THE man almost every Rangers fan loves to hate, highly paid spin doctor, Jack Irvine, could find himself at the centre of a new storm over an alleged email which appears to have claimed that for a payment to an agent, confidential tax information about Dave King could be bought from the South African authorities.

The alleged bombshell statement from Jack Irvine comes in an email, which if it is authentic, - and it comes from the same source which included the email which contained the Irvine slur on John Greig - suggests that for a payment someone in the South African Revenue Service could provide their secret files on King .

There is no evidence to suggest that anything ever came of this, likewise, there is no evidence it did not.

In the email Jack Irvine is alleged to have said that there was an opportunity to meet with an agent of the South African Revenue Service and that for a payment, it is alleged Irvine claimed that agent could deliver the secret South African Government files on Dave King.

I have a copy of the email which appears to have been sent from Jack Irvine’s Media House email address on June 21^st 2011, just after Craig Whyte had conned Sir David Murray into selling Rangers to him for £1 and then paid off Lloyds Bank with cash he illegally raised from Ticketus before he concluded the deal which made him Rangers owner. Whyte was assisted by lawyer Gary Withey, then of London law firm Collyer Bristow. He no longer works there.

The email was sent to “Gary and Craig.” In the email, which was allegedly written by Jack Irvine, is the advice that it had to be established whether “Dave King was temporarily or permanently toxic.”

The email also adds that  “enclosed is a diary item from the Sunday Times of South Africa which is a) good because all the witnesses appear to be dead b) bad – because the case is delayed once again until November.”

That was of course November 2011. King is now free to invest in Rangers after having resolved his difficulties with the South African Revenue Service.

Irvine, however, still seems hell bent on trying to dish the dirt on King. On Friday, in the wake of the news that King is planning a comeback to become chairman of a new Rangers board and then invest mega millions, Irvine sent an email to a number of newspaper editors which claimed that AIM, on which Rangers are listed on the London Stock Exchange, would not allow King to become a director.

This followed false claims on a number of Celtic web sites which said that King would not pass the Scottish Football Association’s fit and proper person test.

All of which raises an interesting question.  In whose interest is Jack Irvine working? Rangers, who employ him as a consultant and whose executive directors, Craig Mather and Brian Stockbridge, plus non executive director, Bryan Smart, want Dave King back on the board? Or non executive director James Easdale, who along with brother Sandy, also employs Irvine as a spin doctor and who may take a different view of Dave King’s return to the Blue Room?

Which poses another more pertinent question. Is Jack Irvine conflicted?

No doubt, if he returns in triumph, the extremely wealthy Dave King, a hard man if ever there was one, will sort out the issues surrounding Jack Irvine and Media House once and for all.

It was only fit and proper that Paul Murray should have once again have raised the issue of who it is who really owns a large chunk of Rangers.

For without knowing who they are, there is no way of knowing what their motivation in investing in Rangers was and what their intentions are.

The two major players who continue to hide behind a cloak of anonymity, who keep cowering behind collective names and who operate in the shadows without any clarity are Blue Pitch Holding and Margarita Funds Holding Trust, who, between them own more than 10 per cent of Rangers.

As things stand the combined Blue Pitch Holdings and Margarita stake in Rangers are votes in the bank for chief executive Craig Mather and financial director Brian Stockbridge as they fight to keep their well paid jobs.

The assumption must therefore be that Blue Pitch Holding and Margarita are pleased with the way the board’s only two executive directors – particularly financial director Stockbridge – are doing business inside the Rangers boardroom on behalf of their investment.

That, despite the fact last month Stockbridge was stampeded into going public with an admission that, of the money from two years of season ticket sales, plus various other substantial income streams over the past year, along with the £22.5M from the share issue in December, only £10M remained.

The current Rangers directors have been keen to get to the bottom of who it is who is behind the Jim McColl-Paul Murray led moves by concerned institutional investors from the Square Mile to unseat them at next month’s Annual General Meeting and they have had them jump through hoops.

However, McColl and Murray have been happy to do so. For they are businessmen of absolute acumen, complete probity and reputation. People, just like those institutional investors, with nothing to hide.

On the other hand, the Rangers directors have continually refused to reveal to the rest of the club’s shareholders, including those Square Mile institutional investors who are dissatisfied  with the way they are running Rangers, just who it is who is behind Blue Pitch Holding and Margarita.

Why? If they have nothing to hide, why are they hiding it? If the shadowy people who lurk behind Blue Pitch Holding and Margarita have nothing to hide why do they continue to hide?

