calscot

One thing that strikes me is that if the control is passed on to the trustee and is no longer within the control of the company, then it seems to me that the tax liabilities fall to the employees when they receive the payments - and they can then claim rebates when any loans are repaid. I can't see how the club is liable for an unknown future tax bill that is no longer within their control.

I don't think barring people from entering is morally correct. I also don't think it should be necessary. Attempting to explain the situation to those who want to enter should be the course of action.

Maybe we need a football analogy to assess what is cheating. Imagine that a team look at the rules and think, if we want to pass back to the keeper and for him to pick it up, what we can do is have two defenders and one hits the ball off another defender so it deflects to the keeper and so he can pick it up. They consult with referees and they agree that it's within the rules. So this team do this in every game for ten years, no referee punishes them, the SFA know about it but do nothing, and the team win a lot of trophies. THEN the SFA decide that this should not be allowed and backdate this 10 years, meaning the team forfeit every game, are stripped of all trophies and relegated. The club appeal to a sports tribunal who find that they have played within the rules as set out. The SFA appeal this and it's thrown out of the next tribunal. THEN they appeal again and get a bunch of judges who ignore the rules and look at it through the "common sense" point of view. They decide that the intention is to pass back and therefore it's against the spirit of the rules. The club are then punished. Now two questions: Firstly, is this fair in the slightest or common sense? Secondly, did the club actually cheat or knowingly do anything wrong?

I have to disagree. It's nothing like that. We did not cheat, period. You can accuse Murray of taking too big a tax risk, but it wasn't cheating. It was unwittingly making an accounting mistake on a tax loophole that is pretty much unfathomable. Two tribunals and load of tax experts have vindicated that. The accusations of cheating come from the easily dismissed premise that we "employed players that we could NOT OTHERWISE have afforded." That is just plain ignorant and obtuse. The amount we saved per year on a 35m wage bill was about 1.7m per year (when you deduct non playing staff) from a total of 17m. We're talking a paltry 5% overspend which would have resulted in us having a 35m debt in 2011 instead of 18m on a 40-60m turnover (depending on European performance). Let's also add say five million in interest, making it 40m. Without the weight of the tax claim, that would have been serviceable, at a maximum of about 100% of turnover. Not a great position but we'd be in a better situation than now and in the top tier. We may have had to cut back to pay the debts and that could have affected our performance in the competitions over the past 5 years - not exactly something we've subverted... This would also have made Rangers eminently sell-able to rich fans - especially for a penny. Even the likes of Green could raise about £27m in funding for the club in the lowest tier and having lost most of the squad and a load of fines. Just think what the 3 Bears could have done. Raising a similar amount could have reduced the debt to about 13m while keeping the squad, the SPL membership, access to Europe and the normal 40-60m turnover. In that way we could easily have competed as we did before Whyte took over. Bring in King a couple of years later and our debts could have been wiped out. When you look at that scenario there is a hell of a lot of "otherwise" in there. Again Rangers are guilty of unwittingly misinterpreting unfathomable tax laws, no evidence for intention to cheat was there - it was trying to play within rules. Compare and contrast with Celtic who do not follow this line and have therefore tacitly admitted maliciously cheating while thinking that they are exonerated by admitting this after they were caught and settling an amount. They don't seem to get that just because you plead guilty after you were caught and then pay the fine, does not make you innocent. They have made their peace with HMRC but their bare faced cheating has yet to be dealt with by the football authorities, who brushed it under the carpet. The irony and hypocrisy is heavy but even most bears aren't seeing it.

It all seemed a bit quieter when we won two rounds.

I thought about than and even extended to to paying back the whole amount - except that would 47.65m. However, even starting to pay back some of it, would surely mess up any calculations of tax due... Or would they charge the full amount and then give rebates for the amounts repaid? But, the point would be that they are loans and not a benefit in kind.

I think the funny thing about Celtic fans, is that they are absolutely adamant that their club are cheats...

BTW This tax case affects over 5000 companies, surely some of them would like to financially help it go to the supreme court?

Just thinking, we've effectively just had the last 5 titles stripped from us and handed to Celtic and been handicapped for further years.

