Rangers

[GodalmingYellow]

It is completely irresponsible to run a football club with an annual deficit of £10m, especially when that is after winning the title regularly.

People like Mr White shouldn't be allowed to even be appointed as a director of any company in my opinion, and he certainly should never be allowed to own or control a football club again.

Scottish football is in fnancial meltdown, but (and I know I've harped on about this time and again) all football clubs must run within their own means. Small deficits are manageable in the short term, provided they are reversed within a year or so, but structural deficits do not work, either at small business level, large football club level, or Government level.

We now have a situation where HMRC is owed a shed load of money which never even belonged to Rangers, that Rangers has spent on running their club to gain a position they are not entitled to, whilst Mr White is a secured creditor and will get his money back again. And the upshot is that you me and every other football fan and taxpayer in the country, wealthy and poor, will end up paying more tax to cover the payments not made to HMRC. Disgraceful.

[pottersrightboot]

It is completely irresponsible to run a football club with an annual deficit of £10m, especially when that is after winning the title regularly.

People like Mr White shouldn't be allowed to even be appointed as a director of any company in my opinion, and he certainly should never be allowed to own or control a football club again.

Scottish football is in fnancial meltdown, but (and I know I've harped on about this time and again) all football clubs must run within their own means. Small deficits are manageable in the short term, provided they are reversed within a year or so, but structural deficits do not work, either at small business level, large football club level, or Government level.

We now have a situation where HMRC is owed a shed load of money which never even belonged to Rangers, that Rangers has spent on running their club to gain a position they are not entitled to, whilst Mr White is a secured creditor and will get his money back again. And the upshot is that you me and every other football fan and taxpayer in the country, wealthy and poor, will end up paying more tax to cover the payments not made to HMRC. Disgraceful.

Think you are being a bit unfair on the current owner.

Was it Mr White who entered into the debatable tax scheme? Was'nt it Murray? And why shoud'nt White have secured his position when he took over the club? Would'nt you advlse any clients of yours to do just the same?

The tax position has not been settled yet, it has not passed tribunal stage yet has it?

I will stand corrected if wrong on any or all of the above.

[Paul Cooper]

The £50m to £70M of course was due to a special way to pay employees and presumably avoid tax and NI. Allegedly there are 6-7 Premiership clubs that may have tried the same thing and maybe next to come into the spotlight from HMRE.

Agree totally about the deficits although I can't believe that there were not significant losses prior to Mr White arriving. Celtic are apparently in good health financially so whist Rangers 'bought ' titles, Celtic apear to have been living within their means.

Why do football clubs seem to behave so differently to much of business when oftent hey are run by 'businessmen'? Even at our football club I still wonder about paying people like Hutchinson and many like him, salaries that we couldn't afford whereas under CW we seem to have lived within our means and had prett good success.

Crazy

[Paul Cooper]

Rangers now confirmed as having enetred administration.

I spoke to a Rangers supporter a couple of months ago. He said that this tax issue was going to hit the fan. Interestingly said that there had already been discussions about Rangers forming a new company but being allowed to atay in the Scottish Premier League with a points deduction for a couple of seasons.

I really can't believe that this would happen, but in the crazy world of football where money talks ....

[recordmeister]

Roll on Independence...

[GodalmingYellow]

It is completely irresponsible to run a football club with an annual deficit of £10m, especially when that is after winning the title regularly.

People like Mr White shouldn't be allowed to even be appointed as a director of any company in my opinion, and he certainly should never be allowed to own or control a football club again.

Scottish football is in fnancial meltdown, but (and I know I've harped on about this time and again) all football clubs must run within their own means. Small deficits are manageable in the short term, provided they are reversed within a year or so, but structural deficits do not work, either at small business level, large football club level, or Government level.

We now have a situation where HMRC is owed a shed load of money which never even belonged to Rangers, that Rangers has spent on running their club to gain a position they are not entitled to, whilst Mr White is a secured creditor and will get his money back again. And the upshot is that you me and every other football fan and taxpayer in the country, wealthy and poor, will end up paying more tax to cover the payments not made to HMRC. Disgraceful.

Think you are being a bit unfair on the current owner.

Was it Mr White who entered into the debatable tax scheme? Was'nt it Murray? And why shoud'nt White have secured his position when he took over the club? Would'nt you advlse any clients of yours to do just the same?

The tax position has not been settled yet, it has not passed tribunal stage yet has it?

I will stand corrected if wrong on any or all of the above.