A year ago the man who was then the main representative on the Rangers board of Blue Pitch Holding and Margarita, former chief executive Charles Green, denied that Arif Naqvi of Abraaj Capital, was the man behind Blue Pitch Holdings. Green, however, tellingly admitted that Naqvi was a personal friend and that he had approached him to become involved in Rangers, but that he had not invested.

Green then named Mazen Houssani as the front man for Blue Pitch Holdings. But then again, as we know from many of his pronouncements  - Dallas Cowboys and Manchester United, anyone? – Charles Green says more than his prayers.

Something else which Charles Green said, was that the Scottish Football Association were made aware of who all the beneficial owners of Rangers were at the time of them granting Rangers a licence to play.

Perhaps there may be some legal option open to Jim McColl and Paul Murray to get a sight of the list Charles Green says he gave to the SFA.

Or, perhaps the SFA, in the interests of honesty and openness and in the interest of a founding member club’s safety and continued good financial health, may feel they should take the bold step of revealing who all of the beneficial owners of Rangers are.

For as things stand, the men inside the Rangers boardroom seem hell bent on ensuring that the rest of the club’s shareholders cannot decide for themselves just why two far eastern based, seemingly shadowy organisations, should want to invest substantial sums in Rangers when it is almost certain there is no opportunity for their investment to provide any substantial profit.

Therefore, if making a substantial profit is not the motive for the Blue Pitch Holding and Margarita investment, just what is their motive?

That is the question which should be troubling and exercising the minds of all of the other Rangers shareholders, individual fans, supporters organisations, others such as Mike Ashley and institutional investors alike.

At the moment, the only way of getting to the bottom of what may give the appearance of being the sinister purposes of the Blue Pitch Holding and Margarita investment in Rangers, is for the current two executive directors to be voted off the Rangers board at the Annual General Meeting and men who will get to the bottom of this sordid seeming tale and who will unmask who is behind Blue Pitch Holding and Margarita Funds Holding Trust, voted on.   

THE curious case of the Scottish media’s news blackout on why such a substantial business figure as Frank Blin withdrew from his friend and business associate Jim McColl’s ticket get more curious with each passing day.

Does no news editor want to know why?

And if not, why not?

It is not as though there were not enough hints dropped and steers sent out by Paul Murray when he spoke on the wireless a week past on Saturday.

Murray more or less invited newspapers to follow up and pursue the story. The Blin withdrawal is a mystery to the masses. Something which has never been properly explained.

And what do newspapers exist for if not to explain mysteries to the masses? What is the purpose of newspapers if not to reveal reasons for why what has happened? The story behind the story, if you like.

And this one may turn out to be a cracker. Yet newspapers seem reluctant to try to get to the bottom of it and unearth the reason behind it.

As I have said, it is indeed curious.

Let me tell you for certain what the reason is most emphatically not. It is not because Frank Blin does not believe what Jim McColl and Paul Murray are doing is right. He believes all right.

In fact Blin, a lifelong Rangers supporter and a highly respected man in the sort of exalted financial circles where there is probity, passionately believes in the justice and probity of the Jim McColl and Paul Murray cause. He believes it is the right one for Rangers.

However, one thing I can make clear to Rangers supporters and to those inside Ibrox, plus those outside of the Stadium who do the bidding of those inside Ibrox, is this.

Jim McColl will not be put off. Jim McColl will not succumb to any sort of pressure. He in this fight for the heart and soul of Rangers, for the good of Rangers, right to the bitter end.

Let me also make something else clear. The silence of newspapers regarding Frank Blin should not be interpreted as a criticism of my old press pack pals on the sports desks.

It is aimed at the heart of the news desks and the editors’ offices, particularly at Scotland two biggest selling daily newspapers, the Sun and the Record.

Why is it they do not want the public to know the reasons behind Frank Blin’s withdrawal from this tussle? Why are they not showing natural journalistic curiosity?

It is, indeed, curious!

.....

        AND......

SALES of my new book, STRUTH! The Story of an Ibrox Legend are going well, it has been reported to me by staff at Waterstones in Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street and Argyle Street.

And any fans who want to buy their copy from either of those two shops should hurry while the copies I signed at the weekend are still available.

Go on, treat yourself, or the Rangers fan in your life.

THE under fire Rangers board’s spin doctor, Jack Irvine has branded highly respected and extremely successful Scottish businessman Jim McColl a “Bullshit Billionaire.”

The latest Irvine outburst comes nearly three weeks after Rangers chief executive Craig Mather promised a mini investigation into another lowlife Irvine insult when, in an email, Rangers controversial consultant PR man Irvine called the Greatest Ever Ranger, John Greig, thick.

