The Rangers Tax Case, And More
The collapse of Rangers was one the highest profile financial collapses of a football club in the history of European football. It changed Scottish football forever, gave it a new language, and led to a wide ranging discussion of matters considerably broader than the financial incontience of one club.
Rangers & Resolution 12: Testing Dave King’s Resolve
It was history-ish. On 15th May, Scotland’s football association (SFA) admitted that, maybe-just-maybe, ‘Rangers FC’ had been economical with the integrity in recent years. And that seemed to rile chairman of Rangers International Football Club...
Gerrard at Rangers: Who’s Paying?
Dave King, Rangers International Football Club (RIFC) plc chairman, is a man of these post-truth times. Football’s Donald Trump. Fake news from his mouth. Fake wealth in his pocket. King is “a mendacious witness whose evidence should not be...
Rangers: And This Is Where The Story Really Begins
On Wednesday, the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) Board announced, undercover of “legal advice from eminent Senior Counsel Gerry Moynihan,” that Rangers would get away with their unlawful use of “EBTs (Employee Benefit Trusts) and other...
The Rangers Tax Case: Then, Now & Forever
Between 2001 and 2010, Rangers FC participated in an Employee Benefit Trust (EBT) scheme, the “Murray Group Management Remuneration Trust (MGMRT). “So far as Rangers were concerned,” this scheme “enabled the Club to attract players who would not otherwise...
Rangers: Dave King – At It Again?
Last week, Rangers International Football Club (RIFC) chairman, Dave King, unilaterally decided, as he does, that regulations were for other people. His attitude, as it does, could land him in court. Yet, as they do, elements of Scotland’s Glasgow-based football media...
Rangers & The Strange Case of Mark Warburton’s “Resignation”
The best line about Mark Warburton’s departure as Glasgow Rangers manager came from Irish-based blogger Phil Mac Giolla Bhain. Mac Giolla Bhain has recently produced running commentaries on Rangers board meetings (the continuing anonymity of his source(s) is a...
Resolution 12: Proving Their Resolve
“Resolution 12” was a simple query about granting one licence to one club in 2011, when they did not apparently qualify for that licence. It has dragged on because that simple query remains unanswered. Resolution 12 to Celtic plc’s November 2013 AGM asked Celtic’s...
Scottish Media & “The Celtic Tax Case”
It was front-page news on October 12th. A Daily Record investigation. “Celtic and the tax dodge firm,” screamed the headline. £434m in unpaid tax. Rangers Tax Case? Relative peanuts. Many Scottish football fans would consider the existence of a Record newspaper...
The Return of the Old Firm Match? No Thanks
“Over the past few years some people have said they haven’t missed the Old Firm game. Frankly they’ve been lying through their teeth,” gurned Sky Sports presenter David Tanner at half-time in last April’s Celtic/Rangers Scottish Cup semi-final. “F**k off, f**king...
Celtic Flying The (Palestinian) Flag
Those insisting sport and politics shouldn’t mix are hopelessly naïve. Sport is too popular worldwide for it not to be used by those with well-tuned political senses. The fight against Apartheid was as much about South Africa’s sporting isolation as students declaring...
Scottish Football Journalism’s Sound of Silence
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt,” (Keith Jackson, Daily Record. Or possibly Abraham Lincoln). It has been a curious week for Scotland’s football fourth estate, which appears to have taken the wrong message from...
Scottish Football… “Corruption” – Resolution 12
Strong, occasionally irrefutable, evidence has existed for years of Scotland’s football authorities’ dishonesty in dealings with certain member clubs. Football journalists elsewhere in Britain would pursue such stories. Scotland’s football press seem to care more for...
How Scotland’s Football Press Rewrites Scottish Football History
The recent emergence of twitter account @mintys_lamb has re-emphasised the inadequacies and/or dishonesties of many of Scotland’s mainstream football journalists. The account focuses on how Scotland football press (SFP) covered Rangers’ financial collapse, how they...
The Rangers Tax Case – Best Of Five?
It is not a good time to be a Ranger. Court cases, past and future, abound. The latest accounts show another multi-million pound annual loss. And the latest twist/turn in the “Rangers Tax Case” has, frankly, turned a reality of the last three years on its head. To...
The Power Of Discretion And Why Guidelines Are… King
The Scottish Football Association (SFA) decision to deem Dave King “fit and proper” to become a Rangers director has proved widely popular. It is popular with Rangers fans because they believe the South African-based businessman will help fund the club back to what...
Taking On Mike Ashley, The Rangers Way
Mike Ashley, Newcastle United’s owner and all-round corporate scumbag appears an expensive barrier to Rangers’ financial progress. When former RIFC director Chris Graham was proclaiming the skies over Ibrox free of massive clouds, Ashley had already formed his own...
