At the first hint Rangers illegally ‘won’ league titles, members of the board who made all the controversial decisions called-in all media favours to paint a picture of an innocent mistake being made. Innocent mistakes are occasionally made when registering players, and have been known to cost clubs up to 25% of their annual income in fines, but Lord Nimmo Smith’s Commission will have to consider whether or not, on these many occasions, mistakes were innocent.
Former Rangers chairman, Alastair Johnston, without a hint of remorse, insisted that Rangers failure to properly register players under his tenure was no more than an oversight or administrative error, repeatedly insisting that EBTs had been disclosed to the club’s auditors and recorded in published accounts.
As everyone, apart from those Mr Johnston was happy to give interviews knows, there is nothing illegal with EBTs, nor are they incompatible with proper player registrations. The key issue is whether side-letters existed and whether the club’s auditors and HMRC were treated with honesty and candour.
This is from the First Tier Tribunal decision:
“The Respondents submit that ‘the auditors had not seen the side letters, otherwise they would have been a matter of specific comment’ (para 124.3 of written submissions). It is not clear whether the auditors had actual sight of a side-letter when they made the reference to ‘the text contained within letters sent to individuals outlining their award’.
“For the year ended 30 June 2004, the auditors reported in KIM [Key Issues Memorandum] that Mr Purple had waived his right to his 10% transfer fee, and that a loan of £500,000 to Mr Purple from the Remuneration Trust was ‘unrelated from the contractual amount he would have been due’ (21/15/13).
“It would appear, from the evidence heard on Mr Purple’s termination payment, which is narrated in more detail under the section on ‘Termination Payments’ in my findings of fact, that the auditors had been told an untruth on both scores, regarding the waiver of the right, and the loan being unrelated to the contractual payment on transfer.
“The auditors were also told that the paperwork for Mr Purple was ‘mislaid’, (and therefore was not available for the auditors to inspect).
“Over the use of the remuneration trust, the auditors seemed to have been treated by the Appellants [Rangers] with the same lack of candour as accorded to HMRC. The auditors did not seem to be privy to any (or much) of the documentation, and had not formed a view on the scheme other than relied on what they had been told by the management.”
We will have more on the fiduciary duties of Mr Ogilvie, Mr Bain and Mr McClelland, each of whom were directors of Rangers as well as the SFA or SPL, as well as those of Mr Johnston, in due course. They had fiduciary responsibility to Rangers shareholders, and in the case of Mr McClelland and Mr Bain, to SPL shareholders. This responsibility extended to ensuring information material to the operation of the company was disclosed to auditors and authorities, when required. As for Mr Black (sic), we’ll deal with him another day.
As a part-owner of one SPL shareholder (Celtic PLC), this question has particular resonance.
We are busy pulling the next issue of CQN Magazine together. If you would like to write an article, or take out some advertising , get in touch, article@cqnmagazine.co.uk.
[calameo code=000390171980e8545b80a lang=en page=10 hidelinks=1 width=100% height=500]
393 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- »
FAVOURITE UNCLE
Things must be bad :)
Malorbhoy
I think we were just unlucky and there were a few unsavoury characters in that day. Ted McMinn was strolling about like some sort of Godfather with cronies in tow.
LB
call me an old pessimistic cynic… but i fear another cop out tomorrow
FAVOURITE UNCLE
I meant to reply the other day. I am here on a winter let, back in April.
Never got your e mail address btw if you ask Paul again to forward it to me.
auldheid.yes!!!pity about your pal JONH MC.he would have been right there aswell
ps any of your neighbours abroad fancy swopping a house in SPAIN for a nice house in YORK for 6 months or a year.you can try to get my e/mail from PAUL or a mod and get in touch.i tryed for yours with no success.
I’m looking forward to tonight. I hope, like others, Dylan starts again, and I hope Tom Rogic starts too. Blow them away, Celtic.
