Walter Smith was not named by BBC’s Mark Daly as a recipient of an Employee Benefit Trust in the recent documentary, however, before this matter is put to bed I expect more names to emerge. As soon as Smith makes himself available to a proper journalist he will be asked:
Did he receive EBT loan payments from Rangers?
If so:
Did he repay those loans or hold his cash while the club ran out of money and died?
Was he in receipt of a letter from Rangers confirming he was not required to repay?
Did his then employers, the Scottish FA, know he was perhaps receiving money from a member club while employed by them?
Are SFA employees contractually inhibited from taking payments from a member club or required to inform the SFA board of any payments received by a member club?
Did his earlier employers, Everton FC, know if he was receiving money from another club while employed by them?
Was Smith contractually inhibited from taking payments from another club or required to inform Everton of any payments received from another club?
As manager of Rangers, was he involved in negotiations with players who had EBTs or was he another one who concentrated on administrative and legislative duties?
Was he one of the men SFA president, Campbell Ogilvie, suggested failed to reveal side contracts to the Rangers board?
Rangers’ liquidators, BDO, will forensically pour over most of these questions, so Smith’s answers will be verifiable.
No one who played an active part in Rangers EBT scandal will come out of this clean. The ramifications multiply if Rangers were discretely paying any senior employee of another club.
I simply cannot imagine the justification for a member club discretely paying a senior employee of the SFA. Frankly, it would be beyond every Celtic fan’s most paranoid fantasies. I am sure Mr Smith will quickly and easily be able to reassure everyone.
An interesting twist in Smith’s bid for the assets of Rangers is that if he is to inherit Green’s application for a SFA licence and take a controlling interest in the club, Green is obliged to do due diligence on Smith to determine if he is a Fit and Proper person. Perhaps Mr Green can use the above as his due diligence questionnaire.
One final thought. In the unlikely event that it is established that one senior SFA employee was receiving discrete payments from Rangers, we need an immediate and independent inquiry to establish how many others received such payments and what they were for.
As a matter of some urgency I would recommend Stewart Regan brings himself up to speed on this one. I am sure his president is banging the table as you read this insisting the chief executive gets to the bottom of this. It’s not as though he is heavily conflicted and the SFA is in dire need of an independent president to steady the ship.
My friends in Celtic, this just got interesting.
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Where’s Wally?
where is Sally for that matter, Malcolm in the middle wants to know. Amazing how the Beeb let him in front of a camera looking like he had just ran up a flight of stairs, top button undone, tie a mess, jaiket hingin’ aff’. Pure Gold :)
Day two of the MK Huns and naebody knows where the ‘gaffer’ is!
Just had this convo on twitter with John Mackay about his programme last night
John MacKay @RealMacKaySTV
Great audience figures for last night’s @scotlandtonight . Most watched programme in Scotland at that time. Thanks for your support.
Big G @anomolousblob
@RealMacKaySTV @scotlandtonight Most of that audience were stunned in amazement at how shit it was and froze, unable to change the channel.
John MacKay @RealMacKaySTV
@anomolousblob Ah, now we’re really scrabbling for excuses. Some of your others must be belters. Top marks for imagination.
Big G @anomolousblob
@RealMacKaySTV Excuses? what is your’s for broadcasting such a one sided love in? Only thing you had missing was your rangers scarf .
John MacKay @RealMacKaySTV
@anomolousblob I see we’re on to one of these pointless discussions. No thanks, I’ll not waste my time.
Big G @anomolousblob
@RealMacKaySTV Pretty much how I feel about your programmes. Nice to know though how you cope with criticism. #journalistindisquise
:l
Will newco keep oldco’s Uefa co-efficient or will they, in the eyes of football’s governing body for Europe be a new club with a new history?
Interesting how the deluded amongst them will square that one within their brain cell.
ogivlies moment has arrived, the reason he has refused to resign.
to usher in and further disgrace scottish football and it looks like there is no will within the sfa to oppose his plans.
