A thread to keep an eye on is the work of tax lawyer and journalist Dan Neidle. In the linked article he posits that a criminal investigation may follow into the tax affairs of Roberto Mancini when he was Manchester City manager.
As well as his City contract, a company Mancini owned was paid for work in Abu Dhabi. This second contract was not subject to UK employment tax but was part of the Premier League investigation into the club.
When Oldco Rangers tax affairs were being analysed, I was firmly assured by a solicitor representing the SPL that no laws were broken, and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) took no interest in the case.
It will be fascinating to see how the matters differ.
91 Comments- Pages:
- 1
- 2
- 3
- »
In other news, pencils will be getting sharpened ahead of BR’s return to Glasgow for the ACSOM event next June.
You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline – it helps if you have some kind of football team, or some nuclear weapons, but in the very least you need a beer.
Frank Zappa.
There’s something not right with this plane hijack story…..
Over 100 charges….., who would win in a fight between Manchester Cheaty verse Mancheater City.
Tickets for the match against Celta Vigo, which takes place on Thursday, October 22 (Kick-off 8pm) will go on sale at 10am tomorrow, Friday, October 2,
Bada; me and a Saudi-based pal said exackerly the same thing less than 30mins ago
It feels awful to be a cynic who sees this as some kinda Wag The Dog iteration.
StanleyMotss CSC
Quad- if a plane drops that quick, there would be casualties all over the place, and damage to the cabin,then you have the Bibi fan club at the airport to welcome them home,nearly as elaborate as Trump getting shot in the ear…..which has miraculously grown back….I smell shite
Sir Alex Ferguson on Manchester City being found guilty of breaching the Premier League’s financial rules:
“I read the news and the first person I thought about was Carlos Tevez.
Funny, isn’t it? After all these years.
We wanted Carlos to stay. David Gill spoke to his representatives, we made our offer, they said we’d left it too late and eventually he went across Manchester.
Then City put up that bloody ‘Welcome to Manchester’ poster.
I remember looking at it and thinking, ‘They haven’t just signed one of our players. They want us to know they can.’
That was when I called them a small club with a small mentality.
But there was something else happening around that period that people forget.
Suddenly City could walk into conversations for players that previously would have been choosing between United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Madrid, Barcelona.
I remember one summer hearing that Adebayor had agreed to join City, then apparently his people were still contacting us and Chelsea.
I thought, ‘What a strange situation. Players who would rather be somewhere else are signing for City anyway.’
At the time, you simply accepted that they had enormous financial power. You competed with it.
That’s football.
But if you then discover years later that rules were being broken during the period in which you’re trying to compete with that financial power, you’re entitled to look back differently.
Because people will say, ‘Ferguson was just angry because City became successful.’
No.
I was angry before they were successful.
I was standing there in 2009 watching them take Tevez, chase players everywhere and put his face on a building to celebrate taking him from us.
Imagine telling me then, ‘Alex, one day the Premier League will investigate how all of this was being financed.’
I’d probably have pointed at the poster and said, ‘You might want to start there.’
And that’s the part people miss when discussing what happened afterwards.
Once you change the financial strength of one club, you don’t only change that club.
You change where players go.
You change what everybody else has to pay.
You change which manager gets which footballer.
You change title races before the first ball is kicked.
People can spend the next twenty years asking whether this player would’ve joined United, whether that player would’ve joined Chelsea, whether somebody else would’ve gone to Arsenal.
Nobody can prove those alternate histories.
But I know this much.
When I was fighting them, I thought I was fighting Manchester City.
Apparently I should’ve brought an accountant.”
God bless the doctors and all carers in the NHS.
That’s him home, in his own house, after nine months away. He’s left behind his six men, the same as him, he’s no longer a bed walker.
Four times a day, his new carers breeze in and out like a breath of fresh air. Going about their work with kindness, care and always a smile, what rich lives, the workers lead.
There is no treatment for dementia — only people who care for those living with this strangest most cruel, condition. They in their own way, are the lucky ones who provide care for their own living.
Paul67
I thought commiting fraud was a criminal offence?
BSR 1.14
👍💚
September scorecard:-
P6 W3 D0 L3 F7 A6
Fred Colon
Who asked you anyway?🤔
I appreciated Paul’s leader yesterday. It reminded me of the best of these from over a decade ago.
Like many I am bitter that the cheating through the ’90s was never investigated or halted. However, in the end that failure made the fall all the harder. The old RFC built up such a tax liability that when HMRC (who were not going to let things lie) stepped in the debt was such that the club died. If they had been caught earlier they might have reached some kind of deal and carried on, maybe even finessing the EBTs into something else.
So the upside of the failure of corporate governance is that the club was allowed to overspend to the point that it killed itself.
The downside is that the titles were never stripped, and that remains a bitter grievance for many of us.
On the fraud point, there is a difficult line between tax avoidance and tax evasion, and I don’t know what it is. I don’t really care if those who got EBTs are criminalised, but whatever they gained that should have gone to the taxman should be clawed back.
The real criminals are the professional accountants and lawyers who advised that these schemes were lawful when they were manifestly tax avoidance of the most obvious kind.
bournesouprecipe on 1st October 2026 1:14 pm
💚 🙏
BRRB @ 1.28 PM –
Who asked you to ask me who asked you anyway? 🤪
bournesouprecipe on 1st October 2026 1:14 pm
God bless the doctors and all carers in the NHS.
