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Great Football Swindle reaches court

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By on CQN BLOG & Comments

So the day has come. Several of the alleged conspirators in the Great Football Swindle have arrived at the High Court in Edinburgh to face their charges.

It will be four years next week since I first asserted that Rangers would be liquidated, with all of the consequences that would entail. For the last two years I’ve tried to stay away from the subject and to concentrate on the matters which brought us together in the first place, but this issue deserves coverage.

In 2012 the illegal Discounted Options Scheme and Employee Benefit Trusts (only some of which are still subject to appeal) put HMRC in a position to demand payment, and subsequently reject administrators’ attempts to agree a CVA.  Thank you, Sir David.

Charles Green must be a great poker player. He raised enough seed capital to buy the rights to pay £5.5 for Rangers assets in liquidation. From that moment, we thought one of two things would happen:

Green would pull Newco together and within a few years things would look like the old days.

Or, Green would be undermined by those he out-manoeuvred, leading to a likely insolvency for Newco.

There were suggestions early on that Green and Whyte were acting in concert, but, as someone with more experience than I have on matters like this pointed out to me, to be convicted for this type of crime you need to take a billboard advert out explaining your misdemeanours, it’s so difficult to prosecute. Or you need to be very stupid and fall out with your co-conspirators.

Stupidity is alive and well.

Green’s claim for legal fees against RIFC will have a profound impact on the club’s finances within weeks, but the bigger issue at hand is what happens at the outcome of the various criminal charges relating to the disposal and acquisition of the assets of Rangers Football Club, now in liquidation.

If it is proven that the assets were acquired criminally, the transaction is likely to be struck down, meaning the club currently trading as Rangers would lose ownership of whatever assets they have, including stadium and the name “Rangers”, irrespective of who actually controls those assets.

I’ve discussed this matter with many well-informed people and no one actually knows how it will play out, or what the consequences of guilty verdicts would be. The only thing that is known for sure is that outcomes are currently indeterminate, cannot be planned for, and contingencies cannot be made.

The club itself has to get on with business as best it can until whatever happens, happens, but no one should believe that a Duff and Phelps-type liquidation-bounce is normal, or remotely possible again. Assets could be hamstrung for years and left derelict.

Back in 2012 I said the only way forward with any certainty is to start with a clean sheet. Find a tiny club on the brink (there are enough of them), change their name, give them blue shirts, ask St Mirren or Partick Thistle to ground-share, and build your way up the leagues. Let the courts take their course and bid for the assets you want when the dust settles.

But that’s not going to happen. It would require more strategic thinking than is possible right now.  My guess is they’re finished.  Finished.

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  4. Dallas Dallas where the heck is Dallas on

    Starryplough, my abiding memory of the 1985 cup final was the noise we made in the last fifteen minutes of that game. It got even louder after Archie MacPherson’s prophetic words before Davie Provan equalised.

     

     

    Who thought subbing the Maestro for Pierce O’Leary and moving the Bear into midfield, would turn the game in our favour.

     

     

    Davie Hay and the late Tommy giving the cup to some of our disabled fans for them to be photographed with it, summed up two of my favourite Celts.

     

     

    Let’s hope our players provide as much inspiration tomorrow as the Bear did at that game thirty years ago.

  7. ruggygman on

    Setting free the bears ….

     

    Is Ambrose not suspended for tomorrow?

     

     

    Even if he isn’t , I wouldn’t trust him with a jersey in the development squad. Sooner the fraud of a player gets hunted the better.

  9. gordybhoy64 on

    Not sure if Scott Allan is fit for tomorrow

     

    if he plays he better be ready to get kicked up and down the park,

  10. BGX on

    Paul retweeting that mcinnes has lost as many domestic games in the last 4 than RD has lost in the last 50

  14. ruggygman on

    I read Paul’s article about Aberdeen buckling under pressure. ??

     

     

    There’s only one form of buckling going on up at pittodrie… And I hear some players wife’s are buckling under big deeks sunbed.

  15. Gerryfaethebrig on

    BGX

     

     

    I hope Neil never utters a word about that night, personally I would love to know but Neil is better off out of this cesspit, why not ask for the perpetrator what he said ? has any journo even asked him ? Let Neil Lennon Celtic legend enjoy the rest of his life he gave us more than a decade of great memories player and manager leave Sleekit to count his money and still be a snake, litho ugh maybe we don’t give him enough credit, maybe he shafted the Huns intentionally since they used to boo him onto and off the park….. Just a thought

  19. Rubicon on

    Tontine Tim from 9.17pm,

     

    TT, if you’re still around….I watched the Toronto Jays v Texas game too. I was amazed at the poor behaviour of the Jays fans but enjoyed the ballgame hugely. People often say they don’t like or understand baseball. If they sat down and watched the sheer drama in that one (and some of the other Play Off games) they may change their view.

     

    I’ve been rooting for the Cubs all season. Joe Madden is an inspirational coach and it would be great if he could win the World Series in his first season in Chicago and give the Cubs their first WS since 1908! In a little way, he reminds me of Jock Stein.

     

    However, I think the Jays will triumph.

     

    Going back to the crowd trouble..I saw Tampa Ray’s and Boston Red Sox fans brawl a few rows away from me at a Play Off match a few years ago. I hadn’t realised Baseball had these issues until then.

  23. BGX on

    It Is True.You can only beat whats in Front of you, Wether it be Aberdeen Ross County the huns latest incarnation or.

     

    ….

     

    i shouldnea but im gonae.

     

    ..Labour…..LMFAO

  27. butsybhoy on

    BGX on 16th October 2015 10:45 pm

     

     

    He was forced to sell his best two players,on the instructions of the chairman then when the shit hit the fan he blamed in on Jackie and his staff. how could he put a winning team on the park?

     

     

    HH

  30. Almore on

    GFTB: Fair play to you. I stayed off the blog after that defeat but I remained confident we would come good in the end. There’s a long way to go yet but I think we will win the league.

     

     

    I like Ronny. I wish him every success. We are between a rock and a hard place at the moment in terms of our future progress. However, I will ktf.

     

     

    C’mon the hoops!

  33. BGX on

    Gerryfaethebrig.. I Like Lennon, but be Honest

     

    He should have said what that Snake mccoist said to him , He should have……As for mcoist…..Fk im..

  35. setting free the bears for Res. 12 & Oscar Knox on

    Ruggyman

     

     

    I think Efe served the suspension missing the Hamilton game. He’s no fraud

     

     

    Gordon64

     

     

    “Sftb whatever eleven we play tomorrow it should be good enough to beat Motherwell.”

     

     

    Of course we should, but should is a conditional tense.

     

     

    Last year’s visits to Fir Park produced a 1:1 draw and a narrow 1:0 win.

     

    The year before we beat them 5:0 at their patch but again drew 3:3 in the 2nd fixture.

     

     

    This is, unfortunately, a place where we can ship points. But I hope we don’t.

  40. BGX on

    Butsybhoy…

     

     

    if i knew the answer to that i would be a manager all i know is mcnamarras job was to put a winning team on the park he Failed, and by Some Distance….

     

    P45….It is THAT SIMPLE..

  41. Gerryfaethebrig on

    Almore

     

     

    Hopefully I will make Dublin, if not not maybe Basle when Ronny leads us to the UEFA final ?

     

     

    All kidding aside we should have beat both Ajax away & Fenerbache at home, for me that is progress (for now) growing up European runs ended before the clocks changed (sometimes we didn’t even get there) I think Ronny is doing well and when we got top of the league the morra then beat Molde it puts us on the right road (never the wrong road)

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