calscot

Not calling you a Tim - but why use their type of insults against your own club? It's a valid point. Come on surely you get it? Don't give me that FF crap. Poor, poor defence. That doesn't even make the slightest sense. Compared to Rangers they were who they were. IE the Champions of Sweden and Slovenia's most successful club. I fail to see how they were pub teams. Your local pub team must be awesome and play in front of at least 8000 people. Here's a wee bit of football wisdom for you: the club with the most money and the most fans doesn't always win. That's lucky for us as we've won the last three SPL titles while Celtic have had the most fans and money. By your logic we should only be aiming for second place - hasn't Ally achieved that? You don't back up a point in five words or so, even you should know that. Otherwise my first reply to you should need no more explanation. The point is they are not facts. Not even close. Rangers were not put out of Europe by pub teams. It's a non-fact. Falkirk did not play their U21 team. It's a non-fact. "Tatics??? none." You call that a fact? "Signings???????" And this? Sorry mate, but all you have is insults to Ally and you've shown nothing else except a hell of a lot of irony. Can you tell me what kind of person this sounds like, "Ha ha. Pumped out of Europe twice by a couple of pub teams"?

Not true, the club had not paid the small tax bill and were being sued for the big tax bill. We were discussing what led us into administration. I have to disagree about the Arsenal shares - they should NEVER have been sold. EVER. I'll have to disagree with you on this. Whyte is not the only guilty party in this crime. He's the guy who nicks your wallet when you're unconscious after been beaten to a pulp by someone else. You seem to me, like the guy who wakes up and thinks the thief is the one who hit him. If you think we were fine before Whyte and everything has gone pear-shaped since then I think you need a better understanding of the situation. Armageddon was being threatened by the big tax case; Whyte just got in there with a pre-emptive strike. Trouble is the club was doomed either way - unless Whyte jumped the gun - ie we actually win the tax case.

I would say one is specific, the other is general. The former leads to supposing that not paying the tax is ONLY reason we are in administration, which is not true. There is a bigger picture. When you run out of money it's not just because of the last pound you spent. I'm saying you're skint when you run out of money. He's saying you're only skint in the case when you've no money after you've paid your taxes.

Why don't you explain your point first? Or have you nothing to back it up?

What? I give you a decently reasoned answer to one of your one line insults which makes the BBC headlines look flattering for us and I'm not backing it up? Where are you backing your stuff up? Come on, I want a proper answer to my points about the pub teams. The point is to respect Ally as a friend of the club and in turn, us. Instead of criticising him you are insulting him. Rangers being put out by a pub team is something a Tim would say - is it not? Not something a friend of the club would say - unless it was true. Your facts are wrong and therefore so is your case. Hyperbole can be a useful tool but it's very poor form in this case.

All our liabilities for the year on a month to month basis. Whyte was paying most of the debts - just not the tax one. There is a shortfall of cash which has been the case for most years since DA arrived. What is the difference? What the previous owner did was borrow money to pay the debts. Whyte has borrowed money but not given it to the club. I can't see how that's relevant. We basically have had the bank and SDM settling bills we couldn't pay. You seem to be changing the issue. The money should be irrelevant as they shouldn't have been sold. It seems, Whyte has pocketed the money and Rangers haven't seen it. But that's a different issue and not related to what we're talking about - unless you're having a different discussion to me that wasn't apparent in your earlier posts. It doesn't exist. But again that is irrelevant to the issue in question. Maybe you should start a new thread as we're now not talking about the same thing. I think you need to look more into what state the club was in before Whyte took over. The club was fragile but the sword of Damocles was hanging over its head with the threat of unpayable tax bills. Whyte seen an opportunity to remove that threat and put some money in his pocket. His methods are unsound and look pretty unethical and certainly unpopular but probably effective in the end. What is left of Rangers at the end is anyone's guess.

