Rangers: A hollow win

Whatever else it’s done, Rangers new life in Division Three hasn’t dented their ability to command column inches.

This week it was the results of the First Tier Tribunal that dominated the media, old and new.

The findings have been pored over. Lines have been read between to prove what the reader believes to be true.

Only one thing really matters though. The majority opinion found in the oldco Rangers company's favour.

Vindication for Sir David Murray and those involved with the controversial EBT scheme. A victory for the fans to celebrate over those who will now forever be framed as "enemies" of the club.

Those enemies include a vindictive tax authority - although the findings of the the FTT at no point accuse HMRC of indulging in frippery in their pursuit of Murray’s Rangers - and all those in the mainstream media and online who pre-judged the club as guilty and demanded the death penalty.

Confession time. I was named on a Rangers forum this week as one who should be issuing an apology. Strange company for me to keep, being included (admittedly at the bottom) in a list that included Neil Lennon, Alex Thomson and, somewhat oddly, Andreas Hinkel.

Another confession. I’m not going to apologise.

What I take to be the offensive passage from Valentine's Day 2012:

"Yet Rangers are where they are - and yesterday's developments do little more than nudge us closer to knowing where that might be - through financial mismanagement. 

"It might also be, and we're approaching a legal decision about this, that they are where they are on account of a gargantuan theft against the state. 

"These are things that should be punished. 

"A theft against football as well. Our football. Championships have been won that Rangers couldn't afford. Talents have been taken from other teams - although we must concede that those other teams have enjoyed the financial benefits - that Rangers couldn't afford. 

"That's cheating. Doping the game. Financial doping. Doping is cheating. We've all suffered. 

"But as Rangers falsely speculated, others in the league often accumulated. Football can send us down a cul-de-sac where moral absolutes are hard to find. 

"Let's finger David Murray and his cohorts as guilty. We can, at the very least, sentence them on the charge of gross mismanagement."

You'll note, I hope, that I didn't prejudge the outcome of the FTT - although my language might have been overly dramatic.

I think, and I've embarked on a somewhat egotistical trawl of my own archives, I was always careful not to make a premature decision on behalf of the three tribunal judges.

Yet I wrote the line: "That's cheating. Doping the game. Financial doping. Doping is cheating. We've all suffered."

How could I have written that when, according to the narrative adopted by many this week, Sir David Murray is once more above reproach and the FTT decision clears the Rangers he presided over of any wrongdoing?

Maybe that comes back to football's lack of moral absolutes.

Financial doping, noun,

Definitions

1) the situation in which a sports franchise borrows heavily in order to contract and pay high-performing players, jeopardizing their long-term financial future

2) the situation in which the owner of a sports franchise invests his or her own personal wealth into securing high-performing players, rather than relying on the revenue the franchise is able to generate for itself

Was Sir David Murray - along with other owners and directors in Scottish football - guilty of any of that during his tenure at Ibrox?

I'd suspect so.

Was he guilty of the kind of financial management described by Alan Keen MP in 2009?

"Lack of proper governance and financial instability are the two fundamental vulnerabilities to the success that English football has enjoyed in recent times. 

"Our report includes tough measures to improve the way the game is run and to combat 'financial doping' whereby short-term success can be bought at the expense of long-term financial stability."

I'd say he was.

Did Murray's business style at Ibrox fit Michel Platini's description of certain types of football governance representing a "serious challenge to the idea of fair play and the concept of financial balance in our competitions."

I'd say so.

None of this is against the rules, of course, and I fear that any rules that Platini's UEFA introduce on financial fair play will have the all effectiveness of a chocolate fireguard. Nor was Sir David Murray the only club owner in Scotland to indulge in such practices.

For a romantic old lefty like me though, it's an approach that doesn't fit with the spirit of the game. An approach that cheats the game of the fundamental requirements of fairness,

Others disagree. It was Murray's money to spend as he liked, Murray's club to fund as he saw fit and, as former Ibrox chairman Alistair Johnson said in September this year,:

"What is clear is that 'financial doping' is not and could never be construed as describing a situation where a club extends its credit facilities with a recognised financial institution."

