ian1964 10,409 Posted June 18, 2012 Share Posted June 18, 2012 JEAN-ALAIN BOUMSONG last night offered to return to Rangers on a cut-price contract if it helps Walter Smith resurrect the club. The French defender is so keen to go back to his crisis-ravaged former club heâ??s even proposed a deal that would see him paid almost half his wages in future shares of the Ibrox newco. Boumsong made the incredible gesture in an interview with Record Sport here at Euro 2012, where heâ??s a TV pundit for Al Jazeera. Now 32 and at Greek giants Panathinaikos â?? who are going through a financial meltdown of their own â?? he spoke of his shock at Rangersâ?? liquidation and distress over EBT payments. services And after learning legendary figure Smith was attempting to rescue the club by spearheading an attempted leadership coup to hijack the Charles Green takeover, Boumsong was quick to offer his own services. With Rangers continuing to contest a 12-month signing ban, the ex-Newcastle and Juventus defender said: â??I only played for Rangers for six months but it was a fantastic time for me. â??If I had the opportunity to go back to Rangers I would do so right away. â??Iâ??m doing well at Panathinaikos â?? we finished high enough to reach the Champions League qualifiers. Itâ??s a big club but Rangers are bigger. My contract ends next season. I have another year but Iâ??m almost free as the club has some big financial problems. â??Greece is a difficult place right now, we havenâ??t been paid for months. Itâ??s hard times, I need to feed my family. â??But if Iâ??d the opportunity to go back to Rangers it would not be a question of money as I know they are struggling.â? Boumsong says heâ??d play for almost half what heâ??s worth in return for a stake in the business â?? and insists he wouldnâ??t do it for any other club. He added: â??I donâ??t know the latest situation on whether Rangers can sign any new players but I know Walter Smith is trying to buy the club. â??Everyone knows who he is, he has Rangers in his heart and thatâ??s what Rangers needs. â??I feel that way too so maybe we could talk, why not? Maybe part of my salary could be given to me in shares. â??Instead of 100 per cent I could take 60 and the 40 be paid in shares of the new company. â??I am still fit and believe I can play for another two or three years at a high level. â??Rangers have some rich supporters in Scotland. Why has it taken until now for them to bring their money together? â??Anyone else who loves the club has to do what they can to help.â? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
simplythebest 0 Posted June 18, 2012 Share Posted June 18, 2012 Last person I expected to hear such an idea from. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ian1964 10,409 Posted June 18, 2012 Author Share Posted June 18, 2012 Boumsong - on EBT's keith jackson -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HE had never heard of an EBT until the day he signed for RFC. But now those six little letters will live with Jean-Alain Boumsong for the rest of his days. The Frenchman has watched on from afar with utter astonishment as Rangers have unravelled over the past six months and last week’s liquidation of the old company has hit him so hard he feels somehow compelled to return to Scotland to do what he can to assist in efforts to save Ibrox from oblivion. He may have only spent six months in Glasgow – and that was some eight years ago now. But even so he insists in that short time he felt a bond with the club the likes of which he has never experienced before or after. Which is perhaps why, even now, he still feels uncomfortable at the very mention of the tax avoidance scheme from which it is claimed he benefited to the tune of around £630,000. Something about that offshore payment plan just never sat easily with Boumsong. So much so, in fact, that for the first time he has revealed he gave serious thought to pulling the plug on his free transfer to the club on the day he arrived in Glasgow to sign his name on the dotted line. Eventually he was persuaded by accountants there was nothing illegal about the structure of the contract which would make him a wealthy man and a Rangers player. But Boumsong smelled a rat back then. And it’s rankled with him ever since. In an interview with Record Sport here at Euro 2012 he said: “My salary was normally paid but there was a trust. I was not comfortable with that to be honest. I didn’t know anything about it until the day I was going to sign. “When I discovered it I first refused to sign the contract and said, ‘What is this?’ “I didn’t want to sign because it seemed strange, we don’t have that kind of payment in France and I didn’t know anything about it. When I left Rangers, for example, to sign for Newcastle, it was for a normal contract with normal payment. “But the day I was signing for Rangers I was told it was legal. “As players we don’t know the law but my advisers said, ‘It’s okay, you can sign it. It’s legal’. “I wouldn’t have signed otherwise, no way. If I thought it was wrong legally I wouldn’t have gone. It’s important to be able to sleep at night without any fear of being chased by the tax office.” If only those running Rangers had been just as scrupulous or even shared some of Boumsong’s reservations, then the club may have been spared from at least a proportion of its ongoing crisis. LOSSES EBTs may not have been the cause of their undoing – that one rests with Sir David Murray’s decision to hand the keys to Craig Whyte – but they did leave a huge tax liability hanging over Ibrox and those potential losses led to Lloyds Bank leaning heavily on Murray to sell up in the first place. The finer details of how Rangers got into such a mess are all a little lost on Boumsong who was off to Newcastle in an £8m move after only six months into that lucrative five-year deal. He has since spent time at Juventus and Lyon and is currently looking for an escape from stricken Greek outfit Panathinaikos who are experiencing a financial meltdown of their