Very pleased to hear Nir Bitton has signed a contract until 2020. Five years is an astonishing extension for a player who is clearly heading in the right direction. It gives Celtic assurance that they don’t need to worry about a key player’s contract running down for the foreseeable future.
Nir was the first manifestation of Ronny Deila’s player-improvement work. At the start of last year he was little more than a squad addition, a bit like Leigh Griffiths, but he’s since excelled in domestic and European football, as well as for Israel in the Euro qualifiers.
Let’s see if he can continue to improve.
I note the media going ‘a bit Tonto’ over Sports Direct’s insistence that the Rangers Former Players Benevolent Fund stop using trademarks they own. I know this will make many people swallow hard, but’s be clear, if the Celtic Former Players Association were selling merchandise bearing the Celtic crest the club would be saying “Cease and Desist that right now, Joe”. Same is true if you are a fan selling T-shirts or street vendor selling scarves.
Without making moral judgements, football clubs earn money from licensing their logos, you want to use it, you pay. You don’t pay, the club cannot discriminate between who they pursue and who they don’t, as such discriminatory behaviour would be a legitimate defence in law by a transgressor.
Sports Direct own thousands of logos and brands. They will have a department sweeping for infringements and they don’t strike me as the kind of company who let any slip through without action. I’d be amazed if Mike Ashley, or any senior SD staff, were even aware of the action. Cease instructions will come out from the legal team without a second thought.
What remains galling to some is the fact that Newco have to take instructions from Sports Direct on use of logos and other IP. This, on top of the whole Fifa 2016 indignity, could be ended by repaying the Sports Direct £5m loan.
Why wouldn’t they stop the embarrassment and just pay Mike his money? He’s not going to cut a new deal, no positive accommodation is ever going to happen, all that lies ahead is more embarrassment, and the risk of Ashley taking genuinely draconic action to recover his loan. I’m sure they money’s there to repay, right?
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Joe,
It means the anti celtic and destabilising missions will ramp up a notch.
HH
That looks like a polish Jackie MacNamara, sorry bout that, lol.
Happy Birthday Dena
Big cyber hug to you!
Have a fantastic day :)
Joe Filippis Haircut on 4th November 2015 10:43 am
None. Other than it totally puts to bed any notion of resurrecting the original company for the hordes to get behind when this one eventually folds.
JOE FILIPPIS HAIRCUT on 4TH NOVEMBER 2015 10:43 AM
The Battered Bunnet. What does that mean if HMRC win there case ie what affect would it have on the Rangers ? a genuine question. H.H.
– See more at: http://www.celticquicknews.co.uk/bitton-deal-heres-an-idea-just-repay-mikes-loan/comment-page-10/#comment-2710449
Probably just file it along with the rest of the dung they’r up to there neck in, lol.
BBC Scotland News @BBCScotlandNews 4m4 minutes ago
BREAKING: HMRC successful in #Rangers tax case appeal.
More soon http://bbc.in/1P8Wf6U
Give me joy in my heart, give me Ambrose
GEORDIEMUNRO. Fella thats how it will affect Celtic no doubt.However,how will it affect the Rangers ? they seem to go from crisis to crisis but they are still surviving and likely to be in the SPL next season so would HMRC winning this tax case make any difference if it would what will it be ? H.H.
Celtic must now issue a statement with regards to being cheated out of titles & revenues from loss of champions league earnings.
Titles to be stripped should be the focus as a bare minimum & if possible an action should be taken to recover monies owed for what has now been proven to have been blatant cheating.
Surely now the media in this country must report this scandal as the biggest corruption ever seen in Brittish sport.
Advocate General for Scotland v Murray Group Holdings and others
A scheme involving payments to various trusts set up in respect of executives and footballers employed by the former Rangers Football Club amounted to “a mere redirection of emoluments or earnings” and was accordingly “subject to income tax”.
Judges in the Inner House of the Court of Session allowed an appeal by the Advocate General for Scotland, acting on behalf of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), against a decision of the Upper Tribunal in relation to tax assessments made on Murray Group Holdings and other members of the Murray Group of companies, including RFC 2012 PLC.
The Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Carloway, sitting with Lord Menzies and Lord Drummond Young, heard that in the tax years from 2001/02 to 2008/09 the companies entered into a series of transactions as part of a scheme designed to avoid the payment of income tax and National Insurance contributions (NICs) in respect of their employees, which resulted in assessments by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to income tax under the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) system and corresponding NICs.
The companies challenged those assessments before the First-tier Tribunal, which upheld the appeal by a majority of two-to-one. An appeal by HMRC to the Upper Tribunal was refused in August 2014, but permission to appeal to the Court of Session was granted.
