What Now For Rangers?
12/06/2012 5,766 Comments
The announcement that HMRC would oppose the CVA proposal for rescuing Rangers FC is just a few hours old, and I thought that a quick post was due. However, I do not have any new information. I just wanted to move this blog-page along.
As it starts to sink in that The Rangers Football Club plc is now destined to end in corporate failure and liquidation, the questions are coming thick and fast as to what happens next.
The simplest answer is that there are too many permutations to provide a certain path forward. HMRC had previously indicated that they would want Duff & Phelps replaced by BDO as liquidators. I expect that they will want ‘clean hands’ from this point on and that there will be fresh faces atop the marble staircase within a few days. However, it is possible that the liquidators will want to proceed with an asset sale to Green. Other bidders may emerge (or reemerge).
Given the tiny amounts that would be raised in a public fire-sale, it does appear that an asset sale to a newco is almost certain. So a new organisation purporting to represent the legacy of The Rangers Football Club plc will emerge. However, if they are to be playing in any league next season the asset sale will have to be unopposed. If there are legal challenges to a sale, we could see at least one season without any Rangers-type team.
The focus will soon turn to the SFA and the SPL. The ruling bodies of professional football in Scotland have the responsibility to determine whether a newco attempting to transfer Rangers’ league ‘share’ and SFA membership will be allowed to join the top flight of the Scottish game- and if so- when. What must be clear is that any organisation that has bought another club’s share / membership must also face the punishments that awaited the old club. To allow a newco-Rangers to ditch its legacy responsibilities will be to set an expectation that others can do likewise. The battleground is now going to shift and we can expect a massive effort to convince us that an SPL without Rangers would be unbearable.
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Rangers Tax Case 
Stiflers mom says:
22/06/2012 at 8:07 pm
F.M.
‘your application’ mmmm, ‘our’ surely?
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Not quite sure what you mean by that.
Absolutely marvellous reading on a Friday night.
Yojimbo56 on 22/06/2012 at 6:39 pm.
Great post as usual mate.
I’m sure we all know plenty of Decents in real life and online(yourself and DP are fantastic contributors to this blog) and it’s them we need to think about when people call for NEWCLUB to be strangled at birth.
I’m happy to stand corrected but I don’t think the 3 years of audited accounts is an absolute must for any NEW CLUB applying to SFL3.
It’s a big if, but If NEWCLUB could demonstrate a degree of contrition towards the DEADCLUB’s sins and offer certain financial assurances towards the authorities then I think the pragmatic approach would have to be to admit them to SFL3. As Auldheid said what should have happened sailed a long time ago in this saga and we have to try and rebuild Scottish Football as best we can. For me that means not losing people like yojimbo, and the thousands of other decent ex-rangers, to Scottish Football.
As an aside Jimbo, I don’t believe any of the above can be contemplated until the NEWCLUB is formulates a sensible, coherent and realistic financial plan, and it nails it’s colours to the mast and denounces sectarianism in all it’s forms as blight on the Scottish people.
The chances of that happening? Somewhere between slim and zero. But I would’ve said the same about RFC 1872 getting liquidated a few months ago.
I’m so Gwlad Gwlad says:
22/06/2012 at 7:42 pm
I agree. I’m still willing to give Regan the benefit of the doubt. He’s in a very difficult position just now.
While I can understand the clamour from various quarters for the SFA to come out and make a statement about Rangers’ fate, we’ve all got to be a bit more patient. This affair has dragged on longer than most of us would have anticipated, but the last thing we need is hasty decisions or pronouncements made on the hoof by the SFA.
Rangers will have legal experts pouring all over this case and any response from the authorities that might be deemed prejudicial, or can be challenged on any sort of technicality, will be seized upon.
The end game is approaching, we have to tread carefully and keep our wits about us.
gaz @ 8.25. Sorry to disagree gaz but that was anything but coherent.what a rant,we are innocent,victims even.What a load of B_llocks.Anyway not to worry, soon be gone.There are no tears being shed here.