Let the free market rule in football as everywhere else. Which is fair enough, although it also means that clubs and their supporters will sound hollow if they demand special treatment when they become the subject of investigations by the taxman.

In the case of the Murray era Rangers I think this week's decision has been used to fuel revisionism.

While it's true that he'd worked to lower the debt the club had amassed he failed to reach a stage where he was free from the attentions of the bank or able to find a legitimate buyer for the club.

Some bad luck played a part: Murray's Rangers helped create a new architecture for the European game that eventually left smaller leagues like Scotland in its wake. The game didn't offer the potential for earnings to reward a high risk business plan.

He also fell foul of the financial collapse that left the bank twitchy and, because this high risk strategy extended to other colonies in his personal empire, left him diminished as owner-protector of Ibrox in the eyes of those same banks whose own disasters cost him millions.

In speculating to accumulate at Ibrox, Murray sowed some very destructive seeds.

Enter HMRC - with their legitimate but ultimately failed investigation - and the stage was set for Craig Whyte, that evil caricature of a saviour.

The victims of all this were the Rangers fans. It's disrespectful to them for Sir David Murray's supporters to paint him as the wronged party in a nightmare that he co-authored.

There is a wider point here about the governance of football in Scotland.

I've written many times about how we gauge the successes and failures of our game with too much reference to the English game.

Our game is a very different beast. And our clubs must be managed differently.

We need to look at different models of ownership, different ways of delivering sustainability.

The Murray-model - and you can add in the Romanov-model and the Brooks Mileson-model - took no cognisance of that.

That's fine when the trophies roll in and the good times swing. But it's destructive when things turn sour.

It's a business model that disenfranchises the fans as stakeholders and turns them into anonymous consumers of big business.

The bigger the risks taken by the owners, the bigger the implosion will be if and when it comes.

And the more powerless the fans will be to step in and clear up the mess.

Where did a business model he no longer wanted to support and a tax investigation he wanted to fight but couldn't be sure of winning leave Sir David Murray?

It left him taking a quid and a fantasy from Craig Whyte. That meant the FTT win would forever be condemned to a Pyrrhic victory an nothing more.

There has to be a different way.

In the case of Rangers there has to be way of returning them to the top of the game that doesn't wrack up huge debts or lead to an end point where fans are celebrating the legality of a method of making overpaid players richer and a Labour MP is criticising HMRC for pursuing a case against a company working a system of aggressive tax avoidance.

The people's game indeed.

Last week I wrote about Hearts:

"Hearts aren't finished.

"We can only hope that the era of men like Vladimir Romanov soon will be."

For Hearts read Rangers, for Vladimir Romanov read Sir David Murray.

The prospect of an HMRC appeal remains. The findings of the SPL's inquiry into Rangers will be delivered in the New Year. There are growing calls to punish those who leaked information regarding the tax investigation to media outlets and the now disappeared Rangers Tax Case blog.

This story has not yet run its course. And Sir David Murray will remain in the public eye, unlikely to surrender his opinion of his own innocence.

But at every club we should be writing a new chapter, no longer in thrall to the dreams of unlikely profits propagated by false prophets.

Demanding a new start for a sustainable future.

If we don't, we'll be cheating ourselves out of the game we love.

Rangers: Topping a breathless day

Twitter timelines were abuzz this afternoon as announcement followed claim followed counter-claim.

The subject?

Have a guess.

You're right: Rangers.

And the continuing travails of the rickety finances at Ibrox.

A drawn out process? The Icelandic economy crashed and burned in less time.

What did we learn today?

That Paul Murray and his Blue Knights - if we can allow trivial nomenclature to distract us, that is a really crap name - were rumoured to have got hold of Craig Whyte's stake in the club.

