Tom English: Sorry Whyte wash that is full of contradictions

Published on Wednesday 22 February 2012 00:00

IT WAS fitting that when Craig Whyte issued his lengthy statement yesterday there was a mistake in the opening sentence, the word February presented as Frebruary, the opening blunder in a Gettysburg Address of pleading, self-justification and obfuscation.

In short, a Whyte wash.

From top to toe, Whyte’s declaration of innocence came in at 1,507 words and in every paragraph, if not in every sentence, there are things that make your hair stand on end, things that are gob-smacking in their audacity, things that directly contradict what he has said before. In the business of the Ticketus affair he has done an about-turn that would make Sebastian Vettel’s head spin, but it’s worth going through this from his opening remarks, when he presents himself as a modern-day philanthropist.

1. “Craig Whyte today promised...that he will give immediate consideration to gifting the majority of his shares to a supporters’ foundation.”

Or to paraphrase: “Dear God, I’ve seen some of the characters baying for my blood and I’m scared witless. I’ll attempt to calm them down with an offer of free shares in the hope they chill out and don’t come after me.” This is a PR trick from the kindergarten school of media manipulation. A soft and risible introduction to a statement that goes on to include some howitzer admissions and mistruths.

2. “The Ticketus funds, which amounted to £20 million plus VAT, was agreed as bridging finance while negotiations with HMRC were under way...”

Whyte has said on many occasions – and he said it again yesterday – that he lodged £33m of his “own personal wealth” into a Rangers bank account to prove to Sir David Murray that he had the money to take the club forward. Why, then, with a supposed £33m sitting in the bank did he need a bridging loan? Where is the £33m now? A few weeks back I asked Whyte for documentary evidence that he had lodged the £33m in an account. He said he would consider emailing me the proof. He never did.

3. “My corporate advisors came to me with the proposition that it was entirely possible, as well as highly beneficial, to negotiate a deal with Ticketus that would allow us to complete the takeover and maximise working capital for the club’s day-to-day business.”

The great bazooka. After months upon months of denying that the Ticketus money was used to pay off Lloyds Banking Group Whyte now admits that it was. Last summer, Whyte went thermonuclear at the Daily Record for writing this, saying it was lies while briefly threatening to ban their reporters from Ibrox. In the months since then – and particularly in the last number of weeks – he has been asked many times by different media outlets whether the Ticketus money was used to pay off Lloyds. Each time he dismissed the notion as rubbish.

A fortnight ago I put it to him during an interview. Once again he said it was not true. He said he used his own money to pay off Lloyds and that the Ticketus money only came along later. Not true.

4. “I have been a supporter since I was a boy”

A return to the special pleading. ‘I’m one of you, please believe me, I would never hurt the club’. Whyte says the one thing that has shocked him since he took over at Rangers is the level of scrutiny he has come under, but if you had been following this club since boyhood then surely the profile of his position and the media’s obsession with the Old Firm and every spit and fart that goes on within would not have been such a bolt from the blue.

5. “As far back as November 2010, at the start of the takeover plans and long before there was any discussion about approaching Ticketus, Sir David Murray and Lloyds Banking Group were provided with – and were satisfied with – proof of funds amounting to £33 million. It was several months later, when negotiations were still on-going that the proposed Ticketus deal – ‘100 per cent the best deal for Rangers’ was mooted”

We return to the mysterious £33m. Whyte is saying he had £33m of his own money to spend and then, suddenly, along came Ticketus and a scheme that meant he didn’t have to spend a penny of his own money. Actually, that’s not true. Whyte spent a pound on buying the club. A whole pound! Everything else was funded by selling giant tranches of season tickets. Everything. Future revenues were used to pay off the bank. It was reckless. For Whyte to say that it was in Rangers’ best interests is a spectacular misrepresentation of the truth.

6. “I face huge financial losses personally if the restructuring fails or is not allowed to proceed.”

Some proof of this would be nice. Whyte says that he has given personal and corporate guarantees underwritting Ticketus’s investment but the Ticketus investment is not a mortgaging of season tickets, it is a strange purchase. There is no underwriting involved. Whyte sold the tickets and Ticketus bought them for £20m plus VAT. Unless £1 constitutes huge financial losses in Whyte’s world then we fail to see what he is going on about.

7. “I regret not making the arrangements more transparent...In retrospect I should have been completely open about it.”

Whyte is trying to downgrade his behaviour to a mere lack of transparency when it is infinitely more than that. What he should be saying is that ‘I regret telling falseshoods...In retrospect I should have told the truth’.

8. “The accusation that I paid the bank debt without any personal financial commitment is just plain wrong and quite ridiculous.”

