Green gives ‘chaotic’ SPL new salvo over Rangers

Published on 26/09/2012 03:47

Rangers chief executive Charles Green last night 
renewed his verbal attack on the Scottish Premier League by 
accusing them of wrongly making his club apply for membership of the top flight.

Green has interpreted comments in a report from Lord Nimmo Smith, who is chairing the SPL-appointed commission probing alleged undisclosed payments to Rangers players, as proof that his company need not have applied for membership of the SPL or the Scottish Football Association. Sevco Scotland, as they were then known, were denied entry to the SPL following a vote of member clubs after buying the assets of the soon-to-be-liquidated Rangers.

In a lengthy statement, Green said: “Lord Nimmo Smith has said that Rangers FC is a recognisable entity which continued in existence notwithstanding the change in ownership.

“He also stated that Rangers FC, the club, includes its owner and operator. The commission has in effect ruled that Rangers and its history did not die on 14 June despite numerous reports to the contrary. This means that Rangers FC and its owner, i.e. me and my consortium, 
remained a member of the SPL even after the change of ownership. The bemusing part is that 
no-one at the SPL or SFA appeared to realise that. The SPL made the club (including its owner and operator) reapply to be a member of a league that the commission says it was in already.”

Nimmo Smith refers to newco and oldco throughout his lengthy report on the first stage of the hearing and also states that: “Newco is not and never has been a member of the SPL.”

But he adds: “In legal terms, it (a club) appears to us to be no different from any other undertaking which is capable of being carried on, bought and sold.”Green, who is not co-operating with the SPL probe, added: “The establishment of the commission is the most striking example of the chaotic way the fate of Rangers has been handled by the football authorities.”