Tomorrow will be interesting too. I cannot help but hope for the best. Logic dictates that LNS will hammer them and that, as a consequence, will will have some new titles to our name. As a punishment, I hope the sanctions are enough to end the big lie and for everyone who is pretending Sevco are the deadybears will just stop it. That would make a nice Thursday.
And if this comes to pass, and we get the ‘Scottish football needs …’ garbage, which Stewart Regan and Neil Doncaster, with their eyes on money, have both supported in the course of this debacle, all we need say is what we have said before. They cheated for years, they ruined domestic and international competitions for years. They died owing millions. They cheated other clubs, especially Celtic, out of other millions. What more would they have had to do for their fans, media types (who may or may not be their fans) and the cut-outs that are supposed to run the game to accept that they deserve some comeuppance?
However, one day at a time.
Mon the Hoops.
Does it not say something about the schizophrenic nature of Scotland as a nation that one part thinks no punishment will be given and the other that there is nothing to punish?
Freud would have a field day.
I can’t see past a romping victory for the Hoops tonight.
Players are playing for a jersey midweek and I would expect Rogic to start on the bench because he can’t play midwek. I would start with the team that will start against Juventus.
LB
auldheid.i tried as well as tryed
Gretnabhoy
Mentioned you to JL did not manage to get your name
Livibhoy
It,s like any other pub depends how you find it at the time, but again changed hands since then and they make us Tims very welcome (probably because we spend a lot of money in it) but it works both ways
We were all mostly certain that the ftt would go against them and we know what happened – i am not getting my hopes up about the lns judgement
glasshalfemptyCSC
Murderwell will come out all feet kicking,cue Brines warning half a dozen without booking anyone.We will need to man up and not get bullied.I would say the St Mirren cup tie is more important than tonight or Juve.
Tonight v Motherwell:
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Zaluska ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
::::::::::::::::: Ambrose :::::::::::::::: Fraser ::::::::::::: Gershon ::::::::::::
Commons :::::::::::: Wanyama :::::::::::::: Ledley :::::::::::::: McCourt
::::::::::::::::: Forrest ::::::::::::::::::: Hooper ::::::::::::: Stokes :::::::::::::::
Very impressed with the front 3 against Dundee, although I would need to see them v stiffer opposition to decide how effective they can be. Have always liked Forrest as part of a 3 pronged attack.
If we beat Juve and reach the last eight it will be difficult for players to cut their ties with Celtic and impossible for the board to use money as an excuse for not keeping them.
IMO They will be found guilty and will be stripped of titles.
Apparantly Chas has said that the new kit sponsor will be announced the day after the decision.
Could it be that there are two kit sponsors lined up. Maybe a major one if the decision is found in their favour and a minor one if the decision goes against them.
Just a thought!
Paul67,
Would Oldco, Newco, any other body have advance notice of the outcome from the inquiry?
What’s your ‘gut’ feeling?
I, too, am in the Appalling Vista camp.
That is, it is better to have justice denied, than deal with the consequences of justice served
With Regards to the FTTT appeal, I live in hope that the initial result was merely a device for allowing HMRC to win an appeal, thereby securing a legal precedent.
Otherwise, what is the point of it all?
If our fears are grounded, what will Celtic and other clubs’ response be?
Will it be left to the combined support of all clubs to force integrity once again?
Scottish football can’t afford to get it wrong.
People talking about the integrity of the game being lost and not going back to football if Rangers(IL) win the case tomorrow need to get some perspective.
They may win the battle but the war has already been won. The acid test of integrity was last summer when the SPL and SFL clubs withstood unprecedented media pressure to allow this zombie reincarnation to parachute straight into to either one of the top two divisions.
We have LNS, lauded on here for his “offence only second to match fixing” quote conducting an independent investigation and some people are suggesting some sort of funny handshake based decision. The facts will either prove guilty or innocent(more likely not proven). If guilty the punishments will be proportionate to the offence. No hidden agendas, what will be will be.
