Training Compensation, withdrawn rant, Celtic action on the streets
Football clubs tie themselves in knots sometimes. Newco Rangers fired off with an incorrect rant on the same club/new club debate yesterday, only to be told to withdraw it a couple of hours later – which they promptly did. Dundee United signed Charlie Telfer on a free contract and were due to pay Training Compensation to his previous club, for the player’s development from when he was 13-years-old.
Football operates a Training Compensation system whereby clubs signing players up to 23-years-old have to make a payment for the development of the player since they were 13. The payment is made in its entirety to the club which previously held the player’s registration. The receiving club is then obliged to pay any previous clubs for their portion of the player’s development.
Dundee United contested the rate at which they had to pay for Charlie Telfer, incorrectly, as it turned out. They did not contest that they were due to pay the entirety of Telfer’s development to the preceding club. No mechanism exists to forgive Training Compensation obligations in the event a preceding club no longer exist. Any monies due remain payable, ultimately to the club’s creditors.
Those at Newco who fired off the statement in haste yesterday will now consider that they have collected payment for services fulfilled by oldco. It is up to Rangers’ liquidators, BDO, to recover their portion of the money from Dundee United on behalf of creditors.
A condition which Newco signed up to, to gain membership of the SFA, was that they become responsible for all Rangers’ football financial obligations. This includes paying down Training Compensation, as well as the still-uncollected £250k fine levied by the Nimmo Smith Inquiry.
That £250k fine has become something of a football ‘football’. It is a football debt due to the SPL, which has since folded its liabilities and obligations onto the SPFL. The SPL was not in a position to enforce payment as newco never played top flight football, so the matter was parked until it became actionable. I don’t know the current position of the Nimmo Smith £250k debt but faux bravado can only encourage others to ask the question, “Where’s our £250k?”
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Have you signed up for the bucket collection on Sunday? Hope to see you there. More importantly, if you only have four minutes to spare today, watch this video. It is out today and tells you what all the £1’s that go into your buckets do.
The whole ‘More than a club’ business takes life on the streets of Scotland, the schools of Africa and lots of places in between. You need to watch the video to find out how.
