Miller -Telegraph 22/04

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Agreement on sanctions close as momentum builds behind American businessman Bill Miller's Rangers bid

The Scottish Premier League is set to do a deal with Bill Miller – the American tow-truck magnate who is favourite to be named as preferred bidder for Rangers when the administrators announce their choice – which would go some way towards meeting his demand that the Ibrox club should not start next season with financial penalties, points deductions or the annulment of previous championships.

Waiting game: Bill Miller is expected to be named the administrators' preferred bidder for Rangers and he has already set about work on reducing any possible sanctions for next season Photo: TELEGRAPH By Roddy Forsyth

11:00PM BST 21 Apr 2012

Comment

Under proposals to be presented to the SPL clubs on April 30, teams who are insolvent at the start of a season or who hit the financial buffers during a campaign would be deducted 15 points or a third of their previous season’s total, whichever is the higher.

Another suggested change to existing rules proposes that a club admitted to the SPL as a newco should be deducted 10 points for each of its first two seasons in the league.

Should Rangers not emerge with a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) by the start of next season they would – should the new rules be accepted – be deducted at least 22 points, based on their current SPL total of 66.

Alternatively, since Miller’s proposals involve the sheltering of the healthier sections of Rangers’ business inside what he calls an 'incubator’ company, he would require the consent of the SPL and the Scottish Football Association to transfer the club’s share in the two governing bodies.

SPL sources have confirmed to The Sunday Telegraph that the league cannot offer any such guarantees, but that – consistent with the requirement to consider what is in their best interests – are not compelled to reject Miller’s business plan.

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Last night, Paul Clark, one of the co-administrators, told The Sunday Telegraph: “He [Miller] is speaking to the SFA and SPL.

"Some of those discussions we have been involved in, some of them we haven’t, and I don’t think anyone should read anything into that.

"I can’t tell you precisely what he’s now doing, even though I do know, but he’s pretty close to an agreement.

“He’s used words like 'guarantee’. I think 'comfort’ would be a better word. One could liken it to parameters of the measures they could take.”

The statement issued on Friday by Miller was uncompromising but Clark said that he did not believe that the American necessarily expected to be granted a complete amnesty from punitive measures. “The prospect of no measures is, I think, nil – it’s not going to happen is it?” said Clark.

“But having the parameters of what those measures look like is what he is seeking. I think they are close to agreement.

“Miller is an experienced businessman and he put out a fairly full and open statement of his position.

"I am assuming that even from afar he is doing so for all the right reasons and with the right intentions and his local advisers are certainly busying themselves on this. He’s taking the right steps.”

One question that has puzzled many observers is how Miller can achieve a deal without a partnership with Ticketus, the London-based agency, which has rights over Ibrox season tickets for the next three years.

“I think we need to split his statement at this point into two parts,” said Clark.

“The first part is making it clear that he would be making an asset sale. The football club would move into a newco entity, of that there should be no doubt.

“The idea is that because of what appears to be wrongdoings that have occurred at Rangers, those wrongs can be righted and then at a later date he would go through a CVA, bringing the old company back to the new company.

"Make no mistake, his bid is predicated on there being a new company that owns, runs and operates Rangers Football Club.”

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