More evidence emerged today on how Rangers recompensed players through their Employee Benefit Trust (EBT) scheme in The Sun newspaper, who have a draft contract Rangers offered an unnamed player. The contract was a letter confirming a six figure payment as well as a £1200 per game appearance bonus.
An accountant told Sun reporters Paul Thornton and Ewing Grahame:
“I have been shown a contract of employment showing how much money players were going to get but also a back letter which I presume that individual has assumed is part of his salary. It seems like a contract.
“If the two documents are handed to someone together, is that seen as being his overall package? If the answer to that is yes then there is a problem because the money that goes into the trust really should be getting taxed because it is his salary.
“The fact it is there as a back letter at all suggests it is dodgy.”
Attention is obviously drawn to the potential criminal consequences of these tax arrangements but football fans throughout the country will be alarmed that Campbell Ogilvie, the man who was general secretary and director of Rangers when the EBT scheme started, is currently president of the SFA and would have been involved in scoping out the secret remit of the SFA inquiry into Rangers, which was asked to report within an incredibly quick two week period. Ogilvie is also one of the few men the inquiry will report to.
If the allegations in today’s Sun are accurate, Rangers have improperly registered football players for a period of around a decade. The penalty for playing an improperly registered footballer in any game is a 3-0 forfeit.
When the SFA president is in a position to confirm all of this, the association have all information they require to make a ruling on this, but despite these allegations being widely reported for many months, they have yet to even acknowledge there is anything to investigate.
Can you imagine the scrutiny the Football Association in England’s board and chief executive would be exposed to if this scandal was not being actioned?
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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Liverpool fans have one of those long banners. Couldn’t read it all but it was something about, “…the lies before thatcher dies.” An obvious reference to Hillsborough.
Campbell Ogilvy’s wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_Ogilvie
Campbell Ogilvie is the first vice-president of the Scottish Football Association and the managing director of Scottish Premier League football club Heart of Midlothian.
In 1978, Ogilvie was hired as general secretary at the Rangers F.C. and later became a director of that club, but relinquished his executive duties at Ibrox Stadium in September 2005, following a boardroom re-shuffle.[1]
Ogilvie joined Heart of Midlothian in November 2005 to undertake similar duties under the title “Operations Director”. Roman Romanov, the club’s chairman and son of majority shareholder Vladimir Romanov, stated: “I am very happy that Campbell has agreed to join us as it is clear he shares our ambition and belief.” he added “We can learn much from his professional experience.” Ogilvie was later promoted to managing director on 14 March 2008. He is widely regarded by fans groups and local media as the man who could save Hearts from further demise due to the reputation he has earned and the respect he commands within Scottish Football.[citation needed] He is also the only Scot on the Hearts Board.
In June 2003, Ogilvie became the treasurer, now second vice-president, of the Scottish Football Association (SFA).[2] On 1 June 2007, Ogilvie became first vice-president of the SFA, with Alan McRae taking his place as second vice-president.[3] On 8 June 2011 it was confirmed that Ogilvie would take up the presidency of the Scottish Football Association following the retirement of George Peat.
Note that there is, in this timeline, a period of overlap where Ogilive was working for Rangers AND the SFA. During this overlap, Rangers FC are known to have had illegitimate EBT’s in place and Ogilivie would therefore have been aware of them AND working at the SFA. So the SFA were in effect complicit in the dealings of Rangers FC, as Ogilive and Bain (from 2008 onwards) knew full well of the shady financial deals at the “Big Hoose”, that which must stay open.
Surprised? Really?
Wonder how long it’ll stay like that?
Invercelt
“You might want to revisit your statement that “some of your Celtic-supporting friends are just that – ex-Catholics with a disdain (for) or hatred of the Club”: ”
You’re quite right – I meant of the Church and was referring to the lapsed Catholic Liberal-Socialist-Atheists, of whom there are a fair number.
Apologies if this has been discussed already, but what are the ramifications, possibilities and opportunites of The Portsmouth landlady winning her most recent court case against sky
The Glen Loovens link makes me swing towards Liverpool
Swingerbhoycsc
O.G.Rafferty, can’t see how Whyte is a creditor in anyway. What money do Rangers owe him?
Rangers and their administrators should be aware that the only way out of the ticketus deal is to liquidate. i.e turn Rangers assets into cash.