The scheme involved a cash payment into an Employees’ Remuneration Trust (the Principal Trust), and the trustee of the Principal Trust then paid the same amount into a sub-trust for the benefit of the employee and his family. The trustee of the sub-trust then advanced funds on loan to the employee in question.
The First-tier Tribunal held that the trustee of the Principal Trust had a “genuine discretion” as to how to apply the funds advanced to it, thus the benefit enjoyed by the employee and his family once the funds were resettled into the sub-trust resulted from the exercise of a “discretionary power” by the trustee of the sub-trust.
Such a payment was not a payment of emoluments or earnings, and was therefore not subject to income tax, the First-tier Tribunal ruled.
However, HMRC contended that the cash payment made by the employing company to the trustee of the Principal Trust was in consideration of services by the employee, and thus had been “earned” by the employee.
Therefore, the scheme amounted to “a mere redirection of earnings which did not remove the liability of employees to income tax”, it was argued.
The court concluded that the argument by HMRC was correct, and accordingly allowed the appeal on that ground.
The judges observed that the “fundamental principle” that emerged from previous cases was clear: “if income is derived from an employee’s services qua (in their capacity as) employee, it is an emolument or earnings, and is thus assessable to income tax, even if the employee requests or agrees that it be redirected to a third party”.
Delivering the opinion of the court, Lord Drummond Young said: “That accords with common sense. If the law were otherwise, an employee could readily avoid tax by redirecting income to members of his family to meet outgoings that he would normally pay: for example to a trust for his wife…or to trustees to pay for his children’s education or the outgoings on the family home…The funds are ultimately derived as consideration for the employee’s services, and on that basis they are properly to be considered emoluments or earnings.”
In relation to employees other than footballers, the “true nature” of the individual transactions was that bonuses were paid into the trusts on the basis of the work performance of the employee in question, and the profitability of his employing company.
“On the foregoing basis, we are of opinion that the sums received by the trustee of the Principal Trust and in due course by the trustees of the sub-trusts amounted to a mere redirection of income and thus constituted emoluments or earnings of the employees in question,” Lord Drummond Young said.
In relation to footballers, when a contract of employment was concluded, an additional side-letter provided for a discretionary trust payment and the amount of any bonus was typically negotiated by the footballer’s agent as part of his overall responsibility for securing “proper remuneration” for the player’s services.
Lord Drummond Young continued: “It seems to us to be self-evident that the obligations in the side-letter were part of the employee’s employment package, and provided him with additional remuneration. They were negotiated as part of the total employment package…Once it is accepted that the bonus payments represented consideration for a footballer’s services qua employee, it inevitably follows that those payments represented emoluments or earnings of the footballer in question.
“Furthermore, so far as the footballers are concerned, at least, it seems to us that if bonuses had not been paid they might well have taken their services elsewhere. We realise that the fifth respondent [RFC 2012] was in, potentially, a difficult financial position, competing for good players in an international market where other countries may not have the same rigorous approach to taxation as the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, the law is clear: the payments made in respect of footballers were in our view derived from their employment and thus the payments were emoluments or earnings.”
He added: “We accordingly conclude that the primary argument presented for HMRC is correct: the payments made by the respondents to the Trustee of the Principal Trust in respect of employees were emoluments or earnings and are accordingly subject to income tax. Furthermore, those payments were made at the time of payment to the trustee of the Principal Trust, with the result that the obligation to deduct tax under the PAYE system fell on the employer who made such a payment.”
I hope that HMRC if they can get the bills in the post to SDM and the rest of the recipients of the EBT’s, a nice lift for the taxpayer.
The SFA must now act on the titles/cups/ and the mess that is Eurpean money, won in the period defined in this decision where tax was not paid on earnings.
I hope all clubs who competed against them in this period will be made aware of this
Very interesting to see what happens next with the big tax case.
In these schemes the legal bills are normally included up to the inner house.
If the Muuray team want to go to the supreme court then they will have to dig deep in the pockets as off today.
Look out a whip round of former players and managers.
Look out for Mark Daly making the next episode of the men who sold the jersey’s.
Look out for a whole load of people wanting to interview SDM, AJ, Dave King, Sir Walter, Martin Bain and so on.
By the way, in the latest Rangers accounts Ibrox increased in value by many millions by way of a revaluation as did Murray park!
This is Groundhog day if ever it existed.
Happy Birthday Dena – all the best people are born in November!!
Ronny D was brought to Celtic park to change the way things are done and to bring about more youth progression and player development.
He will be given time to do this unless results are spectacularly bad.
Rushin oot.
