Rangers go into administration

[Alex MacLeod]

I see there's no mention as to how they voted on the shareout of funds. Instead its all about voting to save cheats and criminals. Sorry Mr Chairmen but I foresee even more disasterous gate reciepts if Rangers Newco comes about. If CVA goes through and Rangers remain as is then I see gates dropping for any game involving them. Their fans will boycott away games and many home fans of all clubs will stay away from games involving Rangers. A lose lose situation has been created because up to ten clubs have no balls.

[givmeaccccc]

I hope our Chairman will make a full statement on here very soon as to what 'we' voted for and against and why!

[ICTRoughi]

Just found this

http://www.rangers.co.uk/staticFiles/c9/b3/0,,5~177097,00.pdf

[Bridge_Ender]

What do the SFA do next after the Court of Session have agreed with the Rangers lawyers that the sanctions imposed were not within the powers of the SFA?

There seems to be 4 main options:

1) Suspension from the Scottish Cup

2) Suspension of SFA Membership

3) Expulsion from the SFA

4) Do nothing

With FIFA and UEFA now taking an interest it appears 4) will no longer an option. So what is a fair SFA sanction to be imposed on Rangers? And, perhaps more importantly, realistically what wil the SFA do?

Personally, I thought the SFA tried to do the best they could by everyone involved by putting the transfer ban on them. Under the circumstances and how seriously they are taking the case it looked like they were taking tough action on Rangers whilst in reality the club were unlikely to ever be in a position to sign many players over the next 12 months anyway. If Rangers had engaged the brain before complaining they would have realised they had got off lightly. However, by taking it to the Court of Session they have put the SFA in a position they would not have wanted to be in by attracting the attention of FIFA/UEFA and surely toughening of any penalty that will be imposed next.

Rangers own arrogance and stupidity in taking this to the civil courts beggars belief. For that reason I'd argue a years suspension from the Scottish Cup is nowhere near enough while permanent expulsion, as much as I would like that to happen, won't realistically happen. I think a years suspension of SFA membership is the most appropriate. Realistically, I can see the SFA caving and only issuing a years suspension from the Cup.

[CaleyD]

Make it up as you go along is now an official policy then?

It would seem so.

I have a few issues with what has happened, but let me start by saying why I think they have gone the way they have......

Clubs can go in to Administration for a variety of reasons...and it's not always something of their own (immediate) making. e.g. Rangers non payment of monies due to clubs this season past caused issues for a couple of clubs, most notably Dunfermline who had to short pay players and then make up the difference. Had the amounts been larger then they could easily have found themselves in the more trouble than they did. If you have set penalties then a club ending up in administration for those reasons would have to be treated the same as a club who found themselves in administration due to purposefully trying to cheat the system and deliberately withholding tax whilst spending money they did not have....and that would hardly seem fair.

The problem I have is that there's other measures which could be taken under those circumstances to ensure one club does not become the victim of another clubs poor financial management. Things like.....

- The SPL withholding prize money and paying these "footballing" debts.

- All match tickets for league games are sold by the home club, in cases where the away club want to sell the tickets then they pay up front for them.

- No "credit" facility for inter-league player transfers....if you are willing to pay a transfer fee then you must pay it in full up front.

Further to that....if a club are operating in such a manner whereby non payment of a few thousand pounds is likely to send them into administration, and subsequently liquidation, then their problems (and debts) are very likely to run a lot deeper and it's not the leagues place to be throwing out lifelines which allow them to escape the full consequences of operating in such a manner.

The other problem I have is the "fixed" penalty of going into administration....one third of last seasons points or ten points, whichever is greater. It is a punishment which serves to punish the smaller teams more than it ever will the bigger teams. e.g. Celtic could have placed themselves in administration this season after seeing it happen to Rangers. If both had been given a one third points deduction then Celtic would still have won the league (on goal difference). Celtic could have wiped out any debt and effectively gone unpunished.

Given the huge financial benefit of playing in Europe (even Europa), then is a team on the fringe of a qualifying place going to think it worth taking a punt by spending money they can't really afford to push for that place? A one third deduction in points if it goes wrong isn't going to relegate them and provided they can come out of admin via a CVA then what's the hardship?

The point being....relegation hurts (financially) more than anything else and the new rules do no more to dissuade clubs from spending to avoid it than than the old ones. 10pts or one third of previous seasons total is only going to hurt the bottom half teams....why should the threat of relegation as a result of administration not apply to ALL teams?

The change of rules in regards to administration are, IMO, nothing more then the SPL paying lip service to the problem.

