It was a bit more than that actually, they were allegedly paying players + managers on the side for about 10 years into offshore trusts - payments that were not reported in their contracts. HMRC found out and whacked them a massive back bill. So in that time they were dodging tax they won 4 league titles, with players they may not have not been otherwise able to afford. The club liquidated with £120m worth of debt on it's books - the club ceased to exist - they formed a new club - the new club were not given special dispensation to enter the top tier of Scottish football. None of this was vindictiveness on the part of their fellow Scottish football clubs, it was all the result of the actions of one football club.
That is no different from any other club who has cooked its books and paid over the odds for players, paid them to much, sought the glory, found out they are in the ****, and stopped paying the taxman as they are the first to not get the money. It is no different from any other club that goes into administration, just they got caught using a different loophole that was closed slam-shut in their face. Anyone that believes this situation is somehow worse than any other administration is talking out of their arse. Plus the HMRC have been desperate to prevent CVAs and to force a big club into liquidation. The vindictiveness is that - now the club has been voted into the 3rd division - the vultures want to pick over every last bit of its unyet-born fetus. The Scottish FA is showing that it is a toothless tiger - it did nothing before, and now the club is reeling and needs the Golden Share it belatedly starts its picking away. These people should be ashamed of themselves - we have the very same here in England. I have no affinity to any Scottish club at all, but it is pathetic watching this double jeopardy from the outside. Part of me wishes that Sevco pull out and watches Scottish football disappear down the pan. Maybe if that happened, Celtic and Rangers would come together and start a new and rival FA, invite the various clubs in, and kick these arseholes out of football forever As for the rest who believe the club has effectively comitted the world's worst sins, let he who is pure cast the first stone.
they weren't put into the third division. the new club, Sevco, are being allowed into the third division with sanctions. Pretty good of the SPL and SFL doing that for a brand new club. Rangers are dead. Liquidated.
Lets face facts ya ****ing mutant the SFL and SPL are not seeing eye to eye at all with the SPL being money grubbing ****s. How daft are you?
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Actually it potentially is VERY different to other administrations. Besides the tax dodging/evasion issue (which may have parallels with other clubs' situations), the use of EBTs and side-contracts may mean that Rangers players were improperly registered with the SFA and hence they were not eligible to play. This apparently went on for scores of players over a period of ten years. Teams have been chucked out of the scottish cup for lesser breaches of registration requirements for a single player in recent years. Personally I'm finding it all mind-numbingly tedious and wish they'd resolve the whole thing. It's also obvious the SFA and SPL heads are way out their depth. But I don't feel sorry for Rangers - it's entirely of their own making.
