Walterbear

3 hours ago, RANGERRAB said:

I’ve been disappointed with our management response to yesterday’s game. 

Can you imagine Lennon’s response if they’d lost to an offside goal, a penalty which should have been re-taken & denied at least one further penalty?

The harsh reality in Scottish football is that dignified silence gets you nowhere

With the YB game coming up then Motherwell and the nature of yesterday’s defeat I think their priorities need to be on resetting the players. I agree they need to do that at some point but it can wait. Just prior to the piggery game is the time to do it. 

15 minutes ago, Gonzo79 said:

Chill out, JFK.

Can I throw food and drink at opposing players at Ibrox? Can we all? Point is gonzo we need zero tolerance. Rangers players have been attacked several times now and it barely gets a mention in the media. If someone threw food at you in a pub what would you do? If I was Tav I’d be questioning why my club wasn’t taking this further. 

16 minutes ago, alexscottislegend said:

'forumee' - that's a great word.  I remember after 1972 when we were banned for 2 years, the esteemed correspondent Brian Glanville pointed out that clubs should not be responsible for the behaviour of fans; he said something to the effect that a club has no more control over who chooses to follow it than it has the weather. That stuck with me.

If only he was in charge of UEFA!

46 minutes ago, Bill said:

The club has tried long and hard to change the mindset of these morons. The only thing I can see will ever change things is for the club to do more to ensure away tickets only get in the hands of decent fans by implementing some kind of "approved supporter" scheme but it's hard to see how that would work in practice.

I don’t think it would work and I’d rather not take the chance. If it’s true and FARE are reporting us we need to get on the phone to UEFA and tell them we’re not taking away tickets. The away support are brilliant in terms of noise and passion but now can’t be trusted and anyone singing add ons at these matches is not a true Rangers supporter. We’ve seen Dave King this very week talking about how much personal money he and others £30m have put into the club and £1.5m could be wiped out by a stadium closure. 

4 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

I'm hoping Barry is wrong on this one on both counts. I'm hoping Morelos will still be with us beyond next Summer and hoping his £30 million estimate is inaccurate in the sense of being an under estimate. Goal scorers draw premium prices and Morelos is scoring prolifically at every level thrown at him.

Which is why i'm hoping he stays beyond next Summer to do it in the CL and boost his price tag up into the stratosphere. Contingent on winning the league of course. I see little chance of him staying beyond next Summer if we don't. If get a go at the CL that could be the draw to persuade him to stay just one more year.

Anybody getting the feeling that on this form he's destined to score against the yahoos at Hampden?

Well overdue a goal against them. Might be a hat trick on its way. 

4 hours ago, Bill said:

Have a look at a self-updating mailing device such as Mailchimp or similar that could be used not only to transmit information globally but would also provide feedback on who reads it, how many reads you get, etc etc. While there may be sense in sending out everything historical at once, looking forward it might be much more effective to have regular updates, which is where something like Mailchimp comes into it's own.

True Bill for ongoing Bill. But the platform of bias will help. 

2 minutes ago, Bill said:

Seems to me there are quite a few people like @Walterbear doing sterling work interrogating the likes of the BBC about activities detrimental to Rangers. When you look at this forum's own "Pacific Quay Musings",for example, there's a terrific catalogue of injustice. It's just a pity their work wasn't more widely publicised. We know the mainstream media are more likely to be complicit in these activities than to report them and it beggars the question what else might be done.

 

Many businesses use online target marketing devices to reach out to a wide but defined audience and I always thought that Rangers fans could be doing something similar at a very moderate cost, certainly a lot less than buying a couple of million Rangers shares, and reaching out to thousands of people on a weekly or monthly basis, including well beyond the boundary of the Rangers support. Preaching to the unconverted can sometimes have remarkable effects. To my mind this should be core business for a supporters' organisation.

I agree Bill. I think it’s well worth taking all of the work from that thread, consolidating it to a readable compelling format and consider the best way to publish it within and beyond the converted.  The observations in that thread are too important to lose and point to shocking impartiality. The issues to be overcome are that the info doesn’t fall neatly within FOI although it’s possible to be creative and claims of impartiality is easily batted off with the stock response of editorial privileges.
 