EBTs saved us about £2m a year in taxes at a time when our turnover was around £50m. I'm calculating this from the £47m that HMRC claimed went into them over 10 years, and presuming tax at 40%. Seems to me that at worst it would have caused us another £20m of debt - which without the threat of the tax case would have had us eminently solvent and still challenging for titles over the last 5 years. There are no rules against using debt to fund players you would otherwise not be able to afford. In this case it's not even that, we used a tax avoidance scheme that was valid at the time and which two tax tribunals thought were fine. At worst it's misinterpreting a tax law that is too difficult even for expert to interpret definitively. Considering the consequences, overall, the use of EBTs have actually been to our disadvantage. Now perhaps we should compare that £2m a year with soft TSB loans and cheap land deals from GGC... So when do we punish Celtic? Or if stripping titles is in fashion, should we dare mention the Penn State precedent?

I really doubt he believes that as it would go against all the modern sports science thinking he seems to advocate. You cannot give 100% all the time, it's counter productive and leads to burnout in any career. Even in mechanical systems like F1 drivers have to think about preserving the engine and tyres. Other sports realise this and that's why they have 3 or 4 major tournaments a year and a load of minor ones. The top players arrange their training to peak for these and then give 100% to do well, without having to worry about the impact on the next minor tournament as there won't be another major one for a while. Even in the big competitions you can't go all out at every part of it - think about the Tour de France which is far more fitness oriented, you choose your stages, knowing you'll be weakened the day after, although sometimes you can push yourself for several stages in a row but you will suffer after that. That's why Tom Demoulin went from top Giro contender, to 6th place. With golf it's more the psychological efforts. With a sport where you play every week, it's harder to arrange your peaks and troughs and I think you have to sometimes be more in cruise mode for an easier game - as long as you get the win, and then leave the energy for a higher effort against your main challenger, which then leaves you tired for your next game against lesser opponents. That's why teams like St Mirren can lift their game against us and then be very mediocre the next. Ironically, they would be better raising the standard for games that they are more likely to win against their nearest rivals. I've studied a bit about fitness and freshness in cycling this year and now understand and interpret the graphs. I know plenty of riders who on a tough ride will, say, "I don't have the legs today, don't know why." When I feel the same I look at my graph and understand why. You can want to give 100% every time, but your body won't let you.

Seems to me that we haven't had a sporting advantage. How much did we save by not paying taxes? 20m odd? HMRC ramped it up to 46m in penalties but how can you have penalties when a first and upper tribunal think you did no wrong? If they get it wrong then how are lesser mortals supposed to get it right. In the meantime we've lost more than £46m and Celtic have been handed 4 titles, and maybe more - so where is the sporting advantage? Seems to me that if HMRC had done the "common sense" thing and settled for a reasonable amount - say the actual amount that would have been due, then we would have paid it. And so again, where would the sporting advantage be? The premise is that we couldn't have otherwise afforded the players but the actually reality for those who don't have a twister and bitter view, is that we COULD have afforded the the players AND the tax, we would just have had a bigger debt to pay off - and as such would have been much better off now. The whole advantage thing is just erroneous.

There used to be these almost mythical things called newspapers and journalists, shame they don't exist in this country.

Good use of the RFFF?

HMRC seem to have broken that rule in spades...

I think we can safely say that that's one business relationship that will *never* be reconciled. With Ashley, it's not about making money anymore, it's about throwing his weight around and winning - which unfortunately often makes him more money... Hopefully not in this case. We are in the strange position of not having much to lose by playing hardball with him, and at least we'll have the satisfaction of not surrendering to him.

Yeah, we used to make about 5m *profit* for the club, never mind the other business partners.

Bit like seeing a load of overweight people in KFC... A lot of people do what they want rather than what's good for them.

I still don't understand how what Ashley has done is allowed to be legal. Business rules always seem incredibly backwards and seem to be there to allow those with no scruples to get rich at the expense of others. In this case it seems that a good profit making strategy - if you've already got a lot of liquid funds, is to buy majority shares a company, put in your own board, get them to sign a incredibly onerous contract to your main company for 10 years, sell the shares and move on to the next one. There has to be somewhere in law, where this kind of insider dealing is punished, and even just somewhere in law where you can have obviously overly onerous contracts snuffed out.