Having admitted that Lloyds were paid off by the Ticketus money Whyte is now rowing back and suggesting that, ‘Well, some of my money went towards paying off the bank debt’ without saying precisely how much. A fiver? A tenner? How much?

9. “The truth is that around £4.4m of the £9m demand is, in fact, the ‘wee tax case’, including penalties, and which is in dispute. We offered to pay £2.5 million of the PAYE and VAT up front with the remainder at £500,000 a month, but HMRC flatly rejected that”

For a man who is supposedly sitting on £33m of his “own personal wealth” why is Whyte trying to pay off the tax man in such a way? Why doesn’t he just pay the ‘wee tax bill’ like he said he would pay it at the outset? Why try and negotiate a never-never deal if you have £33m sitting in a bank account. Unless you don’t have £33m sitting in a bank account.

10. “HMRC...were simply determined to make an example of Rangers.”

We now know that HMRC are keen – some might say overly keen – to co-operate with Rangers, saying last weekend that they have no intention of closing the club down as has been feared by an element of the Ibrox support. HMRC want to work with the administrators to bring about a decent resolution to all of this.

They are, however, determined to make an example of Whyte. The feud between HMRC and Whyte has become deeply personal. More than once, Whyte has interpreted criticial media reporting of his own business chicanery as an assault on Rangers itself when, in fact, it has been anything but. This looks like more of the same. It seems like an attempted rally cry to the fans. ‘Everybody’s out to get us...’

11. “In these circumstances (HMRC wanting to make an example of Rangers) it would have been far too risky to pump further funds into the club while the result of the EBT tax case remain unresolved.”

This is mind-altering garbage. There is no justification for not paying your tax. None. It doesn’t matter about the EBT case. Whyte had to pay his tax, end of story. Far too risky? It’s a legal obligation. It’s not a question of risk. It’s not optional. ‘Pump further funds’. What an expression from a man who has seemingly pumped virtually no funds into the club. Rangers are in profit in the transfer market since Whyte took over so what is all this about ‘further funds’? He has not made good on his commitment to spend £5m net on transfers every season. He promised to do it for five straight seasons and couldn’t even do it for one. Whyte is suggesting that at some point he came to a decision to stop throwing cash at the club. It never happened in the first place.

12. “On top of that (HMRC freezing some of the bank accounts) we had other funds frozen because of legal claims by certain former members of the board all of which contributed to why we fell into arrears on our monthly PAYE liabilities.”

Once more we return to the £33m of his “own personal wealth” lodged in a bank account and clearly not used to pay off Lloyds. You have £33m in the bank and yet you can’t pay your PAYE. Does the inconsistency of this argument not smack Whyte between the eyes? Again, where is the £33m that Whyte claims was his own cash and not the spoils of the Ticketus deal? And why didn’t he use it to pay the wolf from his door?

13. “Negotiations with HMRC about trying to reach a compromise on the EBT case continued right up until the very last minute (before administration), but HMRC would have none of it – if they had, they would have released further funds and we could have avoided administration.”

In other words, ‘Please believe me, fellow Bears. HMRC are the real baddies here. They froze our money and shafted us. They forced us into administration because they hate us and want to kill us.’

14. “I am open to all serious offers of outside investment. I am currently in active discussion with a number of potential bidders and investors.”

Where did Whyte find these potential investors? At the roulette tables in Las Vegas? Why would anybody invest in Rangers as it is currently constituted? Unless you were a gambler with a death wish you would stay well away unless the dust clears.

15. “I will not continue as Rangers chairman post-restructuring ... I don’t do walking away.”

He plans to walk away, but he doesn’t do walking away. An appropriate end to a statement that will merely add to the fury of the fans and the confusion about what Whyte was actually trying to do when he took over Rangers. Just after Whyte’s comments came through on email, the administrators issued their own update from the frontline of the crisis. In five paragraphs – as opposed to Whyte’s 26 - they said it all. “Following information received, it is now apparent that the proceeds from the Ticketus arrangements amounted initially to a sum in the region of £20 million plus VAT. Subsequently, £18 million was tranferred to the Lloyds Banking Group.”

Words that poured more petrol on the bonfire of Craig Whyte’s credibility.

Comments

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16

what a chancer

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 04:31 PM

dear Tom you have been calling vlad a bombscare since the day he arrived do you still believe this to be the case or has the ibrox tax dodgers converted you since he paid wages and taxes.oh should murray hand back his knighthood titlesas well as the club.

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15

jambo1902

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 04:21 PM

Tom English is a cock and very little I've read here changes that opinion - the demise of derhun though, does raise a smile to my lips!,

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14

Charles Aznavour

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 03:34 PM

beg to differ broonster. A good article. He's poured over the statement and given a good analysis piece. Argue about in content if you will - but you cannot deny it's a robust - and for me convincing - analysis. And where is the £33m?

