pollymac

Nope, this is what you said... I response to... Whyte not paying your clubs taxes is clearly not 'another matter', it's quite clearly going against Gaz' point, i.e. you did not pay your taxes within the laws of the land. And not for the first time. And maybe not even for the second either.

No. Is that relevant?

Actually, it doesn't.

Erm, nope, it's you who is missing the point. I fully appreciate the fact that you and the Order of Lugburz really do not like the position the club is in. I do. I would need a very short memory not to. I simply do not think you appreciate your own part in landing it in such a predicament. wedeservebetterCSC

Curious. First part is fair game, yes? And what about those organisations who do so outside of the law?

To be fair, Alan Hutton's one season of not being ripped to shreds by Darryl Duffy almost paid for Murray Park by itself. Add in the money it generated for Celtic on the sale of Beattie and same for Blackpool re Adam, then truthfully it's not all that bad. Murray Park: making as much money for anybody else as it does for Rangers since 2001. And it's still not 'owned' by Rangers.

Well, yes, obviously. Much along the lines that I wish I was in the position to pay the mortgage on that £12m estate I recently purchased. Oh no, that's right, I don't have to wish that as I didn't do that at all, because I'm not a complete and utter f*ckwit when it comes to money.

Bit by bit: The debt came down by about £14m in a period where the club earned £40m+ (i.e. it came down by about a third of that amount) from such income that could not be relied upon. Or, to look at it another way, without that income, your debt would increase by about £13-14m each season with the same expenditure. Other cost cutting measures would have ensured that latter part (above) would come to fruition. Ignoring the bit in brackets as it is either irrelevant, or see the point immediately above. Megamillions were indeed still being spent. Just not insane megamillions. The OF have a 'disposable' income of pretty much zero. Prior to the Jelavic transfer, Rangers net spend in the last two years was about £4m*. Your wages when Flo, de Boer et al were hanging around was £33m; in 2010 they were £28m. With a very much reduced squad in comparison to the Flo era, it has to be said. I don't have 2011 wages figures and can't be arsed looking them up tbh, but would expect them to be much the same as 2010s. *net spends are strange, especially when looking at reported figures. Generally speaking, when selling a player, a club will receive around 75% of the reported amount (it's actually anywhere between 0% and 100%), conversely they do actually pay out 100% of the amounts reported (assuming figures are accurate) and often some more

Aye, the debt came down by £14m in a period where the club earned £40m+ from the Champions League. Therein lies the problem.

The context is clearly regarding the club. The club are not inclined to pay their own way and have not been inclined to wholly do so for a number of years, dating back to the last millenium. The various consortia do not want to pay their way, instead picking up the club I described earlier for a song and nary a thought given to paying that piper. The fans continually whine about Whyte not paying off the clubs debts. And you've not deviated from the above line of thinking. Knee-jerk accusations? I honestly don't know a single Rangers fan who has deviated from that line of thinking. Not one. And this includes the numerous friends I've had since childhood who I'd otherwise think were quite level headed. To a man, they all seem to think the mess their club's in, is someone else's problem.

Aye, but the point is: you (as in the various consortia, the club, it's supporters and evidently yourself) are no way inclined to actually pay your own way, preferring instead to have someone else do it for you. paythepiperCSC

First bit: We can certainly guess that barring some kind of 'sell good players and buy cheap pish but still win' type of miracle, you were still going to be heading out of Europe. We can also guess that your £18m debt would exist. We might also guess that the TAX and PAYE (but not the VAT part) would have been paid, so another £10m would have been added to that debt by now. Second bit: We might also guess that 'the bank' would have seen cumulative monthly losses of £2m or so as being utterly unsustainable. We might also guess that the largest drain on MIH's liquid capital would see Sir David's relationship with the aforementioned bank strained past breaking point. We might further guess that MIH's latest £117m bailout, long in the creation, would never have made it past a local managers office had that company continued to insist on underwriting reckless spending at a rate of around £20m per year. These are all guesses of course. What we do know, is that a company with an inherent turnover of £40m per year, capital assets worth over £100m and player assets worth £30m+ was sold for a single shiny (presumably it was shiny) pound coin and that there were a number of reasons for this.

That, in a nitshell, is entirely your clubs problem. boo f*cking hoo, we want someone to pay our debts, waah, waah. edit: haha what a quality typo; leaving it.