I think there are several issues here. Firstly if the kids don't have a bike then it's a no brainer to me as a bike is one of those essential things I think a kid should have - it's giving them a life skill as well as something fun. For me it ranks up there with a musical instrument and swimming lessons. You might just be giving them the gift of a longer and healthier life. If they don't have a Rangers top, then for playing sport or just playing, any t-shirt will suffice, so it's not really a necessary purchase in the same way. Then there's the issue of a child just wanting one. There's a lot of spoiled kids these days who always get what they want and there is a lesson there, as long as the reasons are properly explained, you should be easily able to convince a kid to make do with a reasonable alternative - especially the RST ones. You're teaching the kid a bit about social responsibility and taking care of stuff that means something to you. I remember as a kid, Rangers tops were incredibly expensive and I remember making do with a Chelsea top that looked very similar at a fraction of the price - the pin stripe one. I think I learned something for that, and I'm always saving money by not always just going for the obvious, and often finding good alternatives to stuff. And you also learn sometimes, to realise you can't always get what you want, and to just make the most of what you can get. Then there's another issue of whether you should allow a kid to choose their own team. Buying a young kid the top for your own team can passive aggressively restrict their freedom of choice. Fine if they've already chosen, but I don't think it's right before then. I'm never impressed with people who say they support Rangers because their father did and their grandfather before that. It means with different parents they would have supported a different club. I think it's better to choose independently. I think these days there a loads of ways to get round buying Rangers merchandise - you can get T-shirts, mugs and loads of other things printed to your own design pretty easily and cheaply - and you could have a lot of fun with a kid doing that with your own photos and a bit of photoshopping. If you want a poster, take a decent camera with a long lens and a large memory card, go to a game and take a load of photos, choose the best and get a large printout done. If the money is not going to Rangers, and is harming the future income of the club, then why do it? If you feel Rangers are losing out, use the spare money to go to more games (and if you have season tickets then you've already done enough). So short answer - get the bikes...

There used to be tv appearance money on top of the prize money. I think they scrapped that due to us getting a lot of it. They also changed it so second place gets much less probably in antipation of us being back in one season, weakened and with points penalties. Celtic look after themselves shaft us, and the rest just follow like sheep due to sweetie money bribes along with lack of ambition and expectation.

I'm always disappointed at the number of fans wearing the current strip that you see in the stands.

No one is trying to stop them, they could have anything they like on it - doesn't mean it's any good or that people won't find it lacking in class. The could wish to put KFC branding on it; or use textspk / terrible grammar; or a big, steaming turd; and while it's a free country to an extent, I'd be free to find that piss poor also. However, no matter how bad it is, I agree that it shouldn't be removed by the police without a decently explainable reason.

I would be in favour too, but they would be from Dublin, not Paisley... As for all the nations representation, the point is not to bother and not singling out two that are not very relevant to you. Put something that represents Paisley on it instead (not just the word). I don't see why chavishness is restricted to fashion and the flag is definitely there to make a statement. Not sure it does, inside the tin the contents are Rangers supporters living in Paisley - the labelling of the tin totally misses that brief. I've already explained the genericness, and from the Rangers side of it, it diverges greatly from the clubs own branding and philosophy. (And for Britishness, it also seems to snub Wales.) To me it's a bit like branding a single malt, as British Scotch whisky, with a note it's distilled in Paisley.

Great analysis. It seems to dovetail with what I've been saying about judicious use of the long ball. When a team presses, you can bypass most of their forward pressing players over the top and catch them out - switch from plan A to B. If you catch them out enough, you'll either score or at worst force them to cover the back meaning they can't press so much, which is when you switch back to plan A - with the odd reminder of B to keep them on their toes. (Like the badminton serve analogy.) The difference to the long ball tactics under McCoist is that firstly the plan B is not the main strategy, its real goal is to curb the press of the opposition to allow you to mostly use plan A. It also requires more targetted passing than punting it forward, and a lot of running off the ball from the strikers. I think while some of Smith's latter day tactics in Europe were like plan B in nature, compared to Ally, they were more this targetted version, with much more accurate passing and players who were adept at beating the offside and receiving the ball under control. I think Beasley and Darcheville were very good at this. To be fair, they were a much higher standard of player than Ally could afford (and he didn't have the luxury of much choice) once the shit hit the fan. There are probably multiple solutions but I think if there are weapons to use, using them with some variety makes us unpredictable and harder to be neutralised by a set game plan. I can see why we're sticking to one main strategy to ingrain the type of football we want to play on the team, but I think now is the time to expand from there or it will be like chess, where you opposition know the all counter moves until the later stages of the game.