Saint Stivs
Just waiting to hear that the scouting mission’s been successful and I’ve got a lantern, all being well you can add PA15 to the list.
EDASD
I got some laughs and funny looks when this was the only items in my shopping basket – a lot of growls from former huns too – I just said to them…. “Why you look so sad?”
Paul67…
Some excellent writing over the last wee while. Very enjoyable reading! :)
This being said, the more I look at the situation, the more I think that heaven and earth are being moved to install Rangers back into the mainstream with the very minimum of upheaval.
EBT/improper player registration investigation being put on hold is the latest in a line of events that tell us the game in this country is crooked. Regan and Doncaster have failed us. They have failed every club in the country, and every fan in the country.
Rangers apparently can do as they please. If the application to join the SPL is a new one, because Rangers are a new company, why isn’t the application being opened up beyond Rangers? Why not a tender system? Or a blind auction? If there is a space in the SPL and Newco FC are not affiliated to Rangers, why the invitation to only this one group? It stinks, and stinks to high heaven.
Rangers not only played players they couldn’t afford – they transformed and distorted the transfer market. They put other clubs under the cosh by inflating wages across the board. Every club has had to pay the price for these parasites and yet we’re supposed to believe the league needs them? That the world is a better place with a Rangers in the league?
Anyway, my main point, bravo Paul67! I just wish the authorities would take as close a look.
Mort , Saint Stivs
don’t bother arguing about who’ll finish bottom of The Kano Foundation Euro Predictor – everyone knows that TTT will apply the ‘absence’ factor so ably developed by his own good self to determine what happens .
TTT has perfected this ‘absence’ formula to such an extent that failure to adhere to it causes ripples in the space-time continuum .
Oh , by the way , he now claims he’s heading to Singapore !
still got a few to predict for today’s games – remember , there’s a Kano polo as a prize for the person who gets closest to the first goal time .
http://www.sportguru.co.uk/euro2012//pool_leaderboard.asp?p=10018468
Sanna
Good news today on the suspension of the SPL hearing into dual contracts pending a review of the legal status of NewHun to accept them.
What’s that I hear? Yes, I said GOOD NEWS ….
From the very beginning of the process the people who have been trying to keep the name of Rangers alive have been arguing three things:
1) The company which owns the club dies, not the club itself.
2) Therefore the club maintains its history, its players, its management team, its stadium, its colours … all of it.
3) The transfer of the SPL share is between one corporate entity and another … not a share being granted to a wholly new footballing entity.
Today the SPL is consulting its legal department – and I would presume for the first time since all this started – to ask that legal department if Rangers 2012 is eligible for punishments due to Rangers 1872.
For the first time ever, the SPL appears to be trying to ascertain, legally, whether one really can adopt the identity of the other. It is clear to me that if they come back and say yes then Rangers 2012 retains the history of Rangers 1872, and thereby has to take on board whichever punishments are open to that club. This would allow the SPL to strip them of trophies, relegate them etc, in keeping with their constitution should Rangers 2012 be allowed in the league in the first place. It would also mean SFA punishments would fall on the club for the same reasons.
If however, as I expect, the SPL legal team tells the league that the club which was formed in 1872 has expired, then we are in a whole new arena friends.
First, the club which won 54 titles (some tainted) and has the two Buckfast bottles on the jersey in honour of their two European final riots, is no more. History, club, name, goodwill, all of it will be erased the second the liquidation is official, and all of it dies.
It means Charles Green yesterday bought a training ground, a football ground, a name, the rights to Ally McCoist and Lee McCulloch’s contracts and …. nothing else.
The arguments over whether or not the History of Rangers can continue will be over.
Charles Green today confirmed that as of this moment the club he owns is not a member of the SPL or SFA, which is the first acknowledgment from inside Rangers that they are not one in the same … and if you thought the above was good, this is where the fun REALLY starts ….
Neil Doncaster has maintained the reason the SPL vote can allow a new Rangers is because this is nothing more than a transfer of shareholding between one corporate entity and another. It is clear that this will not be the case; that vote will NOT be about a “transfer” of share between corporate bodies at all … it will be an “allocation of share” to a completely new football club, founded less than a month before.
