Mountain Bear

I should have added that I'll boycott any sponsor the SPL sign up too.

I emailed the SPL yesterday to say that if this affront to natural justice actually happens, then I will never attend, or pay to view another SPL fixture. It's not just fans of other clubs that can apply pressure. Enquiries@scotprem.com

It appears that when Juventus were stripped of their 04/05 title it wasn't awarded to anyone and is shown as being "revoked". They were punished for match fixing, while we're threatened with the world's most severe footballing punishment for an admin issue that's a long way from being clear cut. Unbelievable.

Indeed. Sir Guy of Gisbourne was one of the bad guys and Robin Hood cut off his head in the original story. I hope that any resemblance to fictional characters is purely coincidental, as we need someone who'll give to the poor, not take from us!

I'd love to know how they arrived at the number of 5 titles and 4 cups. Does that cover every season that ANY of the EBT players were still with Rangers? It feels like every aspect of every instance of wrongdoing has been treated in isolation, so that the authorities can maximise the impact on us. If we dig our heels in on anything, for me this would be it. I don't give a damn about player registration bans by comparison. I hope Green gets that message.

There are many aspects to the CW saga that simply don't add up and have been puzzling me for ages. As a "corporate recovery specialist", he would know better than anyone that withholding PAYE would trigger action from HMRC, so we have to assume he was goading them into seeking an administration situation. Similarly, I don't believe he was so stupid as to have a business plan that had a £10m annual hole in it if we didn't make the CL group stages. As for the Ticketus deal, it made no sense in the medium term, if you wanted the business to trade out of its problems. So, you have to think that either he's a complete idiot and doesn't know his own industry, or he's engineered the whole situation with an eye to making a few quid - the question is how? Was he simply taking a low risk punt by using season ticket funds to purchase the club in the hope we might win the BTC? Or, did he think he'd be able to engineer a situation where as a preferred creditor he'd be able to retain ownership of the main assets and lease them back to a newco? If so, then he was really way out of his depth. That leaves me wondering what was his angle? Did he manage to squirrell away sufficient cash during his time in charge to make it worth all the grief? I doubt it, especially as he must have known that this more than any other insolvency event in Scottish history would have people crawling all over the paper trail. While I don't necessarily believe that CW is behind, or even associated with Sevco, the absence of a coherent explanation of what he was trying to achieve does still worry me and I find myself hoping that he was just an idiot after all. Gunslinger, would you care to shed any more light on why your contact thinks he is still in the picture?

So, on one hand CG knows that refusing the SFA's terms for membership would be business suicide for our Club and on the other, Regan knows that Rangers cannot be guaranteed to get out of Div 3 with a team of kids. Surely, they'll compromise on allowing us to register free agents? Or would that be too much like common sense for Scottish football.....

I'm sorry, but I don't believe a word of this. There is no guarantee that we'd survive a 12 month suspension financially (those players who have agreed to transfer their contacts to sevco would still need to be paid and our income would be pitiful). I don't think that will have escaped the SFA. Nor do i accept the logic that a desire to block our re-admission to the SPL indicates any greater likelihood that the SFA would block our admission to the SFL. What has been widely reported is that an SPL 2 option will be looked at if the SFL reject the Div 1 plan and that is a different matter entirely. In the circumstances it makes complete sense for the Appellate Tribuneral to await the outcome of the current SFL discussions, before deciding what sanctions to impose. I think we've all been though so many bizarre twists in this sorry story that some of us see plots and intrigue where none exist.

Fair point UCF. Equally, as we're not a completely new club, we can't use newco status as a reason to reject sanctions relating to previous wrongdoing.

My big team (Rangers) finally gets some rational support and it happens to come from my wee team (Stenny), who will still be my wee team if we go to Div 1, but would be my big team if we go to Div3!

The sanctions listed aren't that severe IMO. A newco would normally have to start from Div 3 anyway, so relegation from the SPL is meaningless. As a newco we don't meet the rules for Europe, so that's not a punishment as such (damaging though it is). That leaves a fine and a 12 months ban on signing new players. My view is that our fans want us to go to Div3, so if SPL / SFA want us in Div 1 that badly, then they need to relax the ban so we can at least sign free agents this year (apart from anything else there's no guarantee that we'd be promoted otherwise). My real worry is what they decide to do if we're found to have entered into double contracts. They can't afford to terminate our membership, so it's down to a Scottish Cup ban, or stripping us of titles - and they rejected the cup ban as too lenient before.......

Perhaps. We'd certainly find out who means it when they sing "Follow, Follow" though.

Pish? We were running a £1m / month deficit with the current squad. Has our income gone up since the season ended?