Mr Pastry can you help me out here what is the difference between a coach and a manager? Please
not the coach coaches and the the manager manages , never had it defined accurately. H H Hebcelt
BBC report of HMRC winning tax case over EBTs includes …
“The ruling will have no impact on the football club as they are now operated by a different company which is not in liquidation.”
Prefer a more reliable source …
alex thomson @alextomo 7m7 minutes ago
HMRC win appeal on Rangers Big Tax Case
http://www.scotland-judiciary.org.uk/9/0/Summaries-of-Court-Opinions …
BRTH – I didn’t think Murray Group could appeal this decision. I was under the impression that they had ‘won’ their appeal of the bill and all that followed was HMRC eventually proving this was the incorrect decision.
Some of the trending articles at the top of the comments are entirely inapproprioate for a site like CQN
Please let the munchkins have another grand day.
Follow the yellow brick road – CSC
EMBRAMIKE. Thanks for that it would appear that it will have no effect on the Rangers and they will just carry on as before.I must admit having followed the whole situation on CQN from the start it never fails to amaze me how teflon coated they are.They have one disaster after another but they still play on somebody some where must be giving them money to stop them going under. H.H.
Would this be the same Alex Thompson who said that Celtic fans were worse animals than Millwall fans?
I still can’t help but feel that the timings of the LNS and FTT judgement were too coincidental. How can 2 out of 3 legal minds think that what has been described is allowable when 4 others State that common sense tells you these are taxable.
Pressure on the club to pursue this now. A landslide victory for common sense. Now it’s the turn of the SFA to demonstrate transparency and fairness.
Joe Filippis Haircut on 4th November 2015 11:03 am
It would actually be corrupt on the SFA’s part to apply any punishment to RIFC. They are after all a new company completely unconnected to the financial goings on of RFC.
Joe Filippis Haircut
___________________
Yeah, I’ve always wondered who would give them money?
……oot.
Where does this leave Campbell ogilvie
Turkeyboy
Well argued, give the man a fair chance.
Van Gaal struggling with 1 goal in 5 games. Hardly the Busby Babes.
Ashley Young at it again last night, leaving a leg in and diving. Shameful.
Anyway, had them and Real for 1-0.
Fancy Bayern tonight, with Roma for the draw.t
alex thomson @alextomo 1m1 minute ago
So Rangers are found to have won a series of titles whilst comprehensively cheating the tax man.
Over to you LNS, SFA, SPFL …
WEEMINGER. I understand what your saying but assets from Glasgow Rangers were transfered or sold to the Rangers ie Ibrox,Murray Park,and the Albion car park for next to nothing in order to set up the Rangers.However,surely if Glasgow Rangers were guilty of tax evasion these assets should have been sold to pay the revenue and if that had happened they could not have been sold ( gifted ) to the Rangers ? H.H.
So how much more does the former club in liquidation now owe HRMC? And will BDO, the other creditors or whoever appeal this ruling to the Supreme Court?
Still it’s good to have legal confirmation that the now dead cheats cheated.
Fess
Sorry for delay out visiting the poor pensioners trying to keep the Tory cuts getting to them too
Obviously you being a paid up member of the cliche will understand my post completely
See you in Feb 2016
TBJ
I’ve posted this on SFM.
If I’m hearing correctly and HMRC won their appeal them the LNS Decision must be set aside.
It was based on legality of ebts but as has been pointed out by SFM to SPL lawyers, that decision was only possible because of evidence kept from them.
If SPFL try to say LNS cannot be revisited because of some Brysonesque interpretation then their league is screwed. LNS was always a sham. It should have waited until legality of ebts established.
Got it wrong in any case, but has provided an argument that if no sporting advantage was gained by use of legal ebts then it sure as hell must have been if illegal ones used.
This looks like a snooker by the SFA and whoever decided not to mention true nature of wtc ebts to LNS. Wosshisname again?
The cliche clique rule
Joe Filippis Haircut on 4th November 2015 11:15 am
I’m afraid the same thing would have happened. The assets wouldn’t have got passed to HMRC to sell to regain some losses.
I see it’s being reported that Murray Group can appeal. I didn’t think that was the case but I stand corrected.
How much worser can this Old Firm crisis get?
A Total Eclipse Of The Hun:))
Embrasure
LNS was always a sham. The interview between AT and S Regan set out on SFM tells us that.
I’d be surprised of AT is not considering that interview again.
This is an untested link to that interview and SFM blog.
http://www.sfm.scot/did-stewart-regan-ken-then-wit-we-ken-noo/
Weeminger
I don’t know the legalities unless “haven’t a pot to puss in” is a legal term
Over to you Peter. Get those trophies back off those cheating bassas. We’re all counting on you.