Sammy has just scored, please somebody offer 5 million for him.
I really don’t know what Wiggy is playing at by saying Aberdeen haven’t decided how to vote yet. He must know that if he was stupid enough to vote yes, he would be counting the crowds at Pittodrie next season on the fingers of one hand.
I wouldn’t blame Jim Spence for jumping the gun, the P&J reported last week that Aberdeen would be voting no and Wiggy didn’t bother denying it.
Rangers media. Such self pity. Makes you sick, doesn’t it.
There’s Only One Willie Miller says:
22/06/2012 at 10:27 pm
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I really don’t know what Wiggy is playing at by saying Aberdeen haven’t decided how to vote yet. He must know that if he was stupid enough to vote yes, he would be counting the crowds at Pittodrie next season on the fingers of one hand.
He should have neither confirmed nor denied what AFC were to do,but hey ho he has houses to sell and not just in the north east.
Jimothy @ 8:09
I couldn’t swear to it, but I may be the Stephen in the first post.
I wrote this soon after. http://ayeright.com/2011/04/old-firm-rip/
Henry Clarson says:
22/06/2012 at 8:19 pm
I don’t expect that there will any form of Rangers playing football at any level next season.
The awareness of the level of scandal emanating from the entire SDM operation is growing daily and it will overwhelm the increasingly feeble efforts to convince anyone that there is a place for an heir to Rangers in 21st century Scotland.
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And yet Sevco1690 supporters claim they are ‘devastated’ that Rhys McCabe won’t be there to drive the team on to promotion from the 1st division next season.
Totally delusional.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18560798
who is Rhys McCabe??
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18560798
I felt throughout the administration process of Rangers 1872 that liquidation was the inevitable outcome. The range and depth of the mess around that club is now obvious, from the delay in changing from Duff & Phelps being in charge to BDO having the ball. I suggested some time ago these delays would mean that oldco or newco, no entity named “Rangers” could possibly be ready to play football come the start of the 2012-13 season.
The latest developments around Lord Hope’s search for clarification on the conflict of interest issue now, to me, make it impossible for “Rangers” to play at the start of the season. The SFA now has to give us some leadership and make it clear, there will be no “Rangers” in Scottish football in the coming season, indeed, there will be no “Rangers” in Scottish football until the mess is cleared up to their satisfaction.
This will, almost inevitably, mean that the name “Rangers” will vanish into Scottish football history, alongside such names as St Bernard’s, King’s Park, Leith Athletic, Third Lanark, Airdrieonians and Gretna.
This will be hard for “Ra Peepul” but is an inevitable consequence of gross mis-management – the major “cheating” accusations being, if more likely than not true, still unproven, so let’s not intrude further on personal grief, surely we can show some magnanimity.
I suspect, somewhere in one of the drawers in Herr Blatter’s Swiss desk, there is a large black book, listing all the “crimes” of the four Home Nations. The (English) FA is far from flavour of the month/year/decade at FIFA, the other three Celtic nations’ FAs are seen as the FA’s partners-in-crime against FIFA, with the Scots seen as being Terry McCann to the FA’s Arthur Daley.
Everything is being noted – expect some turbulence once a Team GB football squad for the Olympics which breaches FIFA selection statutes for instance – so, if only to keep the Gnomes of Zurich off their backs and out of their books and records, the SFA has to grow a pair, suspend “Rangers” from membership pending the clearing-up of the whole mess, and, since he is at the very least under-suspicion through association, put Campbell Ogilvie on gardening leave.
I welcome the fact the other SPL clubs are at last waking-up to the ticking time bomb which “Rangers” is – now, will the governing body do the same, while we can still speak of “Scottish Football”.
canadianindie says:
22/06/2012 at 7:59 pm
Who is paying the players and staff of Rangers (IL) right now?
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Given the problems with the season ticket account, does Sevco indeed have a bank account for payroll transactions?
Heard a great quote At what point does “walking away” become a STAMPEDE??