Rangers V The Champions.

[bennett]

42 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

Did you, with any grace?

This is where complicity of the Authorities comes in. A 20 year ban on any football activity might have covered it. They contrived to accommodate Rangers. I dip my toe into this cesspit occasionally. 

They are cheats and liars, a tradition carried on by the criminals that took up the mantle. You and your pals condone it rather than face the truth.

 

Are you a failed social worker, now blogging in Donegal?

 

 

 

[Snifter Pee Rot]

To be fair must be the first time Halliday has a had a good greet since 21.05.16. 

[moniton]

We received and accepted the punishment handed out at the time (and deemed appropriate by the ruling body) for the financial mismanagement of the club.

Financial mismanagement of the company surely [emoji6]

[RedRob72]

Did you, with any grace? This is where complicity of the Authorities comes in. A 20 year ban on any football activity might have covered it. They contrived to accommodate Rangers. I dip my toe into this cesspit occasionally.  They are cheats and liars, a tradition carried on by the criminals that took up the mantle. You and your pals condone it rather than face the truth.

 

 

I’m not condoning anything Serge, It was clear that the administration of the club’s tax arrangements were financially mismanaged and we were punished for it. I think this has been done to death on here over several hundred pages, but for what it’s worth, this piece was written in the Sunday Times by Micheal Grant on July 6th 2017. It perhaps best sums up the whole saga for me. As a lifelong Rangers supporter it makes difficult reading sometimes, but it is hard to disagree with. I do not believe however that the fans were broadly aware of what was happening behind the scenes and therefore complicit.

Here is the article in full.....

‘Only at Rangers could bad news be buried by … more bad news. The long-awaited resolution of the “big tax case” will not cost Rangers a penny, but the reputational damage is incalculable. Rivals will call them “cheats” forever and are already doing so, with undisguised glee. It is a stain which will never wash off. Rangers can thank David Murray for that.

His headlong plunge into industrial scale use of Employee Benefit Trusts ruined Rangers years ago. Yesterday’s decision, whichever way it went, couldn’t change that. Back then, it was the prospect of a huge tax liability that frightened off potential buyers and drove the club into the hands of a charlatan, Craig Whyte, for that risible toss of a pound coin. The continuing tailspin towards administration, liquidation, lower-league football, endless humiliations, infrastructural decline and deterioration: all of it stemmed from Murray’s nudge-nudge, wink-wink embrace of EBTs to dodge paying as much tax as possible.

It was a shady episode from start to finish and, without being too pious about it, a disgrace that a business of Rangers’ size and standing was ducking and diving to put money into footballers’ hands that should have gone towards schools, hospitals, the police etc. Yesterday Murray trotted out a familiar line about the decision on EBTs and tax liability being “counter to the legal advice which was consistently provided” back then. Remember, though, that he offered £10 million to settle this case in 2010 and did not have the confidence to take responsibility for any potential tax liabilities when he was trying to sell the club.

There was obstruction and inertia when it came to helping the authorities, too. The First Tier tax tribunal verdict included a line that “the protracted and chequered course of the inquiry was largely due to a lack of candour and co-operation” from a senior tax expert at Murray Group. Important documents, including the infamous side letters, were not disclosed until there had been repeated requests and statutory demands. Some documents were handed over to HMRC only when the inquiry was five-and-a-half years old. The actions of someone who believed everything was above board all along?

The verdict ignited an entirely predictable feeding frenzy yesterday, a “strip the titles” campaign which has rumbled away in the background waiting for the catalyst of this final decision. There are a few inconvenient facts which take the steam out of that. EBTs were not illegal when Rangers used them and nor does this verdict imply any illegality on Murray or Rangers’ part. No-one faces criminal charges for EBTs. The saga was a dispute between oldco and HMRC about whether tax should have been paid on the EBT “loans”. Rangers lost so at last there is clarity on what they owe (in reality the financial aspect is now irrelevant to anyone except oldco’s creditors, who will now receive less because HMRC will take a big slice of the pot built up by liquidators BDO).

EBTs did not break any Scottish Football Association or Scottish Premier League rules when Rangers used them, which gave the governing bodies far less wiggle room than Rangers’ critics believe. The independent commission chaired for the then SPL by Lord Nimmo Smith in 2012 examined Rangers’ non-disclosed player payments and side-letters, found them guilty, and fined them £250,000. Nimmo Smith found that Rangers did not gain an unfair competitive advantage from the side letters. That was a baffling conclusion, but one the SPL/SPFL must adhere to, having commissioned him to look into it and rule on their behalf. Back then Nimmo Smith acknowledged, too, that the “big tax case” could yet go either way but “it is not a breach of SPL rules to minimise tax liability”.

The “no to newco” campaign in 2012, when fans mobilised to pressurise their clubs into denying Rangers access to the top flight, showed how powerful they can be when there is momentum. Insatiable tribal animosity will ensure plenty will try to drive “strip the titles” in the same direction. But Rangers funnelling millions through a once widespread but now discredited tax avoidance scheme cannot be classed alongside match-fixing, bribing officials or opponents or systemic performance-enhancing drug use. It would be disproportionate to apply such an extreme punishment when no football rule was broken.

What was really broken, by EBTs, was Rangers’

 

 

[Scotty Tunbridge]

No chance anyone is ever reading that full post.

[RedRob72]

No chance anyone is ever reading that full post.

Aye I know, it is quite lengthy, but didn’t edit it for obvious reasons.

[Sergeant Wilson]

I'm not quoting Rob.

As I said, I don't often post on these threads, but the weekend brought it all out again. I'll go back to my normal state of ignoring them, until the next time  I lose the rag or have a weekend ruined by them.

