Strip the titles - I think not !!

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The Title stripping accusations are back and flying about the place though it looks like the SFA have cut it off at the pass. I thought I would cover a few things off though just to ensure the facts are out there.

The very first thing to note is that the findings today are clear in that the Tax advice we were given back in 2000 was wrong and the gamble taken by the Board and principally David Murray has ended in the decision today.

The consequence of the decision is simply that tax is now due on the EBT payments made into the Sub Trusts. The EBTs were NOT illegal. They were NOT unlawful. They simply didn’t meet the Revenue criteria of being non-taxable.

You will read and hear from all and sundry about illegal this and illegal that. It is 100% nonsense.

Im going to be honest now. Back in 2010 on Rangersmedia, I said that I thought we would lose the case and end up owing money back to HMRC. As both an Exec and non Exec board member in various companies, I had these schemes positioned loads of times over the years, prior to the big focus on them. Each time, I voted against them and fortunately, none of the companies I worked with or represented accepted them. They were always a risk and for me, not worth it.

The crux of the "Strip the Titles" argument is that without EBT, we would not have been able to afford certain players and therefore we gained a sporting advantage by having these players sign for us using EBTs. There has been various quotes from Board members who said that we used the scheme as it allowed us to buy players we “MAY” have not otherwise been able to sign. "MAY" being the most important word of course.

So lets look at that player list in greater detail.

In total 53 Rangers PLAYERS were paid a sum from an EBT trust. The total paid to those players was £33,322,308. I believe these 53 players can be split into 2 Groups.

Group 1 are players who I believe would have signed regardless. Either the EBT they received was of very low value or they were signing for their boyhood heroes or in some cases earning 5/6/7 times more than ever before. These players are:

Alan Hutton, Steven Smith, Federico Nieto, Jerome Bonnissel, Chris Burke, Dan Eggen, Ian Murray, Maurice Ross, Bob Malcolm, Tero Penttila, Billy Dodds, Kris Boyd, Marvin Andrews, Gavin Rae, Zurab Khizanishvili, Steven Thompson, Neil McCann, Alex Rae, Steven Davis, Andrei Kanchelskis, Gregory Vignal, Libor Sionko, Olivier Bernard, Michael Mols.

Group 2 are players who are either foreigners who received anything above £300k or home grown players who got more than £1m. These are:

Arthur Numan, Bert Konterman, Carlos Cuellar, Ronald Waterreus, Sotirios Kyrgiakos, Paolo Vanoli, Jean-Alain Boumsong, Julien Rodriguez, Lorenzo Amoruso, Mikel Arteta, Fernando Ricksen, Peter Lovenkrands, Nuno Capucho, Claudio Caniggia, Kevin Muscat, Pedro Mendes, Ronald De Boer, Thomas Buffel, Tore Andre Flo, Michael Ball, Christian Nerlinger, Dado Prso, Stefan Klos, Sasa Papac, Jesper Christiansen, Egil Ostenstad, Craig Moore, Nacho Novo, Barry Ferguson.

For Group 2, the total amount paid into the Sub Trust for EBT was £27,639,283.

The ruling today means that for those 29 players, Rangers would have had to pay circa £11,055,713 of tax over the period of 10 years if they wanted to pay the players the same amount net of tax.

That is £1,105,571 per year.

In order for anyone to prove Rangers got a sporting advantage, they need to prove that without EBTS, the above players would not have signed. To do this, they would need to pass 3 tests.

Test 1 – If each of the above players were purely offered the salary that was agreed with them and NO EBT, would they still have signed?

Test 2 – If any of the above players did not pass Test 1 and stated they wouldn’t have signed on the base salary, would they have agreed a salary in between what they got paid as remuneration and with the additional EBT? This would reduce the £11m liability mentioned above.

Test 3 – If any of the players failed Test 1 and then failed Test 2 and would only sign for the exact net amount they got during their time with Rangers, would Murray simply have bitten the bullet and paid it.

Given the debt he constantly put us in and given all of the signings were made prior to the Lloyds freeze, there is no doubt that the small amount of players, if any at all, that failed all 3 test would have got the money they wanted.

No senior counsel would be able to prove the above 3 tests which is why the advice given to the SFA over the last few months in advance of the decision is that there is simply no point. You will be lucky to get 1 or 2 players saying they wouldn’t have signed for anything less and even if they did say that, Murray would simply say he would have used our facility.

Its only when you break it all down and get to the crux of the numbers that you realise just how stupid David Murray and the Board were to take such a risk on this.

I just hope if it does go to court or tribunal, we don’t have Alex Prentice defending us. The RFFF better get the funds ready and ensure a top man has all the info to point out how ridiculous any attempt would be.

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