own. There is for him though a very bitter sense of irony in all of this. He says he would gladly return to Rangers tomorrow, especially if he can help in Walter Smith’s attempts to stabilise the club. He would be willing to do so for around half of the wages he might earn himself elsewhere. All he would ask for in return is a stake in the future of the new Rangers company. He insists such a deal would not be about money. And there’s the irony right there. Because Boumsong insists the chance to make a quick buck was not the reason he chose Rangers in the first place. Which is why he still can’t get his head around why the club was willing to take any kind of risks over his contract. He said: “Believe me, I could have gone to other clubs for more money. I was a free agent at the time and sometimes it is not about money. I wanted to go there because they believed in me and they wanted me. “They wanted to build a team with me a big part of it so I decided to go. They trusted me and I trusted them so I signed.” Now, eight years on, Boumsong would relish the opportunity to do it all over again. He’s been stuck in Athens without any wages at all for most of last season, just one of the millions of victims of the economic disaster which threatens to bring all of Greece down. And now he would choose to return to Ibrox? The words “frying pan” and “fire” spring instantly to mind. But if the club can successfully overturn the disputed transfer embargo which was imposed as a punishment for Whyte’s shamed regime then Boumsong will be there, standing at the front of the queue, ready and willing to help. He insists it’s all down to a sense of duty or an inner calling. But most of all though he says he just wants to help clean up a mess that was made by others He said: “I don’t know too much about what’s happened. Of course, I watch it on TV but I don’t know exactly what’s going on there. “I hear there is a chance they could be forced to play in the Third Division and that would be a disaster. What would happen to the Scottish League without Rangers? That would be a real shame and to be honest I can’t believe it. It’s incredible. IMPORTANT “I know the other clubs need to complain because they don’t think what’s happened is fair but maybe they will find an agreement because they know how important Rangers are. “The lesson we have to take from this is that financial fair play must happen. Every single club must now control their finances. But I am quite surprised Rangers didn’t use the money they had better than they did. I mean, they paid big wages, but I’m surprised they weren’t better at business. “They sold the right-back, Alan Hutton, for £9m. When I left it was for a big transfer worth £8m and I cost the club nothing. “Sure, they’ve had to pay out wages so it’s not as though you can add £8m and £9m together and ask where the money is now. But you still ask yourself how can this happen to a club like Rangers? “I still have strong feelings for the club. It doesn’t depend on how long you spend at a club to feel part of it. I had some of my best moments in football at Rangers really. “I was happy there, my family was happy, and if I had the opportunity to go back I’d go, even now.” 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calgacus 8 Posted June 18, 2012 Share Posted June 18, 2012 I think her'd be well advised to avoid the UK, just in case the Murray Group loses the BTC and HMRC start chasing the individual beneficiaries for the tax! 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
der Berliner 3,231 Posted June 18, 2012 Share Posted June 18, 2012 I asked this before: is there a time limit to reclaim any "unpaid" taxes? It's not murder, genocide or the like, so there sure is a limit. On topic, I would love is some of the "old" guard would come to help us, especially if we are send down to Div. 3 and our star people are inevitably forced out (external pressure from national coaches spring to mind). People like Boumsong, Novo, Cousin et al. Good enough for the SFL and able to teach the youngsters a trick or two. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
calscot 0 Posted June 18, 2012 Share Posted June 18, 2012 What the hell does he feed his kids? steak? A starter of birds nest soup followed by half a dozen deep fried white truffles stuffed with almas caviare, coated with edible gold leaf, accompanied with a large slab of Kobe fillet topped with matsutake mushrooms, and to finish, dansuke Watermelon with Knipschildt chocolates? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GovanAllan 0 Posted June 18, 2012 Share Posted June 18, 2012 What the hell does he feed his kids? steak? A starter of birds nest soup followed by half a dozen deep fried white truffles stuffed with almas caviare, coated with edible gold leaf, accompanied with a large slab of Kobe fillet topped with matsutake mushrooms, and to finish, dansuke Watermelon with Knipschildt chocolates? That's sounds brilliant. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calgacus 8 Posted June 18, 2012 Share Posted June 18, 2012 What the hell does he feed his kids? steak? A starter of birds nest soup followed by half a dozen deep fried white truffles stuffed with almas caviare, coated with edible gold leaf, accompanied with a large slab of Kobe fillet topped with matsutake mushrooms, and to finish, dansuke Watermelon with Knipschildt chocolates? Don't we all? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
calscot 0 Posted June 18, 2012 Share Posted June 18, 2012 That's sounds brilliant. I agree, but it'll probably cost you a few grand... Just needs a bottle of Châteaux Petrus to wash it down... I think that's what Duff and Phelps have for lunch on expenses while they are administrating. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny 0 Posted June 18, 2012 Share Posted June 18, 2012 What the fuck? Jean Alain Boumsong wants to return?! Has his career gone so badly down the spout he wants to come back to us? Is this April 1st? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.