Big Rangers Administration/Liquidation Thread - All chat here!

[Monkey Tennis]

Rangers were not judged to have gained any sporting advantage. None of the players were ineligible to play.

"Rangers FC did not gain any unfair competitive advantage from the contraventions of the SPL Rules in failing to make proper disclosure of the side-letter arrangements, nor did the non-disclosure have the effect that any of the registered players were ineligible to play, and for this and other reasons no sporting sanction or penalty should be imposed upon Rangers FC." (p1)

This is the important part.

The SPL alleges “such that Rangers FC was in breach of a condition of the registration of such players and such players were ineligible to play in official matches for Rangers FC” (p26)

"[sPL lawyer] Mr McKenzie explained to us that SPL Rule D1.13 had hitherto been understood to mean that if, at the time of registration, a document was not lodged as required, the consequence was that a condition of registration was broken and the player automatically became ineligible to play in terms of SPL Rule D1.11." (p26)

Sandy Bryson, Head of Registrations at the Scottish FA, gives evidence that registrations remain unless revoked and are not automatically invalid due to rule breaches.

The tribunal states that the Scottish FA approach to the rules is clear and the SPL should apply their rules in the same manner.

"We are satisfied that the registration of the Specified Players with the SPL was valid from the outset, and accordingly that they were eligible to play in official matches." (p27)

"This is an important finding, as it means that there was no instance shown of Rangers FC fielding an ineligible player. "

Thanks Ted. The beauty of P&B is that when you can't be arsed searching for something, someone else usually can.

You'll have to admit that the titles remained in place on a technicality Tedi. This notion of registration being valid at the outset seems to be key, in that as no difficulty was flagged up at the time, so it must remain.

It's odd. Cheating kind of has been established, but not in a way that could subsequently be undone.

I honestly cannot imagine wishing to take pleasure or pride in 'achievements' which are so demonstrably tarnished.

[Monkey Tennis]

Only in respect of the LNS himself. Otherwise it could be passed or current professional sportspeople.

The bigger issue here is your reference to DJ.

I demand an apology or I am going to be really angry and Tedi will have to eat his words.

Yes ok, I went much too far with the DJ line.

You don't deserve that; nobody deserves that.

Sorry.

[hellbhoy]

It was the style of questioning, basically it was 'Tedi, please answer this question, you [insert whatever insult you want next here]'

Sorry but this was met with what it deserved, it was then clear that this tactic was making the Killie fan and HB angrier and angrier, which of course was highly amusing. I mean the man still has not calmed down judging by his 1st post of the morning.

You seem content giving the green yins a hard time when they try to discuss things in such away

Seriously Tedi !, was that what was going on in your head last night that I was getting angrier and angrier because you could not admit failure ?

Whatever is going on in your head most times is most likely not what is actually happening in other peoples lives.

[bennett]

Thanks Ted. The beauty of P&B is that when you can't be arsed searching for something, someone else usually can.

You'll have to admit that the titles remained in place on a technicality Tedi. This notion of registration being valid at the outset seems to be key, in that as no difficulty was flagged up at the time, so it must remain.

It's odd. Cheating kind of has been established, but not in a way that could subsequently be undone.

I honestly cannot imagine wishing to take pleasure or pride in 'achievements' which are so demonstrably tarnished.

Monkey, Monkey, Monkey.....

I'm sorry but this just isn't ringing true with you here, you're at it - plain and simple.

You know we weren't cheating, thats been proved and are just looking to get some bites and fun.

So obvious...

[hellbhoy]

I'd love to see a list of your "educated guesses" and we could really see who doesn't have a clue

You have that "wanks his dog" kinda vibe about you mate.

You seriously need to get yer hole ffs, wanking it will only make you go blind as well as giving you hairy palms.

And you have actually turned into a horrible wee wankstain haven't you ?

[hellbhoy]

The point is that the tax avoidance scheme was just that a tax avoidance scheme, tax avoidance is not illegal, reckless from Murray yes but not illegal.

The point is that despite deliberately failing to fill in the proper paperwork the rules were not broken and the players were correctly registered, thus not cheating.

The point was this whole conversation started because you chose to cherry-pick parts out from a report that was over a year old, the problem is that the same report clear stated no unfair competitive advantage was gained, did you think we would just forget?

Deliberately concealing their existence for over a decade from the associations and you call it failing to provide the necessary paperwork ?, you're having a laugh aren't you.

[Monkey Tennis]

Cant say I accept that interpretation at all.