There is NO precedent for this happening … anywhere.
Right now he claims it requires an 8 – 4 vote for this to be accepted. Yes, maybe, in the context of a share transfer between companies, but we are talking about something requiring a “qualified resolution” here, a brand new club being allowed into the top league without any history of playing football … and this requires an 11 – 1 vote.
You cannot be a bit dead, any more than you can be a bit pregnant – thanks Phil Mac Giolla Bhain of that the other day – you are either one or you are the other. The SPL’s decision to discontinue this investigation until the proper facts of what Rangers 2012 REALLY is cannot have come at a worse time for the club. They cannot have the history and escape the punishment. If they are not entitled to the punishment they are technically, legally, commercially and utterly DEAD, DEAD, DEAD and Dundee AUTOMATICALLY should have been granted the place in the SPL yesterday as, and CHarles Green has confirmed this today, that league now has only 11 teams left in it.
Yes, someone will say that OldCo Rangers still holds the license, and are therefore in the league. Take a look at he SPL, SFA, UEFA and FIFA licensing criteria for a moment before you take that position.
OldCo Rangers does not meet the criteria for corporate structure, staff, facilities or financial to get ANY level of license at all. It owns nothing. It employs no-one. It, therefore, is not eligible for any license at all …
Today the SPL is an 11 team league; FACT.
All that remains is the final clarification of that, which, thanks to Neil Doncaster, we will have soon.
Canny get a ruddy lantern anywhere!!!
Grrrrrrrrr
MWD
MWD
Pound Shop accross from Watt Brothers
McCoist to stay on as manager of the club formerly known as rangers after talks with Charlie Green.
Nice one Charlie. He’s such a bad manager he’s not guaranteed to get them out of division 3 if that’s where they end up
James Forrest is Neil Lennon! We are ALL Neil Lennon!….
All that remains is the final clarification of that, which, thanks to Neil Doncaster, we will have soon.
Some interesting points, I wish I could share your optimism however.
Paulus LXVII, Salve salve, Benidicamus te;- Well well bene Pauli for you vindication has come at last. Because of your, RTC and Phil the rebel’s efforts we have been given a front row seat together with the full unedited script containg full page gloriously technicoloured illustrations to the pantomime of rangers fc denoument. We have been able to follow (follow ?) the whole gloriously uproarious farce missing not one laugh or choreographed piece of slapstick on the way absolutely tremendous entertainment.
Like many others, I cannot help but think ole googly eyed Whitey and Ticketus are not finished yet and will add to the general mirth and merriment still to come. After all this and several changes of trousers later what’s this looming over the horizon ? why it’s the bould Hector and I do believe he has come to “Court” even more favour with us I do believe it is a case taylor made for Judge Roy Bean. Anyhoo Paulus I thank you and will probably raise a glass or two maybe Glendronach 15 later on tonite.
Greenwells
Novus Ordo Seclorum
Ally, we know it’s hard, but please please contact Malcolm, he’s worried about you.
Gah… two posts into a comaback and I miss my /p off both!
Damnation to Rangers for making me forget!! :D
/p
St Stivs
Add in PA19 from blustery Gourock ( if I remember to drop into mammys after work)
HH
James Forrest is Neil Lennon! We are ALL Neil Lennon! on 15 June, 2012 at 16:43 said:
Good stuff James it’s important for us a Celtic Supporters not to panic every time it looks like the Newco have their ducks in a row.
Rangers dying was only one victory in a struggle that will continue for the next few months.
Plenty of big hitters to come into play yet..
Note to self…
* light the lantern outside*
How can Sally “stay on” as manager of a new club?
Has Green TUPE transferred him from Rangers? Have other employees been transferred over too? Was there consultation with employees beforehand??
