Rangers – Administration (2012)

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Fitzpas of KDS & TheCelticWiki

13 Feb 2012
Your Excellencies, Senior Members, Backroom Staff, loyal posters, distinguished guests, suspected hun lurkers, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm delighted to welcome you to what is very hopefully The Final Generic hun (1873) Ltd Thread.

May I first express my immense gratitude at being invited to perform this opening ceremony, while it's just a fleeting logged-in visit, I lurk most days and love what you guys have done with the place.

Now, way back, before time itself, we had the foresight to collate all acts of generic hunnery into a single thread, and I could never have dreamed that there may one day be a final one.

As I commit this new thread to history, I would like to deliver thanks those people have made these past few monumentally fantastic months and weeks possible…

Generic huns – This could not have been achieved without your loveable "all timmy lies" attitude. You timidly stood back and let your club be pillaged, when fans of any other team would have rioted. You were too busy staring down the chapel over the road to see the huge removal van pull up behind your back. You thought not for what you could do for your team, but what your team should do for you.

Craig Whyte – Had I been given a list of 1000 potential buyers of Rangers and asked to choose my preference, I could not have picked better.

Laptop Loyal – Where were your questions? You blindly accepted claims of Ronaldo, a team for every competition, tenners, £700m super-stadiums and billionaire owners, and everyone over here laughed. Really loud. You had it in your power to rally the troops, but instead gorged on free tickets, back-rubs, and a wee shot on the trophy room bike.

Finally – David Murray – You killed Rangers. Celtic Legend.

To each of you: many, many thanks, from the bottom of all of our hearts, we could never have enjoyed any of this without your help.

As this comes to a close, and Their fans reach for the bookmark button in case of the million-to-one chance this turns out to be a highly embarrasing "spiky golf shoes" moment, I'd like to raise a toast to those who can't be with us. So here's to our absent friends, with whom we'd love to have shared this year's relentless hilarity.

So, by the admin rights temporarily vested in me, I hereby declare thee the The Final Generic hun (1873) Ltd Thread. May all who post in her be blessed with good health, sore cheeks from laughing, and copious amounts of jelly and ice-cream.

Party-on dudes.

KDS Threads

• Feb 2012 (1)
• Feb 2012 (2)
• Apr 2012 (3)
• May 2012 (4)

Liquidation threads

• June 2012 (1)
• June 2012 (2)
• July 2012 (1)
• July 2012 (2)

Rangers intend to go into administration

Herald
Monday 13 February 2012

Rangers have lodged an intention to go into administration with the Court of Session.

The Ibrox club lodged the notice in Edinburgh at Monday lunchtime. They now have five days in which to formally declare administrators have taken over the running of the club.

Solicitors lodged the papers with the Court of Session on behalf of the club's directors on Monday.

Rangers are currently awaiting the result of a �49m tax case with HM Revenue and Customs in relation to the club's use of the Employee Benefits Trust to pay players and staff.

The Court of Session said papers confirming the intention to appoint administrators had been received.

Tom English, April 2011

Whyte has deposited £28m as proof of his financial clout. He has spent a large six-figure sum on lawyers and accountants and due diligence stretching back six months. He has said publicly, more than once, that he is committed to investing £25m over five years on new players. He has stayed in the game and has worked out a "mechanism" to deal with whatever HMRC may through at the club. He has stayed in the deal, also, despite the nasty little surprise of a £2.8m unpaid tax bill was discovered. He has hung around and inched things forward despite all of that and regardless of the two UEFA charges of sectarian chanting that are hanging over the club at present.

Unless he's a complete madman – spending millions on getting rid of Lloyds and Murray and then not bothering to invest in the business he has just bought – then we must assume that he is going to do what he says. He has hung his reputation on delivering what he has said. What is Johnston thinking? That Whyte will take control of the club and then go, "HaHa! Fooled ye all! I don't have another bob to my name! We're all going down in flames!"

At the very least, he deserves a bit more respect than he got from Johnston yesterday. It was hard to know what infuriated Whyte the most when he read what Johnston had to say; the chairman's rather one-eyed appraisal of things or the final paragraph of his statement which painted Whyte as an understanding soul whose reaction to the bombshell of being told about a rival bidder was all very amicable and constructive. It was not.
http://www.scotsman.com/rangersfc/Tom-English-Craig-Whyte39s-Rangers.6754890.jp?articlepage=2

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/tom-english/Tom-English-39There-is-no.6745059.jp?articlepage=1

Craig Whyte profile: The Scots billionaire on the brink of taking over the club he loves

Nov 18 2010 Keith Jackson
Craig Whyte started playing the stock market at the age of 15. By the time he left school he had more than £20,000 in his bank account.
Today, aged just 39, this financial whizzkid from Motherwell stands on the brink of pulling off the biggest deal of his life – and finally bringing the curtain down on one of the longest-running sagas in Scottish football.
Record Sport understands self-made billionaire Whyte has entered into the final stages of negotiations to buy control of the club he loves from Sir David Murray.
And he's still one year younger than captain Davie Weir.
A deal worth around £30million is now believed to have reached such an advanced stage that sources say Whyte, a high-roller who splits his time between a home in London and the idyllic Castle Grant in Grantown-on-Spey, could even have the keys to Ibrox in time to fund a major refurbishment of Walter Smith's top-team squad in January.
The news will delight Rangers supporters who have been fretting over the future of their club ever since Murray first slapped a For Sale sign on the front door of Edmiston Drive around three years ago.
As the club's financial health deteriorated to such an extent the banks moved in to control the purse strings, a series of false dawns came and went.
First, a consortium headed up by South African-based tycoon Dave King came to the fore only to fail to meet Murray's asking price.
Then, in March this year, Londonbased property developer Andrew Ellis emerged as the frontrunner and was granted a period of exclusivity in order to get the deal done.
But Ellis, now part of the consortium, did not have the financial clout to back up his bold promises and his bid collapsed, leaving Rangers firmly in the grip of the Lloyds Group.
Exiled Glaswegian King was then talked up once more as the possible saviour but he was also engaged in a long-running battle with the tax man and while those issues remained unresolved, he too looked l ike an increasingly unlikely white knight for a club now engulfed by crisis.
But yesterday, quite out of the blue, Record Sport learned a new man is at the table and that a deal to end Murray's 22-year reign is ready to be completed.
And that man is a relative boy.
By the age of 26, Whyte was already Scot land's youngest self-made millionaire. Now, 13 years on, and in charge of a vast business empire, his wealth is off the radar.
Whyte is a venture capitalist who has made his millions from playing the markets – a skill he secret ly began honing in his third year at Glasgow's Kelvinside Academy. In one of his few interviews he revealed how he immediately regretted going to the private school – because he despised playing rugby.
He said: "I hated the discipline of it. It was a rugby-only school, which I didn't play as I was interested in football.'' Whyte worked weekends for his dad's plant hire firm. And he saved up his wages to fund his habit of gambling on Stock Exchange.
It is said that, by the time he left school, he had more cash in his bank than many of his teachers.
At 19, he was in charge of his own hire plant.
Now he owns his own castle – one of the most historic buildings in Scotland. And very soon he could be adding Rangers to his portfolio. It remains to be seen if Whyte's move to capture the club will f lush any other parties out of the woodwork because – despite their failure to strike a deal with Murray – King and his consortium have yet to throw in the towel on their own ambitions.
They had put together a package worth around £18m but this was flatly rejected and Ellis drove the price up when he agreed to pay Murray more than £30m.
The club's debt has been reduced by around £10m since then but the selling price remains the same.
Now, quite clearly, Whyte believes he will be able to close the deal and the young gun must have said enough to impress Murray, who has stated all along that he will only sell the club to the right people – men with enough money to take the club forward.
Who knows? Murray may even regard Whyte as something of a kindred spirit.
After all, Murray was himself aged just 37 back in 1988 when he launched a takeover of the Ibrox club.
It was the beginning of one of the most successful periods in Rangers' history but Murray's aggressive pursuit of European glory eventually saw him writing the kind of cheques that his club could simply not afford.
Now Whyte is bringing his money to the table but it remains to be seen if he will adopt the same scatter-cash approach as the man who has owned the club for the past two decades.
But if he brings in even half of the number of trophies Murray delivered then the fans are unlikely to be complaining

Rangers owner Craig Whyte admits he sold four years' worth of season tickets to keep Ibrox club running

Jan 31 2012 Exclusive by James Traynor & Keith Jackson

CRAIG WHYTE sold off four years of fans' money to help fund his Rangers buy-out, it was revealed last night.

And Record Sport can also reveal high-ranking HMRC officials are investigating alleged non-payment of VAT since Whyte gained control of the club last May.

Current director Dave King and former board member Paul Murray have been quizzed by the tax authorities as part of their enquiry which has revealed £24.4million has been borrowed against future season-tickets sales.

Tranches of tickets over four seasons have been sold to Ticketus, a London-based group linked to Octopus, and it's claimed this deal helped finance Whyte's operating costs after the takeover.

Whyte himself last night confirmed he had sold off the tickets but denied he used the money to pay off Lloyds Bank. He insisted the £18m for the bank came from one of his companies.

When Whyte took over Rangers' debt was £18m to Lloyds Bank and their wage bill had been reduced to £14m but it is believed the club could owe much more than that.

It's thought the current debt is £21m to Ticketus plus £5m VAT on the ticket deal. But there could be other bills due and of course Rangers are awaiting the final verdict on their £49m EBT (Employee Benefit Trust) tax case.

Last night Whyte insisted the Ticketus deal was normal practice for clubs and his spokesman said: "The suggestion that the Rangers takeover was funded through financing arrangements on season tickets is categorically untrue.

"Rangers FC is no different in that it has a working capital facility with Ticketus, as have many, many other clubs. It is a common arrangement in football. This facility was in place at Ibrox long before the takeover."

The EBT ruling is due within weeks and if Rangers lose they will be facing financial meltdown.

Their debt could then be in the £75m region with liquidation a stark reality.

But many now fear Rangers could be tipped over the abyss and into some kind of insolvency even before their Judgment Day over the tax case.
paul murray takeover plan would prevent another cash crisis to cripple rangers

Rangers fans put their faith in Whyte believing he would get rid of the club's debt and also provide transfer money for manager Ally McCoist, who has been an impoverished bystander during this transfer window.

But the Ibrox club's support will be shocked by the detail of invoices and letters now in the revenue's possession. It is claimed these show Whyte sold off massive chunks of Rangers' future season-ticket sales.

And former board member Murray believes the takeover wouldn't have been possible without the fans, even though they had no idea future tickets had been sold off to raise extra cash.

Murray said: "These documents prove to me that Rangers fans have actually paid and will continue to pay for the sale of their club."

He added that HMRC have told him they are also due VAT, as much as £5m, on the deal with Ticketus and insists he has seen details of letters and invoices held by HMRC.

Murray claims that in one of the documents, a letter dated March 8, 2011 and signed by Whyte, it is alleged he made it clear that through Wavetower, his bid vehicle at the time, he would be entering into a deal to sell the season tickets to a company called Ticketus.

They are part of London-based Octopus, a perfectly legitimate lender who grant immediate loans based on future ticket sales. Record Sport managed to speak with most of the people who were on the Rangers board at the time of the takeover and they insist they knew nothing about the sale of season tickets. In fact they tried to ring-fence supporters' money.

The papers, which are being pored over by HMRC officials, are said to reveal borrowing against ticket sales for seasons 2011-12, 12-13 and 13-14 that Whyte was able to raise £24.4m.

Then on June 27 he was hit with the first of his repayment bills from Ticketus, who were demanding a total of £9.5m, their share of that summer's season-ticket sales. Whyte could only come up with £3.5m cash and to fill the shortfall mortgaged off part of season 2014-15 to the value of £6m.

Opening in March last year Murray claims the detail contained within HMRC's file is extensive and explosive.