The case should been dropped after the EBT case failed, unless you want to cement an accusation of cheating on a technicality.

The crux of the matter is that Rangers were operating a legal tax avoidance scheme, it is pretty obvious that it was a complex arrangement that required various thing be put in place so that (1) they did not fall foul of tax laws and (2) did not fall foul of player registration rules.

Should the EBT case have went against them then yes they would have effectively been evading tax in order to pay players they could not afford, the case did not go against them, it was a legal tax avoidance scheme.

Nah mate, you see this is the stuff I don't accept.

I, like David Murray, you and most observers, was very surprised when the EBT case went largely in Rangers' favour.

It was clearly related to the issue of title stripping, but was not synonymous.

The EBT case concerned the law of the land, whereas title stripping was to do with the laws of the game. When Spartans and Brechin were thrown out of tournaments, it wasn't for breaking the law; it was for breaching competition rules.

For me, the EBT ruling marked a turning of the tide and I do believe it possibly impacted on the title stripping ruling that followed. There really was no need for that to be the case though, because the two investigations were examining different things.

[Monkey Tennis]

Monkey, Monkey, Monkey.....

I'm sorry but this just isn't ringing true with you here, you're at it - plain and simple.

You know we weren't cheating, thats been proved and are just looking to get some bites and fun.

So obvious...

Nah, not my style.

I've absolutely no doubt that Rangers behaved dishonestly and immorally in a way which helped them perform better on the field.

I've also no doubt that you and Ted know this. You balk at use of the term "cheating" and that's because it's loaded, but we're really only divided in the realm of semantics.

[hellbhoy]

The word 'cheat' or 'cheating' was never mentioned, this is just your head in the sand opinion, so I agree, so what? it is irrelevant.

No unfair competitive advantage gained was however in the report, which is completely relevant.

FFS Tedi, you just can't do it can you ?, you can't even admit that breaking or breaching the rules is actually been caught cheating.

[Monkey Tennis]

Murray was not surprised at all, when he claimed that CW duped him you could tell he was lying. When he said that he always expected the EBT ruling to find in Rangers favour he believed what he was saying, Murray maybe arrogant but not stupid.

The truth is that bloggers like the RTC guy had everyone in a frenzy about the tax case, it was easy pickings, the mob hated Rangers and the mob were easily led, the bloggers were wrong and everyone who believed them were wrong.

If you wish to keep the two things separate then so be it, the players were properly registered, this was never in doubt, no unfair advantage was gained, Rangers were guilty of not submitting bit of paper, none of this made a blind bit of difference to events on the field of play.

There's a fair bit of nonsense in there Ted.

Murray was as shocked as me. His offer of £10million to HMRC to quietly settle is evidence of that, as is the fact he sold up for a pound. Don't insult your own intelligence by suggesting otherwise please.

The closeness of the verdict, the lengthy dissection offered by the dissenting judge and the fact there's an appeal, all point to this as rather more than the ramblings of bloggers.

You also seem unaware of how seriously, failure to submit bits of paper is traditionally viewed in the administration of football competitions in this country. Even if I did you the courtesy of accepting the ludicrous assertion regarding no advantage, you'd be on ground that you knew to be shaky.

[Stag Nation]

a/ there's no news on this due to the lack of transparency with the club.

b/ the season tickets have little to do with funding the wages this season, rangers have other sources of income to provide enough cash to be pointed in that direction, unfortunately i like many others cannot tell you where the season ticket money is going and for this reason supporters are withholding their hard earned.

c/ one for every ten titles won by the club and so people on football forums can argue over the continuity of the club.

With regard to (b), the last accounts showed staff costs of £19.1M, with gate receipts of £13.2M and "other" income of £5.8M

It's pretty unlikely therefore, even if the wage bill has been cut, that the "other" income would cover it.

Even if it does, they can't just pay the wages and not pay their other bills. Their suppliers won't fall for that one a second time.

[hellbhoy]

In other-words they used a 'legal' tax avoidance scheme to gain a 'fair' advantage.

Nah, they abused what is supposed to be a sort of pension fund to pay people a lump sum on retirement, what yer old club did was try to somehow appear that what they were doing was legal but in fact were ripping the pish out of a loophole to pay players money by disguising them as loans.

They weren't legally avoiding tax, they were blatantly calling payments to players loans hat were actually payments that should have been taxed legally.