That turned out to be nonsense. Whyte has no objections to selling to Murray's men. Or, perhaps, he has withdrawn his objections. But he's done nothing yet.

"Selling" might be the crucial word: Whyte believes he's in line for £30 million. He's determined to get it.

The Motherwell-born fantasillionaire might be ridiculed and reviled. But he's not gone anywhere. He will do walking away but probably not without a fight.

Brian Kennedy was back at the table. Then he'd left the table. Then he was maybe back at the table. I'm not sure if he's now got cold feet or a cold dinner.

Kennedy did take time out to warn against US bidders Club 9. He needn't have troubled himself said Club 9: they may or may not be part of an active consortium but they've denied that they are interested in taking control of the club.

Rangers had applied for the licence they need to compete in Europe next season. Now we're told that the administrators were barking up the wrong tree with any attempt to circumvent the rules which deny any club so fiscally addled access to continental competition. And they were told that last week.

So a lot was reported today. But not very much happened.

What we do know is that the creditors will be asked to vote this week. Not about the liquidation saving company voluntary arrangement (CVA). Rather they'll be voting to extend this current period of administration until deep into April and beyond.

Where are Ticketus in this mess? Embedded deep in Paul Murray's consortium of Blue Knights? Or creditors looking for the money they believe they are owed when another bidder takes over?

That's another unknown variable that punches you in the face when you try looking for quick answers in this befuddled web of monetary madness.

Liquidation, say the fans, remains the worst option. Apparently Craig Whyte agrees with that, although he does seem something of a company liquidator extraordinaire so we might take his opinion with a Grant Holt-sized pinch of salt.

But surely, given none of the bidders seem to either have or be willing to spend Sheikh Mansour amounts of cash, liquidation does indeed remain a very real option. Maybe a tactical option or maybe an unavoidable option but most definitely an option.

With the question of Whyte's £30 million remaining unanswered, with the big tax case decision still a blot on the future landscape, with a lot riding on where exactly on the campsite Ticketus are having a piddle, we can't rule out anything.

And none of the outcomes look like being quick or free of pain for Rangers.

Meanwhile it's reported that Ralph Topping, the often elusive chairman of the SPL, has sent a letter to club chairmen giving the non-Old Firm teams something of a slap on the wrists over their rumoured cries for insurrection of late.

Sponsorships are being threatened, argues Topping, with the current uncertainty.

He makes it clear that Rangers' administrators will vote with Celtic to shoot down any moves by the "rebel" ten to upset the status quo.

That will go down like a lead balloon in some boardrooms and among a large number of fans.

The administrators will, of course, vote in a way that best preserves Rangers' interests. That is their duty.

It will annoy people, however, that the SPL would appear to be taking the side of two clubs against the majority.

The SPL chairman is, and I paraphrase, saying:

"Look, Rangers are barred from Europe, they're at the centre of the country's most recent, most complex corporate balls-up, their very future remains uncertain, they might be found guilty of shafting the taxman for a decade or more, we're investigating them ourselves to see if they've been breaking our rules.

"But, come on, Dundee United, Hibs, Hearts, St Johnstone and the rest. Get back in your box and give Rangers the respect they deserve. Because it's you lot that are causing the current uncertainty."

That's going to stick in a lot of craws.

It does, however, confirm something important: if liquidation happens, the SPL - as personified by Topping and Neil Doncaster - will vote to preserve a "newco's" top flight status.

They can't imagine the SPL without Rangers. And they'll fight tooth and nail to keep them there.

I've long argued that would be the case and I know from the reaction to those arguments how deeply unpopular a move that would be.

If nothing else that means there remains the chance of us seeing a Scottish football rammy to end all rammies.

More days like this lie ahead. Breathless days where, ultimately, nothing really happens.

Stay tuned though: this story has drama aplenty still to play out.

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Rangers taken to the brink

I was seven when Rangers won their first league title of my lifetime.