This is the timetable and interpretation of events: March 8, 2011: A letter from Liberty Capital (one of Whyte's companies) is signed by Whyte and addressed to Ticketus.

In the letter Whyte confirms the intention to sell Rangers' season tickets to Ticketus.

April 7: Lawyers on behalf of Ticketus deposit £24.4m into a Collyer Bristow (lawyers for Whyte's bid) client account. A further £2m was placed in the same account from a company called JLT Benefit Solutions with £1m from the Merchant House Group, a firm of corporate finance specialists with whom Whyte is closely linked.

May 9: An agreement was entered into between Ticketus and Rangers to sell the season tickets.This was just three days after the takeover date of May 6. The bank was repaid the £18m.

June 27: Ticketus raised an invoice to Rangers seeking first repayment of £9.5m on their agreement. Rangers paid only £3.5m of that amount in cash and borrowed £6m more from Ticketus by selling another portion of 2013-14 as well as a portion of season 2014-15. Analysts stress there is nothing illegal in selling future ticket sales. In fact, it is common practice in British football, although the problems encountered by Leeds United and Newcastle United, who both borrowed too often and too much, are proof of the dangers.

Whyte has never declared the deals with Ticketus although HMRC documents suggest he has cashed in on fan loyalty.

The tax officials quizzed Murray and South African-based King, who was on conference call, as recently as last Friday morning.

They insisted they had no knowledge of what had been happening and Murray, who last year offered to take the club off Lloyds' books and invest £15m in the team in a last-ditch attempt to prevent Whyte from getting the club, said he couldn't believe what he was reading when presented with the HMRC file.

"HMRC asked for a meeting at the end of last week to find out what knowledge I, having been a director of the club at the time, had of these transactions prior to the takeover," Murray said.

"I knew nothing about this and although I have been questioned by HMRC and seen some especially revealing documents which are in their possession, it is still very hard to take in what has been going on.

"Collyer Bristow were acting for Craig Whyte during the takeover and I have been shown their client account, from the opening of it until today.

"I've also seen all invoices from Ticketus to Rangers and Rangers to Ticketus supporting all these actions.

"I can't believe Rangers have been handed over in this way.

"Remember also, the Independent Board, set up to make sure any potential buyers were capable of making the purchase and then funding the business, asked repeatedly where Craig Whyte was getting the money.

"He said it was from his own personal wealth and through Liberty Capital, which he insisted he owned 100 per cent, in the British Virgin Islands.

"Plans were being made to sell off future ticket sales but the directors were never told. This was all being done behind our backs."

King was also shocked to learn of the seasonticket sale and said: "Securitising season tickets is a valid seasonal funding strategy to smooth cash flows within the year – but no longer."

Whyte's spokesman added: "The takeover team instigated discussions with Ticketus prior to the takeover because the relationship with Rangers was already in place and the new owners wanted to continue it.

"They were clear from the outset they wanted to ensure there were robust working capital provisions in place that could deal with the many financial challenges the club faces.

"The takeover was funded by one of Mr Whyte's companies. Several months before then – and long before any discussions with Ticketus – Mr Whyte was asked to provide proof of funds for the takeover and he did that to the satisfaction of the previous owners, Lloyds Banking Group and professional advisers."

Ex-Rangers chairman Alistair Johnston: Administration looks inevitable for my old club

Jan 31 2012
HE was hours away from being publicly unmasked as Rangers’ Whyte Knight in waiting.

Craig Whyte, a reclusive, self-made mystery man from Motherwell, was on the verge of making his first move to become the new king of Ibrox – and being catapulted from obscurity into the public eye for the first time in all of his 39 years.

It was Thursday night, November 17, 2010. Whyte – knowing the story of his takeover plan was about to break in the following day’s Daily Record – rushed in a team of PR gurus whose job it was to brief reporters on his behalf.

When the hired help was asked for details of the exact extent of their man’s wealth, the answer came back, loud and clear: “Describe him as a billionaire”.

But over the rocky, financially troubled 15 months which have followed, those figures have rarely looked like adding up. And this morning comes the most damning allegation of all. That Whyte has mortgaged off four years’ worth of fans’ hard-earned season-ticket cash to pay his club’s running costs.

This astonishing claim has surfaced after high-level officials from HMRC quizzed current director Dave King and Paul Murray, who was removed from the board by Whyte shortly after he had won his battle for control of the club.

The authorities believe Whyte now owes the taxman £5million in VAT from the £24.4m deal they say was done with London-based firm Ticketus, a subsidiary of parent company Octopus.

Now this would-be “billionaire” has managed to run up so much debt in his 10 months in charge he has been left trying to flog star striker Nikica Jelavic before tonight’s transfer deadine just to keep the wolf from the door.

It’s a far cry from the bold promises of big spending with which Whyte’s new era was trumpeted when, on May 6 of last year, he announced he had finally bought Sir David Murray’s shareholding for the price of just £1.

But one man feared from the start it was all doomed to end in tears. And last night former chairman Alistair Johnston – the man who warned fans to “remain vigilant” on the day he handed over the keys of Ibrox – expressed his fear that Rangers are now hurtling towards unavoidable administration after the news four years’ worth of season tickets have been flogged off to London.

Speaking from the States last night, Johnston said: “We asked Murray International to ask that specific question: Is he raising the money to buy the club or to finance the operations of the club against the assets of Rangers Football Club?
“He said he wasn’t doing it. But we didn’t believe him.

“We were trying to say at the time that selling the club to Craig Whyte could be a disaster. We were ridiculed by a lot of people for saying it but I take no gratification or satisfaction from being proved right.

“Inevitably, it was only a matter of time before this happened. The destiny of the club is now clearly not in its own 
hands – it’s in the hands of Octopus.

“Unfortunately I think administration is now almost inevitable because the club’s debts are unsustainable and Octopus want their money back.

“In my view, the only way the club can clear these debts now is by going into administration. I just wonder if he still has his position as the secured creditor. It was always his intention to be the guy on the other side of the river when the club came out of administration. But it looks to me as if Octopus is now essentially the secured creditor.”

Johnston says his suspicions were aroused about Whyte’s intentions from early on in the takeover saga. And the alarm bells were clattering louder than ever on the day after the newly- installed supremo watched Walter Smith and his team wrap up a third successive title at Rugby Park in May.

He added: “First, during the process of due diligence it became clear he didn’t care about cash flow. That indicated to us they were in for a short ride. They had no interest in operating the club.

“Also, the day after we won the championship at Kilmarnock I had a meeting with Whyte and his lawyer during which they both asked me to disband the Independent Committee.

“They said now the sale had taken place the Independent Committee had no value.

“I said no as I had a written agreement we would remain in place until he provided our shareholders with a circular.

“That was a warning. They were trying to get rid of us because they knew at that point in time they had embarked on a track of borrowing against season-ticket money.

“He had told us it was all his money and it hadn’t been borrowed against the assets.

“He then used all sorts of excuses to get myself, Paul Murray, Martin Bain and Donald McIntyre off the board. The day before that happened I had seen the latest financial statements and knew there was a real problem.

“That’s why they got us out. They knew we would never approve their plan. They then spent the next couple of months discrediting us and saying we were yesterday’s men. But we knew we were right. We knew we had an obligation to the fans and shareholders.

“But he launched a very effective PR campaign and used lawyers to intimidate everyone. He made out any criticism of Craig Whyte was actually an attack on Rangers. Fans rallied around him.“

But it was like a human shield. He used Rangers Football Club as a human shield to protect himself.”

Last night Whyte denied any suggestion he had used tickets cash to buy the club. A spokesman said: “It is disgraceful that at every turn there are people who continue to damage Rangers – people who when they were asked to step up and rescue the club were all talk and no action.”

Rangers icon John Greig & ex-chairman John McClelland deliver stark warning to owner Craig Whyte: Don't ruin our club

Feb 1 2012 Exclusive by James Traynor

RANGERS legend John Greig and former chairman John McClelland joined forces last night to warn the club are in danger of being sucked into a debt spiral.

Both had stayed silent since Craig Whyte gained control last May but revelations in yesterday’s Daily Record about season ticket dealings prompted them to speak out.

Both resigned from the board, insisting they had been frozen out of the decision making process.

Their departures followed Donald McIntyre’s resignation as a director, leaving South Africa-based Dave King as the sole survivor of the previous regime.

And last night it was understood King was clinging to his seat on the board despite pressure from Whyte to quit.

While Whyte was penning an open letter to the supporters claiming our exclusive report was untrue, Greig, voted the greatest ever Ranger, and McClelland were adamant they had been told nothing while still members of Whyte’s board.

And they fear the club could be rushing down a one-way street by spending advances on future season tickets.

Like many Rangers supporters, Greig and McClelland are alarmed and dismayed by the negativity which continues to swirl around Ibrox.

The former directors believe the financial turmoil has stripped the club of its dignity.

They spoke out after yesterday’s disclosures and as striker Nikica Jelavic quit to join Everton.

McClelland said: “When you consider the effort that was put in to make sure the club would always have its dignity, it is very sad.

“In a matter of only months all that could be damaged further.”

Greig, who was forced to end a 50-year association with the club because of the new regime’s lack of transparency, said: “Like the other directors, I had no knowledge of what was happening.

“The news of all those tickets being sold off is disturbing as this club has always been special to me and any adverse publicity it receives hurts greatly. It’s painful when I think of what’s happening.”

Record Sport revealed Whyte had borrowed £24.4million against future season ticket sales from this season until 2014-15 and although the deal with Ticketus was done while the former board was still in place, none of the directors was told.

McClelland, who was chairman from 2002 to 2004, resigned along with Greig last October.

The old board had tried to force greater disclosures from Whyte but he was the one who came up with the £18m to get Lloyds Bank off Rangers’ case.

Although Rangers, in common with many British clubs, were occasional customers of Ticketus, McClelland fears they borrowed too much.

He is annoyed that neither he nor any of the directors was aware tickets were being securitised.

McClelland said: “This should only ever be a short-term measure to help a club get over a difficult month or so.

“I wouldn’t say it’s good practice to do this too often and for too much.

“It is the equivalent of someone borrowing 25 per cent of the next four years’ salary. It could put the club in greater financial difficulties.

“If great care isn’t taken the club might not be viable.

“If you have to repay that debt over and over the club can be left vulnerable.

“If you have to pay back, say, £5m a year because you’ve used the season tickets then you have to scale the operation down to ensure you meet the repayments and still function.

“But by borrowing heavily trouble can lie ahead if there is a problem or if season tickets don’t sell in the usual numbers.

“I wouldn’t have agreed to this and I certainly wasn’t told the tickets were being sold off. But I was always being told that Mr Whyte would be funding his takeover through his own personal wealth.”

13 February 2012 Last updated at 17:57 GMT

Rangers FC signals administration move

Rangers Football Club has confirmed it has filed legal papers at the Court of Session to appoint administrators.

The club said it would continue with "business as usual" until it decided whether to take that step.

Rangers now has 10 days to make a decision. In the meantime, it said there would be "no impact on season ticket holders and shareholders".

The move comes while Rangers awaits a tax tribunal decision over a disputed bill, plus penalties, totalling £49m.

Craig Whyte, who bought the club from former owner Sir David Murray last year, said recently that administration was an option if the club lost the tax case.
'Protect the club'

The case relates to the use of employment benefit trusts (EBTs) to pay players and other staff.

It is thought that HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) believe the club misused the scheme and avoided paying significant sums in tax.

In a statement released on Monday, Mr Whyte said the moves towards administration had been made to protect the club.

He said: "Since I took over the majority shareholding of the club in May last year, it was clear to me the club was facing massive financial challenges both in terms of its ongoing financial structure and performance and the potential consequences of the HMRC first tier tax tribunal.

"I have taken the decision that the most practical way to safeguard the long-term future of the club is to go through a formal restructuring process. It may still be possible to avert this but that is not the most likely way forward.

