Moralising Over Ebts Says More About Scotland Than Rangers.

[OlegKuznetsov 10,816]

Once again, the Idiocracy, that strange brew of social media activists, self-proclaimed moral guardians and dubiously motivated journalists, is in full flow. Their judgement is fixed, strident and scathing. Once more we are being told that Rangers have committed a crime so heinous that the world has never seen the likes. All the propagandists' buzzwords are getting an airing, with angry paragraphs strewn with references to "financial doping", "cheating" and "money they wouldn't have had".

It all seems so black and white. However, as in real life, things are not quite so simple. Among the chief moral campaigners demanding some form of justice, as one would expect, are the especially obsessive, and surprisingly large, element of Celtic support, who always see things in the simplistic good guys and bad guys narrative. If only they knew their not too distant history just a little better. Celtic's infamous biscuit tin finances of the pre-McCann era were confirmed and clarified as consisting of "shoe boxes of money and invoices" when the new Parkhead regime took control. Combined with Celtic's equally renowned tendency for under-reporting attendances during that era, one wonders how many trophies were won with "money they would not otherwise have had". Such a description would apply to Celtic's biggest achievements in Scotland and Europe, as they occurred in that period. Of course, there were also those "blue chip" signings who Dermott Desmond is said to have, at least partially, paid for.

Their club also used EBTs. It's just that they decided, unilaterally, to stop using them and were unique among the many clubs who used them to pay the "unpaid tax" back without request. it's almost as if they knew what was coming, just at a juncture they were negotiating with a government minister and fanatical Celtic fan, John Reid, to become chairman of the club. I offer as merely an interesting but connected observation that their entire squad went on to a different form of aggressive tax avoidance scheme, where income is paid into a film industry trust that produces no movies or anything really. This shifted the responsibility from club to employee. HMRC's uniquely intense focus on Rangers is surely, merely another coincidence in the saga, as is the leaking of documents to a site frequented by those with a penchant for sectarian terms to disparage Rangers. It is surely completely accidental that these events coincided.

But let us cast our investigation wider than this parochial backwater of Scotland to another context where EBTs were used. In England, Arsenal and Chelsea both came to favourable settlements with HMRC in relation to a combination of EBTs and image rights. Furthermore, another eight clubs had their EBT issues mediated by the FA. That is the FA who never even considered altering results or stripping titles.

Also, by means of glaring contrast, there was no clamour for titles to be stripped by any of the clubs who lost cups, leagues, European places and relegation battles. Even in England's sensationalist red tops, there were no scandal stories about financial doping or cheating and certainly no thinly veiled campaigns.

In England, you also have a few examples of the billionaire owner playing football manager with ridiculous money almost as if they've got the equivalent of a cheat code. Surely, this is somewhat counter to sporting integrity, to steal another buzzword of the moral activists of Scottish football.

Returning to Scotland, Hearts, Motherwell and Dundee, among others,have all had debt issues to deal with. Even Aberdeen and Dundee Utd had to get debt reduction agreements or payments from kindly directors to balance their books. All their results, trophies and successful relegation battles were also won with "money they would otherwise not have had access to". The same can be said in England.

By logical extension, if we're gonna start with Rangers, then we'll have to go through all the cups, titles and relegation battles and alter them retrospectively too. We'll also have to ask UEFA, now keen to be seen to doing the right thing, to look that that 1967 European Cup run.

So what is that makes Rangers, a club already harshly punished by the CVA rejection, the top-tier expulsion and triple relegation, along with other penalties and having millions of pounds of talent walk out the door, just so deserving of a new set of freshly written exclusively focused rules? Why do we need to set another new precedent to hammer Rangers?

Well, it comes as no surprise that other Scottish fans want to hammer the big guy that won an awful lot of trophies, but these are the guys who believe that every 50-50 decision should go the way of their club. Of course, that desire and that mindset is most intensely present among the Celtic support, who have their passions incensed by their rather obsessive pursuit of a rival and rivalry that they claim does not exist. Their desire for the cultural ethnic cleansing of Rangers from history is more motivated by their own cultural biases than any sense of justice. It borders on the delusional and frequently dips into the sectarian in terms of motivation.

However, we can't afford to pander to rival fans' necessarily partial demands. We've made that mistake before and all it did, after a brief but exuberant outpouring of joy, was strip the game of money, and inevitably therefore talent, which has seen the club and national game descend further down the rankings, while stoking up one of the world's most controversial and incendiary rivalries to a level never seen before.

We need to take a wider look at things and see thing as they actually are, and not through some obsessive and bitter prism that only offers one dimensional, black and white moralising narratives. Sometimes you need to get your head out of the heat of battle, calm your passions and rationally assess the state of play. In Scotland and its media, that is all too rare.

