A Blog for Scottish Football Monitor by Stuart Cosgrove
At the height of summer of discontent I was asked to contribute to a BBC radio show with Jim Traynor and Jim Spence. ‘Armageddon’ had just been pronounced and if the media were to be believed Scotland was about to freeze over in a new ice-age: only a cold darkness lay ahead.
To get the radio-show off to a healthy and pretentious start I began by saying that Scottish football was experiencing an “epistemological break”. It was an in-joke with Jim Spence, who I have known since we were both teenage ‘suedeheads.’ I was a mouthy young St Johnstone fan and Jim was an Arabian sand-dancer. But even in those distant days, we shared a mutual distrust of the ‘old firm’ and in our separate ways wanted a better future for our clubs. We both grew up to become products of the fanzine era, Jim as a writer for Dundee United’s ‘The Final Hurdle’ and me as a staff writer for the NME. Without ever having to say it, we had both engaged in a guerrilla-war against what Aberdeen’s Willie Miller once characterised as “West Coast Bias”.
The term ‘epistemological break’ was shamelessly borrowed from French Marxist philosophy. It means a fundamental change in the way we construct and receive knowledge and although I used it on air as a wind-up to test Spencey’s significantly less-reliable Dundee schooling, deep down I meant it.
Social Media has proved to be one of the greatest disruptions in the history of the football supporter – greater than the brake clubs of the 19th century, the football specials on the 1970s; or the fanzine movement of the post-punk era. The pace of change in the way we send, receive and interrogate information has been so dynamic that it has wrong-footed administrators, asset strippers and sports journalists, alike. No matter who you support we are living through media history.
2012 had just witnessed an unprecedented summer of sport. The Olympics provided a snapshot of how sudden and pervasive the shift to social media has become. Over 40% of UK adults claim to have posted comments on websites, blogs or social networking about the Olympics and in younger age-groups that figure tips conclusively to a majority – 61% of 16-24’s posted Olympic comments. Think about that figure for a moment. Well over half of the young people in the UK are now participants in social media and pass comment on sport. The genie is out of the bottle and it will never be forced back. That is the main reason that Armageddon never happened: we no longer live in an age where the media can guarantee our compliance.
On the first day of the 2012-13-season, Rangers were in the deep throes of administration and facing certain liquidation. With no accounts to meet the criteria for SPL membership, one among a body of rules which the old Rangers had themselves been an architect of, the new Rangers could not be granted entry without a wholesale abandonment of the rules. It was not to be.
St Johnstone launched their new season at Tynecastle so I travelled with misplaced hope. We were soundly beaten 2-0 and both Hearts goals were entirely merited. On the day, I did a quick if unscientific survey of two supporters’ buses – the Barossa Saints Club, a more traditional lads-bus and the ‘208 Ladies’ a predominantly female and family-friendly bus. On both buses, over 75% of fans had mobile phones with 3G internet access and the majority of them posted updates or pictures before, during or after the match. They mostly posted via micro-blogging sites such as Facebook or Twitter, many commenting on the game, their day-out and the surroundings. Most were speaking to friends or rival fans. Some were publishing pictures and updating forums or blogs. And when he second a decisive goal went in some were undoubtedly taking stick from Gort, Webby DFC and DeeForLife, the pseudonyms of prominent Dundee fans, who as the newly promoted ‘Club 12’ were suddenly and very temporarily above St Johnstone in the SPL.
By my rough calculations, well over half the St Johnstone support was web-connected. I have no reason to think the Hearts supporters were any different. This small experiment reflects an unprecedented shift in the balance of communication in Scottish football and in the truest sense it is an ‘epistemological break’ with past forms of spectatorship. Social media has been widely misrepresented by old-style radio ‘phone-ins’ and by journalism’s ancien regime. The presumption is that people who are connected to the web are at home, in dingy rooms where they foam at the mouth frustrated by loneliness and mental illness. The term ‘internet bampots’ (coined by Hugh Keevins) and ‘keyboard warriors’ (Gordon Strachan) speaks to a world that is fearful of the web, irked by alternative opinions, and the threat that the new media poses to the traditional exchange of knowledge.
It further assumes that opinion from social networks is naïve, ill-informed, or unreasonable. Whilst some of this may be true, mostly it is not. No one would dispute that there are small enclaves of truly despicable people using social networks and comment sites, but they are overwhelmingly outnumbered by the multitude of fans who simply want to talk about their team and share their dreams and memories.
Social media is porous. By that I mean it has cracks, lacunae and fissures. This inevitably means that information leaks out. It can be shared, released and in some cases becomes so energetic it becomes a virus. It is no longer possible to ‘keep secrets’, to withhold information and to allow indiscretions to pass unnoticed. Newspapers have been caught in a whirlwind of change where views can be instantly challenged, authority quickly questioned and pronouncements easily disproved. Many papers – almost all in decline – have been forced to close down their comments forums. Undoubtedly some of that is due to breaches of the rules, the cost of moderation, and the rise in awareness of hate crimes. But another significant factor is that ordinary fans were consistently challenging the opinions and ‘facts’ that newspapers published.