Worst case scenario – Whilst we strut our stuff in the Champions league, our greatest rivals are extinct, their zombie reincarnation is plodding along in the 4th tier having picked up 1 point out of 6 away to Stirling Albion and been pumped out of 3 cup competitions with no shortage of humiliation. Their investors are shrouded in mystery and they have once again disgraced themselves on national television.
Best case scenario – Whilst we strut our stuff in the Champions league, our greatest rivals are extinct, their zombie reincarnation is plodding along in the 4th tier having picked up 1 point out of 6 away to Stirling Albion and been pumped out of 3 cup competitions with no shortage of humiliation. Their investors are shrouded in mystery and they have once again disgraced themselves on national television. Oh and the now defunct Rangers history ended on 49 titles(scratch off a star), which we will match in a few short weeks and laugh ever so hard as we cruise to number 50 next season.
Dry your eyes and enjoy the party
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnjzOpdc1x0
Benthebishop @16:28 do you think Persil might be one of those sponsors in waiting?
“If we can wash the dirt out of Rangers … ” they do, after all, talk about achieving a “blue white wash”.
Haben sie gehort das Deutsche Band
Mit a bang
Mit a boom
Mit a bing-bang bing-bang boom
Aaah, haben sie gehort das Deutsche Band
Mit a bang
Mit a boom
Mit a bing-bang bing-bang boom
Russian folksongs und French oo-la-la
Can’t compare with a German oom-pah-pah!
Ve’re sayin’…
Haben sie gehort das Deutsche Band
Mit a zetz, mit a zap, mit a zing…
Polish polkas, they’re stupid und they’re rotten
It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that
Schweigen-reigen-schone-schutzen-schmutzen sauerbraten!
Key change!
Ve’re sayin’…
Haben sie gehort das Deutsche Band
Mit a zetz, mit a zap, mit a zing…
It’s ze only kind of musik
Zat ve huns und our honeys
Love to sing!
I think it right and fitting that a soap powder manufacturer be part of this whitewash.
Malorbhoy the name is David Mc C..
Lord Nimmo Smith
http://scottishlaw.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/curious-case-of-magic-circle-gay.html
The Kebab shop in Rutherglen has just been broken into for the second time, a sure sign of the double dip recession.
It might be ‘Vanish’
BSR,
Are you warming up for the Eurovision Song Contest?
“if Rankers are found guilty,and it’s a very big if…….”Chris McLaughlin Shortbread Sport
Celtic have taken 37 points from the last available 42.
I have to say that I enjoyed Graham Spiers article in the Herald yesterday because it talked of the problems of his old club Rangers without mentioning Celtic once! A first for Graham, but there seems to be something wrong with the forensic Mr Spiers’ memory. He wrote:
Spiers on Sport: how long to kill off bigotry at Rangers?
“It is 37 years since Willie Waddell, once a mighty Rangers player and successful manager, but by then the club’s managing-director, strode warily on to the Ibrox pitch to try to establish a defining moment in Rangers FC’s historic sectarian policy.
In recent years Rangers have made considerable strides forward in addressing the issue
I was there that day at Ibrox as a 12 year old kid, and can still recall the episode, though the details of it that afternoon completely passed me by.
Rangers suffered a series of riots and setbacks involving their fans in the 1970s, and the latest incident had occurred in Birmingham, when a friendly against Aston Villa had been marred due to further delinquent behaviour by the Rangers hordes.
Amid all this – and believe this or not – the Ibrox club had been coming under increasing pressure from some sections of the media in Scotland to bin its century-old, Protestant-only signing policy on players.
It is true that this sectarian policy had never been water-tight in practice: a number of Catholics over the decades had slipped the net and played for Rangers. But in the main Rangers had historically been a sectarian institution.
So Waddell this sunlit afternoon duly appeared, brandishing a prepared statement to read out to the crowd. Some older Rangers fans might even remember this moment.