We weren't dumped out of Europe by "pub" teams. Lesser is something else to talk about but we're not in great shape at the moment. Malmo are probably Sweden's most successful club so I see them as peers rather than minnows. At worst it's like being knocked out by club the size of Aberdeen and we've been beaten than them and worse many times in the cups without Ally at the helm. Maribor are Slovenia's biggest club and more the size of Hibs - but have the cream of their country's talent at their disposal. We SHOULD beat these teams but in the nature of football, these kinds of results are normal. They reflect poorly on a Rangers manager but if it is definitive then I doubt there is a Rangers mangers who hasn't had a European run like that. At a time when the rest of Scottish football are getting similar results - including Celtic, who are we comparing Ally to? Is it all his fault? Or has the state of Scottish football something to do with it - oh and the fact he was thwarted at bringing in his own players? Does the Rangers crisis allow no mitigation whatsoever? Anyway, the losses weren't good but to call them pub teams is disingenuous and disrespectful and totally UNREAL.

In the fact that he deserves some respect instead of gross exaggerations.

PS I'm assuming this would all be after liquidation with a new company with zero debt.

I have no idea on this but agree they'd be substantially reduced by say opening only one stand. There are fixed costs but most are probably scalable and so would scale down. There would be a large overhead of running such a large stadium and MP but you'd hope that the team we could afford once that is subtracted would be at least be of that of a 5000 average club - enough to trounce those with 500. The attendances would depend on the loyalty of the fans. I have faith that there will be at least 10k die-hards and under the circumstance possibly a lot more. If Aberdeen can run their club on less that 10k fans with an SPL team. I'm sure we can - but with bigger overheads meaning a lesser team - but still good enough to trounce the 3rd division. I would presume that we'd have wages more based on a lower end SPL team to start - like ICT. They can afford it on a 4000 attendance so we could possibly do the same on 10k - although we'd also have a shortfall in TV money and sponsorship over a current SPL club. I think prices would have to drop but probably to a level of the likes of ICT or a 1st division team. Fans would have to acknowledge the club needs the money to move back up. Alloa charge £12 a ticket but I think we could justify at least £18 for watching a better class of player than at Alloa - and at a better stadium. I think we'd suffer a reduced sponsorship but would still be commensurable with the size of our support. So depends how many fans we keep. Exposure would also be less due to lack of TV but then you'd expect the 3rd div to be able to do a cheap TV deal with say STV as there would be an audience there. The club would have to start with a squad equivalent to the attendances and income minus the extra costs over a similarly supported club. As we move up the divisions, the squad would be improve in line with gate receipts and other income. Getting back to the top of the table would probably take some time although getting to compete for 2nd place should be straight forward as we'd instantly be better off than the rest of the league. Competing with Celtic would be difficult to start but then they'd also be suffering with reduced income for the previous years due to us not being there. I think they'd be struggling to have a big gap between them and the rest as they come down to their level. We have not always been miles ahead of the rest when Celtic were struggling - and they were still in the league. However, as most money in running a top club is spent on wages, it's pretty easy to catch up quickly. Being successful doesn't put any money in the bank and as we've found out it can do the opposite. You only have to look at Stoke, Norwich, Swansea etc to see how easy it is to quickly compete with established clubs once you're on a similar income. In fact we did it in the 80's and Celtic did it in the 90's. It might be difficult but I come to the conclusion that it's doable. The biggest problem is that the longer is takes to get back, the more the lower leagues rub off on you and you lose impetus. The ideal scenario would be having a consortium investing money every year to make sure of promotion and then getting repaid the dividends after we're back at the top.

I'd assume Ticketus are confused in what they want. They probably want their £24.4M back but if they ask for it now they may get a fraction. If they hang on they might get the season tickets and be paid in full... I can imagine their position is difficult.

Most of your points aren't even real. How can I agree with them? I'm all for constructive criticism but why besmirch the manager of your team, who is considered a Rangers legend, with gross exaggeration which loses the credibility of your points and that of your agenda?