Talking down to fans no longer works and we now have evidence – Armageddon did not happen. The beast that was supposed to devour us all was a toothless fantasy. In the more abrasive language of the terraces – Armageddon shat-it and didn’t turn up.
In one respect the myth of Armageddon was an entirely predictable one. Tabloid newspapers make money from scaring people – health scares, prisoners on the run, fear of terrorism, anxiety about young people, and most recently ‘fear’ of Scottish independence is their stock in trade. Almost every major subject is raised as a spectre to be fearful of. Most newspapers were desperate to ‘save Rangers’ since they themselves feared the consequences of losing even more readership. It was easier to argue that a hideous financial catastrophe would befall Scottish football unless Rangers were fast-tracked back into the SPL. Newspapers found common cause with frightened administrators who could not imagine a world without Rangers, either.
So we were invited to endorse one of the greatest circumlocutions of all time – unless you save a club that has crashed leaving millions of pounds of debt, the game is financially doomed. You would struggle to encounter this bizarre logic in any other walk of life. Unless Rick Astley brings out a new album music will die. That is what they once argued and many still do. That is how desperately illogical the leadership in Scottish football had become.
Armageddon was a tissue of inaccuracies from the outset. It tried to script a disaster-movie of chaotic failure and financial disaster and at the very moment when senior administrators should have been fighting for the livelihood of the league, they were briefing against their own business.
Armageddon was a big inarticulate beast but it faced a mightier opponent – facts. One by one the clubs published their annual accounts. Although this was against the backdrop of a double-dip recession and fiercely difficult economic circumstances it was not all doom and gloom. The arrival of Club 12 (Dundee) meant higher crowds and the potential for increased income at Aberdeen, Dundee United and St Johnstone. To this day, this simple fact remains unfathomable to many people in the Glasgow-dominated media. The arrival of Ross County meant an exciting new top-tier local derby for Inverness Caley Thistle and a breath of fresh air for the SPL. St Johnstone insisted on the first ever SPL meeting outside Glasgow to reflect the new northern and eastern geo-politics of the Scottish game.
European football meant new income streams for Motherwell. Of course times were tight, football is never free from the ravages of the economy and some clubs predictably showed trading losses. But the underlying reasons were always idiosyncratic and inconsistent never consistent across the board. Inverness had an unprecedented spate of injuries and over-shot their budgets for healthcare and so published a loss £378,000.
Meanwhile Dundee United published healthy accounts having sold David Goodwillie to Blackburn. Celtic reached the Champion’s League group stages with all the new wealth it will bequeath. St Johnstone – led by the ultra-cautious Brown family – had already cut the cost of their squad, bidding farewell to the most expensive players Francisco Sandaza and Lee Croft. The club also benefited from compensation for their departed manager, Derek McInnes and player-coach, Jody Morris. Paradoxically, Bristol City had proven to be more important to the club’s income than Rangers. Again this was not part of the script and proved unfathomable (or more accurately irrelevant) to most in the Glasgow media.
Hearts failed to pay players on time due to serious restraints on squad costs and internal debt. They were duly punished for their repeated misdemeanours. Motherwell and St Mirren despite the economic challenges were navigating different concepts of fan ownership. By November most clubs – with the exception of Celtic – were showing increased SPL attendance on the previous season. Far from the scorched earth failure that we were told was inevitable what has emerged is a more complex eco-system of financial management, in which local dynamics and a more mature cost-efficient reality was being put in place.
It may well be that Armageddon was the last desperate caricature of a form of media that was already in terminal decline. Flash back to 1967 when Scottish football had a so-called ‘golden age’. There was European success, we tamed England at Wembley and names like Law and Baxter brightened dark nights. Back then access to knowledge was a very narrow funnel. Only a small cadre of privileged journalists had access to the managers and players, and so fans waited dutifully for the Daily Record to arrive at their door to tell them what was happening. That system of ‘elite access to knowledge’ was in its last decadent throes nearly thirty years later, when David Murray would dispense wisdom to his favoured journalists. We now know they drank fine wine and ate succulent lamb in Jersey and the most loyal attended Murray’s 50th birthday party at Gleneagles. One journalist was so proud of his invite he danced round the editorial office mocking those who had not been invited. This was the early height of the Rangers EBT era but it is now clear that difficult questions went unasked by either journalists or by football administrators.
Although it may not suit the narrative of this particular blog my first realisation that David Murray’s empire was living on leveraged debt was from a small cadre of Rangers fans. It was around the early years of the Rangers Supporter’s Trust (RST) and they were determined to shake more democracy from the Ibrox boardroom. Whilst real fans of the club argued from the outside, the press took Murray at his loquacious word. He was in many respects their benefactor, their visionary – their moonbeam.