"What is of paramount importance is the long-term security, survival and prosperity of this great football club."

Mr Whyte said it was "in the best interests of Rangers" that his ongoing restructuring of the club was "completed before the end of this season".

He said this had "meant turbulent times" as the club sought to "stand on its own feet, earning more than it spends".

"From my early days as chairman I saw that administration was a very real option to enable the club to address these challenges and make a fresh start," he said.
'Great institution'

"Frankly, the case for administration in pure financial terms was compelling but I was acutely aware that such a great institution as Rangers could not be viewed exclusively in financial and business terms.

"The fact is that Rangers' ongoing financial position and the HMRC first tier tribunal are inextricably linked."

The Rangers chairman stated again that the club was running a £10m annual deficit and it was in the best interests of the club to cut costs significantly.

He continued: "There is no realistic or practical alternative to our approach because HMRC has made it plain to the club that should we be successful in the forthcoming tax tribunal decision they will appeal the decision.

"This would leave the club facing years of uncertainty and also having to pay immediately a range of liabilities to HMRC which will be due whatever the overall result of the tax tribunal.

"In blunt terms, if we waited until the outcome of the tax tribunal, the risk of Rangers being faced with an unacceptable financial burden and years of uncertainty is too great."

Mr Whyte said the tax case related to "a claim by HMRC for unpaid taxes over a period of several years dating back to 2001" which Rangers would be unable to pay if the tribunal went against the club.

He said Rangers' immediate future now lay in the hands of HMRC.

The chairman said: "If HMRC were to agree, even at this late stage, a manageable agreement with the club, then a formal insolvency procedure could yet be averted. It goes without saying that would be our preferred outcome.

"If not, further investment in the club would be impossible as the threat of winding up by HMRC cannot be removed.

"The Rangers FC Group, the majority shareholder in the club, is prepared to provide further funding for the club on the basis the funding is ring-fenced from the legacy HMRC issue."

Mr Whyte said Rangers had engaged a specialist restructuring practice, Duff and Phelps, to assist in finding a solution to the present position.

He added: "As a result of that advice, it has been decided to seek the protection of a moratorium from HMRC action whilst a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) proposal is made to creditors.

"This, if approved by creditors within a month, would minimise any points deduction and allow the club to participate in European football.

"In short, if the club proceeds into administration then it will have to emerge from that process, with the agreement of creditors, within a month or so in order to be able to play in Europe next season."
'Financially fitter'

Mr Whyte said administration would "regrettably lead to a cost-cutting programme and the potential loss of jobs across the business".

He said former directors may "contend that the steps we are announcing today are unnecessary".

"All I would say to these people is that if they want to step up to the plate and invest money in Rangers to avoid a restructuring of the business, then I would be most willing to talk to them," he said.

"In the past unfortunately, there were people who not only failed to prevent Rangers being engulfed by our current problems but chose not to invest their money to help put it right."

Mr Whyte said Rangers could "emerge as a stronger and financially fitter organisation" from this process.

He statement concluded: "As chairman of the club, every action I take will be in the interests of Rangers and there are many people working at the club who are dedicated to making Rangers a success.

"I would like to thank supporters for their great commitment to Rangers. This great football club can recover from the situation in which it now finds itself and be the force in football that the fans deserve."

Mr Whyte is understood to be the club's main secured creditor via a floating charge over its assets.

This would allow him to pursue other avenues such as receivership or pre-pack administration to satisfy the debts which the club owes him if a CVA cannot be secured.

These would involve transferring Rangers assets out to another company or companies to satisfy outstanding debts to the floating charge holder and leaving the club behind with the debt.

In such scenarios, it would be likely that Rangers FC – formed in 1873 – would be formally wound up.

Tom English: When it comes to the truth, don’t depend on Joe Blogs

Published on Sunday 30 October 2011 01:28

AN online Nostradamus was predicting the end of Rangers on Friday.

On Twitter, there was talk of crisis meetings and bold predictions that Craig Whyte had run out of money, that the club couldn’t trade any longer, that Armageddon had come early. This is the reality of the online blogger. They can spout stuff that turns out to be untrue and, when they get it wrong, it never boomerangs back and hurts them. They carry on untouched by the laws of libel that the mainstream media have to contend with and shielded from the mortification that a newspaper or radio reporter would experience if he, or she, went off half-cocked with such a bombshell.

For instance, for months the same soothsayer said with all the certainty of a man who knew that night followed day that Whyte would never take over Rangers, that it was, in fact, a fakeover. Bloggers can get away with such blunders. It’s not so easy for the rest of us. You learn to be cynical about the cyber bombasts. At the height of the online hysteria on Friday I received an email from a Celtic fan who berated me for missing the story of the collapse of Rangers, which was happening “right this minute” at Ibrox. Nostradamus said it. Must be true. He wanted to know why I was ignoring the story. This is what you’re dealing with. It could well be that, within a few weeks, Rangers go into administration. That could very well happen. Whyte has confirmed it, albeit after a long period when he denied it, a spell of many months that only added to his mystery and the suspicion that surrounds him. But it hasn’t happened yet. These breathless, hair-on-fire dispatches from the frontline of an Old Firm crisis zone, these supposed exclusives from the blog-o-sphere that we’re expected to chase like a cat would a mouse? Sorry, most of them come and go without a squeak of truth.

Daily Record Column
by jim Traynor

AS Rangers lurch ever closer to the abyss, their owner, Craig Whyte, continues to protest his innocence. Debts pile up and all he can say is "it wasnae me".

But blaming the previous board for today's mess is lame. It's also a distortion of the truth.

Just listen to yourself, Craig. For the sake of the club and the fans stop pointing the finger at others and tell it like it really is.

Get it out there in the open. You'll feel better. You might hold on to the fans and perhaps even preserve what's left of Rangers' dignity.

A barrage of negative headlines, constant legal wrangles and a staggering level of naivety in the transfer market have dragged Rangers through the mud. This club's credibility has never been so low.

Of course the old board were less than perfect but Whyte himself declared the club debt free the day he paid off Lloyds Bank with £18million.

Yet nine months on Rangers fans fear closure.

So who is really responsible? You cannot blame people who weren't even there.

If Rangers do go under before the final decision on the EBT tax case is announced, that will be mainly down to Whyte and, of course, those who advised and helped him structure his buy-out and strategy for taking the club on.

Remember them? You must have seen those city slickers who marched triumphantly down Edmiston Drive and in through the Ibrox front door last May.

It was just after the takeover had been signed off and policemen on horseback parted the crowd so they could flounce down the road. They were so pleased with themselves.

But now that the business plan seems flawed and the cash flow appears to be drying up as quickly as the debts pile up, they are nowhere to be seen.

Whyte is still there, of course, and Gary Withey remains on the Ibrox board, although largely anonymous and maybe even speechless. Never a cheep from him, which is a pity because it might be interesting to talk with him about this curious Rangers involvement with Banstead Athletic, an amateur team in Surrey.

We're told this is a heartwarming story about Rangers reaching out into another community. Bollocks. Rangers fans should be asking if this bizarre link has cost anything other than time.

Then again, in the business world time usually means money and, who knows, there could be hundreds, if not thousands, of reasons for them to question this tie-up.

Next time I see an Ibrox director I'll remember to ask him. But not Phil Betts. He's gone.

He left the Ibrox board last month but what exactly did he do? What was his function? And although Whyte insists he himself has never taken a penny out of Rangers in salary or expenses, can the others say the same? And if none of the directors received payment, might someone know if money left the "client account", set up by Whyte for the takeover, on September 8 last year? And if it did, to whom did it go? And for what? No point asking that other bloke, David Grier, who also appeared to be a member of the takeover crew. He knows nothing about Rangers' day-to-day running or the state of the club's finances. He said so, just the other day.

Yet in the lead-up to the buy-out he was introduced to Rangers' board as a financial advisor and they continue to insist Grier spoke on various matters, including the "big" tax case that could leave Rangers facing a £49m bill.

They also believe he accompanied Donald McIntyre, who was Rangers' finance director, to a meeting with the revenue about that very case. Surely not. After all, only last week Grier told Record Sport that he isn't a tax expert.

He also said he had no knowledge of the £24.4m Rangers raised by selling off tranches of future season tickets to Ticketus. But he'd made his lack of intelligence on that front clear some time ago.

On April 27 last year to be precise. That was when he sent an email stating that Rangers – he wrote "we", even though he also claims not to have been advising on the day-to-day operation – have yet to open any discussions with Ticketus.

Strange that because, as has already been reported, a letter from Whyte's company, Liberty Capital, and signed by the owner to Ticketus, dated March 8, confirms the intention to sell season tickets.

Then, on April 7, lawyers on behalf of Ticketus deposit £24.4m into the client account.

So that means that 20 days after the money was in place no one had bothered to tell Grier, who incidentally had actually been brought in by Liberty Capital. Again, he said so himself.

But he needn't feel bad if he has been kept out of the loop. He has the same level of importance as Rangers legions. Apparently they don't need to know either.

However, what we all know is this is a complicated piece of business right enough and how Whyte, who always wanted to become a major player in the world of high finance, must regret the moment he decided to step into the glare of the floodlights.

From dabbling in plant hire and security firms, someone convinced him it would be a good idea to try football, although to be fair to him he might have seen some kind of analogy or connection.

After all, his goal when he started out in the worldofbusiness was to amass "major league personal wealth", likening the money to points in a game.

The idea, he explained, is to use those points, or wealth, to measure yourself against the Bransons of this world. Of course that was before he found himself in this pickle.

And it was also when he was manoeuvring under the radar in the world of corporate takeover and recovery, often a very murky pool.

The deeper you go the darker it becomes until it's impossible to see the great whites.

And before you know it they've bitten you right in the assets. Then, of course, it's too late.

Many believe it is already too late for Rangers and not because they've been savaged by a bigger beast in the SPL playground. They have been brought to their knees by Whyte himself, even though he says he's been left to clean up the previous regime's mess.

But even if he repeats this claim until he's blue in the face it won't make it any more believable. The EBT tax case apart, the problems threatening to bring Rangers down are of Whyte's making. With a little help from his friends of course.

Clear message for Greece and Rangers: do not spend what you cannot afford
Phil Gordon The Times

£14 million was spent on the Murray Park training gound, named after the former owner, Sir David Murray, pictured SNS Group/Bill Murray

There is a certain symbolism in Rangers’ financial problems being stripped bare for all to see, on the same day that smoke billowed into the sky above Athens as businesses were torched and anger erupted over the Greek bailout crisis.

Just as at Ibrox, Greece is struggling to face the future. The impoverished country and the perilous club share a lot of things in common, that go beyond their beloved blue and white colours. Both have spent too much on projects of vanity and now neither has the money to cover the bills.

The medicine being prescribed — in one case, by the EU and IMF and in the other, by HMRC — is simply too unpalatable to the public who will pay the price for the folly of others. We are unlikely to see copycat rioters hijack the streets of Govan, the way Athens has suffered, but there is a clear message that runs between the two places: do not spend what you cannot afford.

The scale of Rangers’ liabilities is much worse than anyone thought, mirroring the cavernous hole of debt that Greece is now coming to terms with. Craig Whyte, the Rangers owner, stated on Sky Sports last night that the tax bill to HMRC could reach £75 million. That was the sort of sum run up by Dick Adocaat just over a decade ago, as Rangers lavished money on everything from the players to property.

The record £12 million fee spent on acquiring Tore André Flo from Chelsea — way beyond the striker’s market value — and the £14 million spent on the Murray Park training gound, named after the former owner, Sir David Murray, is just part of the evidence that financial prudence was overlooked in favour of excess. It was Emperor’s New Clothes.

The Greeks went on a huge debt-funded spending spree to pay for high-profile projects such as the Athens Olympics, which went well over budget. Greece has also discovered that widespread tax evasion cost the treasury billions of euros. Perhaps, the Greek government should have enlisted HMRC to track down the money, because it has shown a stubborn determination to get the money it claims it is owed from Rangers for the Employment Benefits Trust scheme that was set up in the 1990s to pay players and staff.