Up until that point Celtic had won three championships. Aberdeen had matched them. And Dundee United had slipped in with their solitary league win. I seem to just about remember Jim McLean smiling that day.

There's not been much for us non-Old Firm fans to smile about since.

Celtic got the centenary title of their destiny after that first Ibrox title celebration. Since then: 16 for Rangers, seven for Celtic. And bugger all for anyone else.

I know very little but Old Firm dominance. And I know very little but a Rangers domination of that duopoly.

So why should I care about the travails of Rangers?

The travails of a club whose onslaught of titles is pretty much all I've known, a club whose supporters contain certain elements who glory in behaviour I despise, a club whose attitude I've found arrogant, disrespectful, enraging.

I shouldn't really care.

But I do.

Not in a "Ha bloody ha. You reap what you sow and you lads are reaping it now" kind of way.

There is an element of that. Hubris inspires it. And, knowing what we now know, there have been people involved with Rangers who have displayed despicable hubris in recent years.

But I support a team that has stared down the barrel. I remember that. I wouldn't wish it on the mates I have that are Rangers fans. I wouldn't wish it on the men and women for whom Rangers provide a wage, a job.

Celebrating the onset of unemployment in Govan. That's unbecoming.

Yet Rangers are where they are - and yesterday's developments do little more than nudge us closer to knowing where that might be - through financial mismanagement.

It might also be, and we're approaching a legal decision about this, that they are where they are on account of a gargantuan theft against the state.

These are things that should be punished.

A theft against football as well. Our football. Championships have been won that Rangers couldn't afford. Talents have been taken from other teams - although we must concede that those other teams have enjoyed the financial benefits - that Rangers couldn't afford.

That's cheating. Doping the game. Financial doping. Doping is cheating. We've all suffered.

But as Rangers falsely speculated, others in the league often accumulated. Football can send us down a cul-de-sac where moral absolutes are hard to find.

Let's finger David Murray and his cohorts as guilty. We can, at the very least, sentence them on the charge of gross mismanagement.

They're likely to go unpunished for that. And that lack of punishment will remain a stain on the game.

Craig Whyte? Too early to tell. But the man - perhaps through no fault of his own - hailed as a billionaire saviour looks now to have taken Rangers to the edge in an act of brinksmanship against the tax authorities.

A man whose boasts haven't been substantiated, whose threats of a legal defence against myriad accusations look like so much bluster, whose recent court cases have left him looking uncomfortably small-time, whose plans for Rangers have led them only to the precipice.

As wrong as I might be, I can't find it in myself to trust him as one of the good guys.

So here sit Rangers. A footballing institution with a history of conquering their domestic game that is all but unrivalled, now tarnished and lurching to disaster.

The future?

Financial constraints? For sure. Administration? It looks likely. Liquidation? Whyte's taken a gamble to try and stave it off. He might not succeed.

Could we be looking at the end of Rangers?

There are street parties being planned across Scotland at the thought.

It won't happen.

They'll remain, perhaps much weakened, as part of our game.

Which leaves Scottish football - the same people who have both suffered and benefited as this Govan Enron cocked a snook at prudence - with decisions to make.

Celtic's Peter Lawwell pointed out today that his club don't need Rangers. That seems reasonable. Big, big club Celtic.

Rivalry - historic, poisoned, crazy, enduring rivalry - counts for a lot but it doesn't entirely define Celtic's financial future.

Yet their immediate budgets are tied to Scottish football. And Scottish football's budgets are tied to Rangers. Not every club would be able to cope like Celtic can.

If the nuclear "Newco" go-bust-and-start-again option is chosen by - or forced on - Rangers then they will remain in the SPL.

The other clubs will have to reason that it's a case of better the discredited devil you know.

No Rangers and no sponsorship. Or - as Neil Doncaster made clear when the new TV deal was signed last year - no existing sponsorship or media deals. All of them are dependent on four SPL Old Firm games a season.

