thelegendthatis

In the Daily Mail article Hugh Adams says "All the directors heard about them but didn't take them seriously because they didn't appear in the books. People didn't want to know about them. " Did not appear in the books? Does that mean this information was not supplied at board meetings, and if not 'in the books' not included in the annual audit? How did they hide these significant outgoings? WoW!!! Bad enough for a corner shop to have 2 sets of books, one for the taxman and one for themselves, but for a company of Rangers size and stature! Unbelievable. Any support or sympathy they could have received from the Government or any other public body has just been washed down the Clyde. Key SFA staff are inflating their dingy ready for the escape.

Yes the SFA knew about what was going on. Ignore this 'nobody telt us' nonsense. Freedom of Information request please to the SFA and don't you go destroying those emails!

Administration day + 16 I do wish the 'we are bad but you are worse' commentators would stick to the Rangers Celtic forum. Re above comment. Administrator is there to prune the business, cut costs, slow the haemorrhaging of money from the business and make it as attractive as possible to would be purchasers. One step would have been to dump Smith straightaway. After all he was only there as a patsy for Whyte to give some credibility. Even saving 1 week's wages would have helped the creditors. So why ponce about letting him linger on is beyond me. And of course Smith in today's Herald is moaning that Whyte hasn't phoned him. Get over it Gordon, you were useful to him once, but now you aren't. Move on, get back to being an IFA or TV pundit, whichever pays you best. But I am sure not as good as wee Craig bunged your way. Sackings: I would expect a first team squad of 25, the u19s totally chopped, and at least half the rest. Anything else is a fudge. Ticketus. From what they said earlier they are not a creditor. Now http://tinyurl.com/7f6z36b Think they are pleading that whoever buys Ranghers (as if that might happen!) will carry over the agreement they had with Craig Whyte re season ticket future sales. Some chance. You can see the desperation in their statement, with a bunch of investors who will batter their doors down through the courts. Whoever buys the company will just issue their own season tickets, keep the income and let Ticketus whistle for their money first from Whyte and then through the courts. Administrators . What are they really playing at? Delaying tactics are in place for whatever reason. Hopefully they are acting on behalf of the creditors. All the talk of players being let go, taking wage cuts are great to encourage the media to guess who is going and who is staying, but of course this is distracting from the real stories. As we have to guess what is the rational behind this lethargy, one view is that the administrators are working closely with Strathclyde police, waiting till Whyte comes back to the UK, the administrators produce their findings (including wrong doing) and Whyte is lifted by the boys in blue.

Administrators don't do fairness, Usually. This lot do. Getting Gordon Smith to go by the end of the month. The right answer on behalf of the creditors is 'right Gordon clear your desk, you are finished here', Why did they extend his employment past the 14 day threshold and incur extra liabilities? And as for Durrant. Why do they need so many hangers on. All they have to do it get a SPL team on the park till the end of the season. 20 fit players and half a dozen other staff, and get the others out. When did Rangers decide they were going into administration? If they had decided and then continued to trade including stealing money from Dundee Utd knowing they were intending to choose to go down the tube, that is criminal stuff. Maybe this is a case for a Freedom of Information request from Rangers. In fact just on that, a FOI request to the SFA or SPL to find out what they knew about the financial status and reckless behaviour of Rangers (and some other well known clubs) would be very interesting. Not just what they knew, but when they knew it. This I suspect is the smoking bomb in Scottish football.

This is what would happen to a 'small' company with 300 staff, but Rangers might be different. Presume they are getting money in for their televised game yesterday, gate receipts, sponsorship etc, and as long as there is a net benefit to the business then the administrators have an argument they should keep it going. All this in the hope of getting a buyer. Hence the parade of Paul Murray, Dave King etc. As long as the administrators have a chance of selling it on as a going concern I suspect that with daily legal advice they could keep going for quite a while yet. However it would be much cheaper to start again. Buy a club in Glasgow with some development land around it. Partick Thistle? Rename it to "The Famous Glasgow Rangers" turn it into a community club like Barcelona to get loads of public money to develop the ground, and get all the fans behind it. Of course it is a totally different club but wave a few union jacks, a few marching bands, get the song sheets printed and 'we are the people' scarves on sale, bring all the legends back to endorse what you are doing, (and as well as the legends you can invite Mark Hateley), and the loyal will turn up. How much? Probably you could do it for a few million, less than 5 and the show is on the road. Of course you could also buy the Glasgow Rangers name and logo and the 'goodwill' from the liquidator. Leave the administrator/liquidator with Ibrox and Murray Park. Chances are in 18 months you could buy them for peanuts, especially Ibrox.