You can stand partially corrected. It was the previous owner who set up the scheme. However, the £9m petitioned for by HMRC this week has nothing to do with the dodgy tax scheme which could cost Rangers potentially £75m and would be the ruin of the club.

The £9m is for unpaid PAYE and VAT since the takeover.

And what about the £10m annual deficit that the club operates, whilst still signing highly paid players?

Presumably White did his due diligence and would have been aware of the PAYE scheme.

How can an honest director sign a player at £7,500 per week, knowing that the club was making these losses and wasn't paying it's PAYE and VAT? It is irresponsible in the extreme, and some might argue fraudulent.

And what about all the suppliers who will now likely lose everything owed to them?

No one should be allowed to run a business like that.

As for the tax scheme, from what I have read about it, it appears to be a blatant attempt to evade PAYE and NIC on directors and players salaries by describing the payments to them as loans and so deeming tax only being payable on the notional interest on the loans, rather than Income Tax and NIC on the money as employment salary. Sorry, but no one is entitled to treat salary as a loan so that other taxpayers can foot their bill It is pure greed and bears no recognition of the responsibility of every citizen to pay tax to fund public services and I truly hope Rangers FC feel the full weight of the law on this, whatever that means, and if necessary I hope HMRC go after the directors and players for the unpaid PAYE and NIC as well.

[theox]

Rangers now confirmed as having enetred administration.

I spoke to a Rangers supporter a couple of months ago. He said that this tax issue was going to hit the fan. Interestingly said that there had already been discussions about Rangers forming a new company but being allowed to atay in the Scottish Premier League with a points deduction for a couple of seasons.

I really can't believe that this would happen, but in the crazy world of football where money talks ....

Ken Bates and Leeds United did pretty much the same thing in 2007 (I think). He had to agree to a CVA and a points deduction to be given the 'Golden Share' to carry on playing in the league.

[Isaac]

It's Whyte, not White. And I suspect he knows exactly what he was doing, took out a big loan mortgaged on future ticket sales, stopped paying tax, probably just about broke even after the sale of Jelavic and then got into administration to avoid paying anything back. I bet Kassam is looking on in admiration.

The unpaid PAYE and NIC (the £9m mentioned by GY that is owed to the HMRC) is not unusual for football clubs, who often seem to treat this as a loan from HMRC, rather than something to pay at the time. In fact the reason a lot of clubs go into administration is that HMRC understandably get a bit fed up and have started pursuing it more aggressively.

The other 25-45-75million being spoken about - from the EBT is more interesting. I bet my house that Rangers are not the only club who have made use of one of these so there may be considerably more clubs about to have major issues if HMRC win the court case. EBT's have been around for years - I work as a contractor and they are popular among other contractors (they always looked a bit dodgy to me and I'm more risk-averse than most). See here
http://www.contractoruk.com/ebt/

The players/directors themselves might also be a little nervous, if the offshore trust decides to recall all the loans paid, then they could get demands to pay everything back.

[slappy]

I've seen a few clubs have notes in their accounts regarding image rights payments that HMRC are disputing.

What also annoys me is that everyone is jumping up and down about HMRC being owed money, but when in my interpretation a tax payer owned bank writes off 10MM owed by Gillingham, no-one bats an eyelid.

[pottersrightboot]

What a shambles. Whyte, (sic) was banned for 7 years from operating as a director in 2000. Did the Rangers supporters know this at the time of the takeover? Why did no one do their research?

I can't see Rangers being allowed to fail, they are a massive institution in Scotland. Political pressure will be put on HMRC to accept a workable pence in the pound deal in a CVA. I'm not certain that's the right way to go but that's what will happen.

Pompey is a different story. A real basket case, they might really go this time.

Still Harry Redknapp made a lot of money out of them for a number of years ao that's OK

Those poor old supporters. Sockless Nick looks like a pinprick in comparison.

[Paul Cooper]

The Telepgraph today (Roddy Forsyth) puts the blame squarely on David Murray.

After Rangers had the same turnover as Man U in 1986, when the Premiership started and the Sky money came rolling in Rangers apparenlty tried to keep up with English clubs.

In 3.5 years Rangers went from having £21m in the bank to being £21.7M in the red in 2001.

Goodness knows about Whyte's due diligence although he must have been well aware of the £50M risk when he took over, so could this have been the plan all along?