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13

bifter

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 02:14 PM

Who knows the truth but, to me, this smacks more and more of a scam every day, viz: DM sees the writing on the wall (HMRC tax case) and seeks a buyer to limit his losses and to avoid putting the club into admin himself. Not finding anyone gullible enough he comes up with a scheme that requires a patsy - step forward CW. The scheme works as follows... DM offloads the club to CW for a pound. CW pretends to have the funds to rescue the club and secures as much credit as he possibly can. Once the loan from Ticketus is in the bag, CW puts the club into admin, forcing HMRC, Ticketus and any other creditors to accept a negotiated settlement that wipes out much of Rangers debt. If HMRC force Gers into liquidation, they get even less. CW then walks away unscathed plus whatever fee he agreed with DM to be funnelled into a Swiss bank account. Rangers either finds new investors and avoids liquidation or a new company is formed from the ashes to buy the assets on the cheap - either way a new era begins and HMRC, Ticketus and the rest suck up the losses. Far fetched?

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12

idee fixe

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 01:07 PM

Sir Davie-boy and only Sir Davie-boy had the power to allow Craigie-boy to do what he did with Rangers Football Club. ====== No matter how history looks down on Sir Davie-boys behaviour he himself will never be able to break free from that astonishingly astounding act.

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11

idee fixe

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 01:04 PM

xx

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10

Rambo the Jambo

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 11:07 AM

9 - Sad little loser - Hearts are not in administration, and are in no way in any danger or threat of administration. It is a legal impossibility. Sad deluded hateful little troll that you are.

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9

Lager Lout

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 10:49 AM

Nomatter what way you look at it RANGERS are finished, i only wish CELTIC would follow, as it is only time before RANGERS wee team HEARTS follow too.

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8

Vandeerbrock

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 10:46 AM

#4 I think you are getting things a wee bit wrong. Yes, the media have rubbed up to Rangers like submissive cats wanting milk but you need to distinguish between Rangers and Whyte. If anything, the media will focus on Whyte because it's newsworthy, interesting and if the journalist in question is a Rangers fan - personal. Mr English is capable of writing about other subjects other than the Old Firm although I do find it curious that he once said to me, we are obsessed with the Old Firm and yet he does seem to occupy a lot of his time writing about them!

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7

The Diplomat

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 09:33 AM

A great article and analysis from Tom - a masterclass in debunking Mr Whyte! Sadly, previous posters here and elsewhere are clearly in the mindset that CW is an okay guy and it was the HMRC and the Scottish media that put the boot in. how deluded is that. Bit ironic that when Third Lanark went bust in 1967, Rangers bought the turf since it was regarded as the best playing surface in Scotland. I doubt Rangers will go under but the residents of Elgin and Berwick should lock up their daughters from the rampaging hordes of bigots as their clubs face the once mighty Rangers in Divison 3.

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6

NittonLover

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 09:11 AM

You have to give Whyte some begrudging admiration for the brassiness of his neck. No matter how many of his lies have been exposed he is still trying to weasle his way out of taking any responsibility for the mess he has created. What really gets to me is this is BEFORE the result of the big case is even known. At least we now know where the money has gone and it now looks like he hasn't put much or indeed, any, cash into the club. If he gets away with this then it just shows up our system for the corrupt mess it is. (Do some research on the tiny corpation tax amount Boots paid on a £1bill profit and you will see what i mean.)

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5

Shug Hefner

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 09:07 AM

2 - I think HMRC's official line is that they dont want to close any business, as they'd rather get the money..however, they are realistic enough to realise that nobody past present or future at Ibrox is ging to pay 75 million in taxes and so the most likely event is liquidation and some nasty court battles.

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4

Shug Hefner

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 09:05 AM

1 - Tom, like a few journalists at the Scotsman has been cozy with Rangers - most of the Scottish Tabloids Hacks have - but now he is distancing himself from Whyte as quickly as possible. Aparently the Daily Rangers are now taking credit for exposing the goings on at Ibrox...the brassiest of brass necks and all that...!

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3

bring them on

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 07:18 AM

I thought it was good reporting.

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2

VastraGoth

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 05:28 AM

Did the HMRC really say they were co-operating with Rangers [Administrators] or was it just another leak? What is your source Tom. The drip-drip leaking of confidential information by the HMRC which I would think was subject to strict Privacy laws should be investigated - will it be covered up? Perhaps the HMRC could leak whether there is an investigation proceeding. Just nod or wink. As for Craig Whyte - there's a reason why are people always taken in by confidence tricksters - Tom they always tell you some of what you want to hear.

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