Then we have the "NewCo" situation. Forget the "we'll decide on a case by case" argument. It wouldn't make any difference if they had put in place 1001 rules to cover every possible reason for the event. Why? because there's not a court in the world that will allow any organisation to punish a new organisation for the indiscretions of an old one. The SPL have shot themselves in the foot head here. They have a setup which now says a NewCo can walk straight into the SPL....that's fine, it's up the the SPL to decide the entry criteria. The problem comes the moment the first SPL club goes into liquidation (leaving Rangers aside) because the SPL will say "yes you can join, but here is the conditions". The Club/NewCo in question will go thank you very much for letting us in, but we do not accept the conditions which punish us for the actions of a club/entity which we have no legal connection to. A court (be it civil or CAS) will not allow the conditions to stand and if the SPL then remove the membership they will be hammered for removing membership on the basis that a club refused to accept illegal conditions....end result, NewCo in the SPL and no further punishments applied.

Dress it up any way they like, make promises to deal harshly with worst offenders if they want, the fact is it WILL NOT WORK and the ONLY way to deal with the NewCo situation is not to allow a NewCo entry to the SPL under any circumstances.

[HumbersideDude]

The SFA will shy away from controversy and stick to the rule book, and give them a seasons ban from Scottish cup, and suspend the punishment for a year. So in effect, do nothing, whilst letting FIFA/UEFA see that they are taking action against them.

[bauhaus]

Suspend from both cups, and extend Euro ban to 5 years, re write the prize money rewards at season end, dock them 25 points like Dundee, fine them more money, and have them start every game with 9 players. Shame is they would likely still finish in the top 2!

[CaleyD]

What do the SFA do next after the Court of Session have agreed with the Rangers lawyers that the sanctions imposed were not within the powers of the SFA?

There seems to be 4 main options:

1) Suspension from the Scottish Cup

2) Suspension of SFA Membership

3) Expulsion from the SFA

4) Do nothing

You missed option #5.....Continue as per the original sanctions and enforce the Transfer Embargo.

The "opinion" of the Court of Sessions has no basis in law, it does not pass judgement on the legality of the actions taken by the SFA and the SFA would be quite within their rights to continue as if the CoS hearing had never taken place. Of course, if the SFA did that then Rangers would be quite within their rights to pursue a civil case, but that takes a lot of time, a lot of money and there's no guarantee that civil action would deliver the same outcome.

While all that is going on, Rangers face further sanctions...almost definitely suspension/expulsion due to FIFA pressure...for breaching the rules on going to the ordinary courts for a second time. What's more, the transfer embargo would remain in place until that decision was made.

Rangers could try for an interim interdict to prevent the embargo being applied while the case was being heard, but that is unlikely to be granted as it is not a point of law which is being argued and courts are generally reluctant to get involved to that degree in such cases (ask Partick Thistle).

[KirkieRobRoy]

Suggest that at away games at Ibrox next season (assuming they happen) we should only buy tickets if they'll accept £2.50 or whatever, ie, 10p in the pound.

And I'm not paying more than 20p for one of their over-priced pies.

[+DoofersDad]

Heard on the radio today that the administrators are saying that the club has sufficient funds to recommence paying full wages to the higher paid players who earlier agreed a wage cut to help the club. If those funds are available then why are they not paying their creditors?

[CaleyD]

As wrong as it is, IMO, the moment the club went into administration and it was agreed that an attempt would be made to sell them as a going concern then they could effectively stop paying anything due to creditors prior to that date.

This means that any/all money coming in + cash in bank at the time could be used to keep the business running until such time as it exited administration. They could well have surplus from the income generated since 14th February, they will also have money to come from the SPL, possibly "appearance money" for any pre-season friendlies, merchandise sales etc.

The logic/argument (although I do not agree with it) is that if the company had been liquidated the day it went in to administration then none of that income would have existed so Creditors should be no worse off than in terms of what they would get if it was liquidated now as opposed to back then.

Administration is a bit self-contradicting because being granted that "status" is designed to protect the business from its Creditors to give it a chance to trade/sell its way out of trouble. However, it's the job of the administrators to ascertain if that is possible and ensure Creditors get the best possible return from either a CVA or Liquidation.

I still think Duff and Duffer could find themselves in some bother over the way they have handled the administration. Aside from all the alleged "conflict of interest" stuff, there's things like deliberately devaluing assets (player contracts), courting a buyer who is having to borrow £8.3M of the £8.5M for the attempted CVA which could effectively return zero to Creditors and the chance this could be challenged by other interested buyers who perceive their offer to have been better etc. They are under investigation and I would be very surprised if they walked away unscathed.

We are still a long way from the end of all this.

[Yngwie]

This means that any/all money coming in + cash in bank at the time could be used to keep the business running until such time as it exited administration. They could well have surplus from the income generated since 14th February, they will also have money to come from the SPL, possibly "appearance money" for any pre-season friendlies, merchandise sales etc.

I think I read that they have made a trading deficit of £3.6m during administration.

[CaleyD]

Yeah, and it also says that will be covered by using part of the £8.5M offered for the CVA.....which means Rangers have been running up credit whilst in administration.

