General
By a Newsnet reporter
Rangers Football Club has announced it will boycott an SPL Commission set up to look at accusations the club broke football rules when using EBTs to pay former players.
New owner Charles Green has insisted that the SPL has no legal power over the club and as such, the club does not recognise SPL authority.
In a statement released on Monday evening, Green said: “The club ceased to be subject to the SPL’s rules when it was ejected from its league,”
The SPL set up the commission to investigate whether the old Rangers FC broke rules over payments to players between 2000 and 2011. Meetings, chaired by Lord Nimmo Smith, have been scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, however no-one from Rangers will be in attendance.
If guilty, the SPL are expected to punish the new club and sanctions could include the stripping of titles won during the years in question.
Charles Green added: “The Rangers Football Club Limited will not attend tomorrow’s hearing of the SPL-appointed commission investigating the circumstances surrounding the use of Employee Benefit Trusts by previous owners of the club.
“The club cannot continue to participate in an SPL process that we believe is fundamentally misconceived.
“Neither the SPL, nor its commission, has any legal power or authority over the club because it is not in the SPL.
“For that reason, it has no legal basis on which to appoint its commission.
“Our lawyers have made that point repeatedly to the SPL in correspondence and yet our requests for an explanation from the SPL have been completely ignored.
“The SPL’s silence on these issues is deafening. The outcome of the SPL’s process will have no legal effect.
“To make it crystal clear, the new owners purchased all the business and assets of Rangers, including titles and trophies,”
He continued: “Any attempt to undermine or diminish the value of those assets will be met with the stiffest resistance, including legal recourse.”
Support a Club that wins to much for your liking I expect?
No I don’t think we have seen the last of this story if only the Scottish media would shine a light into far darker recesses of the Scottish game.
But really, to continue to exist in the Third Division (after years of wanting to go to England) and spouting on gleefully about the ruination of Scottish football with no humility whatsoever about the chaos caused recently, the fans should be happy and mightily relieved that Ibrox did not end up like Cathkin Park. But then I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this story by far.