The availability of cash has not been problematic to date during administration. Rangers seem to have paid for all services since going into admin or agreed deals on the services after the start of admin. Wee bit late with the Police mind.
However, it seems that Mr Whyte has made the position of knowing how much cash is available rather difficult. We have seen the headlines of where is all the cash…
That is intractable problems 1 and 2.
Intractable problem 3 is HMRC and the ‘so called’ big tax case.
The administrators don’t know the result of this. It looks to me that they tried to offer a deal to HMRC on the big tax case as well as all other monies owed. They would have done this in order to ascertain what they could sell to interested parties. Looks as though HMRC have knocked that back as we have utterances (if you pardon) of not being able to publish accounts.
I think others have mentioned this… but the fact that no players employed by Rangers, on a full time basis, other than McKay, have been forced to leave… tells me that the administrators think
1. they need to maximise ticket revenue and punting players is not the way to do that
2. There is no point in making the organisation leaner because they are going to liquidate anyway.
How long will the search for the missing millions go on and will the findings of the FTT come out before the super sleuths have overturned every rock?
Can we go through the whole of March with this charade playing out?
Anyway, back to ticketus. Thye have made a statement in the context of administration to the effect that they will not accept pence in the pound on all future payments. Their deal is for Rangers FC season ticket money and if Rangers FC go on after admin the are due the same money. They may have past due money and if they are sensible will only agree to that being part of any CVA. Mind you HMRC are the preferred creditor now and will be when it comes to the big tax case.
What we are seeing is the destruction of Babylon in football terms.
Paul @ 1310
Brilliant! ;)
Howdy
I have 2 questions
Serious one first, if they got out of admin before the end of the season do they get their 10 points back?….not that it would make a difference :)
and secondly, has archie macpherson ever actually said WOOF? im sure he has but then again i was also sure captain kirk said”beam me up scotty” and he never did
Just wondering
Spirit of A Lee
Ul be friends with the Krankies then??lol <0)
Think ‘Northern Ireland’ and the troubles had a lot to do with it being allowed.Also the league of Ireland was on ‘its knees,and Derry breathed life back into it..Derry were getting close on 10 thousand home gates,and a couple of thousand travelled away.Some of the teams in the league were struggling to get moré than double figures.I just hope Dermott Desmond has some friends in the right places to get us out of this backwater.We can survive without Rangers,but the spl wouldnt survive without us.I think they would try to block any attempt for us to move.’its the SFA we need to see falling.
With all this talk about a Newco, who’s to say that it will be as simple as that? What if some non-Rangers supporters were to buy the assets and start a completley new club, not called Rangers anything, not wearing red, white and blue.
Why should it be presumed that the way would be clear only for Rangers-minded millionaires to make a move?
celtic dawn says:
26 February, 2012 at 16:07
as i understand it she won the case as an individual so you or I could now buy a football package from any EU source – however she cannot use such a package to show commercially in a pub – so a win but not the one she wanted
That was a reply to Tomthetim..forgot to paste..
Saint Stivs,
Hooper looked yesterday like the player we had at the start of the season. He wasn’t happy then. I would guess that he thought his pal Commons was being harshly treated. Not sure whats up with him now. He was static yesterday at points
I’d love to think that the lack of celebration. ( he did the same v Hibs) is professionalism and a kind of -they have removed the competition -so whats the point in celebrating.
I would love it if we went to Ibrox (if the game is still on) and had that attitude. Pick the ball out of the net each time we score against them and place it on the half way line for them. I honestly think we could see that match abandoned if we took that attitude.
OT
went for a ruby then had to rush for the train
a doz pints of guiness and a curry make running for the train somewhat uncomfortable :¬))
1-nil Cardiff
YivWhit says:
26 February, 2012 at 16:17
It’s a good point, but I don’t think their assets are of any real value to anyone other than Rangers supporters trying to set up a newco Rangers. If someone bought Ibrox and Murray Park and set up “Govan Wanderers,” wearing and all-white strip, I don’t think they’d have many fans turn up to watch them.
1-0 Cardiff.
1-0 to Cardiff
Jude
Fandabbydozie!
jock tamson,
I’m wi you on the Cardiff win – but mainly for wee Don Cowie and his family!