Those deals can be renegotiated. But...

Take just one Old Firm game out of last year's SPL viewing figures and you're left with an average UK audience of under 135,000 per game.

No Rangers means reduced TV deals. That means less revenue from sponsorship and advertising.

Short-term - and I fear this might be very short-term - that could mean another club or two following Rangers down the swanny.

Long-term it means a league with reduced income. That means reduced prize money for what, one must imagine, would be a race for second place.

Celtic, with practically automatic entry to Europe and the wherewithal to chase their own TV money abroad, would move ever further away from the rest.

From duopoly to monopoly.

I'm still convinced that won't happen. Rangers, or "new" Rangers, will remain in the SPL.

But at what cost? Even a phoenix club is likely to face financial constraints at the beginning. And the SPL, which couldn't be seen to be entirely deaf to public opinion, might feel the need to add a punishment to its meek acceptance of "new" Rangers.

Rangers, skint and starting three consecutive seasons on minus 15 points, could struggle at first to make the top six.

With that outcome the SPL split, the mechanism designed to ensure four Old Firm games a season, would fall foul of the league's media and sponsorship deals.

The solution would be to allow "new" Rangers into a ten team top league. The pay-off would have to be the creation of the much discussed "SPL 2" with a nod to a more equitable distribution of TV money.

Conjecture. Nothing more. Ifs, buts and might-never-happens based on the events of a day that would have seemed unimaginable a decade ago.

The day the great beast of Scottish football was forced to admit the extent of its wounds.

The day Rangers took a step into the unknown.

And the day Scottish football was forced to follow them.

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Rangers: Taxing our patience

Will the monetary shenanigans at Ibrox never end?

On and on rumble the ramifications of Rangers' apparent fiscal folly in seasons gone by.

Will the emboldened taxman or the jilted Martin Bain get in the killer blow?

Craig Whyte has brought bad PR, repetitive answers to pressing questions and Gordon Smith to Govan. But does he bring the financial fortitude necessary to steer a steady course through turbulent waters?

We don't know.

The Martin Bain saga offers a mild diversion. Always struck me as a bit of an arse did the well groomed Martin. Now he's got a well groomed axe to grind. Maybe still an arse, he now feels hard done by and wants his dosh.

To which The Proclaimers might reply: "Get in line son, there's five million waiting."

Still, Fred Goodwin got a pay off and I'm sure Fred wasn't entirely to blame for the gargantuan collapse of one of Scotland's proudest institutions either.

Sideshow Bain aside, the tax question - a series of questions now - looms ever larger.

If I have to pay tax on my ever modest renumeration then a company with Rangers' klout should effing well pay their share as well. Simples.

I would also hope that action would be taken against those in power at Ibrox who sanctioned this accounting chicanery and anyone who knowingly benefited from the practices that were in place.

Of the enigma that is Craig Whyte I know not what to say. Except that it seems to me if he was in the running for 'business brain of the year' he'd not have bought Rangers at this moment in their history. You'd be wary of buying a used car off David Murray right now.

Truthfully though my own finances - rendered less than complex due to a distinct lack of funds - bore me stiff. Trying to engage with the accounts of a football club I don't support is not really my cup of tea. I lack the basic maths to go in for forensic accountancy.

It does confirm, coupled with yet more dire warnings this week about the SPL finances in general, my view that Scottish sport would benefit from a journalist like The Guardian's David Conn.

BBC Scotland's business editor Douglas Fraser had a go this week but, as Iain Hepburn has blogged, the Scottish football media isn't fit for purpose on these issues.

Then, of course, there are the supporters left bemused and befuddled by a crisis that is not of their making.

Thefootyblog.net covered this yesterday. The fans have my sympathy. They won't have the sympathy of everyone. I've got some experience of being a fan staring down this particular corridor of uncertainty. It's very unpleasant.

