Ibrox latest...

[McD]

After listening to our national radio station spoting the pish they are tonight I have never realised how closed they all are on Rangers.

Some of these guys have spent the summer writing columns trying to get space and changing their opinions to follow the feeilng of the wave of strength the fans created. Now in line with the suggestion let it go, they are right back behind them.

Radio Scotland tonight is utterly embarasing with a predominatly Ibrox team including Derek Ferguson and Dods.

They have hardly mentioned the words "East Fife"!

Its as if its a Rangers Euro game and the whole of Scotland should ne listening to the national radio staion and supporting them?

If this is whats ahead this season will be sickening because the BBC will cover football with Celtic fisrt then cut to Rangers then if any time left others will het a mention.

The sooner the momentum kicks in to get this lot sorted via tax case and EBTs the better.

[Jimmy Wallace]

After listening to our national radio station spoting the pish they are tonight I have never realised how closed they all are on Rangers.

Some of these guys have spent the summer writing columns trying to get space and changing their opinions to follow the feeilng of the wave of strength the fans created. Now in line with the suggestion let it go, they are right back behind them.

Radio Scotland tonight is utterly embarasing with a predominatly Ibrox team including Derek Ferguson and Dods.

They have hardly mentioned the words "East Fife"!

Its as if its a Rangers Euro game and the whole of Scotland should ne listening to the national radio staion and supporting them?

If this is whats ahead this season will be sickening because the BBC will cover football with Celtic fisrt then cut to Rangers then if any time left others will het a mention.

The sooner the momentum kicks in to get this lot sorted via tax case and EBTs the better.

agree, they are virtually wetting themselves over "them". Vomit inducing.

[MrBored]

At least Derek Ferguson had the decency to 'complain' that when he turned on the radio yesterday he expected them to be talking about United's display on Sunday, however, he said he was disappointed that it was only more about the EBT etc.

Alexander's excuse for this....erm well, we did talk about them on Sunday until Murray (the tennis player) came along and as for last night....he wasn't working!

To be honest, I've given up on the BBC both the radio and website. Both are shocking. The new format for the Sat. a/noon where there is only one game being covered live sums it up.

Have a look at their stats on the website and have a laugh.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/teams/st-johnstone

[Cagey]

At least Derek Ferguson had the decency to 'complain' that when he turned on the radio yesterday he expected them to be talking about United's display on Sunday, however, he said he was disappointed that it was only more about the EBT etc.

Alexander's excuse for this....erm well, we did talk about them on Sunday until Murray (the tennis player) came along and as for last night....he wasn't working!

To be honest, I've given up on the BBC both the radio and website. Both are shocking. The new format for the Sat. a/noon where there is only one game being covered live sums it up.

Have a look at their stats on the website and have a laugh.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/teams/st-johnstone

Wow thats some squad we have.

Listened to introduction to game for 5 mins. It was puck making.

[Jimmy Wallace]

Wow thats some squad we have.

Listened to introduction to game for 5 mins. It was puck making.

Yep, I'm thinking of chucking the fitba and watching ice hockey instead too.

[Cagey]

Yep, I'm thinking of chucking the fitba and watching ice hockey instead too.

OK so spelling is not my strong point.

[MrBored]

Sounds like they are trying to cheat East Fife by under stating the crowd tonight.

[Kilgour]

I heard approx.40,000 crowd tonight,so I am guessing that East Fife should get a slice of that.Not sure of the divi but I would imagine the treasurer is the one with the smile.

[541ntees]

Sounds like they are trying to cheat East Fife by under stating the crowd tonight.

yeah everyone saying it was a full house but rangers site says 38000. 13000 unaccounted for ? unless they did the count 20mins before the end?

[Tranmere Saintee]

At least Derek Ferguson had the decency to 'complain' that when he turned on the radio yesterday he expected them to be talking about United's display on Sunday, however, he said he was disappointed that it was only more about the EBT etc.

Alexander's excuse for this....erm well, we did talk about them on Sunday until Murray (the tennis player) came along and as for last night....he wasn't working!