And they’re on their way 1 – 0 Cardiff
Off out for a jog now. Bloody I&J is piling on the weight.
Mullet
Brilliant comment.
HH
I was just listening to the start of the League Cup darn sath on TalkSport. Stan Collymore just before kick-off reported Cardiff has gone into a Celtic huddle, two seconds later you could hear in the background the Liverpool fans singing their version of the “Fields” and I thought to myself how much we have influence football teams darn sath and around the world.
1-0 Cardiff – I guess the huddle must of worked
StMichaelsBhoy2 says:
26 February, 2012 at 16:06
“Wonder how long it’ll stay like that?”
It might not stay long on wikipedia but you’ve saved it for posterity on CQN and they can’t do anything about that. Well done.
Paul67
Is there any clarity at all on what the Nimmo Enquiry is expected to achieve?
Surely it cannot do a proper job of enquiry until the full details of the FTT emerge? That side letter exist is now almost certain (it almost certainly was certain) and if Nimmo is looking at the interaction between the SFA and Rangers then to do so before the FTT declares makes a nonsense of the idea that an enquiry will address all the salient issues.
This unclear enquiry instead of restoring trust and integrity in the SFA will do exactly the opposite and must be challenged on that basis alone, never mind the roles of Ogilve and Bain (as an SPL Director).
There are a number of trust restoring measues that can be taken and I make no apologies to again referring to
In Whom Do We Trust
which was published at the beginning of February on CU before the administration announcement and then Enquiry ones were made. The measures presented there are what is required and I have tried tp draw Celtic’s attention to them as they tie in with the need for restoring integrity, something an incomplete Enquiry will totally undermine.
I’m hoping when the Huns go bust that there are at least two rival newcos set up. I wonder which would inherit the most fans?
1) Govan Rangers, playing out of Ibrox, which they rent from Craig Whyte. Set up by the likes of Douglas Park. Signal their intent to be Rangers for the 21st Century. Don’t want anything to do with the Protestant triumphalism of the oldco. Managed by Stuart McCall. Wear blue shirts, white shorts, blue socks.
2) Glasgow Rangers, playing out of Hampden which they rent from Queen’s Park. Set up by the vanguardbearloonies in the proud Rangers traditions of Protestantism and Loyalism (but we’ll sign a token Catholic cos we have to). Managed by Jimmy the kit-man. Wear blue shirts, white shorts, black socks with red band at the top.
I think the vanguardbearloonies would take at least 20,000 of their regulars.
Mind The Gap, headline on official rangers site.
Think I will p1sh myself laughing.
HH
The thing that has made me laugh more than anything this week has been their reaction to the selling of the Arsenal shares. A typical reaction of the folk that allowed their training ground to be called after a guy that isn’t dead yet.
Fools sponsoring an egomaniac. Did any of them ever question why it had to be called Murray park? If that was us there would be demonstrations.
StMichaelsBhoy2 says:
26 February, 2012 at 16:31
Ill tell you what m8 that is a great point,,,i think there would be split as well,you will always have your knuckle dragging mono-browed type hun’s who are not interested in the game,who are only there to hate us!!!
Hail hail
Auld Neil Lennon heid,
Regan confirmed to another CQNer via Twitter this morning that the investigation was inclusive of side contracts.
The SFA should not need the result of the big tax case to determine what constitutes a side contract that was not declared to them!
The only thing that can save them from the sins of their past is more corruption.
Benefit concert to be held at Ibrox: Dire straits, busted,the pretenders, the wanted, and the animals. Tickets available from Craig whyte ticketus services..$16.90
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
YivWhit @16.06,
Glad you’ve taken my comment in the spirit in which it was meant! I’m not daft myself about “progressive” lapsed Catholics, but IMO they’re as welcome in the Celtic Community as anyone else, provided they behave in the spirit of tolerance.
Ernie Lynch @ 15.49,
I DO know what the word means & I’d remind you of the saying about teaching your grandmother to suck eggs. You are quite right to disapprove of “fascist” as a general term of abuse, but as that is normal practice on the Forum AND as I was clearly responding to previous use, I find it rather odd that you criticise me for doing so. I’d hoped to discourage improper use of the word here – maybe we can agree on that. BTW the “fascist leftist” whom I particularly had in mind was not only intolerant but also abusive.