Ally says he won't be picking the players to leave Ibrox http://tinyurl.com/6ryt27q Sorry Ally just don't believe you. Players will soon be 'let go'. Somebody has to choose the ones to go. If Ally doesn't, who will? Is Ally really asking the administrators to make the choices and then he gets a list of who is left to pick his teams from. I think not. How much is Ally on? Time to grow up and realise sometimes in a job at that level you have to make tough decisions. This is a big boy's game, and a cheeky grin doesn't wash any more. Face up to your responsibilities Ally and stop playing to the Rangers fans to convince them what a loyal supporter you are.

Aww, what a hero is Walter. Surprised he can't put his hands on the cash, after al he received a few honourable mentions in the Tom Bower book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Broken-Dreams-Souring-British-Football/dp/0743440331 If I remember Willie Mackay (Walter's old pal) was a recurring theme throughout that book. Some might say that liquidation is the best chance of finding out the reality of what goes on at large clubs. Otherwise it just gets stuffed under the carpet again if bought out of administration. Another good reason for HMRC to push their debt through to liquidation so they can 'follow the money'. And as they have already said, if they lose this current tribunal they will appeal.

The Administrators can ok costs which are essential to ensure the business remains as a going concern. So travel to away games and if need be accommodation would be all right. That is why the police required confirmation that their bill would be treated on that basis and therefore paid in preference to those who supply the tea bags or toilet rolls. Just a formal process from the police to make sure they will get their money quickly and not drop to the bottom of the list (which we have yet to see). Which makes the hanging on to 300 staff all the more curious From Burness (lawyers) web site http://tinyurl.com/84kyguj "The first fourteen days of an administration will be critical for Rangers' employees as, if administrators do not terminate their employment during that period, any wages and salary accrued after the fourteen days rank highly in the administration and are more likely to be paid. The practical implication of this rule is that it may be the players on the highest salaries that are most likely to have their contract terminated before expiry of the fourteen days. "

Oh aye that tribunal! Findings will be. 1. Wee Craigy Whyte was evasive with answers to the easy questions we asked him and is a "not very nice" person. (We didn't have the savvy to pick up a phone and ask others about his background, but hell we are football experts and know nothing about business. And if we had done it with him, we might have upset the Rangers loyal at a time when they thought the sun shone out of his earhole) 2. "David Murray is a VERY nice man." 3. We must make sure dodgy geezers like Whyte never run a Scottish club again. We will make this a ruling (but not too quickly), worded so it will be confusing and able to be legally challenged. After all we don't want to cause any problems for the other dodgy dealers currently running other Scottish clubs. 4. The current rules we have for 'fit and proper' test is pathetically useless. 5. The assistant tea lady at Hampden will lead a high powered task force to write up the new rules. This will start immediately, and will report as soon as possible allowing for the fact that teas and coffees come first.. 6. We will not talk to Platini about any of this and will make no reference to Eufa's aims to get crooks out of running football clubs, and increasing supporter ownership. 7. It is generally agreed that a strong Rangers is very important to the well being of ALL of Scottish football. 8. To achieve all these "highly ambitious targets" which will 'transform Scottish football for the better and make it suitable for the 21st Century" we need extra funding from the Scottish Government. About £20 million would do. (We will give you the company name and bank account number to transfer the dosh to as soon as we have it setup) 9. We will announce these 'significant' findings at a press conference. We will be angry and show it. Upset that our wonderful game and famous club is being dragged through the mud by this one dodgy character. We will be sanctimonious and indignent. In fact at some point our spokesman will break down in tears. (Can we arrange for Chic Young to rush on with the tissues) NOTE to Ranger PR team, still employed by the administrators. Any chance of a Rangers die hard chucking himself off the Erskine Bridge the same day we publish our findings, to distract any serious questions. We can say 'out of respect for the deceased's family, we feel it is not appropriate to answer that'. Ok, ok the above is a pi*s take, but lets see how far from the truth? The above findings are my property and if the SFA steal any of them I will sue the ass off them.

This saga is now entering the boring phase, either through lack of hard detail or a plethora of irrelevant and distracting stories. Typical is the "Ally says we are not going ahead with the signing of Cousin". He knew it, I knew it, my granny knew it from the start. This was never going to happen and merely a distraction. Administrators getting 2 people out the door so far. Yes only 2. Why are they holding on to the full squad? Plus loads of support staff in ticket office, PR - why are they still needed? Creditors must be asking why are you forking out money for players and staff who are not needed this season? Must be the most slow motion administration ever. Why??? Who is owed money? Forget HMRC, they will fight their own corner. But all the rest. The small companies scammed by Rangers who will probably be looking at laying off some of their own staff? Before anything solid is happening, we have a Dave King photo opportunity with Ally - setup or what? Ellis being a nice guy and feeling guilty, but not too guilty. Paul Murray having meetings with the administrator. Are they talking about facts or just possibilities. All totally inconsequential until facts are known. But hell it keeps the idiots at the Record and Sun busy trying to make stories from all this nonsense. This is a company which has stolen £80 million plus of OUR money. Action should be happening and be seen to be happening. So beware the fluff and nonsense. Hateley (do anything for a few quid), Gough (Scotland career cut short) giving it big licks. Fills the tabloids though. Essential to keep following the money. Not just in Whyte's time but the 10 years before as well. Thank God for the 2 blogs which keep the story on track. The Rangers story must be told in its entirety.