If someone could consolidate into one long text document with the actual dates of incidents I’d be happy to do further work in terms of creating a more readable document which could then be used more powerfully. 

My final response to them below. 
 

Thank you.

Re the claim by Worthington, BDO dismissed it and they have significant legal powers to do so but this could be the sticking point in terms of court signing off as a judge can question their decision. I don’t think it’s over yet but can’t be definitive. I knew RIFC owned the stadium but want sure about the land. Have we seen land registration documents to confirm? I’m to mean to pay £15. 

2 hours ago, Uilleam said:

From today's Scottish Edition of the Times of London:

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/scotland/rangers-tax-case-telling-my-staff-that-they-had-lost-their-jobs-was-horrendous-says-ally-mccoist-xq9xwh96q    (Paywall)

 

 

Rangers tax case: Telling my staff that they had lost their jobs was horrendous, says Ally McCoist

Mark McLaughlin

November 15 2019, 12:01am, The Times

Economics

 

Ally McCoist has said the tax authorities must be held to account for job losses caused by a multimillion-pound blunder that he argues forced Rangers Football Club into liquidation.

The former Rangers manager, who began rebuilding the club under new ownership after it was plunged to the bottom of Scotland’s professional football ladder, said his club would have survived if HM Revenue & Customs had not made an error.

McCoist, 57, said the revelation in The Times that up to £50 million is set to be wiped off the Ibrox club’s tax bill was “absolutely massive”.

Accountancy sources now believe that the bill for using an offshore trust to pay Rangers players and staff is likely to end up close to £20 million, equivalent to £2 million annually for the 2001 to 2010 period the tax avoidance scheme was in place.

McCoist told talkSPORT: “That is a debt in my opinion Rangers could have handled at the time. If this is true, we wouldn’t have gone into administration. We wouldn’t have gone into liquidation.”

Asked about having to tell staff that they no longer had a job at the club, McCoist added: “It was horrendous . . . that was the worst part about the whole thing, that people lost their jobs.

“If people lost their jobs needlessly, it’s completely and utterly unacceptable. If the debt was £20 million the outcome would have been completely different. We could have handled that quite easily.”

 

An expert in employee benefit trusts (EBTs) such as that used to pay players and staff, said an HMRC error could not be viewed as the cause of Rangers’ collapse.

Thomas Wallace, head of tax at the London firm WTT, has been working for companies in EBT disputes. He told The Scottish Sun that although HMRC may have “overplayed its hand” in its pursuit of the club, “I suspect there are sound commercial benefits of not pursuing the penalty where no funds are available to pay it”.

 

Mark Dingwall, editor of the Follow Follow online fanzine, said the latest twist in the tax case could result in the “oldco” Rangers being rescued from liquidation to resume the corporate management of the club. Such a gesture would lay to rest taunts that the present incarnation is the zombie of a dead club.

“I suspect that the old company, which is in the process of liquidation, may in the end not be liquidated and there will be a substantial pool of money available to the creditors,” he said. “At the end of the process, the title for that company will be available for sale.”

Mr Dingwall said the Times report had confirmed “the deep unease that Rangers fans felt all the way through the last seven or so years about various authorities and statutory bodies that there was unfairness”.

“There was a tinge of the witchhunt about it, and assumptions were made that have turned out not to be true in terms of both legal and accountancy terms,” he said. “I believe that the club, with a sensible attitude taken by HMRC, would have been able to trade its way out of any problems that it had if it was under sensible management.”

 

I highlight a section, where Mr McLaughlin of The Times quotes an expert on EBTs, suggesting the actions of HMRC could not have been the cause of Rangers' problems. At first, indeed second, reading the expert says nothing of the sort.  If I am correct, he suggests, quite obviously, that there are no benefits where there are no funds. This, to me, calls into question the whole rationale and modus operandi of HMRC in dealing with Rangers. 

