It is 13 days since Celtic Quick News first raised a concern that the SFA were not investigating the alleged improper registration of football players by Rangers FC for a period of over a decade. Our central concern was:
Allegations of players having two contracts had been repeated in the media but it was not known if both alleged contracts were submitted to the SFA in accordance with Player Registration Rules. As fans, we had no authority to check, but with an SFA inquiry into Rangers convened, this seemed like an excellent opportunity to demand answers.
We had two secondary concerns:
The scope of the inquiry led by Lord Nimmo Smith was not made public, nor was there any commitment to make the findings public.
SFA president, Campbell Ogilvie, as a SFA board member, was due to receive the report and could have been in a position to influence the scope of the inquiry. Ogilvie was general secretary and director of Rangers from 1978 until 2005, presenting a clear conflict of interest, which the SFA had not acknowledged.
Subsequent events have moved beyond the association:
The SFA have confirmed Nimmo Smith’s report will not investigate the alleged improper registration of players at Rangers but they have left the door open to a future inquiry into the matter.
The Scottish Premier League have not been so lax and will now investigate the alleged improper registration of players. We can perhaps imply that only one contract per player has been lodged with them.
The Sun and Daily Mail have produced a redacted (second) contract and evidence from a former Rangers director respectively.
Despite the issue being reported throughout all media channels, no one from Rangers, past or present, has denied the existence of the second contracts, or claimed player registrations were valid.
What next:
We await the SPL inquiry.
If found guilty, some punishments are clear. Playing an improperly registered player in any match invalidates the result of the game. A 3-0 win is retrospectively awarded to the opponent. Always. Just as your history books do not record Ben Johnson as Olympic 100m champion for 1988, Scottish football records would be changed.
An offense such as this would be “literally off the scale” to borrow a phrase. The SPL and SFA would need to decide on an appropriate penalty. Sport does not provide many good reference points for behaviour on this scale (Johnson was banned for three years).
The HMRC v Rangers tax tribunal and current financial plight of the club remain huge issues but, if found to be valid, the improper registration of footballers over such a long period has the potential to be the biggest story in the history of Scottish football. The SFA must initiate an immediate inquiry.
Everyone else must simply wonder, what next?
I would like to be the first to congratulate Dundee United on their 2008 League Cup win.
Issue six of CQN Magazine, the Fit and Proper edition, is set to become a landmark collectors item. You can browse the magazine online here but you can buy your own hard copy by clicking on the link below. Read with 20-20 vision…..
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I have visions of Lafferty and Elbows playing “one potato, two potato…..” to see which one goes.
I’m loving this (caveat – not for the general workers, just the players)
What will the main stream spin be on the two contract issue?
It has nought to do with the Whyte fall guy. It has everything to do with the provider of succulent lamb.
How will they twist this one? Murray brought about the big tax case. Murray is responsible for the two contracts. Murray may well be responsible not for their most succesful ever period of trophy winning but for the wiping of those trophies from the history books.
I wonder also how rank and file rangers fans will deal with that. How will they find a way to say that morally those trophies are theirs even if they are wiped from the books? People’s own belief in their view of the world can lead them to all sorts of strange argument and logic to justify themselves, but I struggle to see how they could do so in this case.
Will someone be found who ‘OK’d’ the contracts at SFA level and scapegoated (they love their goats so they do, especially the ‘scape’ ones)???
This is fascinating stuff. Keep it coming.
Wylde away? After signing a nice new contract? Remember the rumours of him joining Celtic in the summer? We wouldn’t would we?
I would.
Agent Whyte
I’m oan ma lunch :-)
Hail hail
MME
Havingapartycsc aka mouldy67 on 6 March, 2012 at 12:07 said:
Off the scale cheating
Off the scale tax evasion
Off the scale Fraud ?
———————————————-
After reading Jabba’s ‘succulent lamb’ homo-erotic piece on here yesterday, I’d say its more ‘Off the scale Freud.’
Oh crivvens!! Here we go!! Sorry F5 button….
And so it begins…
Bye bye Gregg, ever were you great potential
It couldn’t be that Wylde was asking to be let go? Could it?
Thindimebhoy on 6 March, 2012 at 12:19 said:
Paul 67
“Everyone else must simply wonder, what next?”
The only thing left is the refs and SFA collusion with RFC
——————————————————-
Anyone seen a dossier lying about the place?
If the Newco has to apply to get into the third division – as it should – then why don’t we set up our development squad as Lennoxtown Celtic and apply ourselves?
Keith Downie @STVkeith Reply Retweet Favorite · Open
Rangers players WILL NOT accept wage cuts if even one player is made redundant. They have made that clear.
Sack the huns for tax scam folly
Fa la la la la, la la ar la.
(thumbsup)
lenny likes wylde ;-)
Given the gravity of this situation and the fact the governing body are complicit, surely surely Uefa need to get involved?!!
Paul67(from previous blog)
Listening to Doncaster on Talksport he has not been clear on who actually votes a Newco into the SPL. He said the SPL Board but this has to be questioned (as I know MWD has).and clarified.
Keys and Gray summed it up as Newco starting back in the SPL, they are ignorant of the values issues (being so steeped in the business end it is like explaining a charity flag purchase to a merchant banker) but this whole idea that an SPL parachute is a foregone conclusion has to be challenged at every step.
