Stevie - 4lads Blog

A lovely nights work by Rangers 

This team has shown the balls to actually keep progress After the disappointment of Hampden

Merry Christmas everyone, ‘Mon the Rangers ?

0-1 Rangers 

Jack 

Motherwell 2 Rangers 3 

Tavernier 

(rollercoaster ahead but we will win)  

3-1 Rangers 

Kent 

Folks

This months Gersnet 4lads podcast guest is Alex McLeish 

I hope as many of you listen to our monthly gig if you can & know format, interview the guest on his time at Ibrox 

Alex is obviously a huge figure in our history, aside of the usual things we will cover, anyone like me to ask Alex anything? I will try to incorporate as much questions as possible 

Stevie 

23 minutes ago, compo said:

Pull yourself together lad 

Celtic 0 Rangers 1

Goldson 88 mins 

I can’t post on this without betraying everything I believe in  

But I don’t feel good about Sunday at all 

5 minutes ago, MacK1950 said:

Seen him v Wrexham in Tunnocks Cup,was very impressed and sad to see him go off injured.

He’s a very good player by all accounts, trust the folk that tell me he is the next Alan Hutton 

Very impressive 

7 minutes ago, ian1964 said:

 

Just the two weeks after I posted the exact story online with 4lads 

Aberdeen 1 Rangers 3

Tavernier 

3-0 Rangers 

Kent FGS

Rangers 3 Hearts 0

Jack 

Feyenoord 1 Rangers 1 

Arfield 

I think there has been a lot of ‘exclusives’, ‘ITK’ shite posted on the internet the last few days 

In fact some of it embarrassing 

@Bluedell rightly posts above, share issue etc is not news but sensationalism after that is exactly that 

3 hours ago, pete said:

Paul Gascoine´s nephew Cameron Gascoigne seemingly on trial with us and the word is we are very interested in signing him. I hope he is half as good.

Not seemingly, he is and scored the other night in a bounce game 

I wad told he was very good, others like Elfideldo have said he was average

Need to wait and see if club offer him anything 

14 minutes ago, Frankie said:

Of course it did but it's worth noting SDM had been trying to sell the club (informally at least) without success for several years before 2011 and well before the HMRC investigation in 2010.

 

The bill wasn't known (publicly at least) until after the sale in 2011.  Before that the amount could only be estimated and there was no talk of £94m or anything like it.

The threat of millions of pounds litigation & horror stories had been going on since 2008 

No one was touching us 

Pressure on the bank etc 

It’s ok saying that HMRC were owed just £68m, the point is that Huge parts of that debt was caused by Whyte etc - the Phantom bill was a catalyst for everything that happened to us indirectly or directly 

That’s my point

Had it been administered properly then there’s a chance SDMs £10m settlement offer may have been accepted etc 

It’s a debate on Ifs & Buts, there’s certainly no doubt in my mind we were hamstrung because of it 

Ticket email received 

27 minutes ago, Frankie said:

OK - it seems more information is starting to leak out (including possible letters to former players) and HMRC's claim may indeed be reduced to circa £20m as 'The Times' has noted overnight.

 

IF that's correct (and it remains a big if right now) and the HMRC claim is reduced to £20m then the oldco would still have had a debt of at least £40m in 2011 (i.e. the time of the sale to Whyte).  That's a lot but would have been manageable for sure and was certainly a better situation than what arose from admin.  However, we arguably still would have been owned by Whyte.

 

With that in mind, it's important to note, because of the BTC (and the financial crash of that period), Murray/LBG wanted a sale asap no matter if it was £20m claim, £94m claim or even if Murray had managed to settle (which looks like what should have happened).  Ultimately the sale to Whyte took place before full info of what HMRC wanted was known (publicly at least) - partly because we were still insisting EBT's weren't subject to tax.

 

Nevertheless, questions remain over HMRC timelines and actions.  At what point did they know how much they'd be claiming?  Why did they get their sums so wrong? Who was responsible?  Should a CVA have been agreed?

 

And, of course, the £68.3m question, could/should they have come to a settlement before 2011, making the club more attractive to other interested parties, perhaps avoiding a sale to Whyte? 

 

Lots of questions then and very few answers.  In fact, I doubt we'll ever get answers and the best outcome will be an increased dividend for creditors of the oldco.  All things considered the motivation of many parties is difficult to outline from MIH to LBG to HMRC to Whyte to Green to other clubs to the SFA to the media and to the politicians. What is for sure, an institution fell apart because of their actions and the genuine people that did lose out - from shareholders to creditors to fans, are the victims and that should never be forgotten when it comes to asking for contrition.  

The major question is - 

Did the potential liability make us untouchable? 
 

The answer is yes 

As I blogged today, the results of that phantom bill caused 2011 sale etc 

Without it we are potentially sold before 

No one can deny that 

14 minutes ago, buster. said:

Regards transfer fees, it's important we start to get real value when selling.

It's an area where we are a fair bit behind Celtic and that needs to change for the better.

 

 

Doing well in Europe, International exposure and winning stuff would all help.

Ross Wilson good recruitment, and contract management.

It'd also be good if the coming years, some of our youngsters reached levels required for the first team.

Yeah exactly & I agree 

I was being flippant above but the stories going out is we are willing to part with Kamara for that kind of cash 

Bournemouth, Brighton, Palace & Leeds are all keen 

48 minutes ago, buster. said:

By whom ?

 

Great if we could get that much but I doubt it.

Me 

We’ll see mate 

34 minutes ago, buster. said:

I should have said quotes or posts from Stevie to back it up.............

 

At this stage, I doubt we'd get as much as 8M.

IMO 5Mish plus sell-on clause more likely.

If he continues to flourish, further down the line the price would go up.

 

Given our finances and that he's not as difficult as some to replace, it'd be a no brainer.

£8-10m is quoted price 

Palace, Bournemouth, Brighton, Leeds have all watched him in recent weeks 

Bit more to the Kamara thing than just rumours, for me I think we will cash in January 

1 minute ago, Bluedell said:

Excellent interview, @Stevie - 4lads Blog. I really enjoyed it. Good to hear how a player feels rather than the usual  platitudes. 

Thank you mate, Neil was excellent and spoke very well