2014: Football’s Annus Excrementilis
200% is a powerful website. On December 10th, Mark Murphy asked Peter Pannu to “please **** off from Birmingham City. On December 12th…he…pissed off from Birmingham City. Co-incidence? Or will the following rant have a similarly desired effect on some of the...
Coventry City & The Franchising Of London Wasps
For a couple of weeks or so, there was something approaching normality at The Ricoh Arena. After an absurd amount of time away, Coventry City Football Club was back home with a team that was performing reasonably well on the pitch, and all was as near as things have...
Rangers: Show Us The Deeds Of Novation
Test match cricket commentators are a little over-fond of saying that “the next session is crucial.” BUT… the “next session” in the “Rangers” saga looks very crucial indeed. There is no-one left to deny that Rangers desperately need money. And their early-April call...
Rangers: Crisis Over, Or Just Beginning?
It is little wonder that Scotland’s Mainstream Media (SMSM) get a hard time when, aside from any perceived Celtic/Rangers/Old Firm bias, they make such elementary errors. The Rangers International Football Club (RIFC) interim results revealed operating losses of £3.6m...
Rangers FC & The Self-Importance Of Being Sandy
My limited experience of writing on football finance and club takeover and ownership issues has taught me one thing; that no matter what the specific issue under those headings, the Rangers Football Club will always supply an extreme, and invariably extremely daft,...
Birmingham City & Rangers: A Bad Week To Be A Bluenose
Both sides of what could soon be a proper international border, it is tough being a “Bluenose” just now. The odds against Rangers seeking the financial sanctuary of administration, or the sale and leaseback of major assets, as solutions to their latest book-balancing...
“Person”(s) Of The Year 2013… “Charlotte Fakeovers”
As 2013 was such a rubbish year for football governance and finance, who better to be football’s “man” of it than someone called Charlotte, who told a tale of financial skullduggery and subterfuge and whose real identity, or possibly identities, remain concealed? Mark...
Rangers: Dave King – More Than Glib & Shameless
The still potential return of Dave King to the Ibrox boardroom has provided a boost to the number of Northern Hemisphere hits received by various previously obscure South African business & finance websites. And if ‘Google’ employs people to monitor such things,...
Rangers: More Money Madness
The news that Rangers International Football Club plc (RIFC) lost, on average, £1.1m-per-month in its first financial accounting period, wasn’t “news” to everyone. A number of bloggers alleged to be “Rangers-haters” said “the figures don’t add up” as soon as the new...
Celtic: “Already Bankrupt”?
Phew. When a club is £36m in debt, stoppage time winners against resilient Kazaks might have more than just its manager re-enacting the Olympic 100 metres hurdles final (well, OK, maybe the slowest of the heats) down strips of open Glasgow land. Try as I might, I...
Interviews With The Vampires Part Two: Charles Green Meets Keys & Gray
It is a story that, depending on which side of Glasgow football’s ‘Old Firm’ fence you sit, either keeps on giving or won’t go away, even if its central figure since last May supposedly has gone away.
Birmingham City: Peter Pannu Posts – Part One
Birmingham City’s acting chairman Peter Pannu recently responded to media focus on his financial affairs with a lengthy statement on the club’s website. It said much about the man, his attitude and the Blues’ off-field problems – little of it good. Mark Murphy comments on it all.
Can We Really Trust the ‘Football Men’?
The Football Men. Those 'fixers' concerned with the buying and selling of football clubs. People who carry the sobriquet with some chutzpah and have a covert influence on the financial health of the game and in some cases the very existence of individual clubs. Are...
Rangers: The Continuing Adventures Of Charles Green
The ability of Rangers CEO Charles Green to get up people’s noses has, depending on your opinion of him, with reached new heights or plumbed new depths of late. Indeed, if it wasn’t for the need to be hyper-sensitive when writing about Rangers – now that they are no...
The Rangers Big Tax Case: Over & Out
So, farewell then, to the Rangers Tax Case (Big); unless HMRC appeals the impressively-detailed decision published last Tuesday. In which case, we’ll be here for years. The First Tier Tribunal (Tax) decision was a victory for Murray Group Holdings. The ‘oldCo’ Rangers...
Mal From Ayr, Kilmarnock Fan Extraordinaire
Since the full extent of Rangers’ financial troubles was exposed in 2010, their fans have almost totally refused to accept that their club is to blame for anything at all ever. One manifestation of this is the accusation that any critic of the Rangers must be a bigot,...
Charles Green Meets Keys & Gray – And Provides More Questions Than Answers
Ah, yes, the rule of three. From the Latin “omne trium perfectum,” (all that comes in threes is perfect), the rule is a comedy staple. So… a fortnight ago, we were treated to thirty-three minutes of the wit and wisdom of Craig Whyte – which the former Rangers owner...