That promise of a probe from Mather came a week after the Rangers Supporters Association, the Rangers Assembly and the Rangers Supporters Trust issued an angry joint statement deploring the Irvine email and its slur on Greig, whose statue stands outside Ibrox Stadium as a tribute to the 66 people killed in the Ibrox Disaster.

Now comes the latest intemperate and ill judged intervention from Irvine in a series of disgusting insults aimed at the quietly spoken and highly regarded in the real world Jim McColl.

For the avoidance of doubt the fact of Jim McColl’s wealth, as contained in the well informed Sunday Times Rich List for Scotland, published on 21^st April this year, is that it stands at £1BILLION.

Though the self effacing McColl is more likely to play down claims that he is a billionaire and instead use that wonderfully modest West of Scotland phrase, beloved of those from the working class who have done well, that he is worth a few bob

Irvine, never a man to let the facts get in the way of his guttersnipe insults, made his “Bullshit Billionaire” comments in a conversation with BBC Scotland’s economics and business editor, Douglas Fraser.

And the exchanges were out there for millions to see as they took place on Twitter on Friday evening.

That was the same day as Irvine’s favourite poodle of a paper, the Sun, published a wildly inaccurate story which stated as a matter of fact that Paul Murray and Frank Blin had joined the Rangers board.

Twenty four hours later the same Sun had to snivel and climb down in another story, a short story, buried deep inside the paper. It was not even a proper apology, but attempted to retract that falsehood in a sneaky way.

Where the falsehood about Blin and Murray, which the Sun printed as fact, came from is anybody’s guess.

However, that particular story’s total lack of accuracy was in line with many of the other stories which Irvine has planted in the Sun, despite being on record in an email which I have in my possession – copies being kept safe by others – which says Irvine thinks Sun editor Andy Harries should be sacked.

Now, emboldened by Rangers backing his “thick” slur on John Greig, Jack Irvine has taken to Twitter, making grossly offensive and insulting remarks about Jim McColl.

CAN the people of Scotland trust BBC Scotland? Can BBC Scotland be trusted with the news?

Can BBC Scotland be believed? Can BBC Scotland’s many staff journalists and its numerous regular freelance contributors be trusted to report the news in a fair, accurate, balanced and totally truthful way?

These are big questions, especially as we are the midst of a Referendum campaign which will decide whether Scotland remains as part of the United Kingdom or becomes a separate country, a decision which will impact on everyone.

It is therefore of vital importance that the language of this debate, when used by broadcasters, accurately reflects what is factual and verifiable.

The same is true of any other major political, economic, or, indeed any story, be it news, sport or the arts, which is reported by BBC Scotland’s broadcasters on television or radio.

Unfortunately the answer to these major questions are all in the negative. No, BBC Scotland cannot be trusted with the news. BBC Scotland cannot be believed. BBC Scotland’s vast army of staff journalists and their numerous freelance contributors cannot be trusted to report in a fair accurate balanced and totally truthful way.

These are the conclusions which must be drawn after the news has been leaked that BBC Scotland bosses are to challenge the judgement of the BBC Trust that Rangers cannot be referred to as a new club.

The BBC Trust, the final court of arbitration within the BBC, reached this conclusion when it studied judgements from two learned Scottish judges, Lord Glennie and Lord Nimmo Smith, from the Scottish Football Association and from UEFA, among many others, who have all ruled that Rangers may be a Newco, but remain the same club with all of its history intact.

At least two BBC employees dispute this. They dispute not one, but two legal rulings from two of Scotland’s most eminent judges. The two are BBC Scotland staff reporter, Jim Spence and BBC Scotland freelance employee, Graham Spiers – aka Odious Creep – who has now dragged the Herald into the row after being allowed by his supine sports editor, former Celtic View editor Donald Cowie, to write in support of Jim Spence.

He has been joined in this by the fiercely pro Irish Republican National Union of Journalists and the union’s Celtic and Liverpool supporting Scottish organiser Paul Halloran, plus some of the other usual suspects, the fanatical IRA supporting Philmacgiollabhain – who holds a senior positon in the NUJ and who the Press Complaints Commision agree is a bigot - and his pal Angela Haggerty, who has roped the once respected Drum magazine, which claims to cover local media matters, into the rumpus.

It is a curious alliance. Surely one would expect the National Union of Journalists to be a bastion in defence of truth and accuracy? The opposite, however, appears to be the case. The NUJ now seems to be saying that flying in the face of facts is to be accepted and admired as is official National Union of Journalists policy.

The NUJ further seems to be saying that Jim Spence’s blatant disregard for the facts, that his inaccurate and truly low standard of reporting is not only to be accepted, but actually actively encouraged.