[Ylf]

Rangers are dead. That is all. Dead as f**k

[Monkey Tennis]

That's a decent article which is correct in placing most of the blame at Murray's door.

Where it's wrong though is in connecting 'strip the titles' so explicitly to the outcome of the big tax case.  Obviously, it's been written in the aftermath of the final verdict in that, which did indeed launch a new wave of such pressure.  However, the reason titles should have been stripped was to do with player registration, regardless of whether EBTs were being operated properly or not.  

Clubs have had cup ties overturned before for genuine, isolated, careless errors that did not yield any benefit.  In this case, dozens of players were deliberately registered improperly over hundreds of games, in order to conceal that Rangers were paying them in a way potentially dodgy enough to land the club with a tax bill that could never be paid.

The piece quoted is very good on Murray and the morality of what he did.  It's weak on title stripping though, because it doesn't address player registration, the whole issue around which any such campaign revolves.

[Lord Snooty]

Broon seemed to have a brain fart as the ball trundled between his legs. Or did Jack spot the gap? Still - they all count.

[HeWhoWalksBehindTheRows]

13 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Celtic's gates suffered more than anyone's when Rangers weren't around.  Didn't Lawell bleat about it costing them £10m per year?

They both want the stitch up at the top.  The irony is that the fans of each think the clubs couldn't be more different.  Lots of us recognise however, that they're hard to tell apart.

It's like the end of Animal Farm ( the book not the porno).

You could stand there looking from *** to ***, and *** back to *** and struggle to tell them apart from each other.

[Ira Gaines]

12 minutes ago, Lord Snooty said:

Broon seemed to have a brain fart as the ball trundled between his legs. Or did Jack spot the gap? Still - they all count.

Nah. He tried in vain to close them which probably did more harm than good in the end.

[Monkey Tennis]

1 hour ago, HeWhoWalksBehindTheRows said:

It's like the end of Animal Farm ( the book not the porno).

You could stand there looking from *** to ***, and *** back to *** and struggle to tell them apart from each other.

Spot on.

It's exactly like that.  Dear old George knew a thing or two about Scottish football.

[The OP]

14 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Celtic's gates suffered more than anyone's when Rangers weren't around.  Didn't Lawell bleat about it costing them £10m per year?

If you look at the stats Celtic's average attendances were low from the appointment of Tony Mowbray to the appointment of Brendan Rodgers. I am not sure, therefore, that the issue of dipping attendances can entirely be placed on the death of the ****.   Seems rather unsurprising that Lawwell places the blame on a factor outwith his control, rather than on uninspiring managerial appointments and reducing investment. 

[Monkey Tennis]

43 minutes ago, The OP said:

If you look at the stats Celtic's average attendances were low from the appointment of Tony Mowbray to the appointment of Brendan Rodgers. I am not sure, therefore, that the issue of dipping attendances can entirely be placed on the death of the ****.   Seems rather unsurprising that Lawwell places the blame on a factor outwith his control, rather than on uninspiring managerial appointments and reducing investment. 

I think the dip in attendance can be aligned more closely to the years of Rangers' absence than you're implying.   In fact a look at said stats reveals that gates were low during the Mowbray season, but recovered for the next two before Rangers' death and the exile of the rebirth.  During those four seasons, Celtic's crowds were well down on every other season, except for that Mowbray one of failure.  Celtic's other title winning seasons since Parkhead was rebuilt, have all seen much higher crowds than those they got when Rangers weren't sharing the division.  

The appointment of Rodgers of course coincided with Rangers reaching the top flight.  It wasn't mere coincidence though.  The two events were closely related.

[gannonball]

2 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

 

The appointment of Rodgers of course coincided with Rangers reaching the top flight.  It wasn't mere coincidence though.  The two events were closely related.

Season ticket sales were pretty stagnant until the announcement of Rodgers. Then it went rediculous and we even had a waiting list. Had we stuck with Deila you might have seen an extra thousand or two with Sevco.

[Monkey Tennis]

2 hours ago, gannonball said:

Season ticket sales were pretty stagnant until the announcement of Rodgers. Then it went rediculous and we even had a waiting list. Had we stuck with Deila you might have seen an extra thousand or two with Sevco.

Maybe, but the point is that the 'return' of Rangers and the appointment of Rodgers were closely linked.  Celtic upped their game with that appointment and it was in response to Rangers' arrival at that level.

The irony of course is that Rangers being 'back' was billed as heralding a new era of competition.  Instead what it introduced was one side winning all the trophies, whereas before they'd been unprecedentedly shared.  Breaking the duopoly was good for our game, not just because it humiliated Rangers, but also because it brought Celtic back closer to the pack.

[williemillersmoustache]

"I do not believe however that the fans were broadly aware of what was happening behind the scenes and therefore complicit."

Of course you don't petal, shame and self awareness is not the therangers way.

You can't argue you didn't know you were cheating, you can however argue that you didn't care.

[Dons_1988]

"I do not believe however that the fans were broadly aware of what was happening behind the scenes and therefore complicit."

Of course you don't petal, shame and self awareness is not the therangers way.

You can't argue you didn't know you were cheating, you can however argue that you didn't care.

“We deserve better” I think it was.

When the bank took control because rangers couldn’t pay the eye watering debt they’d put themselves in, they just spat the dummy out that they weren’t spending millions on players anymore.

The warning signs were clearly there.

[williemillersmoustache]

“We deserve better” I think it was.

When the bank took control because rangers couldn’t pay the eye watering debt they’d put themselves in, they just spat the dummy out that they weren’t spending millions on players anymore.

The warning signs were clearly there.

Honestly, they'd all had to have had triple lobotomies to not ken the score....Hang on..............