SPL chief executive, Neil Doncaster, has until this week insisted that the inquiry he instructed Harper MacLeod to conduct had yet to establish if there was prima facie evidence that Rangers had, in flagrant abuse of league and SFA rules, operated a dual contract system for over a decade.
BBC Scotland’s documentary, Rangers – The men who sold the jerseys, established that at least 38 Rangers players had written agreements to pay them money in connection to playing football and that none of these agreements were registered with the SFA and SPL.
We have gone several stages beyond prima facie. Harper MacLeod can stand down, their inquiry is moot.
Fifa rules dictate that all national associations to hold records of player contracts in order that they can ensure rules are followed and a level playing field is established. These rules are reflected in the player registration process of the Scottish FA and the Scottish Premier League rules.
While every other club in the country was paying tax on player wages, Rangers were able to recruit more and better players for the same amount of money as Employee Benefit Trusts were not taxed. This enabled them to put better teams on the field, win games and win trophies, while their opponents played by the rules and on five occasions lost league titles narrowly.
Rangers told Ronald Waterus’ agent, in correspondence seen by the BBC, was told, using the trust was “in the interests of Ronald as it enables him to receive funds tax-free.
“I can confirm that we will not pay these amounts to [Ronald] unless they are made through the use of the remuneration trust.”
Our game has been rigged since at least 2000. The level playing field some of us were naive enough to believe existed was a mirage. The reach of this practice at Rangers is staggering. 72 staff in total, including seven former directors, one of whom remains president of the SFA.
For corrupting Scottish football on this scale, there can only be one punishment.
The documentary was a triumph of investigative journalism by Mark Daly, Martin Conaghan and the team, who were drawn from news and sport. The BBC is in a class of its own when it comes to complex projects like this. It is incredible that they managed to acquire side letters for 38 players. Perhaps a full investigation by the authorities will reveal more evidence.
You can buy a hard copy of the new issue of CQN Magazine via Magcloud here.
The graphic below is just for a flick through, to read the magazine go here to it’s dedicated site.
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new article posted.
Kit,
can you link to BBC websites from Oz,
all the details in the tabs here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-18169501
Bankiebhoy1
thirty odd players with confirmed side letters. sounds like plenty to me.
only have to check registered paperwork for them against ebt earnings.
simples
HH
mike
The ability to combine the career of porn star and tax expert is casting new light on the skillset parameters of excellent CQNers such as Cadizzy, Blantyre Kev, Jobo Baldie and ole DIck Byrne.
[Sincere apologies if I’ve missed anyone out].
Doncaster says that there is little or no difference between dual contracts and single contracts. This has been going on in England for many years and is quite common. :-)
the rain falling in Glasgow is descretionary
don’t worry about it
it’s not real rain
you won’t get wet or anything
it’s only discretionary
the hours that pass are discretionary too
don’t worry about them either
and see those heartbeats, blinks of the eye, breaths of air etc…
see above !
and another thing….that fella who started his sentence with something like…..”the GENESIS of the email”….
haha – thought Phil Collins was gonna appear any second
bertie, Phil C and joanna
what a lineup !
DiscretionaryGenesesCSC
Paul67, regarding Juninho, the issue is not whether the club settled up with HMRC, nor of whether he had a side contract, nor of whether we lodged registration documents outlining all methods of payment for him at the time of his registration. The issue is that payments were made to him which, at least per the BBC, were not disclosed to the SPL or SFA. Therefore, the Club needs to come out and explain this. A simple “nothing to see here” doesn’t wash with me, and won’t work from a PR point of view.
We need clarity on the following:
When did we register him? What payments to him were envisaged by the contract of service lodged with the SFA and the SPL at the time of his registration? What payments were in fact made to him? Does the answer to these last two questions differ? If so why?
When was the EBT set up? Why was is set up? Who set it up? Were the monies paid into his Remuneration Trust in respect of the mutual severance of his contract of service?
