£47m Of Cheating Over 11 Years = £250k Fine

By Antipodean Red

The first part of this piece was written in June last year as the proverbial was hitting the fan, it never got around to the publishing stage but for what it’s worth, it still may be considered a decent and maybe pertinent read for those of us of a green or some might say, honest persuasion. The second part will become very clear by its timeline alone.

Like most Celtic fans and those of many other clubs, I have been following the unfolding developments on the south side of Glasgow for the past few months, admittedly with a degree of merriment at times but with a feeling that after fifty years on the planet, this particular institution was not going to go away quietly if in fact it was ever going to go away at all. I come from the time when job interviews at BK or Barr & Stroud were mere formalities where someone from Saint somewhere made up the quota numbers required to satisfy the laws of the land.

This leads nicely to the laws of the land and exactly where the little man stands in regard of these laws. Apart from the obvious news this week there was also the trivial matter that a notable bank may have been attempting to manipulate the inter-bank interest rates to improve profit, the immediate sanction was that three top executives would lose their bonus, for what? Getting caught maybe? Move on to the outrageous shenanigans of the Murdoch empire and phone hacking and fast forward to the appearance at Parliament, mock tears and no responsibility for what has gone on, in fact a complete denial that they knew anything like this went on in their company. All of this following on from the biggest banking scandal in living memory where, once again, no-one was responsible. All three of these scandals and not one person has come close to seeing the garden of a five-star open prison. But, throw a stone at an Edinburgh banker’s house and there’s round the clock protection for the house, the house that has no-one inside?

You couldn’t make this stuff up.

So bearing in mind what we have witnessed above, is it any wonder that the cretins who have bastardised Scottish Football at both administration and playing level, think that they can do whatever the hell they like and expect to get away scot free. In fact, it’s a major surprise that the old institution in Govan has not yet asked for a non-repayable bailout. Let’s nail a few things here, these people on the South side are only sorry that they got caught because otherwise, this ruse would still be operating and every club in Scotland and some European opponents would still be suffering at their expense. Here in Australia, a scandal like one of this magnitude would attract a Royal Commission where an eminent judge would be appointed with unlimited powers to call witnesses and obtain documents and computer records. It is simply amazing that in Scotland that there does not yet seem to have been any mention of a Public Enquiry into the goings on at what was Rangers Football Club. I’m quite sure I can see the reasons for why not, there are almost certainly too many people up the slippery pole who may end up at the bottom end and close to that five-star prison garden. A Public Enquiry should be the minimum that is demanded of this situation.

Next up and as soon as the results are announced (if they ever are) in relation to the dual contracts, clubs and fans should enter a class action against the entity called Rangers to demand reparation for all of the prize monies, loss of actual and if possible, potential earnings and removal of any trophies attained while alleged cheating occurred. It may be that this only goes back apparently until 1997 but anyone who was around during the late 80’s and early to mid 90’s should not be at all surprised if this method of ‘gaining an advantage’ was also going on then.

It was interesting to read Billy Dodd’s view that he won his only championship medal fair and square on the park and that Mark Viduka and Lubo Moravcik would not want a medal from way back whenever. Get real, why would you want to hold onto a medal when the team that you played for may have cheated to get it. It’s like when you play medal golf on a Saturday, you suspect that the guy with the bad lie in the rough has just kicked his ball to a better lie but you can’t be sure. Only you know that if you were to do such a thing that the medal you might win would never sit proudly in your cabinet, it would just gnaw away at you until you threw it in the bin. Billy, that’s where your championship medal most probably belongs wee man!

I am heartened by what I read on a number of club fanzines in respect of fair play and integrity and although I don’t attend games in Scotland any longer, I well remember better days of going to various grounds around the country and being given a game and sometimes a lesson at any one of Easter Road, Pittodrie or Tannadice. Maybe we have to look at a more equitable share of the spoils to ensure a healthy competition. In contrast, I am not surprised by the constant bile and hatred that emanates from a variety of poisonous web pages over south. Until there is some kind of acceptance of wrongdoing and a willingness to face up to the magnitude of what has gone on for at least twenty years, this institution is one that Scotland can well do without and their crimes should be prosecuted to the fullest extent.

As the original title says, the only thing they are sorry about is the fact that they got caught!

Now, fast forward to the start of March 2013, hey presto, the rest of us were all wrong, gotcha! The FTTT is still on appeal by HMRC and not resolved, the Nimmo Smith ‘inquiry’ is complete and has found the old entity GUILTY of non-disclosure of the side letters but there was no on-field advantage gained? Come again, no on-field advantage gained? I must be missing something here, exactly what was the point of having EBT’s and if everything was so sweet, why the need to not declare the side letters. If there was no advantage then why the elaborate tax avoidance scheme. Is there any journalist in Scotland who will ask this very simple question?  Don’t hold your breath. They (Rangers oldco) have been entirely vindicated despite being found guilty by LNS and the fact that the FTTT has yet to be resolved. All the while, the former secretary at the old entity continues to retain his position at the top of one of the governing bodies tasked with getting to the bottom of this mess.

As for the so called main stream media, barely any questions on what has really gone on here, outside of Mark Daly and Alex Thomson, the lack of any credible investigative journalism is quite simply staggering. An absolutely mammoth web of intrigue and no-one seems capable of taking up the challenge, oh for the days of ‘World in Action’. Did David Murray really try to cut a deal with HMRC, if so why? Did the previous board members at Rangers Oldco really bring in shredding machines, if so why? Were the old Rangers board members reluctant to assist with the enquiry, if so why. Why is no-one asking even the simple questions? Is it because they are afraid that they will also be targeted with hate mail and death threats or is it that there is simply no journalist in Scotland worthy of the name?

Think about it, in a week that has seen Inter Milan fined 50,000 Euros by the governing body of Italian football because their fans racially abused AC Milan’s Mario Balotelli, in a week that has seen Lazio ordered by Uefa to play their next two home games in Europe behind closed doors as well as being fined 40,000 Euros, in this same week, fans of the new Rangers were clearly heard on the national stage and to the embarrassment of the host broadcaster, spew forth sectarian bile that has sickened many Rangers fans yet the silence from the governing bodies in Scotland is deafening.

This entire scandal is not one for The Rangers alone; this scandal encompasses the governing bodies of the game in Scotland and the incompetence and self-interest that runs through these organisations. They were left wanting at the FTTT and now they have been found to have been left wanting again at LNS, either by error of judgment or design, that part is for each of us to speculate on however, the only thing that will bring all of this out into the open, is a full public inquiry into the workings of the SFA/SFL/SPL together with a full public inquiry into the entire Rangers fiasco as I first stated in June of last year.

Finally, let me finish off with an analogy of the oldco/newco situation with maybe a little bit of humour but not to leave any doubt as to the meaning.  Let’s say you have a nice shiny flash blue sports car, it has one of these new fangled insurance policies that offers a new for old clause. I decide that I will run my flash car at 180km/h while all around are running at 120km/h, no problem until one day the engine blows but the insurance company puts a new engine back in for me. I’m invincible, let’s run it up to 200km/h until suddenly I lose control and hit a wall at 200km/h, hell it’s a write-off and only 54,000 kilometres on the clock! But no worries, I’ve got my new for old clause; the insurance company gives me a brand new flash blue sports car. I nip down to the scrappy for my beloved seat covers, they’re still in good nick, I grab the old badges from the front and back of the wreck, goodness how I loved those old badges and it’s off to put my new blue sports car back into the same old garage, I give it the once over, my brand new sports car, my beloved seat covers back in place, the old badges in the glove box and 10 kilometres on the clock!

Antipodean Red