The previous celebration of Rangers being hammered did not herald the successful emergence of a "Sell Out Saturday" campaign anywhere in the land except, ironically, at Rangers' matches. The activists' spring uprising of 2012 is no more successful than its Arab counterpart and parts of Scottish football are beginning to resemble Baghdad and Damascus, figuratively speaking.

On balance, there appears to be absolutely no valid case to justify finding a new way of punishing Rangers. Lord Nimmo Smith came to the same conclusion. I wonder if he would be similarly disposed to offer his expert input should his verdict, requested by the SPL themselves, be overturned and overridden.

It's high time Scottish football and the media gave up on the obsessive Rangers hating campaigns and started addressing the real issues in the game. The smaller our minds are, the more bitterly we speak and the worse the game gets. The national game is fast becoming a pretty unattractive sight. Cutting off our noses to spite our faces certainly won't make it any prettier.

Albert Einstein is widely credited with saying “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. Perhaps we in Scottish football should be learning our lessons from recent history. We can't afford to sleepwalk into another massive and costly error.

[D'Artagnan 13,319]

Excellent OK

[KingKirk 25,633]

I wonder if the spfl board had a emergency board meeting today to discuss yesterday carry on.

As for ebt I think Murray or bdo will appeal this latest decision. How can two cases previously go in oldco's favour but the 3rd doesn't on the basis of common sense.

Obviously the two cases that went for us didn't think the common sense argument was strong enough or we wouldn't have got to this stage.

[KingKirk 25,633]

You know the countries fucked oleg when presenters on national radio don't know the difference between tax avoidance/ evasion

[cushynumber 25,178]

You know the countries fucked oleg when presenters on national radio don't know the difference between tax avoidance/ evasion

yes they do. They know fine well the difference.

[minstral 5,375]

The truth is that they hate our club, and would love to see us go to the wall.

[OzGers 425]

Brilliant commentary

[kris1984 1,259]

Club just made decent statement

[Blue Avenger 22,567]

The country IS fucked for sure.

One rule for us and everyone else can say and do what the fuck they want.

We are partly to blame of course. The dignified silence, the appeasement, and allowing the yellow peril to brainwash even the more sane among us. We are the best amuninition the PC brigade have in their armoury, but we stood back and let the demonisation happen without reply.

I do not see anything changing for the foreseeable future, but we, the majority need to get up off collective erses. We give not one more inch. No more appeasement, no more deals, no more compromises and FFS get of your erse and vote when the time comes around again. Take on everyone of haters, head on!

[cushynumber 25,178]

THE SPFL Board has stated they held a conference call to be given a factual update on the Court of Session EBT ruling and so it would be remiss of the Rangers Board not to state the Club’s view.

The first thing to be said is that Rangers has made it clear it wishes to reach out and work with all clubs to help revitalise Scottish football, which has also suffered in recent years. There is much to be done and Rangers wants to be part of the way forward.

Our game has to become more attractive to potential sponsors and partners if the finance levels required are to be generated but this can only be done if we present a coherent and united strategy. Therefore, a line must be drawn now if we are all to prosper.

It is our irrevocable belief that this Club’s history, including its many successes, is beyond debate. Rangers cannot countenance or accept any talk, attempts or actions designed to undermine what this Club has achieved throughout its long history.

So, as far as this Club is concerned there is no need for further SPFL consideration of court judgements or appeals. They should be saying it is time for everyone to move on and work together for the greater good of the game. Scottish football has suffered enough.

[ZZed 4,510]

If we give money to our enemies then it is partially our fault. Save your money for Ibrox and deny them the blue pound.

[Inigo 32,526]

'Their club also used EBTs. It's just that they decided, unilaterally, to stop using them and were unique among the many clubs who used them to pay the "unpaid tax" back without request. it's almost as if they knew what was coming, just at a juncture they were negotiating with a government minister and fanatical Celtic fan. I offer as merely an interesting but connected observation that their entire squad then went on to a different form of aggressive tax avoidance scheme, where income is paid into a film industry trust that produces no movies or anything really. This shifted the responsibility from club to employee. HMRC's uniquely intense focus on Rangers is surely, merely another coincidence in the saga, as is the leaking of documents to site frequented by those with a penchant for sectarian terms to disparage Rangers. It is surely completely accidental that these events coincided.'

Yep. All deeply suspicious. The whole episode needs looking at. Who initiated this, why, where the leaks came from and all of that. Stinks to the heavens. Won't be, though.