I ask this as the Juninho EBT payment, both in terms of the sum involved and the date when it was set up, looks like a severance payment.
SFA and SPL Rules only require that details of payments for football services are entirely contained in a contract of service lodged with them. They do not preclude EBT payments per se, nor do they preclude multiple documents ie side letters outlining how these payments are to be made. If the payment into Juninho’s EBT was made in lieu of the payments he would otherwise have been contractually entitled to, and the totality of that hitherto contractual entitlement was known to the SFA/SPL at the time of his registration, then there is no controversy. This is particularly so if I would be correct to assume that the unexpired portion of his contract of service, had it ran its course, would have entitled him to more payments than he actually received from the EBT payment. To explain, if Celtic lodged a contract of service saying he would be paid £4 million gross over two years, and he actually only received 2.5 million gross over 9 months, then as far as the SFA/SPL would be concerned, there was no payment made which was not envisaged in his disclosed contract of service. Hopefully this was, and remains, Celtic’s stance on the issue.
However, the statement on the BBC website, absent further clarifcation from the club, is only half the information a dispassionate observor requires before concluding the propriety of this payment.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and it is in this instance being filled by persons who wish to paint our club in the same light as Rangers.
I think the club needs to state whether, and why, we consider the Juninho payment to have been within the rules.
Hope this post doesn’t lead anybody to think I’m a FF’er in disguise!
savo01 on 24 May, 2012 at 11:44 said:
I don’t know why my comments about double contracts have annoyed people I am only telling you what I have been told to say by Jack. These EBT’s are football’s version of cashing in and depriving hospitals and schools from much needed funding. Does this not go on every day of the week? And would you turn it down like Celtic did? Rangers have just been unlucky to have been caught cheating and totally exposed as the corrupt institution they really are but they are “the peepil” after all
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2010 Never Again
I admire your honesty. You obviously have no connection to Media House
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2010 Never Again
Leave aside the dual contracts for a minute, bearing in mind that players are, on average, less than needle sharp when it comes to things financial, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that some ranjurz players didn’t know what an EBT was or that an EBT had been agreed.
The question I would like to see asked is: how many agents negotiated payments/side letters; who ‘these people’ (c) FPLG, are; were any agents beneficiaries of MIM/RFC(ia) EBTs – given that agents are typically paid a percentage of deal. And finally, did the provision of a side letter depend on particular agent(s)?
DBBIA ——
Thanks
The piglets are good . All but one will be salami or sausage by the end of June. That one will be barbecued. [ wrapped in myrtle leaves ] in a hole in the ground @ Mid August.
Also, it occurs to me regarding the WTC, Rangers say this was used in relation to payments for Tore Andre Flo and Ronald De Boer from 199-2001. Didn’t they both sign in 2000 after the 6-2 game?
News of BBC documentary reaches the countryside.
Reaction captured on film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru47WGBEwMM&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Hail! Hail!
Maybe in a couple of hundred years from now Aliens from some far flung planet will have to do a planet Earth citizen test ( like those far right “Britishness” tests you get now)…the technicolour vibrancy of Caesar lifting the big silver Cup in the Sunny Lisbon evening…will be one of the defining images of the 20th C…
…turn a tap, flush the bog or put your glass down on a table & that fecking rat b*****d dug next door starts…oor big quiet giant saunters across the fence & the hairy vermin starts snarling & spitting…oh for a high powered hose to blast it into oblivion…
Crushed nuts:
My experience is that even the most constitutionally fatuous individuals can be murderously precise when it comes to the whiff of hard cash.
Some of the most bookless dullards I’ve had the misfortune to know have been the most materially remunerated & acquisitive of all those acquaintances.
Still I’m the opposite- cultured, enlightened, prodigiously well-read with a congenital disdain for the old philosophers stone, the Midas curse…alas I’m penniless…
God I would love to go & see us play Real in Philly…can’t quite see how I could justify that one to her indoors.