Rangers set to be stripped of titles after secret document leaked

by

A secret plan has been produced by football chiefs that will strip four Scottish Cups and five SPL titles from Rangers. The Daily Record saw the bombshell document after it was drafted following talks between the Scottish Football League, SFA, SPL and Sevco representatives.

A range of punishments are outlined in the plan for dodging Employment Benefit Trust tax, which the club did during Sir David Murray’s regime in order to pay players. If penalties are enforced they would be the harshest seen in football. They not only include stripping five league titles from the club and wiping out four Scottish Cup triumphs; but an a one-year transfer embargo will be upheld and Green’s newco will be forced to pay the clubs old football debts.

Clearly the plan has been drafted by the football authorities to force Rangers to drop to Division One in the SFL and protect the TV and marketing revenues of Scottish football. Chairmen from the SFL overwhelmingly voted to drop Rangers to Division Three last Friday, however it is understood that the punishments in the secret plan may be imposed at a later date.

On August 10 the SPL will decide whether or not Rangers broke rules by using ‘dual contracts’ and EBTs, the document simply shed light on what could be used as penalties for the club. An agreement on the document is yet to be reached, although it appears that Green’s firm would be willing to accept some of the draft

The list of penalties will horrify the club’s supporters, many believing that the document undermines the judicial process of the SFA. Possible the worst part in that the club could lose the status of Champion Club, which is defined in the rules of the Scottish Premier League.

Vote looming to determine Rangers future in the SFL

by

Scottish Football League clubs will soon vote on whether or not the ‘Newco Rangers’ deserve an official place in the Scottish Football League for next season. Charles Green will be waiting anxiously to hear the results of the vote that will take place Friday among reps from 28 of the member clubs. The vote will focus on whether Sevco Scotland Limited should be allowed to join the league and also whether the Ibrox side should be admitted into the First Division.

Several teams that play in the Scottish Football League have already publicly announced that they are against plans to allow Newco to play in the second tier league because they do not believe it is fair. Before the team can get into the SFL setup up a majority of clubs have to vote to allow the team to join. The Friday vote will determine if that majority is met or not.

The placement of Rangers next season could have serious repercussions for the SFL

by

Following in the aftermath of Charlie Green’s application for top flight entry being rejected by the clubs in the Scottish Premier League, Regan, the chief executive of the SFL, has made a claim that social unrest would be the result of Rangers fans being deprived of their team.

Regan has said that the only viable solution now for Rangers was to come into the SFL in the first division, as if they played anywhere else it would result in the game as a whole losing around £15.7m in revenue.

He also made it clear that the Scottish Football League couldn’t allow Rangers to start right at the bottom, which effectively means that the SPL clubs are facing the prospect of a breakaway and an SPL2 if the plan for Rangers to join the first division is also rejected.

He added that for big clubs that were at the top of the league, that amount equated to half of their annual distribution, and for clubs at the bottom is would basically wipe out their entire distrbution, and for the even smaller clubs it was a large proportion of their annual turnovers.

Regan went onto say that even if the Ibrox club did go into the first division, there would still be a loss of income to other SPL clubs of £5m, and as the game isn’t self sustaining it would mean a slow and lingering death for football in Scotland. This would then trickle down through the SFL and he considered that from their perspective, being the governing body, they simply can’t allow this to happen.

Regan has also confirmed that a real threat as arisen pertaining to TV contracts and said that they had had conversations with broadcasters and understood what the stakeholders from Sky, Sport 5, ESPN and various other commercial partners of the SPL were likely to do if Ranger were not a part of the top two tiers of the SFL, and it wasn’t pretty.

 

Blackburn start their Championship campaign with Steve Kean at the helm

by

At the start of the new championship season Blackburn Rovers will have a manager in the shape of Steve Kean. Shebby Singh, the club’s new global advisor, announced that an agreement has been made with Kean.

Rovers were relegated in May, following 11 years in the Premiership. Supporters have been putting increasing pressure on club owners Venky’s and Keane himself since Sam Allardyce was replaced in December 2010 be the Scot. The 44-year-old flew to India at the end of last season for talks with Venky’s, and it appears he will be trying to lead Blackburn back to Premiership football in the first year.

Mr Singh who is a former Malaysian international, and has been working as a football pundit recently in Asia, was appointed by Blackburn Rovers Football Club at the start of the week.

Although he reportedly called for Kean to be sacked in a Singapore paper (New Paper), he now appears to support the Scot. In the newspaper column he said that Steve Keane was not the man to lead the club back to the Premiership. He has stated that when the article was written, he was looking at him critically as a sports pundit, not as a work colleague.

Mr Sing goes on to explain that they need to talk about certain aspects for an extremely long time. He feels that there were a lot of areas which weren’t looked into in the last season. In particular He mentioned tactically naïve, lightweight teams, players past their prime, team members who were played out of position and unhappy players.

He said they weren’t going to wallow in self-pity, but quickly move on. Mr Singh agrees he has been critical and in his new role as global adviser his views need to be more constructive.

 

Ex manager Walter Smith seeks to buy Rangers

by

A new bid to buy Rangers has been announced by former manager of the side, Walter Smith. The offer is thought to be approximately £6m and Mr Smith will put part of the money in alongside other Scottish businessmen, to include Douglas Park and Jim McColl. Mr Smith has asked the previous leading bidder, Charles Green, to stand aside. Mr Green and his consortium were about to complete their £5.5m purchase.

Mr Smith has confirmed in a statement that he is leading a bid for the club, saying that he and his partners want the club to be in the capable hands of Rangers people, to help stabalise the club. He continued by saying that he had asked Mr Green to step aside so the deal could proceed, saying that the new deal would be in the best interests of the clubs employees, the fans, the creditors and all other stakeholders of Rangers F.C.

This development came on the day the CVA (company voluntary arrangement) was rejected. This failed after Revenue and Customs told the club’s administrators that it would not vote in favour of the proposal. The club required 75% backing to move it out of administration. Rangers Football Club now moves towards liquidation and Mr Green will soon acquire the business and assets of Rangers Fc on a newco basis. On Thursday the administrators confirmed an ‘imminent’ newco deal, following the rejection of the CVA.

Mr Smith, who was at the Ibrox helm for two successful spells, said that the motivation behind the 11th hour bid was simply to save the club, and not because anyone in the group wanted to own Rangers Football Club. The consortium hope to make the club self-sufficient, and stress that long term sustainability is essential.