StudsLonniegan

LBG told aj or he alleges he was told get in the way of the deal and we will cut the legs from under you, that may or not be a fact, but aj claims it is, in effect LBG made the decision unilaterally. So the only reason that mattered in the end was the decision of LBG and it would appear they made it.

£10 million you say, that shouldn't be a problem didn't murray the lesser find £25 million on a fag packet down the back of the couch.

And we were making a profit without it ? Seville calculator ?

Jings crivens help ma boab, its another murrayite.

It smacks of too little too late sprinkled liberally with a big boy did it, what could I do and poor me, in other words bullshit.

If he does he will be the first.

He just took the wonga and kept being invisible as well as compliant

Leggo doesn't get it, murray doesn't give a toss what anyone thinks and never did.

Maybe being a carer is his real forte.

Did you know at the time ?

I knew that you knew as I knew at the same time that you knew that you knew that I knew that you knew about me knowing that you knew that I knew that you knew at the same time as we both knew, I think, I may have to check what we knew at the time we think we knew it

By Roddy Forsyth 11:00PM GMT 23 Feb 2012 "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know." – Donald Rumsfeld When the former US Secretary of Defense made the above statement in 2002 he was mocked by the Plain English Campaign for what looked like impenetrable jargon. But fast forward to the shambles at Ibrox and ask yourself – could anybody have expressed the situation more cogently than Rumsfeld? Certainly, there are innumerable sources of confusion in the saga of Craig Whyte's nine months as the man in control of Rangers. For example, how many times has it been said or written that the HMRC case against Rangers in respect of Employee Benefit Trusts brought about the crisis? The impending judgment – and the possibility that it might go against Rangers – was never going to be make it easy to attract fresh long-term revenue streams but, again, the question can be answered with another question: does anybody entertain for one moment the notion that the club would now be in the hands of the administrators if Sir David Murray had still be in charge? Yes, it is true that the club could have tipped over what the bean counters like to call an insolvency situation in Murray's time. The first time, I can reveal here, was back in 1999 after the Bahamas-based Joe Lewis had bought 25 per cent of Rangers for £40 million. Lewis thought he would get fat returns if he bought shares in several European football clubs and they prospered from shares in lucrative TV deals. The broadcast bonanza, however, did not materialise and Lewis watched in horror as Murray siphoned cash straight into Dick Advocaat's transfer account and Rangers went from £20 million in credit with the bank to an overdraft of almost £21 million – a transformation that took care of Lewis's input through his investment vehicle, ENIC. Lewis had not grasped that Murray meant what he said about trophies being more important than profit. Howard Stanton, ENIC's man on the Ibrox board, told Murray to stop spending on players. When Murray took not a blind bit of notice, Stanton resigned. Lewis threatened to put Rangers into administration but decided instead to sell his ENIC stock while it still had some value and the crisis passed. The next talk of administration was heard when the global recession overtook Rangers and the Lloyds Bank Group inherited the club's £30 million debt from HBOS. Lloyds, though, denied reports that they had threatened administration. Instead, a rigorous debt reduction programme was implemented at Ibrox which saw Rangers' overdraft drop to £18 million, which is where Craig Whyte came in. And it is also where the Rumsfeld approach might offer a little clarity: THE KNOWN KNOWNS This time last year Rangers were solvent and trading within the club's limitations. The half-year figures for June-December 2010 showed a reduction of turnover of £4 million to £33.7 million but there had also been three fewer home games. Pre-tax profits were down from £13.1 million to £9 million as the recession bit; £2.7 million had been set aside to cover an HMRC action – the "small tax case" – and the amount of debt to be repaid over the next year rose from £25.5 million to £28.9 million, but the club had increased cash in hand from £600,000 to £5.2 million and money owed to Rangers increased from £7.8 million to £10.7 million. The overdraft of £18 million at the time of Whyte's takeover was described by the previous Ibrox chairman, Alastair Johnston, as "good business" on the grounds that Rangers had a credit line with a bank when many businesses could not get similar facilities and that the debt was easily serviceable at a time of unusually low interest rates. Johnston told me that if the Whyte takeover did not go through then Rangers would probably pay the debt down by £1-£1.5 million a year to allow for the squad to be refreshed while reducing liabilities. At the time of the takeover, the value of Rangers' principal playing assets – Allan McGregor, Nikica Jelavic, Steven Naismith, Kyle Lafferty and Steven Davis – was about equivalent to the money owed to Lloyds and HMRC for the small tax case. We also know that, despite his frequent and outright denials, Whyte used the £24.4 million advanced by Ticketus against season ticket sales to pay off the bank debt. We know that he also mortgaged catering revenues in similar fashion. We know that – going into the takeover – there was no reason to suppose that a reputable buyer with the resources displayed by Whyte to Murray should have brought the club to their current plight. We know that police have requested information from the administrators – which should be handed over today. THE KNOWN UNKNOWNS How could Murray have overlooked the fact that Whyte had previously been banned from acting as a company director? I understand that it was actually Murray who suggested that Whyte could approach Ticketus for an advance against season tickets. Fair enough – Rangers had sometimes used the facility to smooth cash flow late in the season. But why did nobody ask how much he had got from Ticketus – and when he had got it? Why did Ticketus advance money to man who did not yet own the resources they bought? If Ticketus hold no security with Rangers, what resources did Whyte use as collateral? If they were his own resources, why did he not deploy them to keep the club out of administration? If they were not his resources, whose were they? Why did he say that the gap between Rangers' income and expenditure was partly exposed by failure to qualify for the Champions League group stage? The previous regime never budgeted for more than one home leg in Europe unless they qualified automatically for the Champions League group stage. Who is Whyte? Companies House records have him as White as well as Whyte and with two birthdays, two years' apart. Where is he? Last night none of his four PR spokesmen or administrators had heard from him since Tuesday. THE UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS If we knew these, they would fall into the previous category. Perhaps they are best summed up by another Rumsfeld utterance which could be applied to Rangers at this time: "Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not."

