Tom English: ‘If this verdict stands it is going to be an indelible stain on the history of Rangers’

GIVEN the uproar of Friday, the gripping barney between Brian Kennedy and Paul Murray on one side and Duff & Phelps, the administrators of Rangers, on the other, it was understandable that the SFA’s damning report on Rangers in the Craig Whyte era – if you can call it an era – was somewhat overtaken by events.

GIVEN the uproar of Friday, the gripping barney between Brian Kennedy and Paul Murray on one side and Duff & Phelps, the administrators of Rangers, on the other, it was understandable that the SFA’s damning report on Rangers in the Craig Whyte era – if you can call it an era – was somewhat overtaken by events.

This document is 27,000 words long. It requires time and several large brandies to get through it.

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The focus since Friday has mostly been on the spat between Kennedy, a charismatic man with an incendiary manner of speaking – club is at “death’s door”, Duff & Phelps will have “blood on their hands” – and the administrators, but it will eventually blow over. One day, maybe, Rangers will have a new owner. It doesn’t feel like it right now, but at some stage this farrago will come to an end and either Charles Green or the Blue Knights or some other rabbit pulled out of some other hat will stump up enough money for the creditors and will take Rangers into the next phase of their existence.

No clarity in the takeover story, but plenty in terms of the SFA’s judicial panel and their reasons for imposing a 12-month transfer ban on Rangers as well as hitting them with a series of fines. On Friday, their weighty tome – with the ironic title of “note of reasons” - landed with a mighty thump. This is to a “note” what Alexander Solzhenitsyn is to Ladybird.

On another day, this report would have blitzed all other stories such is its condemnation of the way of things at Rangers in Whyte’s time. It is, at times, jaw-dropping in its detail and it presents so many uncomfortable truths that instead of wondering whether they were overly harsh in administering a transfer ban you get to thinking that maybe the panel didn’t go far enough. The headline, of course, was that they considered revoking Rangers’ membership of the SFA because of the seriousness of their offences, saying that only match-fixing deemed was more egregious than the things that went on at Rangers, but there’s so much detail in this report that it’s going to be referred back to long after the hubbub between the Blue Knights and Duff & Phelps is forgotten.

There is an appeal to its findings on Wednesday, Lord Carloway in the chair. It will be fascinating to see what such an eminent legal mind makes of this because, if this verdict stands, it is going to be an indelible stain on the history of Rangers. The club will argue that the flak should begin and end with Whyte but that’s not what the report says. Whyte was the culprit in chief, no question, but there were many around him who sat on their hands and let him get on with it. It is safe to say that it is one of the most significant documents we have ever seen in Scottish football.

What it does is lay bare David Murray’s last months in charge of Rangers, detailing the pressure on him from the bank to offload it and pouring all sorts of doubt on his “I was duped by Whyte” defence. Martin Bain, it seems, showed Murray evidence that should have alerted him to Whyte’s chicanery, but Murray chose to ignore it.

“[Bain] set out at length the matters which had been explored in the IBC [independent board committee] and meetings with Mr Whyte and the lack of information which had been obtained,” the report states.

“He [Bain] expressed concern at the lack of due diligence being carried out both by Sir David Murray and the Murray Group. Mr Bain disclosed the contents of the investigation report into Craig Whyte and provided Sir David with a copy. Sir David explained he was under pressure from Lloyds to dispose of and release his shareholding in Rangers to Craig Whyte and that in view of his overall financial position he was left with almost no option but to sell.”

Murray urged Bain to try to get the deal past the independent board committee but Bain refused. Their once close relationship suffered. That’s a remarkably different story than the “duped” version we heard from Murray not that long ago.

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There is reams of this, all of it confirming that it wasn’t just Whyte who was complicit in the downfall of the club. There were others. Financial controller Ken Olverman knew about several examples of serious wrongdoing by Whyte in his affairs at Rangers and said nothing. There is mention of him seeing do-it-yourself invoices created with the use of clip art on a computer. “He did not make enquiry of Craig Whyte nor of Gary Withey [the Whyte-appointed company secretary]. He [Olverman] did not inform any of the current directors,” says the report.

Page after page includes information about how Whyte got away with it. Whyte prevented Olverman from making payments to HMRC totalling £13m and then banned Olverman from divulging it. “[Olverman] was concerned about the policy but implemented it,” concluded the report.

John Greig and John McClelland come in for criticism for staying quiet for too long. The judicial panel found that both men had suspicion about Whyte withholding tax payments but didn’t raise the alarm. To be fair, they did so eventually and exited the club in pretty quick order, McClelland forced out by Whyte and Greig resigning. Dave King, it seems, asked Olverman on numerous occasions for information about the state of the finances at the club but never received anything close to the truth.

On King, the judicial panel conclude that he appeared to “have done little about it” beyond griping to Whyte and Olverman.

There is mention of Gordon Smith and the bewilderment of the Rangers football administrator, Andrew Dickson, in relation to Smith’s role at the club. Dickson never knew what Smith was supposed to be doing. “There was a complete breakdown of corporate governance of Rangers FC.” The argument that “Rangers FC were innocent victims” was questioned because “a number of directors and employees must have known what was happening was entirely wrong, but they chose to do nothing to bring it to the attention of the public.”

Alastair Johnston, the former chairman, has already accused the SFA of dealing in “bullshit”.

Lord Carloway, and his appeal panel, will be the ultimate judge of that this week.