Why have all parties involved not acted sooner to clarify the legal / football position? We can't afford their wages anyway, so the big earners were always going to leave, but I'd assumed that Green would have agreed an exit route with them that allowed both club and player to benefit (ie transfer over and you can go for the fee negotiated during administration, or perhaps even a little less). I also can't help feeling that the players have been poorly advised on this - it'll be them that end up having to make Webster style payments for breech of contract if a court finds in favour of the club, but the agents will have pocketed their fees and won't be handing any of it back. As for the players - I'm far more disappointed in the "we owe no loyalty to newco" comments than in their actions.

Agree that we can't judge the Green appointees, but they were only ever going to be short term, however good they are. Was it a mistake taking Green head on in public? Well, I think it will have reduced the amount of profit Green and co pocket at the end of this, but equally you can argue that it's destabilising to the newco's short term financing. I guess you take your pick and while I don't grudge Green & co a modest return for all the time and grief they've gone through, I don't want them to suck up too much cash from those who have the long term interests of the club at heart.

Smith provides a rallying point for the support (hopefully) to unite around. Green & co were always going to "flip" the club at the first profitable opportunity, so I'd much rather it was to a group that a) are known to me b) have serious money c) whose motives are clear and d) I trust. I particularly trust this group to appoint the right calibre of individual to run the club / company and I think it's highly unlikely that they'll be doing it themselves. My one hope is that this can be sorted quickly and that will depend on how much working capital Green has available, how flexible Smith's backers are prepared to be on price and who blinks first....

The guys involved will be used to scenario planning. I don't think its unlikely at all that they can put together investment plans to cover both Div 3 / SPL routes, especially if they're not especially concerned about the short term return on that investment.

GovenAllan, HMRC wanted to keep the club going until the result of the BTC so they could get a judgement to use against other clubs. What's more they knew that they'd get nothing out of a winding up of the club, whereas they'd get something from a CVA. If you recall, they were going other things to make life difficult - arrestment orders etc.

I thought the original judgement was harsh at the time, but having read the both it and the appeal, not so sure about that. Deliberately withholding £13m tax & PAYE to use to pay players is not a minor offence - as the panel said, the only thing worse would be match fixing. In law, the argument that it was the actions of an individual not the corporate entity doesn't hold water (there was a case involving Tesco which set the president on that). As for the sanctions, the panel were empowered to make up a new sanction if they felt that none of the existing ones were suitable. Personally, I don't think a ban from the Scottish Cup for 1 season would be sufficient deterrent for other clubs (let's face it many clubs would expect to go out in round 1 anyway). Instead of blaming everyone else for the mess we're in, let's face facts, our Club has been run in the most shockingly poor way. Taking massive risks on a tax avoidance scheme, the owner responsible for that then selling the club to a dodgy character whom everyone in the know said we should avoid, the new guy sets a budget that required Champions League football to avoid a £10m loss, he then dishes out contracts we couldn't afford and then the Club fraudulently withholds tax to pay for it. If that's not enough then we should remember that people withing the club have been falsifying invoices using Clipart for God's sake. I know it's hard to take, and I love Rangers as much as the rest of you, but i think some people need to look at the massive wrongdoing and accept that if any other club had done that, we'd expect them to be hammered. Let's take some responsibility for the mess we're in rather than just blame everyone else. Anyone seriously thinking about marching on Hampden on Saturday, needs to stop and think about the facts rather than the emotion, before they make a nightmare situation even worse.

The OP was critical of TBK: "Do TBK really believe that they should be allowed to purchase RFC for an initial investment of £2M, plus add-ons?" I thought the OP was a well articulated summary of what i've read elsewhere. You may disagree, but if so, point out the flawed logic or incorrect facts, don't just start slinging insults.

We should be under no illusions, if Green's bid is backed by venture capitalists, they will be very demanding re the financial performance of the business, as they will expect to exit in 3-5 years via a sale. They will also expect a good return based on the level of risk they're taking on. This will be a business transaction - no links to the club, no emotion, no sentiment. Will they care or be able to do anything about protecting our history? I don't know, but if they do it will only be for financial reasons.

Quite true. And if that's the case then I'd probably take a different view, but based on current proposals, I think it does our interests no harm at all to let the SPL know that we'd have very little to lose from choosing Div 3. I think that's what Ally was doing with that statement quite deliberately.

Costs reduced by more than income falls = profit. We wouldn't retain any of the current big earners as you wouldn't need to to win Div 3 or 2.

IF we're liquidated: No Euro income in the SPL for 3 years 75% prize money forfeit in the SPL 20+ points deduction in the SPL + Playing kids so mid table at best Novelty factor in SFL would hold fans' interest Kids in 1st team under less pressure Build up retained profit for 3 years in SFL Celtic faced with a 11/1 voting scenario with us in Div 3 We are seen to be paying our dues. No favours. It's my preferred option for a newco for the above reasons.

So, assuming that Celtic fans are at least as likely as the average for the survey as a whole never to attend another SPL game if newco Gers are allowed straight back in, then that means c3,500 off their home gates straight away. Bring it on Bhoys.