[ritchieshearercaldow 22,137]

Great article Oleg

[eejay the dj 31,964]

Once again, the Idiocracy, that strange brew of social media activists, self-proclaimed moral guardians and dubiously motivated journalists, is in full flow. Their judgement is fixed, strident and scathing. Once more we are being told that Rangers have committed a crime so heinous that the world has never seen the likes. All the propagandists' buzzwords are getting an airing, with angry paragraphs strewn with references to "financial doping", "cheating" and "money they wouldn't have had".

It all seems so black and white. However, as in real life, things are not quite so simple. Among the chief moral campaigners demanding some form of justice, as one would expect, are the especially obsessive, and surprisingly large, element of Celtic support, who always see things in the simplistic good guys and bad guys narrative. If only they knew their not too distant history just a little better. Celtic's infamous biscuit tin finances of the pre-McCann era were confirmed and clarified as consisting of "shoe boxes of money and invoices" when the new Parkhead regime took control. Combined with Celtic's equally renowned tendency for under-reporting attendances during that era, one wonders how many trophies were won with "money they would not otherwise have had". Such a description would apply to Celtic's biggest achievements in Scotland and Europe, as they occurred in that period. Of course, there were also those "blue chip" signings who Dermott Desmond is said to have, at least partially, paid for.

Their club also used EBTs. It's just that they decided, unilaterally, to stop using them and were unique among the many clubs who used them to pay the "unpaid tax" back without request. it's almost as if they knew what was coming, just at a juncture they were negotiating with a government minister and fanatical Celtic fan. I offer as merely an interesting but connected observation that their entire squad then went on to a different form of aggressive tax avoidance scheme, where income is paid into a film industry trust that produces no movies or anything really. This shifted the responsibility from club to employee. HMRC's uniquely intense focus on Rangers is surely, merely another coincidence in the saga, as is the leaking of documents to site frequented by those with a penchant for sectarian terms to disparage Rangers. It is surely completely accidental that these events coincided.

But let us cast our investigation wider than this parochial backwater of Scotland to another context where EBTs were used. In England, Arsenal and Chelsea both came to favourable settlements with HMRC in relation to a combination of EBTs and image rights. Furthermore, another eight clubs had their EBT issues mediated by the FA. That is the FA who never even considered altering results or stripping titles.

Also, by means of glaring contrast, there was no clamour for titles to be stripped by any of the clubs who lost cups, leagues, European places and relegation battles. Even in England's sensationalist red tops, there were no scandal stories about financial doping or cheating and certainly no thinly veiled campaigns.

In England, you also have a few examples of the billionaire owner playing football manager with ridiculous money almost as if they've got the equivalent of a cheat code. Surely, this is somewhat counter to sporting integrity, to steal another buzzword of the moral activists of Scottish football.

Returning to Scotland, Hearts, Motherwell and Dundee, among others,have all had debt issues to deal with. Even Aberdeen and Dundee Utd had to get debt reduction agreements or payments from kindly directors to balance their books. All their results, trophies and successful relegation battles were also won with "money they would otherwise not have had access to". The same can be said in England.

By logical extension, if we're gonna start with Rangers, then we'll have to go through all the cups, titles and relegation battles and alter them retrospectively too. We'll also have to ask UEFA, now keen to be seen to doing the right thing, to look that that 1967 European Cup run.

So what is that makes Rangers, a club already harshly punished by the CVA rejection, the top-tier expulsion and triple relegation, along with other penalties and having millions of pounds of talent walk out the door, just so deserving of a new set of freshly written exclusively focused rules? Why do we need to set another new precedent to hammer Rangers?

Well, it comes as no surprise that other Scottish fans want to hammer the big guy that won an awful lot of trophies, but these are the guys who believe that every 50-50 decision should go the way of their club. Of course, that desire and that mindset is most intensely present among the Celtic support, who have their passions incensed by their rather obsessive pursuit of a rival and rivalry that they claim does not exist. Their desire for the cultural ethnic cleansing of Rangers from history is more motivated by their own cultural biases than any sense of justice. It borders on the delusional.

However, we can't afford to pander to rival fans' necessarily partial demands. We've made that mistake before and all it did, after a brief but exuberant outpouring of joy, was strip the game of money, and inevitably therefore talent, which has seen the club and national game descend further down the rankings, while stoking up one of the world's most controversial and incendiary rivalries to a level never seen before.

We need to take a wider look at things and see thing as they actually are, and not through some obsessive and bitter prism that only offers one dimensional, black and white moralising narratives. Sometimes you need to get your head out of the heat of battle, calm your passions and rationally assess the state of play. In Scotland and its media, that is all too rare.

The previous celebration of Rangers being hammered did not herald the successful emergence of a "Sell Out Saturday" campaign anywhere in the land except, ironically, at Rangers' matches. The activists' spring uprising of 2012 is no more successful than its Arab counterpart and parts of Scottish football are beginning to resemble Baghdad and Damascus, figuratively speaking.

