Football's woes: Not so beautiful SPORTING competition is different from other kinds. Like other businesses, teams want to vanquish their rivals - but not to obliterate them, since without proper contests the sport's appeal wanes. In the case of Scottish football, the main draw is one particularly fierce rivalry: between Rangers and Celtic, the two big Glasgow clubs that are also Scotland's most successful teams, whose enmity is inflected by a sometimes ugly sectarian tension (Rangers" supporters are mostly Protestant, Celtic's overwhelmingly Catholic). Both the enmity and Scottish football's appeal are likely to be dimmed by Rangers" recent demotion to Scotland's lowest league - a humiliating comedown for one of the world's great clubs. Rangers" previous owners incurred big unpaid debts and the wrath of the taxman over the methods used to pay players; its old incarnation is assailed by lawsuits and heading for liquidation. The ground and other assets have been bought by new investors, who are trying to keep the faith of supporters while renegotiating inherited penalties (including a ban on signing new players, awkward since many of the old ones have left). Standing on their principles, the other Scottish clubs voted to make the revamped Rangers start at the bottom, as punishment for, in effect, cheating. The case against Rangers is that, with neither a mega-rich backer nor the revenues of the top English clubs, it fielded players it could not legitimately afford. Justice, perhaps, but at a price. A contest with only two good teams was often dull; with only one, it risks being catatonic. "There's a lot of delight among Celtic fans," says one, "but most people realise this is a disaster." An early consequence may be the renegotiation of television rights by ESPN and Sky: the rights look much less attractive without the regular clashes between Celtic and Rangers. Since the TV money trickles through the leagues, many other clubs are nervous. Rangers" lucrative army of travelling supporters will shrink and be missed, too. Whatever the consequences for football, many Scots are aghast at the shaming of another revered national institution (the country's main banks having imploded during the financial crisis). South of the border, meanwhile, the beautiful game has been freshly tarnished by foul-mouthed, pharaonic players rather than business shenanigans. On July 13th - the same day that Rangers was demoted - a magistrate cleared John Terry, captain of Chelsea Football Club, of committing a racially aggravated public-order offence during a match in 2011. Mr Terry, who has twice been stripped of England's captaincy, admitted using the words "fucking black cunt," but claimed he had merely been repeating an allegation of racism levelled against him. The infantile and lewd insults routinely exchanged on the pitch were luridly aired in court. The row rumbles on, after a black player who testified in Mr Terry's defence was insulted on Twitter. The Olympics might, in theory, have helped to polish football's image. This year Great Britain will field a team for the first time since 1960, its participation having been suspended partly because of the reluctance of the four constituent nations to unite. Alas, the therapeutic effect has been undermined by the failure of the coach, Stuart Pearce, to select any Scottish or Northern Irish players in his squad. Worse (at least from a marketing perspective) he mystifyingly omitted David Beckham. The captain is Ryan Giggs, a Welshman who tried and failed to keep private reports of an extra-marital affair.