HMRC believe that the club misused the scheme and avoided paying significant sums in tax. That is bad enough for the millions of ordinary tax-payers to accept, but if you have run a football club in Scotland and had to waive the chance to bring in new players because you could not afford them, it is unlikely to generate much solidarity from within the football community.

If Rangers do go into administration, they are unlikely to find the hat being passed round Scottish football to provide some sustenance. Gretna went into administration in March 2008, as the club paid the price for a wage bill they could never sustain. The terminal illness of the club’s late owner, Brooks Mileson, created an instant cashflow problem and even though the Scottish Premier League advanced some funds to the stricken club, in lieu of television contract money, it was simply a sticking plaster.

Gretna failed to finish the season. They went out of business, while footballers and ordinary staff were made redundant as the administrators moved in with ruthless efficiency. Motherwell, Dundee and Livingston been down that road before. They all survived, though Livingston were demoted to the Scottish third division for a second bankruptcy in 2008.

Whyte said yesterday that he had taken the decision to embrace administration because it was to protect the long-term future of the club, but no one can make such guarantees. There is a harsh realism out there, that kicked in after the global economic downturn, and few can stake their reputation on anything financial, any more. The Rangers supporters know that with the same clarity as the people of Greece.

The only thing that is guaranteed, is that football no longer has an immunity from paying for the excess of the past. All over Europe, clubs are either on the brink of collapse, or have gone under. Even in sensible places, like Switzerland, the home of banking, where Neuchatel Xamax have just been stripped of their licence and thrown into the fifth division because the owner had not paid social security bills or players’ wages.

Perhaps, Neuchatel got off lightly. Two clubs that Rangers supporters will recognise after playing them in European competition, have suffered the ultimate price. Strasbourg are no more. Unirea Urziceni, no more. Demoted for financial mismanagement, then wound up last summer. Rangers must hope their tale has a different ending.

Would Scotland miss Rangers?
By Eurosport | Desmond Kane – Fri, Feb 10, 2012 17:38 GMTEmail

Rangers 'fans' at the 2008 UEFA Cup final in Manchester

Of all the quotes that can be regurgitated relating to the darker side of Rangers and a helping of the imbeciles that have clamped themselves to the Glasgow club seemingly since time began, Ian Archer's musings remain perhaps the most pertinent. It was penned over 30 years ago. "This has to be said about Rangers, as a Scottish football club they are a permanent embarrassment and an occasional disgrace. This country would be a better place if Rangers did not exist," wrote Archer, who latterly worked on the now departed television programme Scotsport, in a Glasgow newspaper.

What was exceptional about Archer's heartfelt words is that they were scribbled down during some of the finer moments in Rangers' history, specifically alluding to a night when they snagged the old European Cup Winners' Cup in Barcelona in 1972 with a 3-2 victory over Dynamo Moscow. As a piece of newspaper prose, it was ahead of its time.

Inspired by beers and cheap wine while being firmly planted in Spain, a Roman Catholic country at odds with the anti-Catholic signing policy once employed by Rangers and endorsed by its supporters, a furious rump of followers battled with riot police in the Camp Nou amid their team's rise to clasp the only European trophy in the club's history.

It will be argued that the heavy-handedness of local police made the riots in Barcelona eminently preventable, but then Rangers seem to have spent large swathes of their past defending the extremist behaviour of those who masquerade as football fans. The blame always seems to fall on others.

In a taxing period when a case with HMRC threatens to capsize the club with over £50 million of debt, it is perhaps Karma as much as unpaid taxes and gross financial mismanagement that has left Rangers facing the trap door. Rangers may well be left to pay the price for the sins of the father, with or without his sash, and their inability to drive out the rancid element that has tailed them.

They range from their highly inflammatory position in shying away from signing Catholics, the racist and sectarian songs sung by some followers of the club, the orange shirts wheeled out a decade ago as a "Dutch tribute " marketing ploy and the wretched riots in Manchester when a big screen television went on the blink. These are just some of the episodes that have tarnished not only the Rangers brand, but the image of Scotland as a tolerant country.

Scottish football may be left impoverished by a league without Rangers, but will society? Should society feel a certain sadness towards the plight of Rangers?

While the Scottish Premier League, satellite television and perhaps even twitchy Celtic directors would lament the loss of the income that Rangers generate, a progressive Scotland may feel differently.

At a time when Scotland's first minister Alex Salmond is trying to drive forward the idea of an independent, progressive, multicultural, multi-faith Scotland – a rainbow nation of Scots – the country's national sport is perhaps the last public haunt for the miserably uneducated. This was seen and heard when Hearts and Celtic exchanged lamentable ditties on Wednesday evening that continues to illustrate the deep-seated anti-Catholic sentiment that exists in pockets of Scotland. The strained old IRA choruses were heard from the visiting end amid the pestilence. Tramps behave better.

Celtic supporters are plagued by their own unsavoury band, but have always been uncomfortable with the Old Firm tagline that they continue to share with Rangers. The racists who mingle among the football fans in using the club to further their warped ideology will remain intact, even if Ibrox does not after the tax hearing has been played out. This would be a tragedy for a club with so much potential.

For the decent Rangers fans, progressive people, who follow their club only as a football team, there is a genuine sympathy at how departed owner Sir David Murray allowed the club to fall into such a state, but there are too many who have been allowed to hijack the good name of Rangers to further their own ideals away from a sporting context. For them, there will be no sympathy.

Rangers may well survive in some form if they fall into administration, which would be heartening for the national sport, but would clubs outwith Glasgow such as Aberdeen, Hearts, Hibernian, Dundee United or Dundee be sorry to see them go?

To the ones who sing songs about child abuse and the Irish Potato Famine, it is difficult to argue that the air would not be cleaner if their club stops. "And because some people are so sick, I have to put six words at the end of this column," wrote Archer. "I am not a Roman Catholic."

Rangers in crisis: Administrator-in-waiting David Grier will be faced with biggest decisions in club's history

Feb 14 2012 By James Traynor

THE man in line to become Rangers’ administrator was right there with Craig Whyte when he took the keys to the Ibrox front door.

David Grier was one of the city slickers who marched down Edmiston Drive on May 7 last year, a day after Whyte had won control of Rangers.

He’d been commissioned by Whyte’s Liberty Capital company to advise on the takeover – and now his firm, Duff and Phelps, appear to be the preferred option as administrators.

We can reveal their people, described as restructuring specialists, will be at Ibrox today.

If Grier is with them, he’ll notice a dramatic change in atmosphere, as well as welcome.

This time, he won’t be cheered in by adoring fans.

This time, he’s more likely to be jeered, just as all administrators are who enter the football arena.

They are feared by fans because they are responsible for axing staff and salaries.

Grier’s company will have to do exactly that to save Rangers from oblivion only nine months after Whyte had declared a bold new dawn – and a debt-free one at that. But how times have changed.

If Whyte gets his way, Grier will have the final say on which players stay and which ones have their contracts ripped up.

Many Rangers fans and the members of the previous board fear that other assets could also be sold off.

They are concerned that Rangers – the company – could be broken up with “for sale” signs slapped on Ibrox, Murray Park and the Albion car park to raise money to pay off creditors.

The club would then have to pay rent for use of the properties and that would severely restrict Rangers’ ability to generate enough profit to make the team stronger.

That’s a doomsday scenario. But even if the business isn’t splintered, the administrator will still have to make some of the toughest and most far-reaching decisions in the club’s 139-year history.

He will also have to negotiate with HMRC, who are still confident of winning their Employee Benefit Trust case against Rangers.

That could land the club with a crippling £49million bill and last night Whyte claimed that figure could rise as high, with penalties, as £75million.

That sounds like scaremongering on a grand scale but even so, the administrator knows he might have to cut a deal with the taxman because Whyte has decided not to wait until the final ruling, which will be announced in a couple of weeks.

There would be absolutely no point in entering administration, paying off creditors and then exiting only to find HMRC waiting for him with their tab – no matter the amount.

So Grier would be tasked with bringing the taxman to the negotiating table and attempting to reach a compromise which could see millions wiped off any debt.

Then again, Whyte, like many who have followed this tax saga, might really believe Rangers will be left with only penalties of no more than £10million to pay.

So he could be gambling on a quick in and out of administration.

He might be able to pay a decent sum in the pound to creditors and that would make it easier for the administrator to wrap things up quickly.

The taxman would prove a much more difficult customer.

Whyte did say when he took over that he could handle a tax bill of around £12million and that might still be the case.

But first the administrator, who will be appointed by Whyte because he’s the main creditor, will have to be sure of cutting a deal.

Grier probably believed he’d done his bit to move Rangers on to a more solid base nine months ago.

Now he has to do it all over again and this time it might be even tougher.

He’ll have to cope with resentment from within Ibrox and Murray Park, where he might even be regarded as an enemy.

But that can be the nature of his work and if he gets this right and turns Rangers around, he could yet become known as something of a saviour.

Rangers fans could be key to club's survival says football finance expert

Feb 13 2012

A FOOTBALL finance expert has backed Rangers to respond with the help of their supporters should they enter administration.

The club today lodged their intention to enter administration and would be hit with a 10-point penalty if they proceed to appoint administrators.

Professor Tom Cannon of the University of Liverpool believes a fan ownership model, like those adopted in Germany, could be the way forward to boost the club's long-term health.

He said: "It will be the biggest club in the world to have gone into administration.

"It is a giant which has been felled. It shouldn't be a surprise but it is a tragedy because they are a great club with great tradition.

"It won't be the end of Rangers. It's possible that gives the opportunity to create a German-style sports club out of the ashes.

"None of this stops Rangers being, in terms of the fan base, one of the giants of world football."

Despite the supporters being a possible solution to the current predicament, the need to meet their expectations was perhaps also a mitigating factor in the current circumstances, Cannon believes.

"Rangers are one of the giants, not just of Scottish football, but of world football," he added.

"If they're not in the top 10 supported soccer clubs in the world, they're certainly in the top 20.

"To some degree, that's been part of the problem. They have this giant fan base and those fans have expectations.

"The problem is matching those expectations with the revenues a Scottish Premier League team can get.

"The revenues, particularly from television, can't sustain the expectations of that fan base."

The deal which saw Craig Whyte assume ownership from Sir David Murray last year may also have had an impact.

"Changes of ownership are never cheap, particularly when you're talking about a big club – there's always a big bill," Cannon added.

Rangers will need to address the issue of their outstanding debts to survive and the club could be forced into selling their Ibrox home or Murray Park training facility, Cannon warned.

He said: "Unless they're going to get a 10p or a 20p in the pound deal, they're going to have to dispose of major assets.

"They haven't got that many valuable assets on the field, so what assets are they going to dispose of?"

[b]The Financial Times[/b] :clap:

[quote]February 13, 2012 9:52 pm
Rangers lodges papers for administration

By Andrew Bolger
Rangers FC Lodge©Getty

Rangers, the 140-year-old Scottish football club, has lodged legal papers signalling it intends to enter administration.

The move came as the defending Scottish champion – which with Glasgow Celtic forms the “Old Firm”, one of football’s oldest rivalries – awaits the verdict of a tax tribunal that could cost it £49m.The HM Revenue & Customs case concerns the use of employee benefits trusts, under which clubs pay players’ wages into offshore trusts to avoid national insurance.

HMRC last week lost a high-profile case alleging tax evasion against Harry Redknapp, the Tottenham manager, when he was formerly at Portsmouth.

In the event of victory against Rangers, the Revenue is expected to pursue other football clubs and businesses.

The benefits trusts were established when Sir David Murray, the metals and property magnate, was club chairman.

Last May he sold his majority stake for £1 to Craig Whyte, a Scottish venture capitalist, who paid off the £18m owed by the club to Lloyds Banking Group.

