robg58 319 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 SPLIbrox crisis: The penalties that Charles Green’s Rangers could faceBy Andy Coyle 18 July 2012 14:05 BSTCharles Green has spoken to the footballing authorities about the steps required for Rangers to play football.SNS GroupFollowing the Scottish Football League’s decision to admit Charles Green’s newco Rangers to Division 3 for the forthcoming season, the Ibrox club have some clarity on their immediate future.However, a number of unresolved issues remain outstanding and there are still hurdles to be cleared before Ally McCoist’s team can play a competitive match.We’ve looked at the questions remaining for Green, Rangers and the governing bodies in Scottish football.Isn’t it settled? Don’t Rangers start their season with the Ramsden’s Cup match against Brechin on July 28?Not necessarily. Newco Rangers may have been granted membership of the Scottish Football League but that decision is pending a transfer of the Scottish Football Association membership from the old Rangers company to Green’s. SFA membership is required for any club to play professional football in Scotland.Wait, why “newco” Rangers?Green’s company that purchased the assets of the old Rangers company that is to be liquidated doesn’t hold an SFA membership. The old Rangers still does, until the membership is transferred or the company is liquidated. Until a transfer takes place, a distinction has to be made.Reports have claimed that there was a secret plan to present Green with punishments or sanctions for all the issues in return for SFA membership and a place in Division One. Is that likely to happen?STV has learned that the draft document was intended as a way to explain the worst case scenario across several issues as information after Green took over but was not an offer or negotiation. Each of the issues still has to be settled independently.Sources within the governing bodies have said that there is no “offer” on the table for Rangers.The SFA is not dealing with the “EBT issue” (explained later) and has no meeting scheduled for August 10. That date has been set aside for an SPL board meeting but discussion of off-contract payments is expected to take place before then.So why hasn’t the SFA membership transfer taken place yet?An application has been made to the SFA but has not yet been approved. The stumbling block is that by assuming the membership of the old Rangers company, newco Rangers would be accepting a continuation of the existing club.That means that the disciplinary process that saw the old club being found guilty of five breaches of SFA rules still has to be concluded.The SFA must also receive information from administrators Duff and Phelps that satisfies the requirement for Green’s consortium to be considered as “fit and proper”.But the sanction that was imposed for those breaches, the signing embargo, was ruled as illegal by the Court of Session, wasn’t it?The SFA’s independent Appellate Tribunal imposed fines, censure and a 12 month registration embargo. When Rangers challenged that in court, it was ruled that the registration embargo was not a punishment available to the tribunal.So how do they get an SFA membership?Newco Rangers need a membership and so have three options. They could withdraw the transfer application and just apply for a new membership. That route is almost certain to fail though as the new company don’t have three years of accounts and wouldn’t satisfy the financial requirements.The club could ask that the Appellate Tribunal is reconvened and chooses an available punishment, as the Court of Session directed. The available punishments are: expulsion from the game and termination of membership, suspension of membership or suspension from the Scottish Cup.Alternatively, newco Rangers could decide to accept the original punishment, setting aside the Court of Session decision and agreeing to follow the football disciplinary process.Discussions are ongoing between Rangers and the SFA over a solution.Do the SFA still have to rule on the use of EBTs or “dual contracts”?The contracts issue is being dealt with by the Scottish Premier League. The SFA would be the appeals body in the event that the SPL decision is disputed. Since they may have to appoint a panel to deal with that in the future, they will not investigate or start proceedings shortly.So what is happening with the EBT investigation?The First Tier Tax Tribunal has still to announce their judgement on whether Employee Benefit Trusts are tax avoidance or tax evasion. However, that isn’t actually relevant to the football bodies.The issue that faces the SPL is not whether EBTs were a tax dodge but whether Rangers players were made payments that were separate from the contract lodged with the SPL. If players were paid outside of the declared amounts in their contracts, then the old Rangers company would face sanctions from the SPL.What would those sanctions be?The SPL does specify punishments in its rules and regulations but clearly a fine or warning would be irrelevant to a club that is no longer a member of the league. The stripping of titles is an available punishment.After an investigation was launched it was confirmed that Rangers had a “prima facie” case to answer but the process was put on hold until the league situation was concluded. The SPL has confirmed that they will now deal with the matter but no deadline or timescale has been set.Would teams who finished as runners-up in competitions be awarded Rangers’ titles?The respective rulebooks of the governing bodies do not provide specific guidance on this subject.There is a precedent for matches where rule-breaking has been proved to be annulled or a win awarded to the opposition team. The calculations and implications involved in applying this to every game seem unworkable and it is more likely that seasons would be taken as a whole.The SPL or an independent board can “withdraw the award of a title”, as per the rulebook of the league. It does not state whether the side finishing second would retrospectively be awarded the title, and the SPL has refused to confirm its processes.With the SPL refusing to comment on that scenario, it is still unclear if the league would expect prize money to be repaid or medals returned.The rules of the Scottish Cup do not specifically state a team can be stripped of any success in the competition.Rule 39 (Infringement of Rules) of the competition say any club found to have infringed the regulations can be “liable to a fine, censure, suspension, order to replay a match, ejection from the competition and/or any such other sanction(s) as specified within these rules.”It does not state anywhere in the Scottish Cup rules that a title or award can be withdrawn.In the case of the League Cup, organised by the SFL, the rules do not state a specific course of action in the case of its rules being infringed.As a guide, other specific rule breaches make reference to being deemed to be serious misconduct, which can result in the competition organiser imposing “any other sanctions or conditions which the Board may think fit.”Additional reporting by Grant Russell Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
KingKirk 25,804 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 I would accept a tranfer ban, as of 1st september but nothing else Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