To be honest, I've given up on the BBC both the radio and website. Both are shocking. The new format for the Sat. a/noon where there is only one game being covered live sums it up.

Have a look at their stats on the website and have a laugh.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/teams/st-johnstone

I feel the next campaign could well be to create a massive boycott of BBC Radio Scotland in particular until they remove Chick et al and get back to covering ALL Scottish football properly:mad:

[stevensan]

yeah everyone saying it was a full house but rangers site says 38000. 13000 unaccounted for ? unless they did the count 20mins before the end?

it was a full house, just with part of the stadium closed?! I was told the club deck was not open at all. Wouldn't that account for a large bulk of the missing fans?

Just took the numbers from the last admin report and extrapolated over a year. Worked out possible average wages and used last nights crowd as an average for the season... will post in full tomorrow as on phone right now, but even a best case scenario see's a loss of 7 figures, and that means keeping an average of 40,000 fans a match.

Either they are not paying what they say they are paying, or Green's plan is another admin to further 'cleanse' the assets.

[Edstar101]

it was a full house, just with part of the stadium closed?! I was told the club deck was not open at all. Wouldn't that account for a large bulk of the missing fans?

Just took the numbers from the last admin report and extrapolated over a year. Worked out possible average wages and used last nights crowd as an average for the season... will post in full tomorrow as on phone right now, but even a best case scenario see's a loss of 7 figures, and that means keeping an average of 40,000 fans a match.

Either they are not paying what they say they are paying, or Green's plan is another admin to further 'cleanse' the assets.

The novelty of playing against sub standard opponents every week will soon wear off

[Jiangsu Sainty]

The novelty of playing against sub standard opponents every week will soon wear off

I am not so sure. I fully expect that winning easily is precisely what the legions of filthy gersmen look for in a football match, doesn't matter the opponent.

Whilst perhaps some of the truer football fans in the great unwashed may fade away, for all those described somewhere else on the forum as shirt-wearing fans who have been to Ibrox only once or twice, the next three years will be the greatest in their scum-supporting lives. There will be no shortage of fairweather gers fans willing to make the trip to Ibrox to revel in their sectarianism, totally oblivious to the absence of what we would normally term competitive football

[deej]

New East Fife manager Gordon Durie, the former Rangers striker, will have to be content with a bumper pay day from the shared attendance that looked more than the official figure of 38,000.

From the BBC match report.

Sevco fiddling figures already?

[Tranmere Saintee]

From the BBC match report.

Sevco fiddling figures already?

Surely with all the interest in last nights game, all the extra un-accounted for tickets went to all the free-loading prats falling over back-wards to lick the collective bum of Seco!!

[ex-montrosesaintee]

Sorry, been out of the loop for a bit. Read about 5 pages, but can't find any answer to how Sevco have accepted a 12 month transfer ban and yet signed 3 new players yesterday, in addition to ones signed last week? How does that work exactly?

[Jimmy Wallace]

Sorry, been out of the loop for a bit. Read about 5 pages, but can't find any answer to how Sevco have accepted a 12 month transfer ban and yet signed 3 new players yesterday, in addition to ones signed last week? How does that work exactly?

The 12 month transfer ban doesn't start until 1 September (I think).

[ex-montrosesaintee]

The 12 month transfer ban doesn't start until 1 September (I think).

Thanks. Utterly pointless then.

[john1962]

My mate who is a Sevco supporter was there last night and he says if there was more than 38k then there wasn't a lot more. He is also honest enough to be a little concerned that if they cant get a full house for what was meant to be a show of defiance then they will struggle to get the crowds to pay all these Galacticos.

[The Inspiration]

My mate who is a Sevco supporter was there last night and he says if there was more than 38k then there wasn't a lot more. He is also honest enough to be a little concerned that if they cant get a full house for what was meant to be a show of defiance then they will struggle to get the crowds to pay all these Galacticos.

The club deck was closed which I believe holds 7,300 seats

[candalan]

The 12 month transfer ban doesn't start until 1 September (I think).