Would be interesting to know who with and how they are being allowed to get away with it as I'm pretty sure one of the things about being in Administration is you are not allowed to create further debts.

The only thing I can think of is that it's a bit of clever accounting and Duff & Duffer are the ones who are owed the £3.6M (allowing that "debt" to accrue in order to pay players in the knowledge they are first to be paid when the money comes in?). This would certainly stack up with other quoted figures which suggest that if club goes into liquidation then assets would be sold for £5.5M and only £1.9M would be available for credits. However, there's a few side notes which suggest that the money due to Duff & Duffer could rise to (would you believe it) £5.5M when legal fees are added meaning the Creditors would get fook all in that scenario. All very suspect.

Buying shares for £1 and using borrowed money to clear the debts....I could be mistaken, but is that not what got them into this mess to begin with!!!

[Guest]

Heard on the radio today that the administrators are saying that the club has sufficient funds to recommence paying full wages to the higher paid players who earlier agreed a wage cut to help the club. If those funds are available then why are they not paying their creditors?

Undoubtedly, the money saved from cutting wages is never enough.

If they borrow money to pay off their creditors, I don't know if that's really a great idea. But that is depending on their situation.

We still didn't know their real financial stand right now.

[Heilandee]

As long as Scottish football has decision makers of the calibre of Jim Ballantyne,who not so long ago,vented his spleen to show how robust the authorities would be when financial shenanigans were afoot and i quote...

"We are of the opinion that lessons are not being learned. For example, clubs have to realise that, going forward, they cannot treat their HMRC obligations as something akin to a credit card.

"In the face of current challenges, our ultimate aim is to ensure that clubs survive with integrity. Professional and robust financial management procedures are key to the future security of all clubs.".....

Fast forward 18 months and he is sitting in the Directors box in Belfast at a Rangers friendly with a Rangers Fighting Fund badge on,what hope for anyone?

[MarkD]

When a business goes into administration, previous debts and assets become effectively forzen. The business can then continue to trade because the administrator will be liable for any subsequent shortfall. So obviously they are pretty careful to make sure that's not the case. By the same token the administrator has first call on any money's that come in. Otherwise nobody would be an administrator.

By saying that they have sufficient funds to pay the players, all that means is that someone has agreed to advance that money, presumably the new owners. But that wont go to the previous creditors because the new people will wait until there's agreement on how many pence in the pound everyone will get before putting cash into the club.

[+Tree]

So Green is considering further legal action against the SFA.

I'm sure FIFA are taking note.

Surely having these guys at the table is not at any cost and the point must be close to stop this nonsense!

[CaleyD]

Not sure what position Green has for taking any action against anyone in relation to football matters as he has not yet bought the club. It would be the administrators that would have to bring action, which suggests they are operating as a puppet for Green.

[Alex MacLeod]

My understanding is that Green has indicated that the club may go back to the court of session to ask for the original sanction to be nulled or to have the courts decision reversed and Rangers accept the original punishment. The administrators did not read the rule book prior to taking action and all at Rangers are now very fearful that punishment meted out under FIFA guidelines could be a lot worse than suffering a year of no signings. Not just for Rangers but for Scottish football as a whole. I think they now realise that their actions could affect the clubs in european competition and they need to reverse that possibility.

[Alex MacLeod]

Its all a bit confusing but I see no mention in the linked article of Rangers taking action against the SFA. http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11781/7794238/Rangers-consider-options

[CaleyD]

I think you are right Alex...looks like Rangers are trying to decide between just accepting the 12 Month Transfer Embargo, or going back to the Court of Sessions to ask that the original decision be quashed and a different decision, that the case should be sent back to the original tribunal be given instead.

The trouble is, if it goes to the appellate appeals committee and they decide on a suspension/expulsion then Rangers have no further means to appeal to anyone and they obviously don't want to take that risk. By asking that the SFA press the reset button then it goes back to the original committee and if they issue a suspension/expulsion it can then go to the appellate committee and if they uphold the original decision then it can be appeal to the CAS...or if stupid enough to try it again, the court of session.

Prime example of shooting oneself in the foot.

[+DoofersDad]

And presumably if Rangers go back to court again the legal expenses will come from the fund which should be being used to pay the creditors they have cheated out of millions.

[+Tree]

And presumably if Rangers go back to court again the legal expenses will come from the fund which should be being used to pay the creditors they have cheated out of millions.

I am just waiting for a fans representative to pop up on Reporting Scotland shortly to confirm that it is all the creditors fault and they are organising a boycott!

[+DoofersDad]

Just found this

http://www.rangers.c...5~177097,00.pdf

Once you've read that the blog in this link makes an intersting read. Just whose interests are Duff and Phelps looking after? - As if I didn't already know the answer!

http://www.twohundre...nt.net/?p=19040

[old caley girl]

Going on a preseason tour to Germany apparently. Can we be this skint please lol?