Rangers said last night it was continuing to have “dialogue” with HMRC in the hope a formal insolvency procedure could be averted. A decision on whether to appoint administrators is expected in the next 10 days.

“There is no realistic or practical alternative to this course of action,” Rangers said.

Mr Whyte said even if Rangers won the tax tribunal, HMRC was determined to appeal.

“This would leave the club facing years of uncertainty and also having to pay immediately a range of liabilities to HMRC which will be due whatever the overall result of the tax tribunal,” he added.

“In blunt terms, if we waited until the outcome of the tax tribunal, the risk of Rangers being faced with an unacceptable financial burden and years of uncertainty is too great.”

Should administration take effect, the club will seek a moratorium from legal action while making an arrangement with creditors and ensuring provision for the HMRC case to be resolved. Rangers said: “If approved by creditors within a month, [this] would minimise any points deduction and enable the club to participate in European football next season.”

The Scottish Premier League confirmed a 10-point deduction and transfer embargo would be put in place only when administration was confirmed.

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Rangers in turmoil: For the first time, I am embarrassed to be a Rangers man, says Derek Johnstone
heraldscotland staff
Derek Johnstone last night insisted he was "embarrassed" to be associated with Rangers after the club began the process to enter into administration.

Derek Johnstone, middle, helped Rangers win the European Cup Winners' Cup final against Dynamo Moscow in 1972. Picture: SNS
The club have endured a trying season, but the situation reached a nadir as papers were lodged with the Court of Session.

It was all a far cry from the heady days enjoyed by Johnstone – who made over 350 appearances over two spells at the Ibrox club – which was punctuated by domestic success and victory in the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1972. A proud Rangers supporter, Johnstone is shaken by events at Ibrox.

"Yesterday was one of the worst days of my life. I have never been embarrassed to be a Rangers man, but yesterday I was," said the former Ibrox striker. "I have never been ashamed to be part of this club, never. Not when things have been poor on the park, not during any time of adversity. But what has happened at Rangers these past few months has been cringe-worthy.

"Ever since the news broke I have had a sickness in the pit of my stomach. Even now I cannot believe it. I know that there have been suggestions that this was coming, but I don't think anyone appreciated just how bad the situation was.

"We have all spoken about the possibility of the club going into administration and there have been rumblings about it all season, but I cannot believe how quickly it has happened. Like every other Rangers fan, I am shattered. It is frankly awful news. Right now, the league title does not matter one jot. What is at stake is the very existence of the club, its very fabric. It is gut-churning to think about the future and the struggles that lie ahead in simply ensuring the club actually stays alive. Yes, it is that serious."

Rangers also yesterday announced that Daniel Cousin had returned to the club until the end of the season. The signing was supposed to assuage some of the discontent felt by supporters after the sale of Nikica Jelavic on the final day of the transfer window, but instead it has left a bitter taste.

"That makes no sense whatsoever and only shows how much Ally McCoist [the Rangers manager] has been kept in the dark about what has really being going on at the club," said Johnstone. "Why sign up to spend £7500 a week on a player if you're going into administration? Like so many things under Craig Whyte's regime, it does not add up.

"Who could ever have thought a club like Rangers, one of the great institutions of the Scottish game, could end up in this sorry, dreadful mess. There are two men who need to stand up and take the blame – David Murray and Craig Whyte. The buck stops with both of them. [Murray] dug the hole, but as if that wasn't enough, he then sold Rangers down the river when he turned control of the club over to Whyte."

The culpability of Murray – who sold Rangers to Whyte last year – will have been debated by disillusioned supporters last night, but Johnstone was scathing in his assessment of the former chairman's stewardship. In particular, he criticised the decision to hand the club over to Whyte.

"What is particularly galling is the fact that every member of the Ibrox board warned him against the deal," he said. "They did not trust Whyte, they were suspicious of him from the start and they did not want the running of the club put into his hands. But Murray ignored those concerns and he has to be answerable for that.

"Where is the money from the sale of Nikica Jelavic? Where is the money that [Whyte] was putting into the club? He has not invested a single penny in Rangers since he took over. In the last 40 years I have known every Rangers director, every one. They have been proper gentlemen and they have been proper businessmen. John Lawrence would be turning in his grave. Craig Whyte might be a reasonably successful businessman, but he does not know football?

"I will watch with interest to see just what Sir David Murray has to say on the matter. He most certainly does not walk out of this debacle without taking a massive portion of the blame."

Rangers are down to their last out
When Saturay Comes
14 February 2012

You know things are bad when the baseball metaphors start flying about. Since assuming ownership of Rangers in May of last year, Craig Whyte has continually reminded his growing band of critics that he was the only man willing to "step up to the plate" and buy a club dogged by existing and projected debts. Now he has filed his intention to appoint administrators, Rangers fans are worried their club is about to become Scottish football's Brooklyn Dodgers. The franchise is not about to leave town, but it is on the cusp of reverting to the minor leagues.

As with every other financial announcement from Ibrox over the last decade, the only thing made perfectly clear today is that Rangers are in dire straits. Whyte's statement sums up his nine-month tenure as chairman. It is characterised by obfuscation, fear tactics, nebulous reassurances and infantile digs at the previous board and owner.

The statement makes it plain the club will go into administration in ten days' time unless a financial miracle intervenes. Yet it places great emphasis on the notion that, until February 22, everything is just hunkydory on and off the pitch. Then it continues to tell every Rangers fan that administration is the best way for the club to proceed.

When Whyte attempted to rally the supporters on the steps of Ibrox on Monday night he was roundly abused by the concerned crowd on Edmiston Drive. Having bought the club on a ticket of saving it from financial meltdown, he is increasingly viewed as the man who has taken Rangers one step closer to oblivion. This is not entirely fair or accurate.

The massive tax bill hanging over the club is the legacy of the previous owner, Sir David Murray. It was widely reported if Rangers lose the tribunal the bill would be anything up to £49 million. Whyte admitted on Monday that it could be far larger. A bill of any such size would necessitate administration, purely in order for a club with so many other outstanding debts to have any chance of avoiding outright liquidation.

Whyte has done himself no PR favours. In January he was revealed to have mortgaged £24m worth of future season ticket sales, possibly to fund his takeover. He then sold top scorer Nikica Jelavic to Everton for a knock-down price, while making a bogus attempt to buy Norwich's Grant Holt. Signing out-of-contract Daniel Cousin just hours before announcing the move towards administration seemed like one final dodgy deal from a man who was struck off as a company director for seven years. The SFA are currently investigating whether he is a fit and proper person to run one of their clubs.

Whyte's wars with the BBC and the Daily Record have not helped Rangers' traditional image, however apocryphal, as the nation's "establishment" club. Administration could strengthen Whyte's position as owner as he is also one of the club's larger creditors. He is failing to win trophies – one of the many positives Murray kept supplying no matter the accounting anomalies.

The early move towards administration, which will incur a title-surrendering ten-point deduction, seems to be changing the game to one Whyte knows how to play. He is primarily aiming to circumvent the HM Revenue and Customs, who have been bleeding the club dry by delaying the final ruling of the tax tribunal.

When all is considered – history, trophies, media coverage, attendances – Rangers make up a third of Scottish football. This is probably an underestimate of the kind that put us in such trouble with the tax authorities. But Rangers fans expect and want no sympathy. We have won one third of the domestic trophies available in the last four seasons. We have won more league titles than any other club in the world. We had the party and now we have to deal with the hangover. The schadenfreude is deserved.

If Rangers cannot satisfy the HMRC, they will go bust. The club would reform, but they would lose a swathe of support. Not least because Rangers' identity is so entwined with the ridiculous amount of success they have enjoyed over the past 140 years. The Rangers community would be decimated by having those trophies removed from the records. At a time when Hearts are on the brink and both Hibs and Aberdeen are continually fighting relegation, Celtic will be left with no one to play and no TV deal.

A gridiron metaphor may be more appropriate when it comes to Rangers hopes of avoiding administration. Previous chairman, Alastair Johnston, has spoken about the "Monday morning quarterbacks" who slate him for allowing Whyte to take over. What Rangers need now is the long, desperate throw up the pitch which characterises the last-ditch attempt of an NFL side to recover a seemingly lost game.

We are blindly hoping Murray will protect his reputation with the fans by buying the club back this week. Hail Marys have never been so popular down Ibrox way. Alex Anderson

Rangers' demise might not be such a bad thing

The club's slide into administration could help rid Scottish football of ritualised bigotry and intergenerational hatred

Mike Small
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 14 February 2012 11.00 GMT

Rangers are a quintessentially British institution. This is the Queen's XI. Their fans sing Rule Britannia and God Save the Queen – but they are in deep trouble, and may well fold completely before it's time to launch the Jubilee barge. Football writer and Rangers fan Graham Spiers has called this the club's "bitter harvest", and railed against the club's inability to cope with its own sectarian songsheet, which has been the source of grief and resentment for years.

But this is a story about financial stupidity more than cultural insolvency. The emerging collapse of Rangers football club is an allegory for a different game that's not so beautiful anymore, where we can't run failed institutions just because it's what we've always done. Rangers may go bust owing the tax man almost £50m.

How did this happen? After the loyalty she has been shown over the years, how can Her Majesty allow her Revenue & Customs to behave in this manner? The reality dawning on the Scottish sports press and supporters of Rangers FC (two groups that are not always entirely distinct) is that the Scottish champions are perilously close to administration and, potentially, liquidation.

Rangers chairman Craig Whyte (himself currently under investigation by the government's intelligence and enforcement directorate for his acquisition of the Ibrox club) said there is no "realistic or practical" alternative to getting ready for administration. The problem relates to a claim by HMRC for unpaid taxes over a period of several years dating back to 2001, which could result in massive liabilities.

The collapse of such a footballing giant after decades of mismanagement tells us a story not just about football as a bloated dysfunctional cultural spectacle, but of feral businessmen, media collusion, and a society witnessing key institutions collapse and teeter while desperately denying that such a thing is happening.

As bitter reality dawns, other certain truths are clung to amid the wreckage. Two of these stand out. One is that Craig Whyte is a shrewd guardian with a secret plan. Rumours swirl that Graeme Souness waits in the wings like a moustachioed Sauron. A Blue Knight to replace Craig Whyte. The second is that Rangers will emerge from the ordeal stronger, and, er, leaner.

Establishment voices mutter confidently of the club's fanbase and that the ""club will never die". Such macho posturing is a default setting from the club's supporters (who numbered 17,822 at the recent home defeat to Dundee United), but the full extent of the club's debts are unknown. Closely tied to this belief that RFC will re-emerge is the notion (repeated like a mantra on all broadcast frequencies) that "the Scottish Premiere League without Rangers is unthinkable", and "Scottish football couldn't survive without the Old Firm". But this idea was quashed by Celtic's chief executive Peter Lawwell only this week, when he stated plainly that his club "don't need Rangers" to flourish financially. Lawwell said the eventuality of their Old Firm rivals going bust "would have no material effect on Celtic".

The idea that the two clubs are mutually dependent persists only because the idea of Rangers and Celtic is so deeply embedded not just in Scottish culture, but also in Scottish press circulation. The Old Firm flog papers. But, in reality, the idea that splitting the Old Firm would be a travesty for Scottish football is upheld only by people who have vested interests in our (already) hopelessly failing game. Scotland's Sky TV deal is already pitiful, and BBC Scotland's coverage is reduced to a poorly produced highlights package.

Michael Grant of the Herald wrote: "Celtic and Scottish football could live without Rangers but, boy, it would be as dull as dishwater." For the absent-minded and unobservant, Scottish football has been in dire terminal decline for some time now. The idea that it would be worse in a league that would immediately present more opportunities for success is patently absurd. It's the sort of logic that could only be expressed by members of a closed group.