By the 1990s onwards, football journalism had ritualised and festered around the inner sanctums at Ibrox. This was an era where relevance meant being invited to a ‘presser’ at Murray Park, having Ally’s mobile or playing golf with ‘Juke Box,’ ‘Durranty’ or ‘Smudger’. Many journalists, showing a compliant lack of self-awareness, would use these nicknames as if conveyed closeness, familiarity or friendship. It is desperately sad that careers have been built on such paltry notions of access and such demeaning obsequiousness.
Around this period I had become a freelance radio-presenter and was presenting Off the Ball with my friend Tam Cowan, a Motherwell fan. We both wanted to fashion a show which saw football not trough its familiar narratives, but through the lens of the ‘diddy’ teams, a term so demeaning that we tried to reclaim it. Refusing to peddle the inevitability of ‘old firm’ power we sensed that journalistic compliance at Ibrox was now so ingrained that it was ripe for satirising. This was the main reason that Off the Ball branded itself as ‘petty and ill-informed.’ It was a self-mocking antidote to those journalists that could ‘exclusively reveal’ breaking stories from ‘impeccable sources,’ which usually meant they had heard it on the golf-course, from Walter, a man who needed no surname.
Many fans are astonished when I tell them how the journalism of this era actually functioned. On Champions League nights, journalists from opposing papers gathered together to agree what to write. Circulation was in decline, money was tight, agency copy was on the increase and foreign trips were under-scrutiny. No one dared miss the ‘big story’. So sports journalists who commonly boasted about their toughness and who ‘feared no one’ were often so fearful of returning home having missed an angle, that they agreed by consensus to run with variations of the same story. Celtic fans may wish to recoil at the image – but journalists would go into a ‘huddle’ at the end of a press-conference to agree the favoured line.
So the summer of 2012 witnessed an ‘epistemological break’ in how knowledge and information was exchanged. But let me go further and taunt Jim Spence one more time. It was the summer we also witnessed an ‘amygdala-crisis’ exposing the way the media works in Scotland. Amygdala is the nuclei in the brain that manages our tolerance for risk and is the key that often unlocks creative thinking. Many people in relatively high places in the media – a creative industry – demonstrated that they could not conceive of change, nor could they imagine what football would look like if Rangers were not playing in the SPL. They not only resisted change but lacked the imagination to think beyond it. A common language began to emerge that tried to ward off risk and an almost a childlike fear of the dark. ‘Scottish football needs a strong Rangers,’ ‘But there will no competition’; ‘other clubs will suffer’; ‘Draw a line in the sand’; ‘It was one man – Craig Whyte’, ‘They’ve been punished enough’ and of course, the daddy of them all – ‘Armageddon.’
The biggest single barrier to change was the lingering and outmoded notion that Rangers subsidised Scottish football. As a supporter of a club that had spent seven economically stable years in a league that Rangers have never played in made me deeply suspicious and I was in the words of the we-forums ‘seething’ that St Johnstone were portrayed as somehow ‘dependent’ on a club that was already fatefully insolvent. Because so little is known about the experience of the fans of smaller clubs, they are often misrepresented. For seven years my friends and I, travelled home and away in the First Division, often narrowly missing out on promotion as rival clubs like Gretna, Dundee and Livingston all used money they did not have to ‘buy’ success. It remains an incontrovertible fact that St Johnstone FC has been among the most consistent victims of fiscal misdemeanour in Scottish football. That is the irreducible issue. Several clubs have very real reasons to loathe financial mismanagement, rogue-trading and those that gain unfair advantage on the back of unserviceable debt.
Social media has allowed these smaller incremental versions of history to be told when the established media had no interest in telling them. Blogs can dig deeper than the back pages ever can and fans are now more likely to meet on Facebook than on a supporter’s bus. Many players now bypass the press completely and tweet directly with fans. Rio Ferdinand’s recent attack on racism in English football has been conducted entirely via social media, over the heads of the press. In the Rangers Tax Case context, restricted documents are regularly shared online, where they can be analysed and torn apart. Those with specialist skills such as insolvency, tax expertise or accountancy can lend their skills to a web forum and can therefore dispute official versions of events.
Not all social media is good. Open-access has meant a disproportionate rise in victim culture. The ‘easily-offended’ prowl every corner of the web desperate to find a morsel that will upset them but that is a small price to pay for greater transparency and even the most ardent bore is no excuse for limiting the free exchange of information.
We have witnessed a summer of seismic change. A discredited era that largely relied on ‘elite access to knowledge’ has all but passed away and information, however complex or seemingly unpalatable, can no longer be withheld from fans. The days of being ‘dooped’ are over.
It has been a privilege to participate in the summer of discontent and I yearn for even greater change to come. Bring it on.
Stuart Cosgrove
Stuart Cosgrove is a St Johnstone fan. He was previously Media Editor of the NME and is now Director of Creative Diversity at Channel 4, where he recently managed coverage of the Paralympics, London 2012. At the weekend he presents the BBC Scotland football show ‘Off the Ball’ with Tam Cowan. He writes here in a personal capacity.
twopanda says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 13:41
torrejohnbhoy says: at 13:28
twopanda says:at 12:37
I know of one SFL club that so vehemently opposes the SPL. So much so that their CEO has promised that his club will never play there whilst he’s there.
