Rangers administration: Don’t let one man run club again, say fans

By GARETH ROSE
Published on Tuesday 21 February 2012 13:06

RANGERS supporters say no-one should be allowed to take sole control of the club again, in the hope of averting future financial meltdowns.

The Rangers Supporters Trust has met administrators Duff & Phelps and provided them with a “shopping list” of requests by which they believe any potential takeover should be judged.

This includes widening out the number of shareholders running Rangers and adopting the kind of stringent measures used to monitor clubs in other countries, such as England and Germany.

The supporters trust stopped short of saying Craig Whyte could not continue as chairman and majority shareholder, but it warned he faced “credibility problems”.

The trust believes that, who-ever takes the club forward when it finally emerges from administration, will need the goodwill of fans, and so it is in a strong position to demand terms.

Duff & Phelps is expected to make a number of announcements this week about the state of the club’s finances, including why £24 million from Ticketus went through the accounts of a parent company rather than the club.

Mark Dingwall, director of the Rangers Supporters Trust, said: “I was part of a delegation which met with administrators on Saturday.

“Our view is that it has to go through a process. But top of our shopping list is that no one person should be allowed to have complete control of the club.

“There needs to be an expansion of shareholding. And every bid has to be compliant with, not only the legal minimum standards, but also with the introduction of new safeguards, that are in place in England and other leagues. For instance, each Premier League club has to produce a certificate with Revenue every three months, saying that they are up to date with PAYE and VAT.

“In Germany, there are stringent controls of clubs’ budgets, measured against performance, and the [Bundesliga’s] director can intervene to challenge things.

“If you try to subsidise a club by vastly increasing sponsorship revenue, they are able to say, ‘Show us how you came to this, these figures don’t add up’.”

He added: “Any potential bidder, or consortium, I would say, from what we can see of Rangers’ finances at the moment, is going to have a tough job on their hands. They will need the goodwill and trust of the fans.”

Employee benefit trusts, which are now the subject of Rangers’ tax battle with HMRC, allegedly worth £75m, were introduced when Sir David Murray was in charge of the club. Craig Whyte took control from him in May last year, and has since run up a £9m tax bill for unpaid PAYE and VAT.

Mr Whyte is understood to have stepped down as a director of Merchant Strategic Renewal and Merchant Corporate Recovery in recent days to concentrate on Rangers.

However, fans have questioned whether there is any way back for him at the club.

“There are various issues that Mr Whyte will have to address,” Mr Dingwall said.

“However, I think the thing that will give him greatest credibility problems is the decision not to pay taxes from the time he took over. Most people would say that’s completely unacceptable.”

Rangers have received some good news, with hire car firm Europcar confirming it will continue to sponsor the club.

Ken McCall, managing director of Europcar UK Group, said: “It is a great shame that Rangers has had to go into administration, but this doesn’t diminish our support of the club.

“Our ongoing commitment to advertise in the ground will be maintained.

“We hope this gives the club and its administrators further evidence of the commercial support that exists.”