 

Good spot. He’s saying that penalties cannot be retrieved therefore no point pursuing them. He’s not commenting on the validity of the penalties in the first place. 
 

HMRC have been holding off on agreeing a position to date and BDO cannot convince a Court yet that all avenues have been exhausted with respect to sale of assets of Oldco. They have to do that before the oldco is struck off. HMRC movement to settle can be seen as a step towards closure in terms of claims against assets under control of BDO (ie oldco assets). The issue may then be whether or not a Whyte or similar crawls out the woodwork and lays claim to ownership of any of these assets post liquidation. I imagine a Whyte or Whyte company for example may have held back because those assets would fall to BDO pre liquidation. Once liquidation is approved in court BDO disappear. I’m still not clear who owns the actual stadium or the solum/ground it is built on. Can anyone clarify, reassure?
 

I see no benefit in spending money buying back the original company btw. It’s been clearly established in statements in courts by judges even at UKSC level that a club is divisible from a company and can be transferred to a new company with goodwill and the football assets. The SFA have accepted this transfer as have UEFA. Taunts from other ignorant fans are of no consequence. 

3 hours ago, ian1964 said:

 

That’s standard press / media release from a govt dept under scrutiny. Not to be taken seriously. Been involved personally in similar many times. 

On 14/11/2019 at 09:08, Frankie said:

Clearly last night's exclusive from The Times is a very big story, even if there's not much meat to the bones at this stage.

 

Because of the figures HMRC claimed (and disputed at the creditor's meeting), they were able to force the oldco into liquidation as the biggest creditor.  All along, credible people involved have questioned the whole process and what was claimed by HMRC but what is fairly clear is that:

 

Murray was arguably forced into selling by LBG due to the fear of any potential bill.

Whyte arguably stopped paying PAYE because of same and likelihood of admin.

HMRC refused a CVA because of their claim.

HMRC have spent millions pursuing this claim.

Scores of people lost their jobs.

Since admin Rangers has lost potentially hundreds of millions of pounds as Celtic had free rein to reign.

 

I'd like to ask for some sort of enquiry but the evidence would be lost anyway.

 

 

Will the SFA and SPFL act in behalf of a member club, for example make representations to HMRC about their conduct and what should be expected going forward?

if not then that’s all we need to know about Rangers’ status in these organisations. 

18 minutes ago, 917 said:

Worth remembering that we were actually on top when Callum McGregor wiped out one of our players & Madden never even booked him. The exact same thing he sent Jones off for. Could have been a different game, & Madden not sending McGregor off is a direct result of the celtic campaign against him, Tom Boyd’s sectarian comments as well. Rangers need to make a statement about this.

 

That being said, we were completely outclassed & they looked every inch a team with twice as high a wage bill as us. I keep reading about how they had 5 debutants at the back, but that was their weakness last season & Lennon spent £10million on those players. As if they would miss donkeys like Lustig & Boyata! They look much stronger defensively than before & sadly I do not see them dropping many points this year. 

 

Did Gerrard actually underestimate them? You simply don’t leave out your best player in your biggest game. Has he fell out with Morelos or something?

I reckon Stevie G was playing the same narrow tactics he beat them with in May, but they are a better team than they looked in that game & we didn’t create any real chances today. 

 

Not one player looked up for it & Gerrard got outthought by a guy with much more experience of these fixtures than him. Lessons to be learned all round. Of course we were tired, there are still 34 games to play (half before the next OF game) & we surely can play a helluva lot better than that. But on that evidence I don’t see them dropping any points, so looks like we will need to beat them in a Cup to win anything this season. We could get to the last 32 in Europe, but would that even keep Gerrard in a job if they win the treble again??

Agree with most of that except we hardly tested their defence. I think we had one shot on target. 

28 minutes ago, cooponthewing said:

Exactly! All very predictable and without Kent. If I’m honest, in the first half I’m not sure we knew what we were doing? 

True. Also Celtic had 7 changes from the team that lost to us 2-0 in the last Ibrox game - including entire back 4 and goalie. We never pressed them sufficiently. 