—
Good – only 29 left then
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How about all 29 join an expanded SPL and leave the other club where it wants to be? 🙂
i’m hearin twitter sayin its in….THE FTT result !!!!!
Alex and RTC going nuclear on twitter
bangordub says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 14:50
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The match will be on in my local tonight and I will be playing every pass along with the team.
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Seriously? I presume your moniker is not current then?
alex thomson @alextomo
Big Tax Case: “the payments are loans, not earnings, and so are recoverable from the employee or his estate.”
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Rangers Tax-Case@rangerstaxcase
Rangers FC’s ENTIRE use of the EBT scheme has been deemed to be ILLEGAL.
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David Cowan @stvdavidc
#rangers win big tax case. By 2:1, tribunal rules Ebts were loans so.no more tax due.
Retweeted by Kerrydale Street
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mickleen says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 15:47
My Moniker is most certainly current!
You’d be surprised
Robert Coyle says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 15:48
0 0 Rate This
David Cowan @stvdavidc
#rangers win big tax case. By 2:1, tribunal rules Ebts were loans so.no more tax due.
===================
That’s how I read it. Will HMRC appeal? I guess so.
rangers win big tax case. By 2:1, tribunal rules Ebts were loans so.no more tax due.
That’s how I read it too, although you have to pick yur way through a lot of stuff to find the meat.
I think we can maybe expect some side letters to be appearing real soon.
FTTT decision – can somone post a link?
corsicacharity says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 13:47
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Hibs had a smashing side in the 70s, with the likes Stanton, Blackley, Edwards, Cropley, Gordon, Duncan (Yaay!) Des Bremner. Just never seemed to have the steel to be a real winning side (apart from a league cup).
Link – just found it:
http://www.financeandtaxtribunals.gov.uk/judgmentfiles/j6851/TC02372.pdf
Long Time Lurker says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 15:59
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FTTT decision – can somone post a link?
blu says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 15:38
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Go read http://www.financeandtaxtribunals.gov.uk/judgmentfiles/j6850/TC02372.pdf
corsicacharity says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 13:47
Had a quick look…fascinating(!) and one set of results stood out immediately – 13/4/74:
Arbroath 3 – 2 Hibs
Dundee Utd 0 – 2 Celtic
Rangers 1 – 2 Dundee
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And don’t forget :
February 2 1974 Rangers 2-3 Arbroath Scottish League Division 1
Arbroath – Marshall, Donald, Rylance, Walker, Waddell, Murray, Sellars, Cant, Pirie, Penman, Fletcher. subs Cargill and Payne.
Rangers – Hunter, Jardine, Mathieson, O’Hara, Johnston, Smith, McLean, Scott, Parlane, Hamilton, Morris. subs Fyfe and Young.
Andy Penman was an ex- Ranger, and Mathieson and Smith would also grace the maroon jerseys later in their careers.
Scorers :
Arbroath Fletcher (62, 86), Pirie (63)
Rangers McLean (38), Parlane (dodgy pen 68)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOkkA4g7yP4
Silky smooth pitch….. 🙂
i guess the laons will be paid back, so does that mean the money will be paid back to MIH and i assume, since it was loans, there was no need to register the payments with the SFA ?
bangordub says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 15:41
2 0 i
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Coffee, Cigars, Whiskey all round !!!
========================================================
Bangor, it reads,
TC02372
Appeal number: SC/3113-3117/2009
Income Tax and NIC – Schedule E – emoluments/earnings – tax avoidance
scheme – Remuneration Trust – employees’ individual sub-trusts –
“protectors” – (1) whether payments by employer into trust represent
emoluments subject to PAYE and NIC; – (2) whether benefits (particularly
loans) derived by employees from the Remuneration Trust represent
emoluments subject to PAYE and NIC; – (3) “Ramsay” doctrine – whether
applicable – whether trust and loan arrangements artificial and fall to be
disregarded; – No – Appeal allowed.
The bus driver wins, for now. There were side letters and those administering the scheme chose not to notify the existence of these to the footbal authorities.
blu says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 16:04
Cheers, Am getting my teeth into it now
Scotland correspondent for BBC News James Cook on Twitter: “Tribunal: ‘payments are loans, not earnings, and so are recoverable from the employee or his estate.’ Tribunal finds a loan scheme used by Rangers to reward some players and staff over nearly a decade was not in breach of tax law.”
BBC Scotland’s Chris McLoughlin on Twitter: “First tier tax tribunal could not reach unanimous verdict on HMRC v Rangers. More to follow..”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/20405549
Much devilry in the detail.
Majority verdict with strong dissenting opinion it wouild appear.
If payments are loans then they must be repaid at commercial interest rates or taxable.