I really don't understand you. Whyte ran up the debt to pay other debts. You seem to thing some debts are special and others don't count or something. Whyte didn't "run up" those debts even a little bit. Those debts were there whether Whyte was in charge or not. He didn't run up the debt, he just didn't pay it. That's true but doesn't have the significance you think. Can you give me evidence that those debts would not be there under a different owner. I fail to see how PAYE would not be due under a different owner or most of the other debts. I doubt our out-goings have increased this year significantly more than previous years. The debts seem to be the normal debts, we just don't have the money to pay them. I seems to me that Whyte has only increased the debt by borrowing from Ticketus to pay Lloyds. However, I thought we were choosing to ignore things that don't affect the day to day running for this season? Whether that debt is valid is another discussion. I think the wee tax bill makes a difference combined with lower income streams due to European and domestic cup runs. There may be other missing money that Whyte has syphoned off but we don't know that as yet - except for the Arsenal shares - but that again doesn't affect the day to day running. You seem to be blaming Whyte for a situation that was already there. What is actually guilty of is exploiting that situation for his own gain. Whether it was a necessary evil for the club to continue, albeit after being disgraced, will be judged on the outcome of the big tax case.

Have you ever heard of the concept of money being "fungible"? There is a pot of money from earning, there a bunch of bills needing to be paid. He was running up one debt by using the money to pay for others. If there was enough money, all the debts would be paid - at least through court action. As there is not enough, we're put in admin. I agree with this but it doesn't mean that this season is the same. We have the wee tax bill and bugger all European income. Like I said elsewhere, we may have broken even without the wee tax bill. If we're done for tax dodging then Murray was a tax dodger whether he paid PAYE or not - weird argument. If you rob from Peter to pay Paul, you are still a thief even though you didn't rob Paul. The millions unaccounted for are from the Ticketus money - which as you say should generally have no influence on the day to day cash flow of the club. Getting some of that money is another story but that money is irrelevant to whether the club could break even. That is an exceptional input of cash.

I think the quality of your argument here is about as good as that of your ability to write... Like people have been saying, with friends like this, who needs enemies?

What is your point? That does not disagree with anything I said. What you are doing is taking a special case and making it general. You seem stuck on this tax thing and can't see the real issue. Rangers were forced into administration due to NOT PAYING A DEBT - AND looking like they are not ABLE to pay it. That debt HAPPENED to be tax. It could have been ANY outstanding debt that the company could not afford to pay. If Rangers COULD pay the debt, they would NOT be in administration. Instead they would be a court order to seize the funds and then another to make them pay. If Rangers HAD paid the tax, they would most probably have been in administration EARLIER as another creditor (or more than one) would have likely made the petition.

PS I think you're missing the fact that the home team keeps all the gate receipts...

The point is that Rangers would probably not have those types of attendances. You'd expect at least 10,000 loyal fans every home game. A lot of the costs would be well down due to the smaller attendances and lower wages. I presume we could run a squad equivalent to say ICT, which should see us rapidly rise up the leagues. While in Div 1 you'd expect the crowds to start to be more like a minimum of 25k in anticipation of promotion. Even in Killie's old dark days they were getting 8k while running away with the first division and in irony their attendances dropped in the SPL due to markedly poorer results for obvious reasons.