Spot on.

FFP? Presume the first is a verb staring with F, second an adjective starting with F. But what is the P for? Protestants?

No way. This would be treating Rangers Newco preferentially over others. Suspect EU law would kill that one stone dead. Yes income would reduce for other clubs, but with a club who competed unfairly removed from the league it will allow a gradual return to normality and what is affordable and sustainable. Obviously the Rangers business model was NOT sustainable. Given that we are finding out they stole (no better way to put it) somewhere in excess of £70million to fund their greed and over ambitions, we must make sure something similar ever happens again. If the SFA do not bring in better policing then the Scottish Government will. While clubs may be part of SPL, SFA, SFL, UEFA or whatever they are also businesses, and subject to normal company law. Below the top 30 companies in the UK in 1947. the ones in bold are still listed. So just accept big companies do go bust! Associated Portland Cement Morris Motors Courtaulds MurexDistillers P&O Dunlop Patons & Baldwins EMI Pinchin Johnson General Electric Rolls-Royce Guest Keen Spillers Harrods Swan Hunter Hawker Siddeley Tate & Lyle Imperial Chemical Turner & Newall Imperial Tobacco United Steel J&P Coats Vickers Lancashire Cotton Watney Coombe Reid Leyland Motors William Cory London Brick Woolworths

What is the legal requirement when he is talking about Rangers? Can he call them "Rangers" in his expert comments or does he have to call them "Rangers in administration"? Would hate to see him being done for passing them off as something other than what they are.

True, but of course we as yet do not know the facts and the detail. Bit by bit it is coming out, but we will be depending on the administrators and perhaps liquidators to disclose the truth. Obviously Whyte has a network of inter trading companies some of which are offshore and totally secretive with assets and money having moved around between them. Given the administrators have been in for over a week now there are still no clear factual statements other than the Ticketus money. Surprising as these guys usually go in mob handed 24 hours a day if needed. Usually to strip out unnecessary costs and make what's left attractive to would be purchasers. So until then it is 'it looks like' and 'I think this means'. Especially with Strathclyde Police now taking a direct interest. We await the redundancies and creditors list with some excitement as stage 1!

Think that is what Whyte's bleating yesterday about personal and 'corporate' guarantees refer to. Ticketus hand over money for x% of the next 3 (or 4) years season ticket sales. Up to the football club then to sell the tickets so they can pay Ticketus for them. They will want what they have plaid plus a percentage to pay back their shareholders. If the club can't sell enough they still have to pay. Probably the football club will have some just for themselves, where they keep all the money. If anyone buying the club from administration just doesn't do season tickets. Just sell tickets per game (or charge equivalent amount to join a supports club and get a so called season ticket for nothing) and let Ticketus whistle for their money from Whyte. Just hope for their own good that Ticketus defined a 'season ticket' properly. But, was Whyte legally able to sell future season ticket sales? If he was doing it all within Rangers FC ltd it could be he was moving assets out of reach of the administrator, as well as the resulting proceeds. By paying off one debt (Lloyds) was he acting in a preferential way over other creditors? Maybe some accountant here can advise.

From the Glasgow Herald today. Whyte "The only person at risk from the deal is me personally because I gave Ticketus personal and corporate guarantees underwriting their investment; the club and the fans are fully protected. In terms of exposure, I am personally on the line for 27.5 million pounds in guarantees and cash. I am the biggest stake-holder in Rangers and I face huge financial losses personally if the restructuring fails or is not allowed to proceed. Elsewhere in his statement, Whyte talks of his wish to gift most of his shares to fans if Rangers can come through the administration process." If he is not hung out to dry, HMRC, SFA, Strathclyde finest and the Administrators are all equally GUILTY

Anyone got a view on the relationship of MIM with their bank (as MIM was going through a 'difficult' phase) and the financial position of Rangers. Rangers is after all a cash driven business. Maybe somebody could do us a graph of one against the other?