It’s Reservoir Dogs with those names. Many unreliable witnesses.
http://www.financeandtaxtribunals.gov.uk/judgmentfiles/j6850/TC02372.pdf
Doesn’t this result completely destroy RTC’s credibility? I’m sorry but he staked his reputation on Rangers losing the appeal and that simply hasn’t happened. No doubt we’ll hear a lot now about side letters and contracts etc but RTC is finished surely.
SFM by association also looks dead in the water.
Next, Mr Violet gave evidence. Firstly, he confirmed the terms of his Witness
Statement. He was a former Rangers manager. The Trust had been mentioned as
offering benefits to him, which had been investigated by his solicitor and agent,
Mr Grey (the next witness). Mr Violet explained that he had received from Rangers
40 in addition to his contract of employment, a separate document in respect of “his”
sub-trust. His concern was in securing a satisfactory overall financial “package”. He
understood in general terms that he could access monies in the sub-trust by way of
loan and that ordinarily the Trustee would be agreeable to this. He had used the loan
facility and had not expected to have to make repayment during his lifetime.
=============================
That’s not how you spell Mr Violent.
Would it be right in thinking the taxman is going to pursue the employees/ players now for the tax due??
Jane Lewis @JaneLewisSport
More from MIH – “We have instructed our lawyers to retrospectively review online and printed publications relating…
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Jane Lewis @JaneLewisSport
….to the case to identify whether legal redress is either appropriate or necessary.”
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Ho hum. Lots to digest there.
Looks to me like RFC(deid) weren’t nearly as naughty in law as previously thought. Fair play to them. Glad I’m not one of the beneficiaries who will now be scrutinised for repayment, though.
The BBC Report concludes with this:
“Administrators Duff and Phelps then negotiated a sale of assets to a consortium led by Charles Green for £5.5m.
He has since formed a new club, now playing in the Scottish Football League Third Division.”
🙂
ja606 says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 16:20
Doesn’t this result completely destroy RTC’s credibility? I’m sorry but he staked his reputation on Rangers losing the appeal and that simply hasn’t happened. No doubt we’ll hear a lot now about side letters and contracts etc but RTC is finished surely.
SFM by association also looks dead in the water.
——————————————–
But the bottom line is that Rangers are already dead in the water, and a lot of contributory issues that would in all likelihood have been swept under the carpet have been aired as a result of RTC’s site
hmmm, be a few sphincters going tonight – MIH(rangers-2012) win the case, which means the loans were indeed loans, which means the loans will have to be paid back to the creditors.
be a few players on the phone to their agents – wanting their “fees” back as all the agents managed to do was get their clients – loans!
(could have done that themselves at any bank) ho ho
murray looking to maybe sue rangerstaxcase ond others !!
As far as sporting integrity goes, the key question is “were these payments declared to the SFA?”
if they were not “payments” but “loans”, would they need to be lodged[ahem] with the SFA?
looks like they gotta pay the loans back to the oldco’s creditors?
ja606 says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 16:20
Doesn’t this result completely destroy RTC’s credibility? I’m sorry but he staked his reputation on Rangers losing the appeal and that simply hasn’t happened.
——
Like it or not, the genitalman has a point there, albeit I don’t agree with the “completely” bit.
Not with regard to TSFM, though. Mr Green (the real one, not the FTTT one) still exists, and is still spouting nonsense which must be laughed at.
jimlarkin says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 16:38
murray looking to maybe sue rangerstaxcase ond others !!
————————————————–
Various players have also threatened to sue the BBC etc, it doesn’t mean that when push comes to shove that they really want a court case with the possibility of their dirty washing being re-aired in public
ja606 says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 16:20
2 22 Rate This
Doesn’t this result completely destroy RTC’s credibility? I’m sorry but he staked his reputation on Rangers losing the appeal and that simply hasn’t happened. No doubt we’ll hear a lot now about side letters and contracts etc but RTC is finished surely.
SFM by association also looks dead in the water.
==================
So what do you suggest, ja606? We all go home, have a lie down, and forget that any of this happened? Let Scottish football continue to be run by the blazer and brogue brigade,who, being superior creatures,will ensure that all is well in the world for all of us lesser mortals? How about we go for a quick reorganisation, that gets TRFC back into the top flight asap? Then good order will be restored, back to business as before, won’t that be great? And then we can all shut up? After apologising profusely to SDM that is, of course. I think that’s where you’re coming from, but correct me if I’m wrong.
If they were loans it doesn’t matter if they were declared to the SFA. Rangers did nothing wrong and that should be acknowledged. Whyte is a different story but if it were not for HMRC there would never have been a Craig Whyte at Ibrox.
killiemad says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 16:38
=====================
161. Side-letters, of course, had not been registered with the football authorities, the
SFA and SPL. The spirit of their rules was that the whole contract terms should be
registered. Suspiciously, no evidence was led as to who decided that the benefits in
terms of the side-letters should not be registered. Non-registration of side-letters was
incompatible with both authorities’ policing and disciplinary powers. For example
any fines imposed on players would customarily reflect the disclosed wage. Nondisclosure
would thwart the authorities’ powers.
ja606 says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 16:20
8 44 Rate This
Doesn’t this result completely destroy RTC’s credibility? I’m sorry but he staked his reputation on Rangers losing the appeal and that simply hasn’t happened. No doubt we’ll hear a lot now about side letters and contracts etc but RTC is finished surely.
