Bluedell

Nobody knows. He has certainly never claimed that it had now been made, but that doesn't prove anything.

I can't see Norwich letting him go and my worry is that Whyte knows this and will use him as an excuse as to why he ended up not spending any cash as the club put all their efforts into signing him. Hope I'm wrong as he'd be a good signing.

I don't think I'd agree with that. That interpretation goes beyond semantics, and if what you are suggesting is true then what he is saying is, in my opinion, a bare-faced lie.

The club will always have VAT outstanding (unless they have just bought a player) so it's hard for him to say that there's no VAT outstanding. However the point that you and FS are making is a fair one and I wasn't trying to make any other point than Whyte is accusing the DR of lying.

Like Craig, I'd say that it's difficult to say definitively. My gut feel is that it would be slightly worse but not anywhere near as bad as some claim. However going forward, it sounds that there won't be any difference between the two. Both the bank and Whyte say that we have to live within our means and we have to sell players if we fail in Europe.

I'd heard of him and he was fairly well known in the corporate finance world, which was why he was brought into the club by SDM as it was to get involved with the G51 project. However I agree that his comments post-takeover have been less than helpful.

He does appear to be accusing them of lying.

Did the previous management use it for season ticket money 3-4 years in the future or only the current year to solve a short term funding issue?

Certainly as a right back. McMillan looks far better there, but we need Bartley as a replacement in case Goian or Bocanegra are missing.

Yup. Totally agree with that, but if we take it as a given that the cash was actually transferred on the date that they said, it seems even less likely that Ticketus were willing to allow control of the cash to pass prior to the deal being done. The 4 weeks is very unusual but perhaps there were a reason for it (and it may not just be the reason that FS suggested earlier - which I'm really hoping isn't true).

I don't see where they are getting their figures from. They look crap to me.

It may or may not be critical. If the cash was just being held in a Ticketus client account then it doesn't really matter. What's more important is when Whyte/Rangers had access to it.

Chances are that Whyte would not have had access to the cash and would not have had the ability to withhold the cash.

Agreed, Craig. Any deal done would be provisional.

They may think that they had good reason but I certainly wouldn't be happy if HMRC started showing commercial documents to ex-non execs of any company that I was involved in. I'd be putting in official complaints about it. He's also seen letters from Whyte written before Whyte had anything to do with the club. I can't see any justification for this. As for the question, a simple wording change would make it stack up.

It is unusual for HMRC to show a whole load of documents to ex-directors while asking these questions. A simple question is "do you know anything about an arrangement with Ticketus?" When a no answer comes back, why would HMRC then go through the details with the said director?

Since when has a set of accounts had to list all of its creditors? Anyway, who's to say that we ever had a balance due to them in any of our accounts? All Whyte said was that the facility was there. He never claimed that we had ever used it. Must try harder.

So it's been included in the accounts as freehold property for over 10 years and signed off by our auditors but you know better than them? The land certificate shows that we paid £925,000 for the freehold but perhaps that's a fake.

Bump .

VAT returns are normally done quarterly.

It's strange that Paul Murray has so much information for someone who is no longer a director. Presumably a lot of it is commercially sensitive and therefore I'd suggest HMRC have no right to show him this. I see the article is claiming that the wage bill had been reduced to £14m when whyte took over. The wage bill was £24m in the previous year, so I'd be interested to know how the club managed to get £10m off the wage bill in the 2010/2011 season. If that's crap, you have to ask what else in the article is crap. If it true then it is deeply concerning. It's extremely bad business to mortgage your future income as was shown in the case of Leeds and I'm highly sceptical that it's common-place for clubs to take income from 3 years forward in advance as is suggested. If and when the accounts are produced, they will make interesting reading and it should become fairly clear as to how much truth there is in this. I agree with Franker that both the Assembly and Trust should be on to this immediately.

You're conveniently forgetting about the £37 million that he paid for the lease in 2004. Murray Park is largely freehold so there's not much similarlity.

Does anyone seriously believe that Murray wants back into the club? He lost interest in it many years ago and going forward we are just going to be a cash-drain. He's glad that he's got rid of us and I can't see one possible reason why he would want back in. Been there, done that. Where would Murray get the finance for the club anyway? Lloyds are not going to get involved with us to any extent in the future. Murray has enough business problems with MIH. Why would he saddle himself with another that took him long enough to get rid of in the first place?

So did he play as a winger? Wide midfielder?

I'd largely agree with this. Aluko is far more consistent. Weiss at his very best could be better but if I was picking one I would go for Aluko due to his far greater consistency.