We had nobody today to do the Kent role and nobody pressing like Candeias (I accept he had quality limitations). Last season we played  4-2-3-1 in the 2-0 game and 4-3-3 in the 1-0 game but we had width and high press from Candeias and Kent in that 1-0 game and Kent created lots of problems going forward in the 2-0. 

Today we had 4-3-3 but played more like a 4-5-1 and it was more akin to the lineup at Parkhead where we lost 2-1. 

I don’t really know if it was line up or instructions or players just playing badly but I think it was probably a combo of all 3 but today we sat deeper than last years Ibrox games and we didn’t press high against a questionable Celtic defence. The closest replacement to Kent would have been Jones to start or Ojo and given their new defence Morelos would have surely tested them more than Defoe with little midfield creativity. Apart from anything else Morelos is well overdue a goal in these games. Today was a gilt edge opportunity. 

It looks to me as if we were inhibited. Why is hard to tell exactly but the tactics and line up looked wrong and/or the players didn’t do what they were told. I’m afraid that comes back to the gaffer. 

All this ‘they are young lads and we all or most did the same’ is true but these young lads have older lads and grown men with them. Blaming the rest of the stadium, UEFA, FARE, Rangers Board, Oxford English Dictionary is head in sand stuff. 

UB can be a force for good and it would make a lot of difference if they just put their hands up and said we won’t do it again and we will self police. If the single largest fan group (at the stadium) said they will self police then many others might (assuming they are not going to get filled in). The UB dont even have to say they were wrong. Sometimes you take one for the team and you move forward. UB could show leadership here. 

And if you're out of the conversation Gaspard because of auto correct then you weren’t being serious in the first place. Pity coz you raised some fair points. 

8 minutes ago, Bill said:

The UB statement is typically childlike and shallow. They wallow in self-pity and blame everyone except themselves. The clear implication seems to be "we're special, why is no one rushing to say so?"

 

My view is that if this is how they approach this issue we'd be better off without them. I won't miss them or their songs.

...................the statement they should have made was an apology for embarrassing the club and jeopardising  our EL chances. They were caught red handed and they offer their child like attempts to blame everyone else. 

3 hours ago, BEARGER said:

The UB statement is exactly what I expected  from them. No remorse far less an apology from a group who think their the most important thing on match days. One other point if it s correct, the club have never spoken to them about the song sheet. That’s a dereliction of duty by our board.

Agree with most mate but the dog in the street knows that FARE are looking for ****** and Pope used in derogatory terms. Everyone knows BF1 kick off these songs. It is disingenuous of UB and anyone else to act confused and dismayed. It’s pathetic that they plead ignorance. A lot of time, effort and money from fans and directors has gone into saving our club over last 10 years and primarily it is directors money and guarantees has kept our club afloat. The UB like all fans have contributed but they now have a choice, bin the sectarian cr*p or go elsewhere. 

Good result. Bit too much fannying about in opposition box tho. Need to hit a few more early. 

26 minutes ago, der Berliner said:

The easiest way to find out is simply checking wikipedia or the lexicon of your choice. Same for racism. Language will not appear ... else we Germans would not regard the Bavarians as Germans.

 

The whole thing is a hydra with many heads, all need to be tackled.

 

- supporters need to see that singing TBB and any add-ons of the FTP variety will be regarded as offensive, sectarian or discriminatory. These songs et al have to stop - for the time being. If need be, the hardcore element shall view this as a ceasefire till we actually get any serious and usable information on the matter. At the end of the day, this has nothing to do with freedom of speech or the like, if you enter Ibrox with your ticket in hand, you agree to the house rules which are set by the landlord. Obviously, common sense should make these people refrain from harming our club. What happens on away days like today is another matter though. Here you would have to rely on things like fan-stewards, who, if need be, need to weed out the hardcore singers. Likewise, it should be made clear to the authorities that weeding these things out is not a thing of days or weeks ... and punishments - if any - need to be made against all offenders, not just us.

 

THIS is actually the main job for the Supporters Liaison Officer. Get the fans and the club together and find solutions.