Realistically, I think, Rangers are going nowhere. There might well be a journey into administration, a temporary diminishing of those once great powers.

But if you're hoping that Rangers are about to disappear forever then you're likely to be as disappointed as Martin Bain is when he spills his moisturiser.

Rangers and the ten point deduction

Just for fun. If Rangers were to go into administration they'd automatically lose ten points under the SPL rules on such matters.

So I thought I'd take a hypothetical delve into seasons past and see where a similar deduction would have left the club over the last ten years.

2010/11 - Rangers were champions
Minus ten points Rangers would have finished second, 9 behind Celtic and 20 ahead of Hearts
2009/10 - Champions
2nd, 4 behind Celtic and 14 ahead of Dundee United
2008/09 - Champions
2nd, 6 behind Celtic and 15 ahead of Hearts
2007/08 - Runners-up
2nd, 13 behind Celtic and 16 ahead of Hearts
2006/07 - Runners-up
3rd, 22 points behind Celtic, 3 behind Aberdeen and 1 point ahead of Hearts
2005/06 - Third
3rd, 28 points behind Celtic, 11 behind Hearts and 7 points ahead of Hibs
2004/05 - Champions
2nd, 9 behind Celtic and 22 ahead of Hibs
2003/04 - Runners-up
2nd, 27 points behind Celtic and 3 ahead of Hearts
2002/03 - Champions
2nd, 10 points behind Celtic and 24 ahead of Hearts
2001/02 - Runners-up
2nd, 32 points behind Celtic and 17 ahead of Livingston

If we go back to 1999/00 a ten point deduction would still have seen Rangers win the SPL by 11 points.

This is overly simplistic. Depending on what was involved in any administration it could cause far deeper problems than simply the loss of ten points and involve a far greater weakening of Rangers' strength.

But history shows they've a long way to fall before they crash land amidst the chasing pack.

There is also an argument that in seasons past Rangers have enjoyed a false supremacy by spending money they just didn't have. That they cheated.

I'm not without sympathy for that line of reasoning. But if modern football was to make living beyond your means a hanging offence we'd need to regenerate Albert Pierrepoint to deal with the guilty.

Deadline Day Cult

And so transfer deadline day came and went.

Celtic got a left back but not the nameless big name who cropped up in countless anonymous rumours.

Rangers did nothing except turn down a big bid from a nameless big club in an anonymous rumour that may or may not have come from someone who really should have scored in a cup final all those years ago.

Inverness signed a Chippendale. Which might answer more questions about Terry Butcher than we ever cared to ask.

Hearts signed midfielder Callum Tapping from Spurs. If you can beat 'em join 'em. I'll resist a Tapping up joke.

Edwin de Graaf generated a move out of Easter Road. Craig Easton is apparently not only still alive but also now a Dunfermline player.

No matter how engineered the coverage, all of it was almost insufferably dull.

But this is Scottish football so we also have a jury making a bad decision that will now see a football match contrive to drag us into a debate about the whole Scottish judicial system.

We have Peter Lawwell becoming Jimmy Tarbuck.

And, as James Beattie hitched out of Ibrox on the back of an ice cream van, we have the taxman arriving in a hearse apparently not intent on freezing bank accounts. Yet.

At the same time we were all given the opportunity to follow the live totaliser as English transfer window spending ticked above the £400 million mark.

Used to be that the only totaliser you saw was on Blue Peter as well behaved children raised earnest money for worthy causes. Now you have eight year olds loitering outside football stadiums at 10pm hoping to catch a glimpse of Peter Crouch.

This is the revolution and it is being televised.

All of it played out to a soundtrack of increasing hysteria provided by an ex-Scotsport buffoon who has somehow turned his pantomime buffoonery into a kind of cult (sic) hero status.

Transfer deadline day: confirmation that Scottish football's screwed, confirmation that football across this sceptred isle is obscenely out of touch with reality.

And you know what?

It's all Jim White's fault. The cult.