sky and the big EPL clubs would relish the additional attendance over clubs like Wigan etc and viewing figures for Sky of games like MU v Celtic, Chelsea v Celtic, SPurs, Man City etc would be huge.

I suspect the above may well be the thinking behind the Neil Lennon statement that we do not need rangers. I doubt if the Celtic board would let Neil make such a statement unless they genuinely had an optimistic outlook on the future and that can only come from one source.............playing in England.