The clamour to strip Rangers is wrong

[Bluedell 5,348]

Article from the normally unfriendly Michael Grant of the Times:

 

The “Big Tax Case” is beginning to feel like one of those daft matches that come along now and again, the lead dramatically switching hands as late goals are scored at either end. If BDO, the company in the process of liquidating Rangers Football Club plc, are going to turn this around they have one last chance to launch a lengthy appeal. That will mean another year of football fans interpreting tax law on the basis of what team they support.

 

Is it outrageous to not support Rangers but believe that a) stripping titles would be an excessive and disproportionate punishment for their tax breaches and b) something doesn’t sit right about the endless accusations of “cheating” levelled at them over complex and (still) disputed EBTs? To cheat, don’t you have to set out to deliberately break the rules? Don’t you have to know something is forbidden and say, to hell with it, this is what we’re doing anyway? Ben Johnson, Lance Armstrong, the Russian athletes and their federation: deliberate, sustained, systematic corruption and lying. Rangers using/misuing EBTs isn’t in that ball park.

 

It’s been said often enough already but these core points remain sacrosanct if we’re going to talk about something as profound as title-stripping: EBTs were not illegal when Rangers used them and they’re not illegal now; Rangers declared their use of them in their annual accounts; when the SPFL got Lord Nimmo-Smith to rule on the issue in 2013 he found the following: “The payments in this case were not themselves irregular and were not in breach of SPL or SFA Rules.” He ruled that none of the players who got EBTs were ineligible, and that “it is not a breach of SPL rules to minimise tax liability”. Count me among the majority who couldn’t get their head around Nimmo-Smith’s strange interpretation that Rangers gained no sporting advantage from not disclosing the side-letters. If a football club embraces an aggressive tax-avoidance scheme it’s doing it to save money to use elsewhere, ie potentially on bringing in more and better players. If Sir David Murray had had the discipline he could still have signed and retained all the true stars — Ronald de Boer, Lorenzo Amoruso, Barry Ferguson — without using EBTs. But he couldn’t stop signing players, and there were plenty of duds among them who made little impact.

 

But Nimmo-Smith did not act on using EBTs to pay players because it was not covered in the SPL rules (non-disclosure of “side-letters” was and Rangers were fined £250,000 for their shifty, dubious behaviour on that). His verdict was not based on the actual EBT use or misuse and, for what it’s worth, he doubtless he assumed that HMRC (losing its case at the time) would continue its appeal. So what exactly is that people are calling for now? That Rangers be stripped of titles for avoiding tax between 2001 and 2010 even though that itself broke no football rules at the time? How does that work, exactly? Should those rules and punishment be drawn up now?

 

The way Murray latterly ran Rangers was reprehensible. The way Rangers and their fans revelled in the success explains the unquenchable desire among rival fans to see them punished. It’s understandable that even some fair-minded supporters feel that their team was shafted by Rangers over those years. But others accept that football knew all about EBTs. Arsenal used them. Celtic had the sense to dabble and then settle their tax liability and have nothing more to do with them, recognising that they might become more trouble than they were worth. Not Murray. He was addicted to the high-risk, daring aspects of EBTs. Well, look where it all got him.

 

But it isn’t necessary to have a shred of sympathy for Murray to say this: in the clamour to come down hard on Rangers, it cannot extend to revisiting old rules and writing new ones just to get them in the dock.

 

 

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/football/scotland/article4610783.ece

[der Berliner 3,267]

It should be noted too, that once more the baying masses (including some ill-advised reporters) seem to carry the story forward more than the authorities. On a subject that has not seen anyone definitely proved to having done anything unlawful. Same situation as in 2012.

 

And what is conspicuously absent in nigh any article is this: Rangers / Murray used EBTs and even if applied not accordingly, all that essentially needs to be done "is paying the tax bill", if belatedly. Once that has been done, whether in full or in pence-in-pound, the tax obligation is been dealt with, and so too is any "unlawful" handling of our EBTs. Unless I am mistaken?

[calscot 0]

One of the most pertinent and sensible articles I've seen on the subject from the press.

[Frankie 8,172]

This seems as fair and reasonable a point of view as we'll get from non-Rangers fans.

 

The side-letter issue is one that has caused the problem but it's been dealt with. Time for everyone to move on.

[RabiDuck 89]

This seems as fair and reasonable a point of view as we'll get from non-Rangers fans.

 

The side-letter issue is one that has caused the problem but it's been dealt with. Time for everyone to move on.

 

Probably "fairer" than you'd see from many rangers fans as well. A touch of independence to the view point makes it carry a little more weight. Not suggesting for a moment that any of the Rangers viewpoints put forward are wrong, but it's hard to try and claim that they're not biased in their observation.

 

It's this consideration that makes the view of people like Jo Maugham so interesting and informative.

[aweebluesoandso 290]

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/opinion/sport/rangers-record-fc-ebt-justice-6809526

 

An accurate and funny retort in the Rebel from a Bear.