SFM by association also looks dead in the water.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Are you kidding?
A tribunal ruled that funds paid to some Rangers players
between 2001-2010 were loans and therefore not taxable,
though the tribunal added that some payments were taxable.
This is exactly what RTC was predicting all along.
arabest1 says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 13:04
16 7 Rate This
Danish Pastry,
Whenever I venture to discuss the position of Celtic within our game, I challenge the ontological security of Celtic fans and am lashed with TDs! (Incidentally, I would recommend such a challenge to anyone’s ontological security, indeed it is a must, now and again, for reasons of intellectual hygiene.) I would be happy to discuss the issues you raise here but feel such a thread would be deemed way off topic.
———–
I understand, certainly off topic as that much awaited decision is now out. Looks like 145 pages of gobbledygook to me … but perhaps some footballers will finally have to stump up tax like the rest of us.
And also
162. Mr Grey had indicated correctly that payments from promotional and other
commercial bodies need not be registered, but the side-letter payments, Mr Thomson
argued, were not from such a third party but from the Club and for playing football.
The Rules required the widest declaration of benefits, he submitted. It seemed that
Mr Grey was unaware of the trust being used for “appearance money”, he observed.
163. On any view, Mr Thomson argued, Rangers could have sought a ruling from
the SFA or SPL about disclosure of side-letters but, clearly, they had chosen not to do
so. There was a conscious decision to conceal their existence, and that extended even
to the Club’s auditors. The nature and arrangements under the Remuneration Trust
had not been disclosed in full to the auditors. In the “key issues document” for 2004
they indicate that they have not reviewed the Trust’s operation and receipts in detail.
Mr Thomson noted in particular payments made relating to Mr Purple’s contract in
relation to disclosure. Significantly, while Rangers granted numerous indemnities in
respect of players’ potential tax liabilities, these documents did not refer expressly to
side-letters, Mr Thomson added.
So its official campbell ogilvie owes oldco or MIH 90k surely thats conflicted??
Ja606 I was led to believe Rangers were found guilty for the wee tax case was that CW’ s fault too?
Agrajag says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 16:50
killiemad says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 16:38
=====================
161. Side-letters, of course, had not been registered with the football authorities, the
SFA and SPL. The spirit of their rules was that the whole contract terms should be
registered. Suspiciously, no evidence was led as to who decided that the benefits in
terms of the side-letters should not be registered. Non-registration of side-letters was
incompatible with both authorities’ policing and disciplinary powers. For example
any fines imposed on players would customarily reflect the disclosed wage. Nondisclosure
would thwart the authorities’ powers.
================================================
maybe they were shredded – who knows ?
FTTT inconclusive as far as I have read. I will leave the devil in the detail to our experts on this blog. But one statement stood out for me
“It remains another unsatisfactory aspect where the
Appellants have not discharged their onus of proof.”
As far as the actual content of the document goes – in my ignorance I assumed these things came with some kind of summary that clarified the main findings, but I guess that’s what keeps lawyers in work – interpreting what each other meant by what was said!
ja606 says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 16:47
3 1 Rate This
If they were loans it doesn’t matter if they were declared to the SFA. Rangers did nothing wrong and that should be acknowledged. Whyte is a different story but if it were not for HMRC there would never have been a Craig Whyte at Ibrox.
=====================
All payments to players should be declared to the SFA/SPL. A loan is a payment. The loans were not declared. Difficult?
Does this mean the HMRC portion of debt should have been disregarded for the CVA – and therefore the CVA could have been accepted?
161. Side-letters, of course, had not been registered with the football authorities, the
SFA and SPL. The spirit of their rules was that the whole contract terms should be
registered. Suspiciously, no evidence was led as to who decided that the benefits in
terms of the side-letters should not be registered. Non-registration of side-letters was
40 incompatible with both authorities’ policing and disciplinary powers. For example
any fines imposed on players would customarily reflect the disclosed wage. Nondisclosure
would thwart the authorities’ powers.
162. Mr Grey had indicated correctly that payments from promotional and other
commercial bodies need not be registered, but the side-letter payments, Mr Thomson
45 argued, were not from such a third party but from the Club and for playing football.
39
The Rules required the widest declaration of benefits, he submitted. It seemed that
Mr Grey was unaware of the trust being used for “appearance money”, he observed.
163. On any view, Mr Thomson argued, Rangers could have sought a ruling from
the SFA or SPL about disclosure of side-letters but, clearly, they had chosen not to do
so. There was a conscious decision to conceal their existence, 5 and that extended even
to the Club’s auditors. The nature and arrangements under the Remuneration Trust
had not been disclosed in full to the auditors. In the “key issues document” for 2004
they indicate that they have not reviewed the Trust’s operation and receipts in detail.