Nimmo-Smith led some enquiry years back into Catholic councillors in Monkland Council showing bias against Prods. Somehow Nimmo-Smith found no evidence. Could be seen as a 'safe pair of hands' for this little job. Main objective must be to ensure the SFA is shown to be clean, and any conclusions do not mean any other SPL/SFL club having to bother about a 'fit and proper person' ruling. Some excellent content on other web sites http://scotslawthoughts.wordpress.com/ and http://rangerstaxcase.com/ plus the Daily Mail as mentioned earlier. Not the Scottish tabloids though. Chic Young will soon have an exclusive ("you heard it here first", as he usually says) that David Murray is a really good guy and upset at being taken a loan of by Whyte With the Ticketus money (or at least the balance after Lloyds paid off) , and the transfer dosh from Everton going missing, the administrators will be moving towards reality check time. Forget all the PR guff they have been giving us. HMRC will be watching very closely. With the missing money the administrators will have to pull in the polis (fraud squad), otherwise they will be at risk themselves. Must be staff leaving this week to cut costs. And administrators will shut up about the Cousin move which was just a nonsense. Next week a list of creditors (provisional) provided. What is the betting Willie McKay (Cousin's agent) has an invoice pre administration on that list. Given it was a few months of Cousin at total cost of £50k or so, his cut should be about £5million. At least that is what the Murray/Smith dynasty would have paid. With complete lack of clarity and more skeletons popping up, HMRC will have no choice but to go for liquidation in the next couple of weeks. That way they get Whyte slowly, and get a marker in place for all other clubs who are 'at it'.

Which Rangers? Rangers Football Club, Rangers ma wee holding company, Rangers the dodgy company limited, Rangers the one I just made up Plc, Rangers trading as Craig Whyte's slush fund? You couldn't make it up. Oh sorry I forgot. Whyte did.

Think the administrators were as they say in their trade 'ducking and diving'. They should just get a list of staff, with the highest paid at the top, lowest at the bottom. Can we do without number 1? and so on. Obvious ones to get out the door immediately even before going down the list will be Lafferty (to avoid the 100 games surcharge), and injured unable to contribute to the team over the rest of the season (Naismith etc). What won't be included in any decisions will be the number of times they kissed the shirt. From the BBC web site .... David Whitehouse, from administrators Duff and Phelps told a press conference: "Our understanding is that the funds from Ticketus didn't come through the company's account, they went through a parent company account so we haven't got visibility on that." This is just trying to fudge the story. For parent company read different company. If someone sold something belonging to me for £24mill (I wish), I would be pretty keen to find out who has the money.

All we can do is guess who did what to whom and when. We need someone (probably the BBC) to work out the companies involved, relationships and Whyte's role in them directly or indirectly. Administrator said there were notes of interest, as you would expect. Presume a Dermot Desmond consortium is one of them Anyone looking at taking on Rangers will look at it as a business. This would plan for future expenditure and income. Income would include ticket/season ticket sales. The administrator must make sure these are included without any encumbrances. So for them to say the Ticketus deal is of no interest to them is nonsense. Administrator said " the Ticketus debt was not secured against the assets of the football club." Careful phrasing here as he talks about being "secured". What he doesn't say is was asset stripping going on. Love the confidence that Whyte's 'personal guarantees' would ensure Ticketus would get their money. Not convinced.

I am saying it is. Let the courts decide!

This is getting exciting. Whyte sells future season ticket sales to Ticketus. Now Rangers are in administration he has no claim over the season tickets to be sold in the future. YES the administrators should be concerned about this, as assets/goodwill etc of Rangers have been sold from under their feet, but the money not going to Rangers Football Club Plc or to the administrator. I would have thought they MUST chase that £22mill immediately. Given Whyte has the £22mill (somewhere) I would expect Strathclyde fraud squad to be wanting to talk to him asap. Bit like selling a car you have on HP and keeping the dosh. Ticketus is set up as a VCT - http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/guidance/vct.htm Ticketus have shareholders. If the people running Ticketus handed over £22m (of the shareholders money) for goods which Whyte did not or does not own, and they pay a person or company other than the owner they should expect a wee visit. Obvious the first one should be the administrator but suspect they won't bother going there, so over to the polis again. The shareholders must have concerns as well. http://tinyurl.com/7xgobcm This is a list of the various Ticketus companies that have been setup. I see the LLP is an overseas company. Could be they setup a newco for each client, so one of the Ticketus companies would the Rangers one? (Just a guess). With the overseas connection any chance of a link back to the Bahamas? So given all the above it is personally essential for Whyte to end up with the club after administration. If he doesn't make it, then it must be prison. http://tinyurl.com/7a5nr9b This article (Daily Mail not my usual read) has more reality in it that the nonsense from Whyte/administrator/majority of the Scottish sports media. So its odds on for a full liquidation.

Whyte gets word that Ticketus are sending the b(h)oys round to get their money back.