Your right, and it means the cheats have another 3 weeks to get a team together, which no other SFL team can match. SFA at it best , right up the scums ar%%e

[HOODLUM65]

Mike Ashley to invest in sevco .

[Ronaldo]

In the eyes of some, maybe. Same stadium, same training ground, same name "rangers", same strip, same nickname, same season ticket renewal form, same website, same manager, same colour scheme, same rivals, same flagship shop, same scarfs, same hatred from other fans, same football phone in favouritism, same media favouritism ...

However I heard on Sportsound last night Chick Young saying that Rangers have accepted theur punishment and then Charles Green came on later and said "We've taken the punishment of being put down to Division 3, then Ally McCoist saying "we've been punished enough" I thought - THEY DON'T HAVE A F'KN CLUE.

Quick summary for them -

The old company Rangers attempted a Company Voluntary Agreement with everyone they owed money to but HMRC took the voluntary bit out and forced the company into Administration. It was agreed by the Adminstrators that although they can trade to play football they can NEVER repay the cumulative debt they've sonehow managed to build up from a vast variety of sources including non payment to Her Majesty's institutions from which say people who build things like boats get their income.

So Rangers old company had to go into Liquidation, they were a basket case. Other than the winding up process and investigation they are no more.

So did the old company Rangers get put down to Division 3 and punished? NO. They couldn't be relegated or anything, they didn't exist. The old company did get a 10 point deduction which didn't affect anything.

So did new company Rangers get put down to Division 3 and punished? NO. They couldn't be relegated they didn't exist during the season, they were new and hadn't played football, that's a game where two sets of players try to get a ball in the opponents' net. This new company wanted to follow the old company and put a football club in Scottishn Football and they applied to the SFA and SFL for memberships and put a few demands of their own in.

So were they punished? NO. There was an attempt to have a transfer ban but that was delayed and they are currently using that period to acquire SPL standard players at 150% SPL wages instead of as they hoped holding on to hugely paid Premiership/Championship standard players. The release of thesezvery lucrative contracts to these players has meant a reduction in running costs and of course they were managing that even as an old company and this is where the money comes from for Sandaza and others. It was just the massive debt they couldn't service and they couldn't be allowed more time.

So were they punished? NO.

It was a completely natural process which THEY themselves caused all by THEMSELVES - consequences come into play for weak control under Company Law, nobody's picking on you.

Edited August 8, 2012 by Ronaldo

[stevensan]

The club deck was closed which I believe holds 7,300 seats

another wonderful misrepresentation from our press. If that had been a Saints game, with say the North stand shut, all we would have read about is how Saints scored in front of an empty stand... there would have been nothing about the full east stand printed.

For Sevco however, all the papers say a full house and question the 'official' attendance, saying it should be 50,000. It wasn't. a huge chuck of the stadium was closed. Not one report mentions this - I learnt it from Rangers Media!!!

Anyone who thinks we should just leave Rangers alone is mad. They are getting away with things under our noses, again!

Have they paid their footballing debts yet?

Were their players registered against Brechin? Was Sandaza registered for the League Cup match, when it was scheduled for Saturday?

How can you play 'trialists' who have already signed a contract?

Why has the TV deal details not been released yet?

Is there another clause allowing Rangers money, even though under SFL rules they are not entitled to any as an associate member?

What did the SFA agree with sevco on the terms of membership?

What guarentees did sevco give to their finance?

Who signed off on them as 'fit and proper'? And whoever signed, why have sevco not released names of directors and not released info on who owns Ibrox?

What is happening to McCoist re:his comments about the independent inquiry?

So many questions and no answers...

[stevensan]

incase anyone missed - from rangerstaxcase.com

This week has seen strident denials from David Murray that Rangers have done anything wrong in paying 83 employees through the Murray Group Management Remuneration Trust (MGMRT). According to Murray: “No rules were breached or circumvented, and I reject and resent any suggestion that anything was done which amounted to cheating.” This blog-post will provide an illustrative example that demonstrates just how absurdly untrue Murray’s claim really is.