Mr Thomson noted in particular payments made relating to Mr Purple’s contract in
10 relation to disclosure. Significantly, while Rangers granted numerous indemnities in
respect of players’ potential tax liabilities, these documents did not refer expressly to
side-letters, Mr Thomson added.
And 10 days ago Lord Cardigan of Nosurname cambe back onto the scene – so he knew the verdict before returning – wonder which colour he is 🙂
So, we’ll be shortly witnessing the grand unveiling of large numbers of side-letters if TRFC or anyone else tries to re-claim any of the loans for repayment?
Might we see more infomation from RTC ljke he said now the verdict has been delivered
Looks like now we know why the Cardigan and Sounness suddenly crawled back out from under the boulders.
Where is the bloody nuclear bomb
Noticed certain names are changed to colours. Be funny of there was Mr … , no they wouldn’t, would they? 🙂
@PeterAdamSmith: HMRC says it will appeal this decision. It’s not the end of the story. Lawyers have a few more pay days yet.
A loan that can never be repaid is NOT a loan. I don’t have to be a high court judge to understand that. Disgusting.
The bottom line on tax can be found here.
==========================
233. Accordingly, the assessments made fall to be reduced substantially. It was
conceded that advances in favour of certain players are taxable and liable to NIC, and
we have found that in certain other limited instances, there may be a similar liability.
To that extent the assessments should stand. In these circumstances we expect that it
is sufficient that we allow the Appeal in principle. Parties can no doubt settle the
sums due for the limited number of cases mentioned without further reference to the
Tribunal.
=============================
So, as predicted there is tax due in some instancers and not in others. The assessments stand but will be reduced. On a majority decision.
Given that Rangers are already dead though that really isn’t a particularly important issue.
There are two main ones as I see it.
1, Fielding ineligible players. See para 161 – 163 on that one, as copied above.
2, It seems those who were given the loans are still debtors, and can be chased for the money. that might be more important to HMRC, as they have more chance of recovering money from a living person than from a dead business. Given that Craig Whyte bought the existing company, and therefore it’s debt, i would imagine that BDO will be looking into recovering assets for the creditors.
Not a great day if you are a Rangers supporter, or a former beneficiary of an EBT.
ON THE SUBJECT OF 2:1 VICTORIES:
Wee tax case and Craig Whyte’s non-payment were both wins for HMRC, and it was the Whyte won that actually sunk Oldco right? I believe there is still more to play for on the BTC after all, if money is owed to OldCo from previous recipeients of loans, that is now money owed to creditors of OldCo, shirley?
(xii) In the case of certain footballers the terms of engagement were
commonly recorded in two documents, one being a contract of
employment, the other being described as a side-letter. The latter
would provide ordinarily for the constitution of a sub-trust in name of
the footballer. While the SFA required players’ contracts to be
registered with it, Rangers did not consider it appropriate to have side
letters registered.
Is it time to put the tin hat on and get down the shelter? I believe we should expect the nuclear option………………it’s coming? Isn’t it?
You promised? ……..oh yes you did……….
Rangers Tax-Case@rangerstaxcase
@chrissybhoy777 FTT finds that SPL rules were broken, several players were paid illegally- not much wiggle room for Nimmo-Smith.
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I am a mere layman but would I be correct in saying that BDO cannot request repayment of loans to benefit creditors as the loans were not made by RFC but by the offshore trust. Is it not the case that the trust is a separate corporate entity from old RFC. That being the case no-one can force the trust to request re-payment of said loans.
And here comes the fun bit:
Hector: Hello Player, you owe Tax on that Loan!
Player: What Loan?
Hector: The Loan The Trust gave you.
Player: That was a Contract.
Hector: What Contract?
Player: This Contract, the copy Myth and Ogilvy couldn’t shred as it was locked in my safe!!
The silence is about to broken.
Im wondering if the tactical move by HMRC to blow the CVA out of the water is going to pay dividends come the appeal. They now have BDO im going over everything does this mean that if new evidence is found during the liquidation it can be submitted at the appeal?
Reading over the FTT findings it sticks out like a sore thumb who Mr Magenta is! Bearing in mind his current position it doesnt look good.
It appears as though the FTTT verdict is a bit more pro MIH than expected, and there’s already chatter of Murray going after RTC.
No doubt many of the blue persuasion will be licking their lips at that prospect.
I don’t know who RTC is but if the above is true, he/she/they can’t be feeling all that chipper at the minute.
However, from the evidence I’ve seen RTC was morally correct in what they did. The use of EBTs was against the spirit of the game (players agreeing to be loaned money for playing football? Don’t make me laugh) despite what a couple of lawyers’ opinions of tax/contract law may say. RTC shone a much needed spotlight on the corruption of the Scottish MSM.
I want to offer my thanks and support to RTC for what they did and I hope continue to do.
