Newco Rangers see pre-season tour cancelled

Newco Rangers have been left without any pre-season matches after organisers of their tour of Germany cancelled the trip.

The Ibrox club suffered further rejection a day after being denied entry to the Clydesdale Bank Premier League.

A statement on http://www.rangersfc.co.uk read: "The Rangers Football Club has been informed by the organisers of our pre-season trip to Germany that they can no longer offer us a place on the tour.

"The team was due to play three games in Germany between 18-25 July, but the trip will now not take place at their request."

Southampton and Le Havre had previously withdrawn invitations to Ally McCoist's team to play pre-season fixtures.

Rangers went to Lower Saxony for four of the last five pre-seasons and the players were due to return to the village of Marienfeld.

McCoist's team were scheduled to play Bundesliga 2. side Eintracht Braunschweig and lower-league side SV Rodinghausen before finishing off against third-tier club Armenia Bielefeld.

The news leaves McCoist's plans in further disarray with only 13 senior players confirmed as being part of his squad, although the manager said last night he was hopeful Andrew Little and Salim Kerkar would sign new contracts.

Quoted on the club website, McCoist told a meeting of Rangers fans last night: "Hopefully we'll get them over the line, although I wouldn't like to put a timescale on either of them.

"Andy actually phoned me tonight and I've missed his call so I'll get back in touch with him tomorrow and we'll see where we can go from there with him and Salim."

The club also have to wait until next week to discover which division they will play in having submitted a bid to the Scottish Football League yesterday.

The SFL board meet today to finalise a meeting date but clubs have already been told to convene next Thursday.

Meanwhile, Charles Green's Sevco consortium hope to take a step forward in their attempts to revive Rangers when the original club changes its name later this month.

Sevco Scotland bought the assets of Rangers for £5.5million last month when the club was consigned to liquidation and have been calling themselves The Rangers Football Club, but their name has not been formally changed.

Rangers administrators Duff and Phelps said today: "We have written to all shareholders of The Rangers Football Club plc (in administration) to provide notice of a general meeting of the company to be held at Ibrox Stadium on July 31.

"The resolution to be put forward at that meeting is to change the name of the company to RFC 2012 plc and there will be no other business on the day.

"This is a procedural measure in order for Sevco Scotland Limited - which acquired the business and assets of the company from the administrators on June 14 - to change its name simultaneously to The Rangers Football Club Limited."

PA