The way I see it: due to a crap European season we were looking at a multimillion pound loss - which means a multimillion pound shortfall between income and expenditure. Normally you would extend your credit to pay for this and hope to pay it back from future income or share issues. Whyte didn't do this therefore we were always going to face a time when there was no money left and the bills still came in. Then you get one creditor who looks like they may not be paid who asks for the courts to intervene and appoint administrators. What Whyte did was delay this until now by not paying taxes and using the money saved to pay the other bills. And eventually the tax office was the creditor who called for administration. Admin seems to have been his plan all along due to the potential big tax bill which if it crystallised would be unaffordable. I think he wanted to delay admin until the case was resolved. He didn't put any money in as he'd just lose it to creditors in the CVA or liquidation. I think the tax case decision is a lot later than he thought it would be. So basically we have a few months left until we receive substantial income but are several million pounds short to pay our bills - such as the players wages. That's why the cuts will look so draconian - they are not spread over a year but over a few months. What Whyte has also done is raise the spectre of future shortfalls for three or four years as Ticketus will own about £8M of season tickets each year. So our biggest problems before Whyte were - a loss making operation and then the impact of the two tax cases. I'm also starting think the real cause of the multimillion pound loss could actually be the wee tax case. This kind of makes more sense as Lloyds forced us to cut our cloth while paying back about 4 million a year of debt, so despite a poor European performance we shouldn't have been too far off breaking even. That would mean that under normal operations the club was moseying along but with no spare cash and a dodgy credit rating. The things that put us in the shit are the two tax cases. That's why Murray wanted rid and no-one wanted to buy. They all want to buy now as the effect of the two tax cases will be removed either by CVA or administration. No-one wanted to be the one to put us in admin as they'd lose the club and be a pariah - until Whyte that is. He seems to be utterly ruthless enough to see a way of making a killing and doesn't seem to mind the flack he will get. That's where the conspiracy theory comes in for him being a stooge for a future buyer. Anyway, the conclusion seems to be that while Whyte is the executioner, it is ultimately Murray's tax dodging that put us on the gallows. And a decade of his mismanagement didn't help one bit.

You are wrong: it is the lack of funds to enable us to pay our liabilities that put us in administration. You don't get put in administration just because you don't pay taxes. However, you can if it looks like you aren't able to pay your debts - like your taxes.

Ok I've looked that up and it just shows that Whyte knows what he is doing and also the dubious nature of being both owner and creditor.

I'm not knowledgeable on this but they way I interpret administration is that a company is deemed unable to pay its short term liabilities and so will fail. Whoever is running the club is deemed incapable of turning round the business and indeed not trusted, due to self interest, to take proper care of the creditors' best interests. The court therefore removes whoever is running the company from control and appoints competent, independent administrators who have control of the company as well as extra powers like that of CVA's and cancellation of contracts. They try to cut costs and run the company more efficiently and often just more competently - streamlining systems, cutting excess staff, cutting unnecessary expenses, selling assets and leasing them back, selling assets that are not needed for core business, closing loss making or non immediate income generating operations (say research), out sourcing inefficient operations etc, etc. Ultimate powers are to sell the company as a going concern if the creditors are agreeable to the terms ie how much they get, or if no solution can be found, they can and must liquidate the company ie it completely ceases to exist and its assets are auctioned off and the proceeds put into a pot to be split by the creditors. The end. In the latter scenario, someone could offer a greater amount for the main assets , pay for them, then start a company and change its name to a similar one to before and start to trade in place of the previous company without assuming any of the previous liabilities as it is a new and separate company. I believe this would only happen if the amount paid for the assets is more or equal to splitting them up and used for whatever reason. Therefore we are lucky that Ibrox is in a bit of a shit area of little commercial value and its main value is as a football stadium but only if there is a club to fill it. Otherwise any potential phoenix company would have to outbid any developers. I'm not sure where MP falls in this scenario. The type of money that liquidation would raise needs to be calculated and shown to creditors that they would be paid more under a CVA if that would allow the company to continue to trade - ie it would be as much as the company could afford but still be able to trade for another year and the debt is then wiped. Selling the club gives a pot of money to pay for the CVA. There are complications over which creditors get priority which is what is being argued about a lot - with Whyte considered number one even though he hasn't put a penny in. That greatly affects how the other creditors will vote as many would receive nothing under liquidation as the money would already be gone by the time it comes to their turn. A lot of the time liquidation doesn't matter too much as it's just one failed company in a competitive market place, but sometimes companies have austere histories that some want to keep intact - which I would think puts them in a weaker position as they will go the extra mile to avoid liquidation. If you take our position, but remove the tax cases and give us a "normal" rich owner. What would happen is that we have something like a 5M shortfall. The owner would most likely borrow from the bank and guarantee it with one of his companies to get us the credit. Liabilities would be met and then costs cut to put the company on an even keel or new sources of revenue found, or if it's a one off the debt could be cleared by a share issue. Our spanner in the works is the big tax case which if we're solvent could cost us say £50M which we would be unable to meet and continue to compete unless given something 25 years to pay - but it has been rumoured that HMRC would not allow that and that's why we're in this position. And why no-one wanted to buy us. The rest about how CW took advantage is already well explained. The thing is that either CVA or liquidation will also clear the big tax bill if there is one and eliminate all other debt which makes others now interested in us if the deal is sweet enough. So yes, in answer to the question, I'm pretty sure that the administrators have the power of sale with no regard to Whyte except as a creditor.

