Tom English: David Murray wreaked terrible damage

[ian1964 10,461]

SINCE the Rangers saga began, there have been so many preposterous claims that itâ??s difficult to know where to bracket David Murrayâ??s dismissal of Lord Nimmo Smithâ??s commission as a witch hunt and a futile waste of time, effort and money.

 

Itâ??s on the list, though. For brazenly trying to present Nimmo Smithâ??s commission as nothing more than a plot to kick a club while theyâ??re down, Murray has further cemented his place on the register of the unembarrassable men of Rangersâ?? recent past.

 

Murray is attempting to change the narrative of what Nimmo Smith has actually concluded, pushing a shameless line about a witch hunt while singularly failing to address the many criticisms â?? not to mention the £250,000 fine â?? of the way Rangers did business when Murray owned the club. The breaches of the SPL rulebook on disclosure of payments were done on his watch and done deliberately according to Nimmo Smith, pictured. For that, the board of the Oldco have been panned, or, to quote from the verdict, the former directors of Rangers â??bear a heavy responsibilityâ?. Murray is talking like a man who has been deemed innocent when, in fact, Nimmo Smith says the â??seriousness of the contraventions... require a substantial penalty to be imposedâ?.

 

Witch hunt? Itâ??s more smoke and mirrors from Murray.

 

This commission is the third weighty report on Rangers, the first being the SFAâ??s Judicial Panel as adjudicated by Lord Carloway and then Lord Glennie and the second being the epic First Tier Tax Tribunal. All three have had plenty to say about Murray and the Murray Group and their role in the downfall of Rangers and most of it has been done with a finger pointed firmly in his direction. We had the greatest legal minds in the country, weâ??ve had tax boffins, weâ??ve had independent people from the football world and all of them are in agreement on one issue and that agreement revolves around Murray and the people who acted for him.

 

Letâ??s recall what the Judicial Panel concluded in their Note of Reasons last May, a heavy document that sought to get to the bottom of how and why Craig Whyte managed to get his hands on the club and what he did to it thereafter. Whyte is rightly castigated in that report but nobody should forget what it concluded about Whyteâ??s predecessor, who has always said that he felt duped by Whyte and that he hadnâ??t realised that Whyte was a touch, er, â??colourfulâ? in his business life before Rangers. The Judicial Panel disputed this claim. In fact it blew it out of the water and, although Carloway and Glennie would later disagree on punishment, they were as one in their endorsement of the detail of what the Judicial Panel determined.

 

It spoke of Martin Bain, the former Rangers chief executive, going to Murray with serious misgivings about Whyte and a document which backed up his doubts. Instead of being duped, the Judicial Panel presented a picture of Murray ignoring what his chief executive was telling him because of pressure from Lloyds Banking Group.

 

â??[Martin Bain] set out at length the matters which had been explored in the IBC [independent board committee] and meetings with Mr Whyte and the lack of information which had been obtained,â? the report stated. â??He [bain] expressed concern at the lack of due diligence being carried out both by Sir David Murray and the Murray Group. Mr Bain disclosed the contents of the investigation report into Craig Whyte and provided Sir David with a copy. Sir David explained he was under pressure from Lloyds to dispose of and release his shareholding in Rangers to Craig Whyte and that, in view of his overall financial position, he was left with almost no option but to sell.â?

 

The â??dupedâ? defence was undermined substantially in the wake of this report. Was that a witch hunt, too?

 

And what about the tax tribunal? Another stitch-up? This was the second of the momentous studies into life at Rangers, the one that has set them free of liability for the so-called EBT Big Tax Case, pending appeal by HMRC. This was a huge result for Rangers but, again, a constant theme in that document was criticism of the Murray Groupâ??s behaviour, not just by the one dissenting voice â?? Heidi Poon was most forceful â?? but by all three members of the panel.

 

Remember Mr Red, the code-name for the senior member of Murrayâ??s tax function and the man who operated the EBT scheme within the Murray Group? Mr Red, acting for Murray, took heavy flak from the tribunal who said they were â??disturbedâ? by parts of Mr Redâ??s evidence. Poon lacerated Murrayâ??s man.

 

â??The protracted and chequered course of the enquiry was largely due to a lack of candour and co-operation from Mr Red, who was the chief operating officer dealing with the enquiry,â? wrote Poon. She talked about documents not being disclosed despite repeated requests and statutory demands for information, referring to Redâ??s â??hostilityâ? and the fact that he â??refused any meetings with HMRC in the course of the enquiryâ?.

 

It was only when the City of London Police consulted with HMRCâ??s Criminal Investigation Section that documents could be seized from Ibrox. Five and a half years after the HMRC enquiry was set up, they were still chasing documents from the Murray Group. Poon said there was evidence of active concealment of documents. On more than one occasion, Poon revealed, Murrayâ??s man Red had â??attempted to mislead the tribunalâ?.

 

Last week, Nimmo Smith shed more light on what the tax tribunal called the â??culture of defensivenessâ? within the Murray Group. He was critical of Murrayâ??s Rangers for not seeking clarification from the footballing authorities about the need to disclose payment side letters, the inference being that they did not want to ask the SFA or the SPL about side letters in case they were told that these vast sums were taxable (they were not) and thereby run risk of the project collapsing in a heap. They ploughed on and said nothing. Their defence that the payments were mentioned (kind of) in the Rangers accounts for ten years is not one that held any water with Nimmo Smith because he condemned them for non-disclosure. That was Murrayâ??s doing.

 

The â??heavy responsibilityâ? lay on the board and that includes many of the old guard whose only claim in their defence is that they presumed Murray was doing everything correctly. Thatâ??s what Campbell Ogilvie has said and there is no reason to doubt him. Is ignorance a defence, though? The SFA president is damaged by this, no question.