First a quick recap of the rules. For the MGMRT, an Employee Benefit Trust (EBT), to be operated legally for tax purposes, money is deposited in the trust by the employer. Thereafter, the employer must have no control or involvement in the disbursement of funds. Employees can then apply to the trust for loans. The loans must be discretionary i.e. contractual obligations or wages (of any kind) cannot be paid tax-free through an EBT. Any payment through an EBT for wages or other contractual obligations would be liable to tax. Paying wages or other obligations through an EBT without deducting PAYE & National Insurance is a breach of UK tax law and is illegal. HMRC has investigated Rangers’ use of the MGMRT EBT and found it to be a sham designed to avoid due PAYE & NIC. The Rangers FC plc (In Administration) appealed this determination and this appeal was heard by the now infamous First Tier Tribunal (Tax). Rangers FC (the oldco) was able to pay higher wages to sign and retain better quality players during the decade in which the scheme operated. In fact, had Rangers paid staff the same take home wage, the club would have had to find an extra £49m to pay tax on these wages legally. This much we have discussed many times.

The next rule in question is that of the Scottish Premier League (SPL). The SPL requires that all payments to registered players are declared in the contractual documents submitted to the league (and to the SFA). The combination of illegally using an EBT scheme to obtain a £49m advantage in paying for players and violating SPL rules on declaring payments to players is premeditated financial doping. The reason for not declaring the EBT payments in player contracts is that doing so would have caused the EBT scheme to fail immediately. Players and their agents are no fools and wisely would not trust the nods and winks of the shifty wide-boy types attracted to football club ownership. They insisted that promised payments were documented. These additional documents- side-letters, second-contracts… call them what you will- blow Rangers’ and Murray’s claims of innocence out of the water.

In a previous post, this blog attempted to help the SPL’s investigation team to establish a prima facie case against Rangers. Obviously, we have no way of knowing if this was helpful in moving this case along, but it might help the media and anyone investigating the case against Rangers if we provide a road-map to just one example of what really happened. Please note that this example has been selected for its clarity rather than the importance of the player. Many of the cases, especially the earlier ones when Rangers tended to be more concerned with obscuring their actions, are quite complex. The SPL’s investigators should ensure that they see the documentation referenced below.

Gavin Rae signed a three and a half-year contract with Rangers on 1 January 2004. This contract- the official one filed with the SFA & SPL- lists an annual wage of £260,000. Curiously, the contract does not mention appearance money or bonuses. On the very same day, 1 January 2004, Rangers provided Gavin Rae with a letter that said that money would be deposited in a sub-trust of the Murray Group Management Remuneration Trust on his behalf. These amounts total £336,000. The letter also said that Rae would receive £1,000 as an appearance fee for every competitive first-team game played. From February 2004 to July 2007, Rae received five payments totalling £336,000. He also received the following amounts through the EBT for appearances: £11,000 (2003/04); £8,000 (2005/06); £20,000 (2006/07). The appearance money matches his first team appearances for Rangers.

This side letter torpedoes the argument that these payments were not contractual. (A simple guide to contract formation under Scots Law can be found here. Short version: these letters constitute a contract under Scots Law). This letter, and the others like it, demonstrate that Rangers used the EBT scheme to pay wages (appearance money) and contractual obligations related to employment. This is just one fragment of the masses of evidence that demonstrate that Rangers were “at it”.

The task for the SPL’s investigators is simple in this case. Obtain Gavin Rae’s contract as submitted to the SFA & SPL. Next, they should demand to see Gavin Rae’s side letter. After that, the task is to review the actual payments. There will be a match between promises and payments. Repeat for each of the 82 other employees of Rangers FC (now In Administration) who used the trust scheme.

The current PR campaign from Murray, and other senior Rangers’ personnel who were beneficiaries of the EBT scheme, is designed to reverse any sense of inevitability regarding amending the sporting record to reflect the cheating that took place between 2001-2011. All Scottish football fans- Rangers fans included- were cheated during these years. Do not believe the spin and dissembling from those who did most to damage Rangers FC and Scottish football.