Life After Rangers Football (Larf) would mean for every other club a chance that the thousands who migrate towards Ibrox from towns across Scotland every other Saturday might show an interest in their local team. They would have realistic hope of winning trophies. But the positive reality of a Scottish game without Rangers is not primarily about a sport rid of a substantial element of ritualised bigotry and sustained intergenerational hatred, but the prospect of top-quality football being played by young Scotsmen in an atmosphere of optimism. That's something worth aspiring to.

The mainstream press have been fatally blindsided on the impending crisis at Ibrox despite excellent blog coverage. But let's not blame the clubbable journos. The real culprits are the management and board of the club who piled profligacy upon spending spree, from Dick Advocaat's dubious £12m Tore Andre Flo to David Murray's gigantic vanity project. But who'd blame them? Our culture lauds these dodgy geezers. Murray, the club's previous owner, was quoted as saying: "For every £5 Celtic spends I'll spend £10." That doesn't seem so clever now.

An Aberdeen fan's view:

The great ‘Scottish football needs Rangers’ lie
The only thing that has tainted this truly wonderful day for me has been the endless steam of pundits and posters all across the media, patronisingly telling us that we’d all suffer without Rangers.

Their main arguments seem to be that

a ) we need their gate money twice a season
b ) no-one will be interested in Scottish Football without them
c ) Our co-efficient will be damaged by not having them in Europe
d ) Our TV deal will suffer

Lets pick these arguments apart one at a time and put this myth to bed once and for all –

a ) Gate Money: Using ourselves as an example, when the scum are in town we normally get 17k going up to 18-19k if we’re playing decent.
Normally we get about 9k going up to 11-12k if we’re playing decent. Now given that if they vanished we’d still be playing someone instead of rangers, we can assume that we would get our average crowd. So right now with their two ‘visits’ a year, their existence seems to provide us with around 16,000 paying customers per season.

That’s less that 1000 punters for each home game of the year, or one decent European night, or our share of a cup semi final. without their cheating, scummy presence, the league would only get more competitive, there would be more cup finals and european places up for grabs, and therefore more european nights in following seasons.

Every team in the league would improve their numbers, and to suggest we couldn’t make up 16k over a season is ridiculous.

b ) Interest in the Scottish game: This one is brilliant. Sorry, but there’s not exactly a scramble of Japanese Tourists and Brazilian TV companies tearing the SPL doors down right now is there, so I fail to see how are global impact could be less significant than it is at present. In fact, you never know, but a competitive set up where a few different teams actually win stuff on a regular basis, might actually cause a little more interest around the world.

Also, I know one particular country where interest in our game is currently at an all time low. A country that used to love scottish football but that has been gradually turned off it by the antics of the bigot brothers. A country that is actually quite important when your measuring levels of Interest in Scottish football. A country that might actually come back to the scottish game if it were tighter, fairer, and more competitive. Yep you’ve guessed it, Scotland. Without rangers, we’d like our game a lot more, and that might be just about all the ‘global interest’ that we need.

c ) The co-efficient. A vastly overblown argument. Aside from the fact that they’ve hardly been doing our standing in Europe any favours at all recently, this is still a non starter. All reasonably sized countries in Europe get the chance for 3 – 4 of their top clubs to represent them in some European competition that they will find challenging and financially beneficial should they progress in it. It never really changes that much, and it never will. Any minor changes to our co-efficient only ever seemed to do the job of gifting both sets of minks extra Champions League spots, so that they can make more money and make the league yet more uncompetitive.

d ) TV money: Why would fewer people want to watch an open, exciting competitive league than the stale predictable, biased drivel we face now? People might argue that the tims would win it every year. But I don’t believe it for a second. “two team” leagues are quite common throughout the world. One team leagues practically non-existent. The tims didn’t win everything the last time the h*ns were pish, we made sure of that. A we would again.

The Lie has been told too often, but it’s still a lie. Lets start getting the truth heard once in a while. It’s very simple –

Scottish Football – Glasgow Rangers = A Better Place

Rangers appeal to fans

World Soccer magazine
Rangers manager Ally McCoist has appealed to the fans for support on a grim day for the Glasgow club as it entered administration.

With the Scottish Premier League’s 10-point penalty all but ending their title bid, McCoist called for support from what he believes is Rangers’ biggest asset. To be honest, looking at the state of the club, it’s just about their only asset these days.

“The most important people at this football club have always been the fans,” he said. “And that will always be the case.

“I have supported the club all my life and I know how they are feeling. The one thing that I have to ask them at this time is to be with the club and with the team.

“The team really need the support of the fans more than ever in this hour.

“I can still close my eyes and see our fans in that stadium down in Manchester (for the UEFA Cup final) and that will live with me until my dying day. It was incredible support for the team and we have had that over our 140 years,” he said.

“I’m biased but I make no apology for that, I believe we have the best fans in the world and I think that will show in the next few weeks.”

The citizens of Manchester who witnessed events outside the stadium and had to clear up the mess afterwards, might not agree.

However, regardless of the excesses of that particular night, Rangers present problems are also those of Scotland. Though one can understand the sense of schadenfreude currently permeating rival supporters, it is hard to imagine a vibrant future for Scottish football which does not include a relatively healthy Rangers.

WSC DAILY arrow February 2012 arrow An update on Rangers' move into administration
An update on Rangers' move into administration

Image 15 February ~ Rangers FC are now in administration. Not only has this happened far quicker than anyone anticipated but it transpires that the fault lies most squarely with current owner Craig Whyte. Perhaps appropriately for the club that flies more Union Jacks than any other in Britain, it was Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs that finally, conclusively exposed the Rangers chairman as a fly-by-night. Whyte applied for administration on Monday with a statement claiming Rangers could never win the case brought against the club for tax evasion by the previous owner. HMRC, however, went to court on Tuesday solely to chase taxes unpaid since Whyte's takeover in May 2011.

Such were the accelerated claims and counter-claims, some fans felt briefly relieved that Rangers were going down this draconian route by their own hand. HMRC would, according to Whyte, be owed anything up to £75 million if they won the large legacy tax case against the club. This was apparently driving the authority's late attempt to control the administration process at Ibrox.

When the court decreed that Whyte could appoint the administrators, it made it almost impossible for the tax authorities to recoup all they are owed. Entering administration nine days earlier than anticipated, and surrendering the SPL title to Celtic, seemed worth it.

HMRC were expected to be the largest creditor, so Whyte appeared to have won a courtroom victory. The threat of liquidation had abated. However, former Ibrox chairman Alastair Johnston immediately contested – in the court of Sky Sports News – Whyte's recent assertion that the legacy tax bill could be more than £49m.

Late on Tuesday HMRC confirmed it had acted that day regarding only a previously-unpublicised £9m in taxes unpaid since Whyte took control of Rangers. Along with the £24m he borrowed on future season ticket sales, this means Whyte has created a debt of at least £33m in just nine months. Emotional scenes outside Ibrox turned angry as the chairman was recast as an asset-stripper.

SPL rules state that Rangers will be deducted ten points. So, although they remain well ahead of third-place Motherwell, Celtic have all but won the title. If Rangers are not out of administration by the end of March they will be disqualified from next season's European competitions.

PFA Scotland have met with the players. As the most senior figure at Ibrox they can trust, manager Ally McCoist is now unimpeachable with the fans. David Murray has been the first off-stage character to deny he is about to buy Rangers back from Whyte.

We have seen this week exactly how much the club is hated, but also the depth and breadth of love for it. I blame no one for wanting Rangers liquidated. Neither do I blame Murray for our present state. He tried everything to please a support seemingly satisfied by nothing.

Rangers' commercial exploitability has been given one huge cross-platform, multimedia advert this week. Its establishment image has been decisively binned but the scale of the club's support has been thoroughly marketed. A full, loud house is expected when Kilmarnock visit on Saturday – providing the police have been paid. Alex Anderson
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Quotes

Graham Spiers: Ecstasy and agony for Rangers fans

The Scotsman
Published on Thursday 16 February 2012 00:00

FROM the heady highs of matchday anticipation to the abject lows of watching a club in its death-throes, supporters are riding a roller-coaster, writes Graham Spiers

It HAS been an incredible journey with Rangers. For 41 years I have been watching this great football club – I suddenly feel middle-aged – ever since my father first lifted me over an Ibrox turnstile sometime during the 1970-71 season. Back then, I now know, it was the age of innocence. Today, I am suddenly confronted by a club in its death-throes.

I feel like a ringside witness to the rise and fall of Rangers over all these years: first as a fan on the terracing and then, for the past 20 years, as a journalist, often finding myself inside Ibrox speaking to the managers, players and chairmen of the club. Along with the Scottish legal system and the Church of Scotland, Rangers FC was once described as “one of the three great pillars of Scottish society”. In one sense this seems a ludicrous description but, accurate or not, it is a pillar that is now coming crashing down.

It was intoxicating being a Rangers fan as a kid. Football fans the world over will tell you something similar: I can still feel the pulsing excitement in my veins, just thinking back to those Saturday afternoons when the matches loomed. Ibrox back then was the classic, oval arena in the British football tradition and you simply couldn’t wait to feast your eyes on its great edifice.

Like many fathers and sons at the football, my Dad and I stood in the same spot week in, week out at Ibrox: two-thirds of the way down the terracing at the uncovered Broomloan or “away” end. From being initially “lifted over”, I would scamper with pulsating excitement ahead of my parent, up the vast steps to the top of the arena, then along maybe 20 yards beside a wall, to be greeted by the mesmerising scene before me: the gleaming pitch, the gathering crowd, plus that unique “football smell” of Woodbines, pies and Bovril. Just writing this now, I am transported back to that magical world.

This was the early 1970s. Back then Rangers had a team that, for me, hardly ever seemed to change, and whose line-up I can still reel off, like stanzas from a poem, in that quaint 70s way when football teams were cited in clusters of threes: “McCloy, Jardine and Mathieson; Greig, Jackson and Smith; McLean, Conn and Stein; MacDonald and Johnston…” I haven’t even bothered to check this line-up on Google because I don’t need to. That team, give or take the odd name-change due to injury, is embedded in my brain.

The one game, until I was 12 or 13, that I was never taken to was the Old Firm fixture. “Please, Dad, please!” I would implore him from about the age of eight or nine, but he would hear none of it. Thus I would be exposed to the ritual – and the agony – of the famous Grandstand teleprinter as it clattered away from about 4:45pm on BBC1 on a Saturday, chattering out the football scores while you placed your hands over your eyes.

I came from a split footballing family. My sister was a Celtic supporter and, invariably, as I recall it now, Celtic got the better of Rangers, home or away, in those early 1970s days. The intonation on Grandstand as the “classified results” were read out was solemn, painful and recurring. “Celtic 2, Rangers 0” or “Rangers 1, Celtic 2” seemed to be results arriving with a painful consistency. My first Old Firm game was actually in January, 1975, when Rangers, on a ploughed Ibrox pitch, hammered Celtic by 3-0. It was a dark, freezing winter’s day, but my euphoria that night was uncontainable.

Back then, even as a kid, you did have a slight sense of some of the sins of the club. Rangers supporters had a problematic reputation, and I was there at Ibrox when the club’s then general-manager, Willie Waddell, took to the pitch in the late 1970s to make a public statement from a podium, in which he distanced the club from its erstwhile policy of religious discrimination.

My memory might be deceiving me, but Waddell that day, I believe, delivered his statement wearing a Rangers top – I even think in a red top, which at the time was the club’s “second strip”.

Either way, as I got older, I had a dawning sense of what the Scottish sportswriter Ian Archer once called Rangers’ “occasional disgrace and permanent embarrassment”. Even so, it never diminished my appetite for the club.

If you had said to any of us back then that Rangers FC would die, it would have seemed a ludicrous, fanciful notion. The club appeared as strong and immoveable as the famous red brickwork of the main Ibrox facade. Yes, football clubs needed “running” and “management”. But death? Disappearance? Absolutely no chance. That kind of thing, surely, happened to clubs like Bradford Park Avenue or Third Lanark. Rangers were the absolute embodiment of British might and strength. Nothing in heaven or earth, it was believed, could ever remove Rangers.