marvinsmarvels 13 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 Additional reporting by Grant RussellHe has used an anagram of his name. Its really Russell Grant and he seen it all happening in the stars. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Carpintero 546 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 Get that illegal embargo punishment sent back to the tribunal. A Scottish Cup ban is their only realistic alternative. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shuggy 1,308 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 "worst case scenario" document? Can we see the "best case" one? Sounds like intimidation to me... Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chef 436 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 Get that illegal embargo punishment sent back to the tribunal. A Scottish Cup ban is their only realistic alternative.Thr only hope of a Glasgow derby Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Carpintero 546 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 Thr only hope of a Glasgow derby We have Queens Park in our league mate. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chef 436 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 We have Queens Park in our league mate. Queens will be the club that benefits most too due to the stadium Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Carpintero 546 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 Queens will be the club that benefits most too due to the stadium Alot of clubs in the SFL will make alot of money off us, the SPL clubs will get hee haw. I cannot wait. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Causewaybear 11 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 When is the f***ing nightmare going to end! I'm losing sleep, my wife is sick of me talking non stop about it, the cat stays out of kicking range and even my 2 year old keeps saying "daddy, be happy!" I wish they would just sort it out once and for all, today, preferably, then we can all get back to the real business of football! Christ, I feel like we are all extras in a really shit eldorado type soap opera!! Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treble99 64 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 Queens will be the club that benefits most too due to the stadium Do queens charge more for away tickets as its hampden ? Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimfanciesthedude 24,926 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 Timmy won't like this title stripping talk. They have been banging on that we are a new club with no titles. So how can we be stripped of them Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chef 436 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 Do queens charge more for away tickets as its hampden ?I ain't sure bit it will likely be sold out at the time Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ritchieshearercaldow 22,242 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 The number of times that document says "does not specify"Meaning they don't have a clue and will make it up as they go along Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jebus197 20 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 This really is the definition of a massive "cluster fuck"! Any hopes that we might be near the end of this process seem to be all but dashed! As this rate they'll be humping our corpse hard for months to come yet. From all of the above, from a very unappealing menu, only a Scottish cup ban would provide a reasonable compromise for everyone. It would be a way of clearing the decks and to allow the process of recovery to begin.But how much can we depend on the SFA to deliver this? There are enough people who want to see Rangers dead to far from guarantee this. They could just as easily take any of the other options open to them through this process. This includes a playing ban and expulsion from the SFA. (Which is the same thing.) What's the odds that there aren't people in the SFA who really want to see this?Also there are new daggers waiting for us further down the line when these supposedly illegal player payments are investigated.You guys think we can survive anything. But we can't survive if our investors lose interest and walk away, because we are banned from playing football, or banned from the SFA (which is the same thing), or if we are forced maybe to pay back money we won due to past title victories. It's almost getting difficult to keep track of the multitude of different ways that we're fucked! Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertent 2,081 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 Puhhhhh. Is that the noise your hoop makes when you fhart? Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jebus197 20 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 When is the f***ing nightmare going to end! I'm losing sleep, my wife is sick of me talking non stop about it, the cat stays out of kicking range and even my 2 year old keeps saying "daddy, be happy!" I wish they would just sort it out once and for all, today, preferably, then we can all get back to the real business of football! Christ, I feel like we are all extras in a really shit eldorado type soap opera!!I feel your pain mate. Lol. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jebus197 20 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 Puhhhhh. Is that the noise your hoop makes when you fhart?I don't know who that's referring to mate, but I think those jokes are kind of old and stale (if you'll excuse the pun.) Just because some fans are near their wits end after reading so much bad news that just goes, on and on, and on, doesn't make them a Tim. There's no one inventing bad news or bad publicity here. We don't need to, as sad and gut wrenching as it is, there more than enough to go round for everyone. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheFarmer 260 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 Wait, why “newco” Rangers?Green’s company that purchased the assets of the old Rangers company that is to be liquidated doesn’t hold an SFA membership. The old Rangers still does, until the membership is transferred or the company is liquidated. Until a transfer takes place, a distinction has to be made.Hopefully once the transfer is made this 'newco rangers' pish can go away for good.I dream of the day our club is again refereed to by the club name (Rangers FC) rather than the company that the club belongs to's name (oldco, newco, servco etc)Cant wait until we can start playing football again, bring it on! Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluebear1971 54 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 It looks to me like the sfa are not even prepared to negotiate.I can't see how this is going to end, it's basically blackmail - accept this list of punishments or you don't get a licence.Absolute disgrace Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebooler 4,509 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 Accept the sanctions, get the licence, then take legal advice from the very best Lawyers available, Uefa and FIFA.We NEED this licence or we're goosed.So long as the talk of Newcos, Oldcos and stripping of titles stops, and stops right fucking now.Anyone not referring to us as Rangers from then on should be taken to task. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonbryce 63 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 1342626697' post='1060235330']Timmy won't like this title stripping talk. They have been banging on that we are a new club with no titles. So how can we be stripped of them They want the titles to be handed over to them so they can have 27 in a row. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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