[Oxford Bhoy]

The huns are a complete mess. Craig Whyte/White (he's used both spellings as well as different birth dates on various official documents during his murky past) knew full well the extent of the club's problems when he bought them for a pound but wasn't bothered because his business is and always has been assett-stripping. For an outlay of just a quid, he's become the club's main secured creditor and looks sure to walk away from the mess with a tidy profit. I believe liquidation is his goal and I think the inactivity of his chosen administrators since their appointment is entirely due to his intention to acheive this.

Murray before him was guilty of allowing his ego and ambition to cloud his judgement and over two decades continually overspent. The knock-on effect on the rest of Scottish football has been most damaging and I believe Rangers are to blame largely for the lack of young Scottish talent breaking through which in turn has caused the decline of the national squad.

If it transpires that their over-spending was acheived by defrauding the British taxpayer then I think liquidation will be inevitable. They are now being investigated by the SPL, the SFA, the Charity Commission and the police so when even more shite hits the fan there may be titles being stripped and allsorts.

As a club, Rangers operated a sectarian employment policy for the best part of a century and at the very least a large minority of their support hankers for such &quotgood old days&quot. I, for one, will celebrate their death with jelly, ice cream and at least two large whiskies.

[BigCrompy]

As a club, Rangers operated a sectarian employment policy for the best part of a century and at the very least a large minority of their support hankers for such &quotgood old days&quot. I, for one, will celebrate their death with jelly, ice cream and at least two large whiskies.

One imagines there will be a bail out of some sort though whether you're for or against them, allowing them to die will surely be the death knell of the SPL. 2 moderate and 10 poor teams is bad enough, if Rangers cease to be and Ross and Falkirk come up this year, the title will be over by November every year and the league will become a laughing stock. This could not be good for Scotland.

Hard to disagree with your sentiments though - if their relative success was by unfair (not to mention criminal) means only then it must be punished much the same fate befell my beloved Melbourne Storm and their crimes were much less.

In fact the only good that can come of this is if Coisty finds himself out of work and keen on employment as Oxford's strikers coach - with occasional games coming off the bench. It's gonna happen...surely?

[Oxford Bhoy]

Why would anyone want to &quotbail them out&quot when the outcome of the Tax Tribunal is unknown? If Rangers lose this then they will be liable to HMRC for anything between £40m and £75m. With this unknown, nobody in their right mind is going to want to get involved.

With regards Scottish football without them, I think it'll take a few years but in the long-term I think/hope that other clubs will become more competitive and that more home-grown players will get the chance to break through, without clubs feeling the need to look beyond Scotland in a desperate attempt to hold on to Rangers' coat-tails.

What many forget and, indeed, many in England are unaware of, is that throughout history, clubs like Hibs, Aberdeen, Dundee United, Dunfermline and others have competed for, and won, honours in the Scottish game. There was a period from the mid sixties to the late seventies when Celtic dominated, simply because Jock Stein put together an awesome side but apart from that, the &quotold firm&quot whilst being the dominant force have had genuine competition for honours from quite a few other clubs.

It was only when Rangers started spending silly money in the mid-eighties that all clubs bar Celtic were left way, way behind. It may well transpire that this was done illegally. It is beyond doubt that, illegal or not, their spending was far in excess of their capabilities and they are paying the ultimate price for that right now, with administration, points deductions and enforced redundancies.

For all their protestations (no pun intended), many among the Rangers support will not return to support a new club or to watch them battle their way out of the third division, should they end up there. Hopefully, some of this missing support will return to their local clubs - Motherwell, Kilmarnock, Falkirk and so on and we will see a return to a genuinely competitive league.

[Isaac]

I've lived in scotland for about 18 months and watched all 4 scottish divisions in that time. The lower leagues really suffer from tiny crowds, expensive admission, 1/4 open stadiums and general apathy. I've watched 6 different clubs, but never gone back to any of them. For instance, Motherwell are 3rd in the top division and average less supporters per game than OUFC.

I've no affiliations to either Rangers or Celtic but from my point of view if Rangers go under (a distinct possibility as OxfordBhoy says) then the idea that the Rangers support would just start supporting their local teams is nonsense. Some might, but they'd soon return once Rangers were back in the top division. Even if 25% of Rangers support remained with the Phoenix club they'd be one of the best (if not the 2nd best) supported clubs in the country. Most premier league sides financially rely heavily on 4 visits per season from Celtic and Rangers. Dunfermline stopped paying their players after Rangers didn't pay their last bill, imagine a whole season of those problems. It would be carnage.