Four decades on from those days, these are agonising times for Rangers fans. The club has been done-in by reckless mismanagement, some huge dollops of arrogance and hubris, and what seems to have been a wilful disregard for the laws of the land in terms of tax-paying. The club is on its knees, indeed, it might even be in the process of being lowered into the grave. The truth is, the mighty Rangers forget that, either in love or war, there are both rules and consequences.

On a personal note, I seem to have spent the past two days hawking myself from one broadcast studio to another, metaphorically kicking Sir David Murray at every turn. It is not a type of punditry that has sat easily with me. Murray, principally through his decision to utilise employee benefit trusts (EBTs) at the club, has been the unintending architect of Rangers’ ruin. But it is done now. What is the point, I sometimes think, in kicking and kicking him?

Murray wanted only the very best for Rangers. He never meant the club any harm, as weird as that statement now looks. His ambitions were vast for the club and, the truth is, the vast body-politic of the Rangers support bought into it. Under Murray, as Rangers made swingeing annual losses of £29 million one season and £31m the next, how many of those supporters who are now bleating raised their voices in protest at the time?

As for Craig Whyte … how can I put this safely and euphemistically? The word “slippery” might have been invented for this shambolic character. In courts of law in England and Scotland, Whyte has been panned for some of his business practices and, inheriting the Murray mess, he has now led Rangers into administration and to the point of extinction. In all of these dodgy Rangers dealings, I believe taking the club into administration has been a part of the Whyte plan all along.

Rangers supporters are rightly angered. It has been a disgusting betrayal of the club and its standing in the world of football. This is no over-excited newspaper headline: Rangers as we know it might die in the coming weeks. In my lifetime, I feel as if I was there at the intoxicating beginning, and now at the abject end. When I take a step back from it all, it still seems scarcely believable.

Shed tears for taxpayers not Rangers fans

Patrick Barclay Evening Standard (London Paper)
15 Feb 2012

Sympathy for Rangers, a giant brought to its knees, is natural. It is also utterly misplaced. We should be saving our sobs for the hard-pressed taxpayer. And, next time we are up in arms over a public expenditure cut, we would be more justified in marching on Ibrox than Whitehall, because many millions are likely to be written off.

Administration is no fun for any club, and can be a bitter blow to innocent employees, but it is still a relatively easy way out for the owners responsible and fans who have been only too happy to celebrate the achievements of players the club could not afford, as in 2008, when Harry Redknapp's Portsmouth won the FA Cup.

When Portsmouth went into administration, a group of supporters admirably settled debts to charities, but most go unpaid and taxpayers – including the majority who have no interest in football – are often hardest hit. With the public purse in crisis, it was reassuring to see the taxman get tough with Rangers.

Let's hope the authorities are equally rigorous in dealing with English clubs suspected of paying players through trusts. There is also the question of fellow clubs. Terry Butcher, the Rangers legend now managing at Inverness, says they are owed a tidy sum. And what is the footballing sanction? Ten points. Enough to take Rangers out of a title race they would probably have lost to Celtic anyway. But they need have no fear of relegation. Nor that regeneration will prove as challenging as for, say, Leeds.

The temptation is always to find a demon in the boardroom and, in this instance, Craig Whyte has slipped into the role once filled by Peter Ridsdale at Leeds.

But the supporter should not evade a degree of responsibility. The club I love, Dundee, went into administration twice and were docked 25 points.

Many fans moaned – but the public purse lost hundreds of millions. We now own the club and one day, I hope, we shall pay that money back. We don't have to. We should have to.

Celtic via Twitter (Tony Hamilton)

16 Feb 2012
#Celtic statement on First Minister's comments: "We are very disappointed with the First Minister's claims that Celtic "need" Rangers and that Celtic "can't prosper unless Rangers are there".

"This is simply not true. In a series of interviews given just 3 days ago, we made it abundantly clear that Celtic has a well defined strategy and a business plan independent of the fortunes of any other club. That remains absolutely the case ".

"The predicament of Rangers is clearly a serious and complex matter with a whole range of possible outcomes.

"However, we are extremely well qualified to make our own position clear and have no wish to see that being misrepresented for political reasons "

Stuart Bathgate: No sympathy when the public purse is being short-changed

The Scotsman

Published on Friday 17 February 2012 02:39

Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs should treat Craig Whyte no differently than any other taxpayer

IF you or I fell behind with our taxes, say for a relatively small amount such as £900, we would get a late-payment penalty and the threat of further legal action. The First Minister of Scotland would not rush into a television studio to call on Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs to be reasonable and give us more time. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom would not declare that the priority was for us to survive and thrive.

Both of those politicians, if our minor financial difficulties came to their notice, would rightly say that the rule of law is paramount. Times are tight, it is more important than ever that taxes are paid, our public services need proper funding.

So why, when Craig Whyte falls behind with his taxes for a relatively large amount like £9million, is there such a different reaction? Why has there been such an outpouring of sympathy, not only from Alex Salmond and David Cameron, but from a far wider section of society?

Is there no room, between that sympathy of a large tranche of public opinion and the Schadenfreude of those who dislike Rangers, for any other position? For example, one that says by all means let’s get Rangers back on their feet, but not at the expense of the public purse?

As politicians, Salmond and Cameron have an interest in courting positive publicity. The former is deeply unpopular with many Rangers fans, the latter with just about everyone else in Scotland, so they could do with a bit of help. Even so, it has been breathtaking how willingly those two senior governing figures have distanced themselves from the arm of government, HMRC, which is there to fund their plans, build our schools and keep our hospitals open.

Salmond has tried to present himself as an honest broker, calling for the Revenue and Rangers to play softball together. Speaking on the BBC’s Reporting Scotland on Wednesday evening he said: “The most important thing is to get a sensible agreement between Rangers and HMRC in terms of the extent of what’s owed and how that can be paid off.

“The most important thing is that Rangers are able to continue as a football club. That’s the absolutely critical matter. I think if we keep our eyes on what’s best for Rangers as a club, as an institution, for other clubs in Scotland, for Scottish football, then that would be a sensible thing to do.”

What’s best for Rangers as an institution? What does that badly overused word have to do with anything? Next time the Revenue are on your case, tell them you’re an institution and see how far that gets you.

Cameron, to give him his due, retained a little more distance, albeit while expressing the same misplaced sentiments. “I want that club to survive and to thrive,” he said on his visit to Scotland yesterday. “It has an extraordinary history. It has a very special place in many people’s hearts in Scotland and no-one wants to see that club disappear. So I hope that HMRC will work as closely as they can with the administrators to try to solve the problems, to try to resolve the issues.”

That last phrase is suitably vague: resolving the issues. If it means securing the future of the people who work at Ibrox, most of us would be with him there. If it means letting Whyte off lightly, we would beg to differ.

Because there is a position between sympathy and Schadenfreude. One which, after a couple of days of near silence, is beginning to find its voice. And it’s an increasingly angry voice.

There is an e-petition on the official British government website, for example, called “Rangers. Pay your taxes.” It can be read, signed or commented on by clicking here.

It mentions the pending tax case which could cost the Ibrox club around £50m in addition to the £9m in VAT and PAYE which Whyte has not paid, and concludes: “Rangers FC and their owners need to pay their dues, pay their taxes and take the full punishment that is imposed on them.”

And on the Hearts supporters’ chatroom, Jambos Kickback, one poster writes: “[Salmond] said his priority is ensuring Rangers survive. As First Minister, his priority should be what is best for the Scottish taxpayer and if that is the closing down of Rangers then that is what he should call for.

“I do not think those who are struggling, [have] seen their businesses close or have been pursued vigorously for tax due, would appreciate any let-off or a laidback attitude.”

It is debatable whether the closing-down of Rangers would benefit the taxpayer, but the principle stands. There is no reason why Whyte should be given an easier time than any other individual who is late in paying tax. Indeed, given the size of the sum he has failed to pay, he should be pursued with even greater vigour than anyone whose misdemeanour may amount to a few hundred pounds.

That is something we should all be able to agree on whether we support Rangers, loathe them or have no interest in football. We could do a lot with that £9m: build more facilities for health or education, fund more anti-crime initiatives, or simply succeed in delaying a few of the cuts that are being implemented by the UK government. Craig Whyte should be held liable for every last penny of it.

Glenn Gibbons: Pride and profligacy a prelude to Rangers’ fall

By GLENN GIBBONS
Published on Saturday 18 February 2012 00:00

RANGERS’ descent into administration was no more surprising than a hurricane in the Caribbean (if potentially just as damaging), but the islanders tend to be better prepared than the great majority of those with an allegiance to Ibrox.

Considering the attention given in recent years to the financial devastation wreaked by the former owner/chairman, David Murray – this was long before the conferral of a knighthood – it seems almost perverse that the event should register as a shock, the collective wailing and lamentation disproportionate to the expectations of less partial commentators.

As with the rise of Nazism and fascism in between-the-wars Germany and Italy respectively, the most pressing question asked in retrospect has been: how could it have been allowed to happen? In the 1930s, it was concluded that entire populations were duped because Hitler built the autobahns and presided over the introduction of the Volkswagen Beetle, while Mussolini made the trains run on time.

Sixty years on, it was not difficult for any non-aligned observers to see that, in truth, Murray’s pot-hunting bluster and bravado appealed to Rangers supporters’ innate taste for triumphalism. This is a remark that will doubtless raise hackles and cause veins to pop on fevered brows, but it is a trait that becomes evident too regularly to be dismissed as insignificant.

Even the most successful managers at Ibrox have had to tolerate booing of their team for committing the capital offence of being a goal down at half-time, long before a match is completed. Underlining the hunger for success at any price (the result emphatically more important than the performance) is the peculiar phenomenon of reserving the most intense celebration for the least impressive of victories over the most moderate of opponents. Sown on such fertile ground, it is hardly surprising that the seeds of assumption and complacency should thrive.

Rangers followers’ claim to being “the greatest fans in the world” is as hollow as that made by supporters of clubs all over the planet (including Celtic). It is so much juvenile pap because, like the greatest movie ever made, the world’s greatest fans do not exist.

If anything, those who claim unswerving loyalty to Rangers have been distinguished over the decades by a tendency to thin out in the face of adversity. It is a mere two weeks since fewer than 18,000 fans (including around 1,600 visitors) attended a Scottish Cup tie, while a random glance at matches in the early 1980s, when lying third in the league, reveals crowds of 4,500 and 8,500 for successive home matches against St Mirren and Dundee.

Those hard times would undoubtedly deepen the joy of the 1990s, the support understandably too consumed by their own elation to give any credence even to the possibility that the orgiastic indulgence was unsustainable and would one day exact a toll.

When Murray made his now infamous boast of putting down a tenner for every fiver spent by Celtic, the Rangers fans were too busy gloating (a natural and forgivable reaction) to see the true significance of the bombast. It was not simply that the principle was basically unsound but that it symbolised Rangers’ suicidal readiness to pay a transfer fee that was double a player’s worth.

This peculiar – some would say insane – commercial practice was never more convincingly exposed than by the Gordan Petric business in 1995. The story is the more authentic for having been told to me by Fergus McCann, the Celtic owner/managing director at the very heart of the affair.

The late Tommy Burns, then manager at Parkhead, approached McCann and said he would like to sign Petric, the Serbian central defender, from Dundee United. Complying with the usual drill in these matters, McCann asked the manager how much he thought Petric was worth.

“Tommy told me £800,000,” the little Scots-Canadian recalled later. “So the board approved the approach. Tommy came back and told me Rangers had got wind of it and had offered £900,000. I went back to the board and got permission to up the offer to one million. Tommy came back again and said Rangers had bid £1.1 million. This continued until we went to 1.4 and Rangers once again topped it by £100,000.