 

- FARE ... should be questioned and UEFA need to be made aware of their stance and background. Therefore, someone from our support needs to contact UEFA, as FARE`s warped image of racism and sectarianism is blatant for anyone willing to see.

 

- the days of mumbo-jumbo need to end. Everyone with a keyboard can whip up stuff about what is ssectarian or racist or whatnot, to his or her heart`s content. Thus, it needs to be made clear which songs are regarded as offensive by Rangers ... and Rangers alone. We need some legs to stand upon and if the club says: stop TBB and any FTP addons, but give BMG, Derry`s Walls and We`re coming down the road with all barrells, we have something to work with. Else it will continue that others, and mainly agenda driven people will a) tell us what is offensive and b) go to UEFA and cry foul, citing songs which are all but racist or even sectarian. UEFA will not double check this, as they have enough to do counting their CL and EL money. If we have a No-No-Songbook, both club and support can tackle any attacks, fines or penalties.

 

THIS is actually ANOTHER job for the Supporters Liaison Officer. Get the fans and the club together and find solutions.

 

- Them. How come that we get a stand closed after years of inactivity by UEFA? Whereas they get away with all sorts of wrongdoings, from political displays, attacking opposition players, and continually singing their IRAoke? How come that FARE is nowhere to be seen when the chant FTQ or hail hail terrorists? Want to see us dead. How come UEFA does not react to that?

 

It is ominously quiet both here and on FF once I suggest that we should also ask for help or at least oppinions from British institutions, like the Ministry of Defence, Justice and the Home Office regarding the anti-British behaviour at the Scumhut, the unlawful pro-terrorist chanting. Did the Orange Order actually say a single word regarding the hanging of the blow-up dolls?

 

- Tackle media campaigns. Be it ridiculous rubbish from Stewart or articles like McConnell`s in the Herald, who not once mentioned her beloved Hooped Horrors. The pendulum swing gloriously in one direction and the club seemingly looks at it like the bunny at the snake. This is not on. Journalists are not propaganda tools of people with agendas ... and if they behave as such, they and it need to be named and shamed.

 

... all this just for starters.

FARE exist for European games dB. The inequality is frustrating but they are there to give an ethical rubber stamp to UEFA. They target games with a high risk of racism, xenophobia and anti semitism. UEFA need them to offset their own corrupt image. 

One way way to get the frustration and point raised and  across to FARE would be to apply for a grant to raise awareness and education. 

That may be something Club 1872 could avail themselves of to fund leaflets distribution to our own fans (or whatever) and at the same time would show FARE that we are proactive as a fan base and trying to address our issues. That I think is where we are. Fighting FARE and UEFA won’t work.  

https://farenet.org/campaigns/footballpeople-action-weeks/apply-for-a-2019-footballpeople-grant/

https://farenet.org/get-involved/report-discrimination/observer-scheme-faq/

1 hour ago, craig said:

Does that really matter ?  The “what about them” excuse is childish.  We have  words being sung that we know aren’t allowed - yet we have fans acting like 5 yr olds, pointing their fingers everywhere else instead of at themselves.

 

FARE aren’t impartial, we know that.  But give them nothing to report us for and we then can make that complaint from a position of strength.  Make the complaint now and it’s from a position of weakness.

 

So tiring listening to some of our support being stupidly defiant.  Defiance is great but in this instance it’s misplaced because the ONLY thing it will do is have the stadium closed in its entirety and see the club lose at least £1 million.  Those same fans will complain when we can’t afford to spend £1 million on a player and lack all sense of self awareness that it would have been their fault.

Exactly. If folk want to defend freedom of speech (I’m giving them too much credit for philosophical principles here) go and sing about ******s and popes in george Square.  Don’t damage Rangers. I don’t like the Catholic Church or popes or any religious cult but I’m not going to destroy my football club to get the point across. No one is listening except FARE and the fact these numskulls still want clarification is breathtaking. 

Last night in highlighting the impressive goal tallies of them and Rangers so far this season we had the commentary from 6 or 7 Celtic goals and one Rangers goal.