On balance, there appears to be absolutely no valid case to justify finding a new way of punishing Rangers. Lord Nimmo Smith came to the same conclusion. I wonder if he would be similarly disposed to offer his expert input should his verdict, requested by the SPL themselves, be overturned and overridden.

It's high time Scottish football and the media gave up on the obsessive Rangers hating campaigns and started addressing the real issues in the game. The smaller our minds are, the more bitterly we speak, the worse the game gets. The national game is fast becoming a pretty unattractive sight. Cutting off our noses to spite our faces certainly won't make it any prettier.

Albert Einstein is widely credited with saying The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results. Perhaps we in Scottish football should be learning our lessons from recent history. We can't afford to sleepwalk into another massive and costly error.

Superb post Oleg .

[ianferguson 2,619]

If only Albert Einstein was still around to explain it to the knuckle dragging poppy haters,great post Oleg.

[plumbGER 24,518]

Good peice Oleg,the media and prime detractors (sellick fans) cannot be reasoned with.

The online hate campaign against us has gone on for way to long,even folk who don't like football see us as the bad guys.

Your SNP fuckwits and such like,big bad Rangers always get the blame.

Recently the gaffer has given us something to shout about on the pitch and it's reflected by campaigns to snarl back at online tossers who try to ridicule us or accuse us of made up shit.

The fightback is on.

[writingranger 1,413]

Good peice Oleg,the media and prime detractors (sellick fans) cannot be reasoned with.

The online hate campaign against us has gone on for way to long,even folk who don't like football see us as the bad guys.

Your SNP fuckwits and such like,big bad Rangers always get the blame.

Recently the gaffer has given us something to shout about on the pitch and it's reflected by campaigns to snarl back at online tossers who try to ridicule us or accuse us of made up shit.

The fightback is on.

Nice piece OK. I just wish that it wasn't only the congregation that's listening.

I do hope that BDO appeal but, ironically, it possibly depends on the final tax bill. The lower it is the less likely they are to appeal. Of course, the lower it is, the more ridiculous the sporting advantage argument becomes. I hope it's low and they do appeal anyway and the SPFL take a leaf out of their English counterpart's book. Now that would be common sense

[Domthenbud 899]

Great piece Oleg. Wish they would get you and D'Art on the Rangers board.

[allgers 735]

All this posturing and prevaricating is total crap if OBD appeal. Couldn't believe I was seeing some fanny in a national paper giving it large about schools running out of text books, old Granny's dying on hospital trolleys and other nonsense. Because we didn't pay tax on 40m of loans.

[sandyinroyalblue 16,478]

The truth is that they hate our club, and would love to see us go to the wall.

Title stripping would just be the start,the haters want our club put out of existence.

Appeasement won't work, these haters have been at war with us for years now and at some point we have stop just defending ourselves and actually fight back to secure our club's future.

[Rfc#1. 1,877]

Title stripping would just be the start,the haters want our club put out of existence.

Appeasement won't work, these haters have been at war with us for years now and at some point we have stop just defending ourselves and actually fight back to secure our club's future.

If title stripping fucking happens i hope we as a fanbase riot.

Not just a few hundred,i'd like to see thousands tear Glasgow apart tbh.

[Domthenbud 899]

Something that has bothered me and I don't think there is a specific thread for it, however, what right did that judge have in saying players may have gone elsewhere if they had not been offered ebt's at Rangers. Surely that was not in his remit to give an opinion on footballing matters. Was the appeal not on whether ebt's were a legit loan scheme and therefore had no tax burden. His "extra" little comments have absolutely ensured a shitstorm.

[sandyinroyalblue 16,478]

Something that has bothered me and I don't think there is a specific thread for it, however, what right did that judge have in saying players may have gone elsewhere if they had not been offered ebt's at Rangers. Surely that was not in his remit to give an opinion on footballing matters. Was the appeal not on whether ebt's were a legit loan scheme and therefore had no tax burden. His "extra" little comments have absolutely ensured a shitstorm.

The judge's comments were deliberate and calculated to do exactly what they done.

[Blue Avenger 22,567]

Great piece Oleg. Wish they would get you and D'Art on the Rangers board.

You mean people we could trust? Now that would be novel!

[cushynumber 25,178]

Something that has bothered me and I don't think there is a specific thread for it, however, what right did that judge have in saying players may have gone elsewhere if they had not been offered ebt's at Rangers. Surely that was not in his remit to give an opinion on footballing matters. Was the appeal not on whether ebt's were a legit loan scheme and therefore had no tax burden. His "extra" little comments have absolutely ensured a shitstorm.

Of course they have. Deliberately. There is no other rational reason for saying that particular phrase as it had nothing to do with the ruling.