Just read the Mark Hately Column, is this guy serious, our title is tainted. What does he call 10+ years of tax dodging, sneaky player payments, not paying other clubs, HMRC etc, can’t wait until we see exactly how many titles in the last ten were tainted by a Glasgow Club that sounds like Wain-gers and our old players, Larsson, Sutton Hartson etc sue them for loss of income due to CL money we did not receive.
Finn
Hail Hail
Schadenfreude aside : that whole dungheap of a criminal organisation is being further sweetened by the stench of The Orange Ordure. No wonder Comical Ally seems reassured by the prospect of ” bidness as usual .”
Anyway…..it’s been jelly & ice cream all weekend with family & friends from far & wide.
Even neutrals get the gist of the disgrace of Scottish Football.
Majic. The good news just keep son coming.
Anybody know if there will be a box set of dvds with their ten years of 3-0 defeats coming out?
Jack Regan, Oglach, St Michaels Bhoy
Jack, I had a wee moment when I read your earlier post about singing FOOF etc, because of your own addon about parents and family, almost all of whom are deceased.
That hymn is a Catholic hymn, but it is also so much more if you read the words and look at them from a secular perspective. At least, I can see so much more.
In these times od trial and tribulation for RFCIA, I too think of my parents and the indignities that they endured, the insults, the slights, the discrimination, all ofthat they dealt with and usually internalised so asnnot to take it out on those they loved. I think of my grandfather who was a Catholic foreman in the shipyards, when enforcing his position meant enduring sectarian epithets and fights in the bowels of the ship.
I don’t think that your comment about that hymn was inappropriate at all. We are a very broad church, we Celtic fans, and all of us are aware to a greater or lesser degree of the history and context of our club’s existence. Those fans who are not nor neverhave been Catholic are our brethren, and as such they will know of the sectarianism of which we speak. They will also know that when those of us who have had to endure what they themselves never had to endure, speak of our forbears and the pain that they endured because of their religion or their ethnicity, we are not celebrating either. We are simply reflecting on our feeling of sadness, loss and belated justice for our own loved ones. None of that should be confused with any thoughts that it somehow segregates Celtic fans. In fact, it is what unites us all and makes us so inclusive. We are against injustice and to deny the memory of the injustice to those who endured is to deny what Celtic stands for.
I do not believe that a non Catholic Celtic fan would object at all to any references to a hymn that was sung to help our forbears endure the hatred to which they were subjected. Now there may be some ex Catholics who twitch at the memories that hymn provokes, but for God’s sake, if you are one of these folks, let it be. Allow some people to derive some closure on painful recollections about their loved ones without accusing them of divisive behaviour.
All just my humble opinion of course. My wife and I often speak of how our parents and grandparents would feel such satisfaction, that their faith in themselves and their culture seems so much more vindicated in the light of the corruption, carnage and collapse at
RFCIA. I suppose that is the broader faith of my fathers, of which I am so proud.
HH to all Tims
RWE CSC
Shearer in his half time analysis on the Carling cup talks about the “little man in the hole”.
Ooh err missus.
Long but interesting piece from Mail on Sunday. Excuse any OCR errors.
Quick recovery of mystery Ibrox payments holds key to staff cuts
By Nick Harris and Fraser Mackie
RANGERS’ administrators are in a race against time to trace secret six-figure payments made by the Craig Whyte regime to associates and related parties during his Ibrox tenure — because the success or otherwise of the hunt will have a direct impact on imminent first-team job losses.
If the missing money, which could mount to millions, can be traced amid increasingly murky areas of pursuit that one source says ‘is a still confused picture’, there is a reasonable chance some, if not all, of it can be recovered. And it is understood that the more money the administrators claw back, the fewer staff will need to be axed.
The payments were made to, among other places, a bank account linked to an obscure non-league English football club with close ties to business contacts of Whyte, and to a stockbroking company controlled by him that has since had its assets frozen on the orders of the Financial Services Authority.
There are other “transactions”, payments of what
Turn to Page 98
From Back Page
most people would consider large sums of money, that the administrators are still trying to get to the bottom of,’ a source said.
