I was asked this week to contribute to a BBC discussion on the use of tax avoidance EBTs by Rangers football club.

The news cycle was driven by a 3rd level appeal court this week overturning two previous judgements on the suitability of this tax device as a means to pay players' wages. Many people translated this as meaning that Rangers had cheated. And had thus distorted the sporting competition.

But most of us of a certain vintage have learned that the world isn't black and white, and it's not as simple as that.

The debate was being hosted by 2 people I respect, Tom English and Richard Wilson, so I agreed. To try and explain the 60 shades of grey, as I saw them.

Usually I tend to avoid revisiting the controversies of the Scottish game. For my sins, it was my daily life as CEO of the Scottish League back at the turn of the millennium. And to be very honest, the thrill of the public debate that I had enjoyed at the start eventually got to me. I got bored. Not because of lack of energy, but because I couldn't tolerate the inability of intellectual reason to be heard.

I became famous for what some people called gaffes. They weren't gaffes;

I just couldn't be bothered hiding my disdain any longer.

I remember clearly our communication director so upset as I ripped into some smaller team overly celebratory for a one off cup win, or " diddy" friendly internationals upsetting the business of serious football.

I digress. The context of all discussion in Scottish football since 2011/12 is that one of the two main clubs went into liquidation, leaving a paucity of competitive football to entertain the many passionate followers. Scotland can perhaps claim to have the highest per capita interest in football in the world, but for 4 years they have had no competitive sport. Or indeed any quality football at all. The remaining serious aspiring European challenger, Celtic, and the national team, Scotland, have been "battered" up and down Europe with gay abandon.

So in this dismal scenario , all that can satisfy fans' need for competition is what I this week called "bragging rights". In this case, the necessity of other clubs to accuse Glasgow Rangers of having used EBTs to cheat to its many titles in the David Murray years.

If you can't take pride in the achievements of your club, all that is left is joy in the greater misfortune of your rival. This is what we now witness in Scottish football. And as a person who has never had such a mentality, I find it unacceptably weak.

I expressed my own view on the Rangers saga in 2012 in both press and media. As a Celtic fan, I enjoyed immensely the demise of that club, and concluded, also publicly, that I felt that my club had clearly emerged victorious from a 120 year struggle for supremacy in Scotland. The immigrant club had won, the institutional club lay dead, in this case carried away in a liquidator's coffin. My schadenfreude was intense. God, I'm a normal fan.

How the Celtic fans liked me for that, and congratulated me for my erudite slaying of the beast.

Those same fans this week, via the megaphone of Twitter, had a different view.

I had suggested we should be bigger and move on. Amidst the usual personal "hating" was a theme of bloodlust against Rangers that clearly hadn't been sated in 2012 (as mine had). These people have never exited the maze of anger around whether Rangers is "dead". And hence how many titles the current club wearing it's colours, playing in its stadium, and with the same supporters, actually can claim. M'lud, that's the definition of bragging rights.

Ebts allow this arguement to be taken into warp drive. But it's essential the same discussion.

Here is what is wrong with all this, and why:

For Scotland football, and Celtic fans, what good does it do going forward to see Rangers with X titles less? The problems and competitive disadvantages facing your football are so big, that expending energy on this is rather stupid as I see it. Any victory would certainly make Pyrrhus look good. Don't define yourself by what your rival does. Get better yourself. It is impossible to objectively conclude that Rangers got any sporting advantage from saving this tax. And in any situation where you could argue till blue in the face without result, my advice is always to drop it. Realpolitik. Heed the lessons of Versailles. Scottish football needs to move on, heal, and work together. This nonsense delays all that. Scottish football needs Rangers. They with Celtic represent I'd say 80% of all commercial value around the game. Without the Old Firm, Scottish football would have all the allure of indoor bowling from Coatbridge. Smaller teams can't accept this but they should go and work in the media for a week to understand really what their teams bring to the table. Really, try it. Any decision to strip titles will never be accepted by Rangers. Look at Juventus. There is no closure over those 2 titles after 10 years. The biggest failing of Scotland and Scots is that they are incredibly parochial. I was asked on the programme how all this makes Scotland look from overseas. I nearly choked. With all that is going on in FIFA, iaaf, Qatar, Germany, who cares about EBTs below Gretna. Please, wake up.

Now you may not agree with all that. God knows I'm wrong often enough. But I demand a reasoned argument of intelligence. If not, we are like howling gorillas.

And here is my beef with football.

People don't reason when talking football. Whether that be thru their hatred, their reduced intellectual capacity for analysis, or just bloody mindedness. You ain't going to win the debate. This week I remembered that, and withdrew once more to the quiet shores of Lake Como.