Scottish Premier League News March 2012: Rangers' fans rally around debt-stricken club
Lisa Dillon
Rangers
Rangers fans have rallied round as the struggling club have faced the darkest days in its history this month.
The famous Scottish club were forced into administration following a tax issue with Her Majesty's Revenue and Custom (HMRC) which is expected to conclude with Rangers facing the prospect of a whopping £75m bill.
However, while that news was difficult enough for the club's supporters to absorb, things went from bad to worse last week with repeated revelations of just how grossly mismanaged the club have been under the leadership of owner Craig Whyte, who took over the helm at Rangers in May 2011.
Duff and Phelps have been appointed to go through the books at the club after HMRC forced the issue in the Court of Session in Edinburgh in a bid to secure payment of £9 million in PAYE and VAT, accrued since Whyte took control. In short, Whyte did not pay a penny of tax since he assumed control of the club, prompting HMRC to force the club into administration.
The businessman took over from Sir David Murray and while Rangers were already awash with debt and struggling financially, Whyte has been guilty of an outrageous system of control that has put the very future of the 140-year-old club at stake.
Whyte mortgaged four season's worth of season books and used those funds to take control of the club - a fact he denied repeatedly before backtracking and confirming its validity.
The administrators have so far focused on probing recent financial dealings around the club, confirming that Whyte had paid off an £18million debt to Lloyds Banking Group with money raised from future season ticket sales.
Rangers' administrators, however, have told fans they can be reassured that the Scottish champions will continue as a football club.
They also said they hope to reach a stage "as soon as possible" where the club can emerge from administration.
The Scottish Premier League's £80 million, five-year contract with broadcast partners Sky Sports and ESPN will almost certainly be rendered null and void if Rangers are liquidated and any phoenix club is subsequently refused permission to begin life in the top tier.
Several SPL clubs are believed to be against the idea of a new company automatically being granted membership of the elite division if Rangers are found guilty of tax evasion.
The first shock for the support when the club went into administration was the ten-point penalty Rangers were immediately hit with. The Ibrox side were already trailing Celtic by four points in the SPL but overnight saw the Parkhead side open up a whopping 14-point chasm. That has been further increased since Ally McCoist's side then lost at home to Kilmarnock in their first game since going into administration while Celtic have played twice and won twice since then.
The beleaguered Ibrox side are now looking at an unprecedented 20-point gap between themselves and their fiercest rivals.
Despite the fact that there is nothing for Rangers to play for this season - The Ibrox men have already been dumped out of both domestic Cup competitions - the administrators have called upon the fans to deliver a much-needed cash boost by packing out the stadium between now and end of the campaign.
Rangers recorded their biggest attendance of the season - 50,268 for the game against Kilmarnock which concluded the most turbulent week in their history - and Duff and Phelps have insisted that the same level of backing remains until May.
It is understood that manager McCoist has put forward a proposal for both players and management to take significant wage cuts and take deferred payments as they attempt to stave off the threat of major job losses at the club.
Australian midfielder Matt McKay was the first casualty of administration when he sold to South Korean club Busan I'Park this week. McKay joined Rangers from Brisbane Roar in August after captaining his former side to the A-League title but made just three first-team appearance for McCoist's side.
Celtic
Celtic have dismissed Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond's comments that Rangers' survival is crucial for both their nearest rivals and for the rest of Scottish football.
"We are very disappointed with the First Minister's claims that Celtic 'need' Rangers and that Celtic 'can't prosper unless Rangers are there', a statement on Celtic's official Twitter site said.
"This is simply not true. In a series of interviews given just three days ago, we made it abundantly clear that Celtic has a well defined strategy and a business plan independent of the fortunes of any other club. That remains absolutely the case. The predicament of Rangers is clearly a serious and complex matter with a whole range of possible outcomes.
"However, we are extremely well qualified to make our own position clear and have no wish to see that being misrepresented for political reasons."
First Minister Salmond was responding to the financial crisis engulfing the Scottish champions after they went into administration on Tuesday. He told Sir David Frost in a radio interview:
"The most die-hard Celtic supporter understands that Celtic can't prosper unless Rangers are there. The rest of the clubs understand that as well. Therefore you have to have cognisance of these things when you're pursuing public policy.