 

There are issues at every turn. Issues for the SFA, the SPL and the SFL and the deal they attempted to cut in the summer with Charles Green, a pre-judgment of a tax tribunal and the SPLâ??s own commission that puts Neil Doncaster, Stewart Regan and also David Longmuir in the dock.

 

Murray â?? and, of course, Whyte â?? have most questions to answer, though.

 

Through his non-disclosure of side letters and his ignoring of the warnings within about his sale of Rangers to Whyte, he wreaked terrible damage and that has been explored across three reports by all manner of independent and high-powered people. And still Murray talks of this story like heâ??s been spirited back to Salem.

 

We know what this is. And itâ??s not a witch hunt.

[Blue Moon 1,124]

Contrast this with Richard Wilson's article. I cannot recall one thing he has said in Rangers favour since this verdict last week.

[Guest Dummiesoot]

bitter much, Tom?

[Gingerger 0]

Fundamentally flawed reasoning of course. LNS was not leading a witchunt, he was set up as the 'independent' patsy to front the witchunt which was orchastrated by the SPL (C*ltic). The problem for the SPL (C*ltic) of course is that LNS and his collegues didn't play along and judged the matters on these stranges things called EVIDENCE.

 

We all know how much culpability is atrtributable to Murray and Whyte, thats not the issue at play here. The issue is that the SPL (C*ltic) sought to take advantage to blatently try and strip Rangers titles. That was the focus and clear goal of this particular witchunt.

[the gunslinger 3,366]

just another way of calling us guilty when we have done little wrong.

[ian1964 10,461]

Waddell saying time to move on and accept tribunal verdict

 

 

Lets draw a line under Nimmo Smith verdict and get on with it

 

A LINE should be drawn under every issue which has been burdening Scottish football since Rangers hit the buffers, so we can all get on with the game

 

IT'S amazing how often people only see what they want to see.

 

Rangers supporters read Lord Nimmo Smith’s report and see a victory despite their club being found guilty.

 

Celtic fans – and their manager Neil Lennon – read it and see a disgraceful cop-out despite Gers being found guilty.

 

Truth and reason, as usual, are casualties of their tribalism.

 

What’s so difficult about all of this that some people find it so hard to grasp?

 

The stripping of titles was the 18th of 18 sanctions on a sliding scale against Rangers if they were found to have breached the SPL rules by the independent tribunal.

 

So for those who think it was the only punishment acceptable, here’s a question: Should every conviction in court automatically carry a life sentence?

 

Are there no degrees of guilt?

 

We got a unanimous verdict from three top legal minds.

 

They’ve spent years dealing with issues far more morally and legally complex than anything Scottish football can throw at them, yet we’re somehow supposed to buy that they’ve made an a*** of it?

 

I’ve read the report top to bottom more than once. Despite its hefty nature, it’s pretty clear.

 

They didn’t believe there was anything accidental about the non-declaration. Calling it an administrative “error” is a serious stretch. It was done deliberately to conceal payments which didn’t actually have to be concealed.

 

They found Rangers guilty, gave it tight to the men responsible and administered what they considered was an appropriate punishment.

 

End of story? Aye, right.

 

Everyone will have an opinion on it. Same as everyone will have an opinion on whether Oscar Pistorius is guilty. But we’re not judge, jury or executioner. That was left to the experts.

 

Yet it apparently doesn’t matter about their credentials, independence, how many degrees they have on their walls – they’re aw wrang!

 

You can SMELL the desperation.

 

The people saying: “What about Spartans et al getting kicked out of the Scottish Cup for

registration issues?” - different competition, different body, different rules.

 

You have people asking if the embargo should be dropped, if Rangers should be reinstated to the SPL, conveniently forgetting the fact neither was related to the issue and airbrushing Rangers’ demise under Craig Whyte out.

 

You have Celtic fans being worked from the back, saying if the SPL take the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, they would win.

 

Win what? They handed the case to an independent tribunal to get a legitimate verdict which they would never have managed with the vested interests of the clubs around their table.

 

Now they have an outcome. They haven’t “lost”. To suggest that is to suggest someone in there believes there was something to be won.

 

There are no winners in this saga. It has been lose/lose.

 

What you’d like to hope for now is that every issue which has been burdening the game since Rangers hit the buffers is settled and we can just get on with the game.

 

But as Charles Green pointed out, how are you supposed to do that when we’re sitting here in March and he can’t even tell a new sponsor what division his logos are going to be seen in come August.

 

The SPL and SFL are still sitting there like weans refusing to share their toys. The job they’ve done of trying to sell change has been criminal. They are addressing the biggest issue in the game and are still protecting their vested interests.

 

If nothing else, the past few months have shown that if they ever get round to a new body, the title of chief executive should be redundant.

 

He’ll be chief of nothing without an executive power to his name.

 

Whether it’s Neil Doncaster, David Longmuir, or Joe Bloggs, they’re there to administer as a secretary, because they sure ain’t leading. But with their plate now clear, they’ve run out of excuses not to get it done.

[gisabeer 409]

yes tom smoke and mirrors from david murray. and in other news adolf hitler has invaded poland and neil armstrong has landed on the moon.

 

tell us something we dont know.

[RANGERRAB 3,307]

What an utter buffoon English is.

 

The EBT's were perfectly legal. SDM's only 'crime' was not to declare them to the SFA/SPL despite the fact they were in the annual accounts every year. Why didn't the SFA/SPL ask about these EBT's? Did they not read the accounts? if they did read them who did they think they were for?

I think the SFA/SPL both have a bit of answering to do in all of this. As a governing body the SFA is not fit for purpose.

And if English doesn't know why SDM sold to Whyte then he's in the wrong job. The word blackmail springs to mind along with LBG.

Edited March 3, 2013 by RANGERRAB