Which is exactly the stance BBC Scotland appear to be taking. For a report in the Herald – the paper Odious Creep writes for – that BBC Scotland have apologised for what Jim Spence said, is more than wildly exaggerated. It is just downright wrong. As factually inaccurate and incorrect as what Jim Spence said on BBC Scotland to spark the row.

The story, headlined in the Herald “BBC SAYS SORRY OVER SPENCE’S RANGERS COMMENTS” was, boasts the Herald, the paper’s on line edition’s most read story this week.

Except, the BBC did not apologise, leaving the  Herald looking as though it is colluding in BBC Scotland’s lie by printing a second lie.

Let us be clear. BBC Scotland has not apologised for Jim Spence saying that Rangers are a new club. That, unlike much of what you hear on BBC Scotland from Jim Spence and Odious Creep and what Odious Creep writes in the Herald, is the fact of the matter.

Now, the trouble for BBC Scotland is they have placed the organisation in a bad place by backing Jim Spence for what appeared his wilful disregard for the BBC Trust’s judgement and directive.

That place is alongside the Republican militant and publicly branded bigot , Philmacgoillabhain and his sidekick, Angela Haggerty.

It is a place which will see everything any of BBC Scotland broadcasters report or comment on, especially during the run up to the Referendum, disbelieved. That is what happens to a news organisation when its credibility is undermined and destroyed by rank rotten journalism.

There are many fine journalists within BBC Scotland, both staff and on the freelance payroll. Men and woman who are diligent and painstaking in the way they report the news. I know many of them are worried about their integrity and their reputation for honesty, being damaged by BBC Scotland’s support for Jim Spence’s lie.

A number of them may also privately express their concern at the nature of those who are lining up to support Jim Spence.

For they know that BBC Scotland’s backing of Jim Spence and his lie means that BBC Scotland cannot be trusted by the people of Scotland to report the news in a fair, balanced, accurate and more importantly, honest way.

THE RANGERS accounts will be audited by the same company where a man who Charles Green claimed was his pal, holds a senior position.

The Ibrox board have brought in Deloitte to forensically examine the books and to provide an independent audit of the accounts to be sent out to shareholders ahead of the club’s Annual General Meeting which has been promised for next month.

But now I can reveal that the man who heads up a division of the Deloitte company which will be responsible for that independent audit is Sean Beech who is a partner specialising in corporate tax and is head of Deloitte’s Liverpool office.

Sean Beech’s name first surfaced and was first associated with Rangers in the spring of 2012 when it was mentioned by Charles Green on numerous occasions to a number of different people during the period when Green was desperately seeking to establish his credentials and reputation in Scotland as he fronted the still mysteriously funded takeover of Rangers which was facilitated by controversial administrators, Duff and Phelps.

Green is alleged to have cited Deloitte high flyer Sean Beech as someone who he had done business with on a number of previous occasions and who could therefore vouch for him as a businessman.

Now the same Deloitte outfit where Sean Beech holds a senior position will be conducting the much sought after and long awaited so called independent audit of the Rangers books.

But the link which Charles Green claimed he has with Sean Beech throws doubt on the appearances of propriety when it comes to the Rangers audit. An audit which must be totally independent and above any suspicion, whether justified or not.

It was also Deloitte who investigated any link Charles Green had with Craig Whyte and cleared Green. Though that is still a matter which is being looked into.

Now the involvement of Deloitte in the audit of the Rangers books, particularly if there is any involvement in the process by Sean Beech, someone who Charles Green claimed as a business associate and friend who could vouch for him, will be a matter of concern to all Rangers supporters.

Just as the joint statement from the Trust, Association and Assembly demanding a date for the accounts to be published and a date for the AGM shows the concern fans have for the club’s financial well being.

This whole business – the alleged links between his senior employee Sean Beech and the apparent delaying tactics by Rangers in releasing the audited accounts to shareholders and naming a date for the AGM - should also be a matter of concern to Deloitte chairman David Cruickshank and senior partner and chief executive, David Sproul and the man who runs the Deloitte operation in Scotland and Northern Ireland, Ian Steele, who is based in the company’s George Square offices in Glasgow.

If, however, Sean Beech has had no previous business dealings with Charles Green and if he does not even know Charles Green, then Sean Beech must make a public statement to that effect.

For the avoidance of doubt, any reporter wishing to follow this story and give Sean Beech the opportunity to make such a statement, then Sean Beech can be contacted on 0151 242 9109 or 07785308650 or by email at sbeech@deloitte.co.uk