Skipping your next reply, I'll just come back to these two nuggets. A few points: Since the turn of the century your club has (apparently??) managed through it's own means and not by selling off future income* to reduce debt twice, in 2010 and 2011. The overall drop in debt during that period, although it's questionable given the lack of audited accounts for the second of those years, was approximately £14m. During that period the club benefited from Champions League prize money payouts to the tune of €35,976,000 (~£30m) and a further €736,000 from Europa League participation in the second period (accounts to 2011). Add on ticket sales from an aggregate home crowd of around 325,000 over those two years (£8-12m??) and you're looking at around £40m of non-guaranteed income in two years, but only a decrease of debt by around a third of that total. Regarding the next bit: your club, until January, made a net spend yet failed to qualify for the Champions League. With regards 'more could have been made', the net spend you did have was actually the best case scenario for your team this season. And you failed to qualify for Europe. Do you understand? You still had to cut costs last summer, but didn't, preferring to gamble on getting your mitts on the £20m+ available from the Champions League. This, and not Whyte, is what really pushed you into administration. Without the CL money promise (at the end of the season), you had no credit lines available and should have run out of money either at the end of November or perhaps at some point in December. Craig Whyte actually kept you going a further three or four months by not paying Hector £15m or so PAYE & NIC. A quick glance at your clubs books (those of Duff & Phelps fame) shows that you even despite stiffing Hector out of millions these last 10 months, you should be running out of funds at some point in the next few days. You now genuinely have your players to thank for keeping the big hoose open and even then Duff & Phelps fees will dig into a non-existent credit line, i.e. they will soon become creditors in their own right. Seriously dude, your club was and is fubar. edit for the asterisk: *although in both of those seasons, your club did actually sell off immediate future income streams to Ticketus.

Aye, the club was in reasonable shape ergo the £1 sale price. couldnamakeitupCSC

Strange, as I would have thought that any worthwhile glance at your accounts and the trending towards oblivion at any point in the last 5 to 15 years would say otherwise, i.e. that you were in a mess long before Jelavic pulled on a pair of boots in professional anger never mind signing on for orkenkind fc on the (literal) never never. Don't let the team I support cloud your judgement on my post, but your club has been a financial basket case for about 15 years, relying more and more on various handouts that could never be guaranteed: NTL media deal, MIH debt for equity, Champions League money, JJB deal, Dave King, ENIC and so on.

Reminds me of a set of cemetry gates tbh.

Amusing. Seek and ye shall find.

Nail. Hit. On. Head.

A 10p in the pound deal opens it up for every single business subject to UK tax laws, not just EPL football clubs.

I posted on here last night regarding the additional funding that has subsidised Renegers over the last 15 years (around £300m) and it makes you wonder why anyone, including Sky, would demand that they have a place in the SPL. Can you imagine the SPL if say Hearts, Aberdeen, Hibs, St Mirren, et al were being subsidised by £20m each per season? Or even just one of them. Why not just remove Renegers from the picture and just give Aberdeen £20m a season and see how things pan out, I mean, if we're casting sporting integrity aside, why not?

I don't think anyone is actually saying that, more that they're quite chuffed that someone in the MSM has finally come out with the stuff the PR rehashers won't. btw, the media fair went for Celtic's throat on any number of occasions back in 1994. So much so that there's still a general ignorance of the reasons as to why the Bank of Scotland were finally forced to action (or begin to) a winding up order on Celtic.

The sale of land and houses (at both Highbury and just outside the Emirates) when Arsenal moved realised £150m or thereabouts. This was at the very peak of the London housing market. Ibrox must be worth at least 2/3 of that given it's obvious prime and somewhat leafy location Murrayfield and attached land in the almost derelict Roseburn area is booked at half Ibrokes. Celtic Park, IIRC, is booked at marginally over a third.

^^this. Floating charges etc held against assets are also only held against the value of the floating charge, i.e. if Agent Whhyte has a floating charge against Ibrokes for £20m and the asset is sold for £25m, then £5m goes into the creditors pot. Conversely, if the players are sold for £20m and (presumably) no floating charge is held against them, then £20m goes into the creditors pot. Regarding the value of the assets - I wonder if it's squeaky bum time in Grant Thornton's office yet. Most tellingly, if they are liquidated, shares in Lyons are likely to head Northward (figuratively speaking)

I lol'd