Clarity from Doncaster would help.
I sent this to Keys and Gray
” When Mr Doncaster said a vote to allow Rangers 2012 would be for the SPL Board that is not what the rules provide for.
In a matter as serious as this which risks contavening the sporting integrity values of UEFA the other SPL clubs should have a say (and the rules allow this) that will direct the SPL Board.
Dunfernline are unlikely to vote to be relegated and Celtic are certainly not going to vote on integrity grounds (ask them) so it is anything but a foregone conclusion Rangers 2012 will be allowed straight back into the SPL.
It was wrong of you to give that impression. I can appreciate that the business end of soccer often overules the sporting end but without sporting integrity there is no business.
I suggest you get a researcher to check the rules and ask the SPL to clarify.
This is a story.”
We must challenge the “parachute” argument at every turn.
Should have named Gregg Wylde as a trialist in the development game
just for a laugh like
Hi Paul,
Are the regulations the same for the SFA and the SPL, I ask because RFC’s only defence is (appart from it wisnae me it wis him) that the payments were loans.
The drafting of the Regs could be key – although it should be easy to establish that these monies were in fact payments with or without every co-letter.
BTW – Hasn’t Lord Nimmo had his two weeks?
An obvious point, and then one less so….
Clearly, there are some media ‘pundits’ who are quite possibly implicated in this issue. The media should be careful in this regard. In fact, the pundits may want to be a bit careful in what they say, or don’t say on the air.
Some that spring to mind: Higgins, Hateley, Gordon Smith.
Secondly, what is happening to Rangers is sad. What would be a real shame, would be if payments out of the trust fund led to interesting places……
Wylde being interviewed by Davina Mc.Coll ( or is it Ian), as we speak.
Yesterday, in Jabba’s Jabbering column, he had an Epiphany.
He discovered the concept of INTEGRITY.
This represents a defining moment in Scottish sports journalism and points to the way ahead. Well done, JT.
Now, to complete the conversion, all that is required is to apply the new found virtue to the matter in hand.
The only consideration for the future of the Scottish game is…INTEGRITY.
It’s principle cuts through all the spurious arguments about the “needs” of the game.
It will be Celtic’s one word argument against the self serving, black art machinations of other clubs.
Poor tastle I know but…..
tell all the uns you know
that its Celtic who has all the dough
their owner is skint
he’s divorcing his bint
and their players are off to the dole.
There was a rumour circulating during the summer that Greg Wylde wanted to come to Celtic but didn’t want to do it from Rangers and so a deal was apparently agreed with an English club that he would go to them for a year and then sign for us.
Didn’t happen so maybe nothing in it but as a free agent he could now sign for us if Lenny wants him.
In this case do you think the media would give us any credit for helping out by re-employing someone made redundant?
Mort
Paul67
SFA are a shambles and can’t deal with it as they were complicit in the deception by rangers.
I would like to be the first to congratulate King James on his 3-0 win at the Battle of the Boyne… :0)
RobertTressell on 6 March, 2012 at 12:23 said
Anyone seen a dossier lying about the place?
Could there be a paper trail to this disguised as floating expenses
Paul67
Do you suspect that EBTs were Murray’s botched attempt to replace previously under the radar (offshore) payments with something that at first sight appeared above board
VertWolf
Wylde played for the hoops in his junior days. Didnt he?
Are they working backwards alphabetically or was Wylde a ‘volunteer’?
Delahunt reporting 75% wage cut proposal not successful
This could get rather interesting, given Wylde, Hutton, Naesmith (other one) are all reportedly on £500 a week or thereabouts. Rangers will need to get rid of 500 fringe players.
Well done Dundee United. Deserved winners.
Mort on 6 March, 2012 at 12:32 said:
can imagine staff at CP dragging PL away from the speed dial button on his phone
Tamlaghtduff Bhoy on 6 March, 2012 at 12:33 said:
Wylde played for the hoops in his junior days. Didnt he?
+++++
Aye, Palpatine took him over to the darkside when he were just a Padawan
From the BBC:
Rangers’ administrators reject players’ cost-cutting plan
Others apart from Wylde? Bocanegra,McCulloch,Papac,Alexander, Healy, Wallace, Aluko, Little, Kerkar, Perry, Hemmings,McCabe, Mitchell and Gallagher.
If this whole rankers admin situation was a boxing match it would be the Foreman Frazier fight when he had smokin’ joe doon about forty times…but still he got up…still he wanted tp fight oan…should a referee no jist step in & end this humiliating carnage?
From BBC….
A number of players have already asked the administrators to be released.
Walking away……
There’s only one way to settle this. A WWE style royal rumble with the last 15 standing immune from redundancy. I’d stump up the the £17 Sky wanted for that PPV.
Gregg Tame.
Tom English once again reveals his perspicacity and deep insight by viewing the redundancies as a pruning exercise:
@TomEnglish Sounds like it’s all kicking off at Murray Park. I don’t want to be heartless but there’s some obvious dead wood in that squad.
Rangers players don’t do walking away. The need to be escorted from the premises.
dirtymac \o/ on 6 March, 2012 at 12:36 said:
Wylde always seemed he wasnt too bad a player, he just lacked something?? Ahh like a brain!