What is the SPFA saying about this?
note to self- ‘Chinese lantern, not Chinese burn’
Green Goddess on standby for the Jean-Michel Jarre´s Laser show tonight
The last Mitre Mould Master we had was worn smooth , my brother blasted it with a slug gun, then left it in the garden hedge, and there was wee family of Sparrows living inside it.
Bourne
Size 4?
I think the chances of my lantern ending up in the Forth is very high, as for lighting it well…………………………………………………
FF and RST in meltdown over accusation that Celtic supporters are lighting lanterns’ to guide the Luftwaffe’.
dear lord I can’t take any more cider…
Lanterns secured for ML3.
What time is the show?
In upper Hamilton nearer EK so I will get an excellent view over Clyde valley.
EC67
Newco Lanterns – is it 10pm tonight guys?
Stand up if you hate NEWCO. Mmm I’m sure we could have a good bit of fun with some new songs when and if they come to Paradise! ps What time Lanterns going up?
Pablo
Hardware store in Erskine still has lanterns. £1.99 each, biodegradable too. I’m green through and through twice over
May have been posted before from RTC? :
48 0 Rate This
alex thomson @alextomo
Fascinating chat with Craig Whyte this morning. Expect much more in next week or two.
Following on here I refer to my posts over the last few days. I still believe that MBBCW is holding an ace or two. Security still to be called in?
————————————————————————————-
Amazon.de have not delivered my lanterns, now going out to search for them but success unlikely as I believe Das ist verboten over here ;-(
*Note to self*
Ensure plenty of accelerant is at hand.
Eurochamps67 on 15 June, 2012 at 16:58 said:
In upper Hamilton nearer EK so I will get an excellent view over Clyde valley.
——————–
Same as my mum and dad, hoping to get them to video it.
James Forrest @ 16:43,
”Good news today on the suspension of the SPL hearing into dual contracts pending a review of the legal status of NewHun to accept them.”
Great piece again JF and excellent breakdown of R@ngers lose/lose scenario, however that is no reason to suspend the investigation – would the Police stop an investigation because they don’t know who to charge with the crime?
Let’s look at the logic…
Now weren’t the SPL’s Solicitors’ looking to see if there was a Prima Facie Case against RFC.
If that was the case an independent panel was going to be formed to investigate.
Soooooooo
What’s stopped, have has a Prima Facie case been established and the independent panel been instigated to consider the evidence? If so why no announcement into this (unusual) progress?
If it’s the Solicitors are still, still checking if a Prima Facie case can be established why would this be stopped. They are after all just determining if there is a case to be answered, not who to charge any entity or individual.
Topping & Doncaster must explain or go.
hen1rik on 15 June, 2012 at 15:37 said:
I’m beginning to think I acted in haste in paying for my season ticket in full when it was my intention to hold on to see how this pantomime plays out.
Like many have posted before, if the new club is permitted direct entry then I too will walk away. I’ve had a season ticket for the last fifteen seasons and although I love my club; this would be too much.
From what I can see, everything points to normal service being resumed as soon as possible.
Despite breaking just about every rule in the book, behaviour that should have attracted swift punishment, the governing body is strangely reluctant to act.
Their sectarian singing goes largely unreported and unpunished, their rioting across europe again unreported, not to mention their on field special treatment at the hands of referees.
It’s time all of the supporters trusts got together and threatened to turn their back on the game if a new club is permitted direct entry.
It shouldn’t even be up for debate, a club has gone out of exsistence leaving a place for a new club to join scottish professional football.
I’m sure a procedure is in place if a new club wanted to apply so let them join the others who want a crack at professional football.
As you say, scottish football is corrupt to the core and they dont even seem embarassed about it.
TSOAL
Size 4 yes. The size 5 Mouldy was best used for Basketball in my experience.
James Forrest
I simply cannot believe how easily Green and co have been able to pull the wool over so many eyes. The facts are so very clear. Liquidation means termination. For example, if Parks of Hamilton went into administration and I bought their fleet of buses and then subsequently Parks were liquidated, all I have is a fleet of buses. Green has Ibrox and Murray Park but he does not have the former RFC.