Well said Bourne. I know from past and current experiences that you are well correct.
Ave Ave
TBB – very interesting quotes from Alex Ferguson. Especially –
‘Once you change the financial strength of one club, you don’t only change that club.
You change where players go.
You change what everybody else has to pay.
You change which manager gets which footballer.
You change title races before the first ball is kicked.’
That is what we and every other team in Scotland was up against, and why several nearly went to the wall. It wasn’t just about cheating, it destabilised everything, including the prospects of young Scottish kids who no one could afford to play, with clubs stretching their finances to bring in foreign players to compete with the internationals turning up in Govan. Arguably the food chain involving our home grown players has never recovered.
What happens if Celtic’s success is reviewed for the period that were were in cahoots with the city group?
The Battered Bunnet on 1st October 2026 1:03 pm
There’s not a word from that interview with Ferguson which wouldn’t fit into what was going on with Rangers FC (RIP). Instead of the poster jibe after they signed Tevez, they just had the ‘for every fiver’ slogan, which the winalot churnalism lapped up along with their succulent lamb.
McPhail Bhoy on 1st October 2026 2:23 pm
The Battered Bunnet on 1st October 2026 1:03 pm
“There’s not a word from that interview with Ferguson which wouldn’t fit into what was going on with Rangers FC (RIP). Instead of the poster jibe after they signed Tevez, they just had the ‘for every fiver’ slogan, which the winalot churnalism lapped up along with their succulent lamb.”
~
And yet Celtic’s only retort to all of those stolen trophies was a Rory Bremner joke at an AGM.
And now Sevco are here dressed up as Rangers and Celtic fans are paying almost 60 quid for a ticket to get in to see the Rangers gemme, as though nothing had happened.
BSR@1.14
Your post reminds us of the beauty of humanity in comparison to the repugnant, murky world of wealthy corruption.
A welcome, poignant change.
Awra best.
The SNP covered up the Rangers EBT scandal by prosecuting everybody apart from the guy who was responsible, David Murray.
No doubt all of the hundreds of Millions in court cases were justified and all above board considering how untrustworthy the Murrell’s and Sturgeon’s proved to be.
Now Sturgeon is living in London and working for MI5 and running pro war against Russia PsyOps on Sky News.
No wonder all of the charges got dropped against Sturgeon now that it works for the deep state.
Is it as simple as the difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance?
The EBTs werent legally classed as disguised renumeration until 2011. Aggressive tax avoidance rather than tax evasion and not unlawful until the Supreme court ruled them to be.
From the emails that the City CEO received and sent it looks like it was pretty sttraightforward unlawful tax evasion.
Fred Colon
That would be an ecumenical matter. Ya dumpling.
I was in Salford when that poster was put up. Technically it was correct too, as United is situated in Old Trafford, which is not strictly Manchester.
Fergie’s right about City but you’ll not get much sympathy from anyone in the english game.
They were incredibly unpopular when he was in charge – United bullied everyone on and off the pitch back then, and Fergie was happy to defend the Glazers who did more to ruin the club than CIty ever did.
Bhoys Town on 1st October 2026 1:41 pm
Whilst HMRC said that Rangers use of the Big Tax case was either fraudulent or negligence on a letter Duff and Phelps failed to provide that letter to SPLl lawyers setting up LNS Commission for questionable reasons, the fraud I refer to was in describing the wtx bill of £2.8m as a potential liability with ongoing discussions in the Interim Accs of 1st Aprl.
That statement was repeated in June with a minor change in the first monitoring submission. Two fraudulent statements.
The SFA and UEFA had a verbal discussion about that and the submission was accepted because Rangers were out of both Eufa competions by then.
Thus Rangers committed fraud and SFA and UEFA were involved in covering it up.
Requisitioners got legal advice informally who raised the fraud aspect on seeing the documents.
Paul 67 will know all about this.
To clarify
Duff and Phelps for questionable reasons, failed to provide that letter to SPLl lawyers setting up LNS Commission.
Who’s going to find the answers from them, do a couple of them D And Ph still have a case against the Police various reasons?
fortune teller on 1st October 2026 2:17 pm
What happens if Celtic’s success is reviewed for the period that were were in cahoots with the city group?
=====
What players did City buy from Celtic at a higher price than went through their books at a lower price to stay within the rules?
That little rumour is the kind that mob make up on social media to strir muddy waters.
Not for giving life to.
Ive just seen the price for a non SB holder non concession ticket for Celtic v Hearts and Dun Utd £40 , that is quite ridiculously expensive. Different maybe if Celtic were good to watch and had a good team.
Dessybhoy
How sad your life must be to be finding fault with everything about a club you supposedly support.
Are you seriously suggesting punters who turn up for one game a season should pay less for a ticket than a season ticket holder who commits for a full season each year ?
Dessybhoy
Might be something to do with the price of our tickets at Tynecastle. We’ll charge the same for them at CP and consequently have to charge the same for our none ST support.
May be wrong but can’t think of another answer, we’ll I could looking at the board 👀
I’ve told you before I want nothing to do with you, your comments or board lackeys, so ignore I’ll post what I want within the blog rules, I don’t need or seek your approval. Good bye.
Re the discussion earlier on the aircraft stabbing/ hijack . I thought right away that it smelled fishier than Billingsgate.
Pb
That response was not for you, sorry if you thought it was.