“At that point, I said, ‘Tommy, enough. You are now asking me to offer £1.6 million for a player you told me was worth precisely half of that just a short while ago. No, thanks. Rangers can have him”. In the event, Petric’s generally unremarkable performances in his three years at Ibrox rather vindicated Burns’s original evaluation, but, in the context of Rangers’ present predicament, the episode becomes a beacon of enlightenment.

But no warning could have been more stark than the words uttered by the former Rangers director, Hugh Adam, and reproduced in the sports pages of The Scotsman just a few days more than ten years ago, on 2 February, 2002.

In a piece almost spookily headlined “Adam Shakes Ibrox Pillars With Warning Of Bankruptcy”, the then 76-year-old board member first revealed that he had, just before, sold the remaining 47,000 shares of his original 59,000 holding for no other reason than his conviction that, having lost two-thirds of their value in the previous three years – from £3.45 to £1.15 – they were heading towards worthlessness.

He predicted bankruptcy because “that’s the logical conclusion to a strategy that incurs serious loss year on year.” As recently as two weeks ago, Rangers-supporting posters on internet threads were still disdaining Adam as some kind of ill-informed eccentric. There is none so blind…

My blog shows how Scotland's media were complicit in Rangers' fall

The author of the blog that has pulled down the facade at Rangers was motivated by the failings of the Scottish press)
Rangerstaxcase.com

guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 February 2012 20.00 GMT
Article history

The story of Rangers’ insolvency is already becoming a fireside tale told mostly by those who were not there, says rangerstaxcase.com. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds" – Samuel Adams, 1775

It is easy to feel powerless in this world. "Why bother? What can I do?" Even as a student, I did not join protest marches. While most of my generation screamed: "Can't pay! won't pay!" about the hated poll tax, I could and I did. Raging against the machine seemed like Sisyphean futility and talk of changing the world was for poets and artists. To me, practical people just got on with it and made the best of events. Cynicism was a uniform I wore with pride. Against such a background, I make an unlikely campaigner and the last person anyone would pick to give voice to a silenced and disenfranchised community.

Yet my blog, rangerstaxcase.com, seems to have done exactly that. What started as an impulse one Sunday evening in March of last year has grown into something of a Scottish cultural phenomenon. Love it or loathe it, few would dispute that this blog has played a significant role revealing the facts and shaping the debate on a subject that has taken on such importance that the UK prime minister and Scottish first minister have belatedly jumped on the bandwagon.

This monster has grown to the point where it is now fielding daily traffic of over 100,000 views, while new arguments and ideas are fuelled by reader comments that are now coming in at a rate of about 1,500 per day. These are odd statistics for discussions characterised by accounting conventions and insolvency law. It is as if all of the cool kids in the playground suddenly want to read the swots' algebra homework.

In a world of free information, where most blogs die alone and ignored shortly after birth, the very popularity of rangerstaxcase.com carries a message about modern Scotland. It is a story of the unmet need for the straight story, uncorrupted by the sinister Triangle of Trade that renders most of what passes as news in Scotland's media outlets as worthless. It is the tale of why things went so wrong at Rangers and why the club's many fans seemed paralysed by disbelief until it was too late.

If you have not spent much time in Caledonia what follows will seem a little surreal. It seems that way because it is. Scotland is a land where nothing matters like football matters – in particular within the west-central region. For over 120 years, Glasgow's two biggest football teams have engaged in one of the world's most bitter sporting feuds. With mindless tribalism masquerading as a religious divide, stabbings, live bombs sent through the post, and even murders have been woven into the tapestry of the recent history of Scottish football. Yet I still get challenged over my penchant for anonymity? Football in Scotland is not like football elsewhere – at least not in Europe. (Latin Americans might recognise the poison brought to the surface by the poultice of football, but few other places would understand).

Yet for all of its ugliness, I love it. A large part of my "two score and change" years on this planet has been devoted to supporting my team, Celtic. Actually watching the team would be a very small part of the time expended. The obsession with your team colours many other aspects of life for those unfortunates who find themselves pulled into the vortex that goes along with supporting either of the Glasgow giants.

Football clubs from places like Manchester and Liverpool can lay claim to much more success on the field, but these cities do not get close to Glasgow in terms of intensity of interest. It is this passion that serves as the growth medium for the bacillus that infects the news business in Scotland, which in turn serves as the carrier of the disease that threatens to kill Rangers.

Selling news of any kind in Glasgow has long been a simple business: sales are driven by stories about Rangers and Celtic. If you need a circulation boost to improve advertising rates, you need more and better stories about these football teams. Good news moves newsprint. Bad news sells, too, as fans wallow in the misery of their hated enemy. However, Scotland is not evenly divided between these clubs. Celtic and Rangers may attract similar attendances to home games, but the demographic reality is that there are a great many more people in Scotland who would claim to be Rangers supporters than Celtic. Religious census figures provide a decent proxy for the numbers that sustain both clubs: in 2001, less than 18% of the population of Scotland identified as being Roman Catholic. Celtic's support base is far from exclusively Catholic, but it would be a little daft to ignore the reality of family religious origin in determining which football team a young boy or girl is most likely to follow in Scotland. Rangers' demographic surplus has determined the general editorial tone of the nation's news business for decades.

During the early 1990s when Celtic had their own brush with financial mortality, newspapers sent journalists across the globe to chase down scandal related to Celtic's imminent demise. Such was the open glee in print, it is a wonder that the English language had to import the word Schadenfreude from German. The lowland Scots dialect would surely have had several words of its own to offer, but I doubt that the acronym GIRUY would have translated as readily across the globe. Celtic's travails were good for the media business. There was no shortage of Rangers supporters willing to smirk at their impoverished foes while dreaming of European Cup triumphs to come. The arrival of Celtic's saviour from Canada, the unfashionable Fergus McCann, ended the era of amateurism in the boardroom and also planted the seeds for the great divergence in the fortunes of the clubs. Few could have imagined how much could change in just two decades.

The story of Rangers' insolvency is already becoming a fireside tale told mostly by those who were not there. Trampled down in the rush of journalists claiming that "of course, I knew all along, but I just could not say anything" are all of the derisive newspaper articles and radio call-in panellists dismissing the risks Rangers were facing. I am in no doubt: Scotland's media, sports and business desks alike, are complicit in the disaster than has befallen Rangers. They killed their golden goose.

The Triangle of Trade to which I have referred is essentially an arrangement where Rangers FC and their owner provide each journalist who is "inside the tent" with a sufficient supply of transfer "exclusives" and player trivia to ensure that the hack does not have to work hard. Any Scottish journalist wishing to have a long career learns quickly not to bite the hands that feed. The rule that "demographics dictate editorial" applied regardless of original footballing sympathies.

The last vertex of this triangle is the reader – the average football fan. Fed a diet rich in sycophantic rubbish, he lost the ability to review critically what he was reading. Super-casino developments worth £700m complete with hover-pitches were still being touted to Rangers fans even after the first news of the tax case broke. Along with "Ronaldo To Sign For Rangers" nonsense, it is little wonder that the majority of the club's fans were in a state of stupefaction in recent years. They were misled by those who ran their club. They were deceived by a media pack that had to know that the stories it peddled were false.

In the end, Rangers fans sat back for years and barely raised a word of complaint as their club was abused and misused. Many of these same fans who sat on their hands have had plenty to say about the motivations of my blog. Egged on by spokesmen for those doing Rangers the most harm, it is widely believed that HMRC are feeding me information to do damage to their club. Firstly, anyone reading the blog again would see that my sources of information probably lie outside of the government. Secondly, the blog has been the only dependable source of information about the sorry state of affairs within Ibrox. By revealing what has been happening at Ibrox, I have provided Rangers fans with an opportunity to do something about it. If I was really intent on harming their club, I would have said nothing at all. That this opportunity has been squandered is something for Rangers fans to contemplate. It is in helping expose this Bermuda-triangle-for-truth that I take most pride.

Rangerstaxcase.com has become a platform for some of the sharpest minds and most accomplished professionals to share information, debate, and form opinions based upon a rational interpretation of the facts rather than PR-firm fabrications. In all of the years when the mainstream media had a monopoly on opinion forming and agenda setting, the more sentient football fan had no outlet for his or her opinions. Blogs and other modern media, like Twitter, have democratised information distribution. Rangerstaxcase.com has gone far beyond its half-baked "I know a secret" origins to become a forum for citizen journalism. The power of the crowd‑sourced investigation initiated by anyone who is able to ignite the interest of others is a force that has the potential to move mountains in our society. All that is required is an issue about which others are passionate and feel unheard.

"Why bother? What can I do?" If it is something you care about, you can do anything you want.

Club statement on Alex Salmond

Official site

on 16 Feb, 2012 14:45
IN response to comments made by First Minister Alex Salmond, the club have released the following statement:

“We are very disappointed with the First Minister’s claims that Celtic ‘need’ Rangers and that Celtic ‘can't prosper unless Rangers are there’”.

"This is simply not true. In a series of interviews given just three days ago, we made it abundantly clear that Celtic has a well-defined strategy and a business plan independent of the fortunes of any other club. That remains absolutely the case.

“The predicament of Rangers is clearly a serious and complex matter with a whole range of possible outcomes.

“However, we are extremely well-qualified to make our own position clear and have no wish to see this being misrepresented for political reasons .”

The Irish Times – Friday, February 17, 2012

Celtic reject Salmond's claims

CELTIC HAVE refuted Scottish first minister Alex Salmond’s claim that the survival of Rangers is crucial for the Parkhead side and the rest of Scottish football to prosper. Salmond was responding to the financial crisis engulfing the Scottish champions after they went into administration on Tuesday.

The Ibrox club were forced to call in administrators Duff and Phelps over an unpaid tax bill of €10.8 million, accrued since Craig Whyte’s takeover in May.

Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell had earlier this week claimed Celtic could survive and thrive without Rangers, and a statement released yesterday on Celtic’s official Twitter site read: “We are very disappointed with the First Minister’s claims that Celtic ‘need’ Rangers and that Celtic ‘can’t prosper unless Rangers are there’.

“This is simply not true. In a series of interviews given just three days ago, we made it abundantly clear that Celtic has a well defined strategy and a business plan independent of the fortunes of any other club. That remains absolutely the case.

“The predicament of Rangers is clearly a serious and complex matter with a whole range of possible outcomes. However, we are extremely well qualified to make our own position clear and have no wish to see that being misrepresented for political reasons.”

Salmond told David Frost, in an interview to be broadcast on Frost over the World on Al Jazeera English: “Obviously HMRC have got to pursue, in the public interest, taxation. Equally, they’ve got to have cognisance of the fact that we’re talking about a huge institution, part of the fabric of the Scottish nation, as well as Scottish football, and everybody realises that.

“The most die-hard Celtic supporter understands that Celtic can’t prosper unless Rangers are there. The rest of the clubs understand that as well. Therefore you have to have cognisance of these things when you’re pursuing public policy.

“We’ve certainly been arguing to HMRC on one hand, and indeed to Rangers, to for goodness sake get a settlement, get a settlement and a structure over time whereby Rangers can continue because Rangers must continue for the future of Scottish football and for the fabric of the country.”

Celtic manager Neil Lennon backed up his club‘s stance on his Twitter account, saying: “Important statement from the club today with regard to Mr Salmond’s quotes. Once again we have made our position clear.”

Rangers’ administrators yesterday said they have received “several expressions of interest from parties not connected to the club” since taking over the running of the Scottish league champions.

Paul Clark, of administrators Duff and Phelps, made the announcement during a press conference in Glasgow.

Clark yesterday said that interest in the cash-strapped club will be given due consideration.

“As administrators we have to look at all other expressions of interest in the club and to date we have received several expressions of interest from parties not connected to the club,” Clark said.

“These will be subject to ongoing discussions and examined in the forthcoming days.”