“I Always Thought The Fan Base Could Be Monetised”: Craig Whyte Speaks To The BBC
Poor Craig Whyte. On the day he chose to give his version of the Rangers saga to the BBC, former Rangers joint administrator Paul Clark beats him to the “biggest Rangers lie” of the year trophy. Clark offered a dictionary definition of dishonesty and irony in his...
Rangers: Promises, Promises
Charles Green bought the business, assets and – according to some, but not all, of paragraphs in last week’s report to creditors from administrators Duff and Phelps – the history of Rangers Football Club for a pittance in June. But he’s really paying for it now. “New...
Rangers: Crime, Punishment & Consequence
Last Sunday’s website statement from the Hibernian Supporters Club (“Hibs Club”) and the Rangers Supporters Trust response to it exposed a chasm in thinking on Scottish football’s current problems. Supporters appear split down the middle between those who see Rangers...
I Come To Bury Rangers, Not To Praise Them
The scriptwriters for soap operas must be under enormous pressure to produce dramatic yet feasible storylines every few days. But if the pressure gets too much for them, which some might argue it already has, they can always consult whichever twisted mind writes...
Now That Rangers Are Saved, Part Three
Rangers’ spell in administration was best summed up deep in one of Court of Session Judge Lord Hodge’s many Rangers pronouncements over recent months. Paragraph fifty of his directions to administrators Duff & Phelps on the once thorny subject of Ticketus began...
Now That Rangers Are Saved (Redux)
We are delighted to announce today that 200% has received an unconditional bid for the Rangers opinion piece from Mr Mark Murphy which has been accepted and he is now the preferred author. Mr Murphy now proposes to complete his article by the end of this weekend. Mr...
Another Week On The Edge For Rangers
It’s not as easy as it looks, this administration lark. In my time writing on football finance, I have yet to experience any sympathy for an administrator, or believe that maybe senior ones are earning their weekly wage packets-per-hour. But gone is the sense that...
Rangers, Alex Thomson & Presbytarian Slaps
The one Rangers issue to attract more criticism recently than their financial management – alleged and actual – has been Scottish media coverage of it, especially in Glasgow itself. Scottish football journalists’ inability to comprehend Rangers’ current financial woes...
Rangers Football Club: The Good, The Bad & The Loopy
You can say what you like about Scottish media coverage of Rangers’ financial crisis but you’re certainly spoilt for choice. Unfortunately, that choice is all-too-often between parallel universes, with a tangential universe thrown in every time club owner Craig Whyte...
Buddies Or Enemies? St Mirren Get Dragged Into The Rangers Story
The timing was perfect - two-and-a-half years ago. Stewart Gilmour had been St. Mirren chair longer than anyone else in the club's then 132-year history. He had overseen a ground move which, with the help of Tesco (other supermarket chains are available), had left the...
Rangers: The “Experts” Speak
A recurring side-issue to Rangers current financial crisis has been the Scottish media’s apparent inability to get its facts straight. This, critics say, has come from a mixture of media faith in the “official” line coming out of Ibrox and a basic misunderstanding of...
EBTs, CVAs & The Future Of Scottish Football: The BBC Tackles Rangers
Towards the end of BBC Radio 5 Live’s Rangers – What Next?, my attention was flagging. A worthwhile broadcast descended into soppy sentiment as listeners were told of the 11-year-old boy asking his dad to cancel the family holiday to Florida and give the £2,000 cost...
Who Are The Horsemen Of The Rangers Apocalypse?
The dizzying raft of exposes emanating from investigations into twenty-first century Rangers (and a few years before, if ex-director Hugh Adam’s revelations are at all credible) is truly now doing my head in. Plymouth Argyle’s pock-marked spell in administration last...
Now That Rangers Are Saved
The “Blue Knights”? Really?? I don't suppose Rangers fans who are backing former director Paul Murray's bid for the club care about how ridiculous his consortium's media moniker sounds, now that Rangers are saved. At least they won't care, as long as Murray and the...
Rangers’ Nightmare Week
This week, Alex Salmond held discussions with David Cameron about the terms of a referendum on independence, and Cameron launched his own pleas in defence of the Union. It's a story that has been dominating the headlines for weeks in Scotland - not unreasonably - but...
BBC Scotland, Rangers And Craig Whyte
It hadn’t been Rangers’ best week. On the Monday, they lost two directors down the back of the corporate governance sofa, including “Mr. Rangers”, John Greig. And three days later, the BBC broadcast some people saying not very nice things about owner Craig Whyte’s...
An Alternative View on the Media Bans
Football clubs and the media covering them live together as slightly estranged bedfellows, desirous of one another's company but at times cold or distant when the other's been bad in the sack. Quite often it is the club in some capacity turning away, demanding the...