So how did he no jack, the honourable Protestant thing to do and spill the beans to the fans, is it just pish smudger.

Fuck hmrc they are civil servants but they seem to think they are the fuckin gestapo, an whit the fuck are they up to showing our clubs private documents to that fud fae the beadrattlers bhoys club,

Being the operative word, the PF's office are the ones to worry about.

No, the administrators are officers of the court of session, so you can guarantee the story is rhebel taig pish.

On what grounds until anyone is charged with anything criminal in relation to the execution of the signed deal, there are no grounds, glass houses and stones obviously don't register with king.

It is very relevant for a very obvious reason.

Not while writing propaganda and rewriting history he isn't, a small libation or enhancement works wonders in the journo and phone hacking industry.

So there you much ado about nothing other than being economical with the truth as the politicos say, incidentaly our present owner has not been accused of anything illegal let alone charged, I wonder if the bumhinger will come out of hiding and provide the proof that Whyte is skint, I believe hell will freeze over first.

How about, very old news was nothing then and is nothing now, factoring future revenue is an everyday business tool used by many. Only those with adherence to taig press stories of a sensationalist bent would give it the time of day. There you are the meaning of life and not a pissless pot in sight.

It's good when the meeja have to dig up something we knew as far back as last September and dress it up as something new, they must be running out of shovels to dig for alleged shit.

Can you share the information that you have, information that the dealmakers and signatory's seem not to have had, or will I just file it under your usual wind and pish. http://forum.rangersmedia.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=211926&view=findpost&p=1059803821

Along with a possible tax liability, or does their cash not stretch that far, something tells me Whyte may have more cash than murray's raiders do, well the bank hasn't says he doesn't although the taig press does.

It is good that punters are able to question the taig medias inference that Whyte is skint, will they prove it, will they prove the bank was negligent in checking out Whytes "proof of funding" will they prove a conspiracy to present Whyte as something that he isn't and never was, will they prove that murray was complicit, or will they just fail to prove anything and go on the ramblings of part and a major part of the original problem, aj.