Director of football Gordon Smith and chief operating officer Ali Russell are the only casualties at Ibrox so far. But Paul Clark of administrators Duff & Phelps told The Mail on Sunday yesterday: ‘We’re still looking at other cuts and I expect to make an announcement about this at some stage next week. But those cuts will undoubtedly include playing staff.’
Clark declined to comment on the number of players likely to go, nor on any confidential aspects of his firm’s work at Rangers, but it’s understood that ‘creative solutions’ will be explored to cut costs. The SEA and Scottish PEA, as well as the SPL, are being kept informed of all developments.
‘If s possible that deferment of some wages might reduce the number of people who need to go,’ one source said. ‘Salary cuts could be another way to save jobs, if certain players are open to that.
‘Jobs are certain to go but the number could depend on a combina¬tion of factors, including whether the administrators can recover some of the money that’s leaked from the club to certain places.’
Well-placed sources have already confirmed that a £250,000 payment was made from a Rangers-related bank account at legal firm Collyer Bristow, apparently to English non-league minnows Banstead Athletic.
However, the £250,000 was paid to a bank account of ‘Regenesis-Banstead Athletic EC last August. Two long-time associates of Whyte, brothers Aidan and Wulstan Earley, have links to Banstead Athletic and are involved with several companies operating under the Regenesis name.
Gary Withey, installed as company secretary at Rangers when Whyte assumed control, is a partner at Collyer Bristow. In his status in either of those roles, Withey should be able to provide answers to a number of intriguing questions.
The prospect of the administrators simply finding the bumper payment at the club appear doomed, though, since Banstead’s owner and chairman’Terry Molloy says he has no knowledge of the £250,000 and insisted that the club itself did not benefit from the cash.
Molloy said of the £250,000 transfer: ‘I know nothing about it. It certainly hasn’t come into our bank account. I can see why people would question it but they are putting two and two together and coming up with the wrong answer. I haven’t seen any money and that is the end of it.’
Aidan Earley has not responded to questions on the matter.
Duff & Phelps are also investigating the circumstances in which Whyte’s Rangers regime sold 16 shares in Arsenal for £230,000. The shares had been held by Rangers since the early20th century, but the proceeds of their sale to Arsenal co-owner Alisher Usmanov did not go to a Rangers bank account.
Rather, the cash was placed with a Whyte company, Pritchard Stock¬brokers in Bournemouth. Pritchard’s assets have since been frozen.
‘Aside from the Banstead money and the Arsenal money, it’s not clear yet how many other payments were made in total, or to who, or why, but there were multiple transactions of money going out that the administrator is looking at,’ a source said. ‘Locating that money and assessing whether it’s possible to recover it is a priority.’
With jobs set to be axed this week, the creative efforts to save some could come off the back of McCoist’s coaching staff and senior players discussing percentage deferrals or cuts in the hope the club can hobble on until the end of the campaign without any blood-letting in their department.
Most vulnerable to being cut loose are loan players and those with less than 18 months remaining on their contracts. That brings Kyle Bartley, Lee McCulloch, Sasa Papac, Neil Alexander and Kirk Broadfoot into the firing line, with Rangers paying up to £70,000-a-week in wages to that quintet.
It is hoped that a united front, with each player prepared to make a sacrifice, could avoid sackings. However, that will depend on precisely how much is required to be sliced from the overall wage bill and chasing down the dubious payments can play a significant part in determining that amount.
Rangers must meet a UEFA deadline of March 31 to have their accounts signed off in order to be eligible to contest European competition next season but that looks a near impossible task in the current circumstances of likely legal wrangling lying ahead over secured creditor status and the Ticketus arrangement — among other conundrums.
Full houses for home games against Hearts and St Mirren — either side of the Old Firm match — before the split and two Ibrox matches after the SPL table divides are essential to provide reyenue for the club to help meet running costs. Administration must run in a cash positive position.
The traditional season-ticket renewal time in May is also critical. Normal practice is for punters to have the option of paying in full or spread the burden through four instalments up to August.
However, it’s likely the club will need as many supporters as possible to renew and pay their lump sum straight away and, indeed, for new or previous season-ticket holders to be attracted back to help secure the future of Rangers. How much of that money the club will see will depend on the terms of the arrangement agreed with Ticketus, the company with whom Whyte struck the controversial £24.4million deal that funded his takeover of the club.