"We've certainly been arguing to HMRC on one hand, and indeed to Rangers, to for goodness sake get a settlement, get a settlement and a structure over time whereby Rangers can continue because Rangers must continue for the future of Scottish football and for the fabric of the country."
As Neil Lennon called for his players to focus on the need still to win a Scottish championship that abruptly shifted immensely in Celtic's favour when Rangers were deducted 10 points for going into administration, he nevertheless made it clear that there would be close scrutiny in the east end of Glasgow of the wider developments affecting the beleaguered Ibrox club.
Neil Lennon: "But the ironic thing is that last year - when we had the Game of Shame - everybody was coming out and saying, 'We don't need the Old Firm.' Now they're saying, 'We need it, we need it'."
Celtic, as none of their supporters can forget, went through similar anguish in 1994 when they came within minutes of bankruptcy after being outspent by Rangers in a costly transfer market.
That memory - and the raw nerves exposed at a time of near-humiliation of a great football institution - has been stimulated by the suggestion that HMRC seems likely to soften its stance in respect of claims against Rangers, which might include the so-called ‘big tax case', the possible bill of anything between £36-50 million in respect of Employee Benefit Trusts which were used to remunerate Ibrox players when Dick Advocaat was manager there.
There has, too, been the suggestion that a Celtic title success this season will be devalued - almost tainted - unless it is achieved by a margin greater than the deduction imposed on Rangers this week. Lennon was not having any of that.
"When they went into administration and we were four points clear. It might have been different if they had gone into administration when they were 15 points ahead but they haven't and what my players have done certainly won't be overshadowed by what's happened at Ibrox," bristled Lennon, whose side have now opened up a whopping 21 point lead.
"Trust me - I'll celebrate because we've waited a long time for this, for a championship win," said the Hoops boss.
"But, as I keep emphasising, there's a lot of games to be played. People talking about us winning the championship are being disrespectful about every other team in the SPL we have to face between now and then.
"Our incentive, our motivation is to keep winning games as we have done in the last three months.
"There will be no devaluing a title win, regardless of what goes on elsewhere, because it is nothing to do with our club, nothing to do with these players," he said.
"If people want to point the finger if - and it's a big if - we win the title then I will have plenty to say about devaluing titles, don't worry about that. If you break the rules you get punished for it, regardless of whether it's Rangers or anyone else.
"I am angry that the way things have been dealt with [at Rangers] - obviously it has been ongoing for a number of years and it has had an effect on previous run-ins and previous titles. I don't know the ins and outs and I don't think many people do and until we get to some sort of conclusion and get the answers there is no point pointing fingers."
There was, though, fellow feeling for Ally McCoist. "I have sympathy for my counterpart Ally for what he is going through at the minute," said Lennon.
"I wouldn't like to have gone through that myself, particularly in my first season as manager. As regards sympathy for the rest of the people who brought this on, I don't have much of that at all."
Scotland
Scotland boss Craig Levein is convinced the country is on the right track with plans for future generations of talent.
The Scottish FA's newly created network of seven performance schools will begin operating in the summer. And the Scottish government is committed to establishing a national sports centre by 2016, with football taking centre stage.
"The idea is to develop a pattern of play, a style that will be the Scottish way," Levein explained.
"The most significant thing for me is the union between clubs and the SFA. The strategy has really been embraced.
"It's not about developing a team at each of these schools, it's about developing individual players so the programme is designed to help produce better technical players.
"A lot of the players will be associated with clubs at the same time and, of course, the club's job, on top of that, is to produce a team player.
"We will have a Scottish way. That's how Scottish national teams will play, from Under-15s up. The players will understand the system as they progress through the age groups. When they arrive at the first team they will completely understand it."
Scotland have not been at a major final since the 1998 World Cup and Scottish clubs have found the going tough in European competition in recent seasons.
"I see national team players who cannot use their left foot or they can't dribble," Mark Wotte, the SFA's first performance director, said. "Those are the basic skills that need to be taught at a young age.
"Twenty or 30 years ago, kids were playing in the streets but that's not happening any more, so we need to try and replace it and get seven, maybe 10 extra hours of training a week - all based on skills and technical ability."
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