Strangely, he was wearing a Rangers top for the occasion. Indeed, my own recollection is that he wore the red “away top” of Rangers at the time, though black and white pictures of the moment cannot confirm this.
At any rate Waddell that day in 1976, under duress, made it clear that Rangers would no longer make religion a reason for not signing a player.
The Glasgow Herald reported that Waddell intended Rangers to “divorce itself completely as a club from sectarian or religious bias” and went on to specifically quote him saying: “No religious barriers will be put up by this club regarding the signing of players.”
Get this: that was in May 1976. Fully 37 years ago.”
……………………………..
Good article but for one small thing. Rangers didn’t play a single game on a Saturday at Ibrox in May 1976!
On 1 May they played Hearts in the SCF at Hampden, Sat 8th May was Scotland v N Ireland at Hampden, and on Saturday 15th May Scotland met England at Hampden and on Sunday 16th May Rangers flew to Canada, where they played Portland Timbers on Sunday May 23rd and Toronto Metros on Sunday May 30.
One would think that Spiers would get his facts right given that his paper the Herald has all its back copies online via Google here:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=19400101&b_mode=2&hl=en
Remember Tony Blair talking about how he watched Jackie Milburn at the Gallowgate end?
Shurely shome mishtake Spiersy?
Craigy Bhoy was off in a Flash,with the Ole Arsenal Shares.
2013
Valcke hits back at World Cup award smear by FIFA world prize partner
ZURICH: FIFA secretary-general Jerome Valcke has challenged anyone making corruption allegations concerning the award of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to provide solid proof of their accusations.
Early this month the Paris biweekly France Football – FIFA’s commercial partner in the world player of the year award – dedicated 16 pages to what it claimed were suspicious activities surrounding Qatar’s successful bid for the 2022 tournament.
Valcke, in an interview with the magazine’s sister publication L’Equipe, said FIFA’s Ethics Committee would take action upon the presentation of solid evidence of corrupt activities but reiterated that current claims have consisted of little more than hearsay.
He said: “For the whole process of the attribution of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, FIFA put in place a system of checks to ensure the candidates responded in a manner that was the most transparent possible.
“We’ve never received the least shred of proof nor suspicion of corruption for 2018 or 2022. If there is corruption, proof is needed. Those who are talking about it have to provide proof. If that’s the case the ethics commission will intervene.”
The latest round of accusations came after a senior organising committee official in December stated Qatar 2022’s World Cup victory had been “singled out” for “harsh criticism”.
Qatar 2022 communications and marketing director Nasser Al Khater said that the organisation had been “singled out and criticised for no fault of our own” ever since it won the bid in December 2010, adding that ongoing criticism is part of a “smear campaign” from certain sections of the media.
Al Khater spoke just days after Russia 2018 chief executive Alexey Sorokin also hit out at criticism that both Russia and Qatar won their bids unfairly.
Although direct allegations have never been made, the voting process for the two tournaments was called into question after two FIFA executive committee members were suspended before the decision following a British newspaper investigation into vote-trading.
Al Khater also rejected suggestions that Qatar won the right to stage the 2022 World Cup mainly due to the influence of controversial former FIFA exco member and Asian football president Mohamed Bin Hammam.
Valcke has expressed his belief that the geo-political nature of the bidding process and the subsequent high-profile lobbying of powerful figures outside football before the December 2010 vote meant any potential wrongdoing could not be covered up.
He added: “It was a mini-G20 we had in Zurich. There was (former US President) Bill Clinton, the British, Belgian, Dutch and Spanish prime ministers. How can you imagine we would take the risk that, if there were the slightest piece of information about corruption, we would not disclose it? If we knew (about corruption), at FIFA, whether it be the president, the general secretary or any other person, if there was something, do you think we would have stayed quiet about it?”
Uhm, yes, I think you would! History shows that its human nature…… Especially if your going to be one of the people who could gain something from it!
