Rangers improper player registration evidence mounts

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…..