[Stag Nation]

Yeah i fully understand why my viewpoint is in the minority, just think though how much money Murray had and how much he spunked on Rangers, do you not find it plausible that without EBT's he still would've overspent and signed players that were detrimental to the balance sheet but still manageable. Before whyte we were managing our debt, it was a huge amount and without the EBT's it still would've been huge, maybe different faces but i don't think that without EBT's Murray would have been more responsible financially, living within our means and signing "shitey" players.

Surely the Rangers/Murray debt was only "managable" so long as most of it was with those nice old boys at the (Halifax) Bank of Scotland?

Unfortunately, they turned out to be to banking what Ally McCoist is to football, and HBOS went belly-up before Rangers.

With new management at Lloyds looking closely at all the "toxic" loans, RFC would have been in trouble even without all the other shenanigans.

[Monkey Tennis]

and you accuse me of talking nonsense.

Murray was not shocked at all, while the tax case was hanging over the club he could not sell it and the bank were demanding he sell it, in the end it was the bank that forced him to sell it for a £1, twisting the facts to suit your argument, naughty.

Yet the verdict found in favour of Rangers nothing you can do or say will change this, you were one of those that were so easily led, it is no small wonder that you find this and the verdict hard to accept.

Yes they took it seriously, they handed out a £250k fine, however no advantage was gained, it does not matter if you accept this or don't, that really is not what we are discussing.

Don't be silly Tedi.

It was the hovering EBT case that meant the club had to be offloaded. I also note that you completely ignored my reference of the £10m he offered HMRC. That would be an extraordinary thing for a man to do if he was confident of winning and therefore not owing a penny.

I do indeed still find the verdict hard to accept because as many have said, among them Bennett and Billy Dodds, of course these payments weren't loans in any meaningful way. This however does not make me easily led, any more than it does, you.

You seem determined to point out that it doesn't matter what I think and that I can't change things I don't like. Of course that's true, but it kind of defeats the purpose of any of us discussing any of it.

I feel no need to fight for a side or argue for things that I truly don't believe. I don't think you can say the same.

[hellbhoy]

Your not really furious till your Hellbhoy furious.

Aye very good, carry on.

[BossHogg]

So....how did u spend your bank holiday weekend?

[strichener]

Stop being so daft.

It was the bank demanding he offload , it was the only way they would grant the restructuring loan that his crumbling business empire needed, as for the £10M, I thought it was obvious what I mean, but hey if I really have to spell it out so be it, £10M was a small price to pay for making the club easy to sell, with the EBT case hanging over it was impossible to sell.

I guess the road to acceptance is a long one, however despite what may have been said, a legal tax avoidance scheme is just that.

I do not need to argue, every time you suggest a sporting advantage was gained I keep pointing to a statement from someone that knows more than you or I, none was gained.

Of course this would be a formidable argument had Rangers disputed all the cases but they didn't. They have not disputed the vast majority of cases and therefore any attempt to present the current status of the tribunal as a victory is actually hollow.

....Rangers prove they are correct on some disputed cases and at the same time admit wrongdoing in the majority.

[hellbhoy]

So....how did u spend your bank holiday weekend?

Yehhhhh I'm on the list.

On a side note, I took the missus car off for a drive. I took note of the mileage and drove as much as her full tank of petrol would take me and back to home and then hacked the tachometer and turned back the mileage. Mrs HB confronted me and said I have used up all her petrol and basically stole her money by using it up. I took her to her car and pointed out that the mileage was as is when she last used it therefore no mileage was gained.

[Monkey Tennis]

Stop being so daft.

It was the bank demanding he offload , it was the only way they would grant the restructuring loan that his crumbling business empire needed, as for the £10M, I thought it was obvious what I mean, but hey if I really have to spell it out so be it, £10M was a small price to pay for making the club easy to sell, with the EBT case hanging over it was impossible to sell.

I guess the road to acceptance is a long one, however despite what may have been said, a legal tax avoidance scheme is just that.

I do not need to argue, every time you suggest a sporting advantage was gained I keep pointing to a statement from someone that knows more than you or I, none was gained.

Right, so the hovering EBT case played no part in Murray's desperation to sell, but it was instrumental in how difficult finding a buyer was? Ok.

As you know the legality of that particular tax avoidance scheme remains disputed.

As I've said, I'm not particularly arguing about 'sporting advantage'. Partly because when we're discussing the OF, the very notion is so blatantly evident as to be almost redundant, but mainly because in the context of penalties, proving an advantage shouldn't have been necessary.

[hellbhoy]

^ ^ ^

Tainted title trumpeter.