Funny someone should mention the WTC as I have often wondered why the deed club was never brought to book for that little misdemeanor ,you know the one ,aye the one where R DeBoer and Stefan Kloss played ,was it ,over 200 or 400 games between them in a four year period .
Odd though because as far as I recall Ragers did not appeal this bill ,in fact I think it was part of the CW buyout from minty .
We will no doubt have the MSM spin about how ragers are not guilty but beware the spin of the media .
I know what I believe has went on and so do many others I presume .
As for minty suing anyone don’t hold your breath .
ja606 says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 16:47
————————————
RFC supporter newly signed on to spout lies? Rangers were sold because they were millions in debt – as for HMRC if RFC had cut back their spending and put something aside then that wouldn’t have mattered. But he sold to a spiv for peanuts. Where were the 500 million RFC supporters Why didn’t they as a group – or since they have a lot of rich fans, a group of them, move in and save the club? The only ones to blame were RFC themselves.
ja606 says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 16:47
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If they were loans it doesn’t matter if they were declared to the
SFA. Rangers did nothing wrong and that should be
acknowledged. Whyte is a different story but if it were not for
HMRC there would never have been a Craig Whyte at Ibrox.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not sure what you are getting at here.
Are you suggesting that HMRC shouldn’t have chased Rangers for tax that they still believe is due?
Are you suggesting that Murray didn’t really want to sell Rangers despite having them on the market for years?
You do realise that Rangers were heading for the knackers yard, tax case or no tax case, don’t you? All Craig Whyte did was get them there a little quicker than we all imagined. Murray sold to Whyte for a single solitary pound. Nobody made him do that.
Well STV are calling it Rangers Win BTC
Reading through it all it looks as if there were two separate hearings going on with Mure & Rae sitting in one and Poon in another. Hard to comprehend how the two positions could be so far apart.
cosmichaggis says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 16:56
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FTTT inconclusive as far as I have read.
——
Not really:
“In these circumstances we expect that it is sufficient that we allow the Appeal in principle.”
i.e. The appeal was allowed, i.e. MIH won their appeal.
The loan repayment thing is a dodgy one. I think oldcourse is correct in saying that it wasn’t RFC who made the payments, so the recipients aren’t debtors to Oldco. It falls to the EBT organisers to ask for repayment.
If they don’t seem to be in a hurry to do so, who’s going to be surprised?
I think we should accept that MIH won the Appeal, with some reservations which will become clear given a little time and analysis – including the possibility of a further Appeal by HMRC, who have been made to look a bit silly.
Anything else is going to look like sour grapes.
Meantime, the undoubted existence of side-letters – if they said the wrong thing – leaves LNS with limited options re: his verdict. He also made clear, remember, that TRFC are liable for OldCo’s misdemeanours in the SPL Rulebook (appealable or not).
Rangers Tax-Case @rangerstaxcase
FTT result worded to downplay impact of illegally avoiding millions in tax (plus interest). Reality: RFC proven to have cheated.
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Be interesting to see the spin put on this on STV/BBC scotland.
I’ll need to view it on t’internet as not sure BBC south will cover it.
ja606 says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 16:47
If they were loans it doesn’t matter if they were declared to the SFA. Rangers did nothing wrong and that should be acknowledged. Whyte is a different story but if it were not for HMRC there would never have been a Craig Whyte at Ibrox.
————
With all due respect, Rangers did do rather a lot wrong, and have never and, no doubt, will ever acknowledge it. Most importantly, players were paid illegally or in contravention of SPL/SFA rules and guidelines (i.e. disguised remuneration, side-letters, etc.) RFC Plc under Murray made an average loss of 16,5m per season; that is why Whyte was brought in. RFC Plc was bust before Whyte arrived. He merely finished the job. Green is providing the concrete and crazy paving.
broadswordcallingdannybhoy says:
Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 17:30
Agreed – RTC thank you for your efforts – please keep up the good work.
Did the loans have any repayment dates attached? If not then HMRC are goosed, the players can state that “yes we will repay the loans but at a time and date that suits us, not you”
Still don’t understand how a loan can be subject to tax though.
Murray will be hacked off though, selling for a £1.00.
However, I don’t discount the hand of external forces in all this but I’ll put that down to my natural cynicism.
5 1 Rate This
And here comes the fun bit:
Hector: Hello Player, you owe Tax on that Loan!
Player: What Loan?
Hector: The Loan The Trust gave you.
Player: That was a Contract.
Hector: What Contract?
Player: This Contract, the copy Myth and Ogilvy couldn’t shred as it was locked in my safe!!
The silence is about to broken.
…………………………………………………………………………………
Sorry I jumped the gun with this post, it is BDO who will be asking for repayment of Loans, the Players will laugh and produce THEIR COPIES of the contracts.
Will be great fun watching Souness and Barry Ferguson argue in a Court of Law that they signed CONTRACTS with RFC so don’t owe a penny, their Agents in the dock naming those who assured them it was a contract with paperwork to back it up.
Anyone who lied and claimed they were Loans during the Tribunal will be facing time in the real big house FOR CERTAIN.