Have they tried the possibility of selling Ibrox and MP and leasing back? Wouldn't be popular but that's usually a last ditch manoeuvre that can save a company from liquidation.

To be honest I'd prefer a proper discourse in the same domain of subject matter but I agree to let it be.

Sorry, I credited you with a bit more sophistication as to be able to be removed from an entrenched position by viewpoint on a principle provided with a different but relevant example. My mistake. You seem incapable of getting things in a more philosophical framework and remove yourself from the cut-throat world of business. The truth is he was sacked from a job he didn't even want from an employer he didn't respect or like. But the point transcends the business world. I can't believe you are so blind to this and you seem to demonstrate little knowledge of the every day world. Most people who don't like a job, find another one and leave with no compensation they generally do not hang around and criticise their bosses and create a situation where they will be sacked and then sue the company for a year's worth of wages. If you have a conscience and the company you are working for is struggling financially AND you have helped steer it into that position, one would expect someone of decency would pick the option of quitting for another job if it is available as that is kinder to the club - and when you think about it it's also kinder to yourself. I can't believe I'm still having to explain this to an educated person. Really, which bit of this are you struggling so badly with? Since when did principles become so removed from business - I thought the business world was original built on it but I can't even get you on the subject. Not only that, I have been led to believe "good" business is based on win-win deals. You are not friends of any company in trouble you take money from when you have lost nothing. McCulloch is "entitled" to claim his wage till the end of his contract; however, he offered to play for nothing. Now perhaps that's because he will be the first to go under administration but he has shown a lot of "friendship" that is lacking from Bain. In most companies, no-one really cares if you are a friend or not - it's just business, but Rangers are much MORE than a business and as the custodian you are expected to have more empathy for the club itself. Tens of thousands of people do care what you do to the club business/entitlement or not. And despite what YOU say they are entitled to make their judgements. What are you on about? Can you actually make a real point when it's not about accountancy? My argument is based on facts of Bain's actions as how I see them and then juxtaposed with what I see as normal moral codes and philosophies of decent human beings. The latter is not based on fact but nor should it be! I'm sure even Spock could grasp the concept of morality which is the crux of what I'm arguing about. Well you are supposed to be the money man: was the loan repaid as per the original time-scale of the agreement or was pressure put on to pay it early? I think the FACTS suggest the latter. I don't think you need a degree in accounting to work that out. I'm basing my argument on facts and common sense. I think you are showing a lack of respect for the punters who paid the guys wages AND who may pay for his pay off. But again you are wrong with facts. There are many educated people out there who are saying that Rangers have been badly run during the time he was CEO. You seem to be the exception to the rule. Your knowledge of this seems very poor and you seem to believe crony-ism as fact. I think your sanctimony speaks for itself. You don't need to understand the ins and outs of everything to make moral judgements. However, you give the impression you don't get this at all. Not once have you engaged with moral nub of the argument but have steered around it by implying your greater knowledge - but without showing any. Trouble is he didn't take the former approach, he took the latter and then proceeded to change things for the WORSE at a time of crisis. For that I criticise him and I assume many others do also. Can I also say, just because YOU yourself cannot criticise someone for being self-serving, cut-throat and ruthlessly businesslike, doesn't mean others can't. To be honest, I can't imagine where you can criticise Whyte, as after all, it looks like he all business and no heart and everything he has so far not been shown to be outside the rules of business.