From the whole speach, I just love how disgraced ex USA President Bill ‘I didn’t have sexual relations with that woman’ Clinton, is put forward as some kind of measureing stone of how honest everything was. Doh! The guy lied, we don’t know how many times, to the whole world! That is just so funny its actually kind of sad. Its a bit like saying ‘of course I didn’t kill anyone, just as Fred West…..!!’
The Quatar and Russia awards reek of corruption, so much so, that most people just seem to want to forget about it, as the stink appears to go all the way to the top. Asking for proof is just a joke, obviously he seems to think they covered their tracks quite well, and that there isn’t any…… Where would this proof be shown anyway, Sepp Blatter? Yeah right!
Top banana Big Nan @16:40.
thomthethim
Royaume-uni nul points!!!
Reilly 26
A Johnny 7 gun? I aspired to be a Johnny 7 owner , but Santa fell short. I must’ve been bad that year as well…
If the old deid huns are indeed found to have broken rules regarding the side letters, then the old deid huns cannot be punished financially because apparently they are a wee bit short at the moment, and are in between millions, hence stripping titles from a dead club is a very appropriate and symbolic punishment without financial implications
On the other hand Charles Greens all new and shiny clean sevco should not be concerned about the history of the old deid club, (unless of course they have made an agreement with the SFA to transfer oldcos punishment to newco as part of their negotiations to join the SFL) but surely in this era of SFA transparency, any such deals would be public knowledge (aye right)
Since Sevco have won nothing, nothing can be stripped from them. So why would Chucky be angry
He has nothing to lose, they are only stripping titles from the old deadybears , not the all new shiny sevco. its not like we are asking fat sally to stand in the center spot while epaulettes and stripes are publicly torn from his uniform, in foreign legion fashion
One more point it seems chucky has announced that the verdict is due on 28th Feb. Very little that chucky has said in the past was true, so is the date of the 28th confirmed by another source? such as someone with a brain in their head for example?
Maybe the 28th is the date that chucky will pay all football debt, oh wait seems to have paid off ALL football debt twice already? Maybe it’s the day that the sons of sevco announce a new shirt deal, maybe it’s the day the Singaporean issues a winding up notice.I wonder if chuck has ever been issued with a “wind yer neck in notice”? he certainly seems overdue.
I read somewhere that the new club are intending to issue some form of accounts imminently?
I don’t give a toss what eulogy or catalogue of crimes LNS decides to read out over the cold dead cadaver that now lies impaled with a stake, slowly decomposing into a faeces smelling likeness of Terry Hurlock. But if I was to take a devil’s advocate stance, I would suggest that perhaps the way to finally exorcise the phantoms that haunt the corridors of power and create a football dawn worth anticipating, would be for a ‘not proven/not guilty’ verdict to be announced.
The reaction of fans across most clubs could be cataclysmic for all those who currently stare at balance sheets rather than the ethics of competitive football.
The force of will that witnessed clubs reluctantly denying sevco direct entry to the SPL could be a mere murmer in comparison, as the ghouls of sectarianism and asset stripping would no doubt link arms in an unholy alliance as they sought to scream their bile and corrupted rationale in the faces of those who value the simple enjoyment of an honest sport.
The game would fragment and a complete rebuilding job would have to begin.
I will stare out my window tomorrow at lunchtime in The Gorbals perhaps to witness a mushroom club of bigotry and burning goat arise from an explosion of self-righteousness and foot stomping affrontery.
But I won’t be bothered in the slightest if those bastions of broguery and roguery are so wrapped up in their own self-hypnotised mirage of sphincter fiddling ecstacy, ignore once again the fact the fans hold the power, that they are nothing without all the other clubs, and that there only hope is a league being started up in Dante’s ninth level.
To be honest I’ve got more important things to worry about……I’ve ran out of silver foil to bake my smoked haddock for a start.
Hail Hail
Estadio
Mon the Away Strips
Mon the East Dillon Lions
Lord Nimmo Smith is like 3 new signings said Mark Hateley.