Tangled Up in Blue

by Stephen O'Donnell

  Despite offering incentives to counterbalance the dire warnings of financial meltdown, such as play-offs, parachute payments and the purchase for £1m of Newco Rangers’ television rights by the SPL, Regan and Doncaster had overplayed their hand and underestimated the resolve and anger of the SFL club chairmen, the majority of whom refused to submit to such tactics. The executives found that with their tough talk they had managed to isolate the very people they would come to depend on, with a statement from Clyde FC making the obvious point, ‘A proposal to allow a newco to enter the First Division… is contrary to the rules of the SFL.’ Instead the Cumbernauld club, who had faced their own financial difficulties in the 1980s when they were forced to leave their original Glasgow home of Shawfield Park, insisted that any changes to the rules and procedures should not come through ‘threat or inducement’.

  The game’s administrators also had to get their plans past Raith Rovers chairman Turnbull Hutton, who was in no mood to forget how his club had been treated by Rangers as recently as April, when Stark’s Park director Eric Drysdale, one of the volunteers who had served on the SFA’s three-man judicial panel that dealt with the charges against Rangers over their insolvency, had his anonymity compromised by a ranting Ally McCoist. Hutton insisted, ‘This is the same Rangers whose supporters threatened to torch our stadium and whose manager demanded one of our directors was named over his involvement with the SFA judicial panel. That resulted in TV cameras camping outside his door and threats being made by various outlandish factions. We also had [former Rangers player] Sandy Jardine publicly calling for repercussions for those clubs who have not supported Rangers. Given that, how could I be expected to roll over and have my tummy tickled by some inducement to allow Rangers to come into the First Division?’

  Hutton also revealed some of the methods that were being used by the game’s hierarchy in order to get their way for the re-formed Ibrox club, ‘If we are at the stage of bending rules and accommodating, threatening or blackmailing, we want to give it up. There is a lot of pressure being applied on various people. There has been an abdication of duty from the SPL. Now the Scottish FA wade in and it’s being punted to the SFL to let them try and sort it out. And, just to help the process along, why don’t we blackmail and frighten them? It’s bizarre.’

  Enticed to elaborate on his position by a series of questions from reporters on the steps of Hampden before a preliminary meeting on 3 July, Hutton repeated his claim that the SFL clubs had been put in an impossible position and they were now being ‘bullied, railroaded and lied to’ by the SFA and the SPL.

  This was fairly astonishing stuff, albeit refreshing in its honesty. Modern Scottish football had been modelled on an anglicised version of the game, where money was king, even if, as in the case of the game north of the border, money was the one thing which was in conspicuously short supply. In the end, however, Regan and Doncaster discovered that they were talking a different language from the owners and directors of the small, provincial, community clubs, who for the most part were more than willing to reject all the big-time talk of marketing and revenue, and instead firmly but politely point the administrators of the game in the direction of their own rules.

  The result on 13 July saw 29 of the 30 clubs vote to grant Newco associate membership of the SFL, with 25 rejecting the appeal by Regan and Doncaster to admit Green’s club directly into the First Division, and obliging the new Rangers to start again in Scottish football’s fourth tier instead. The feelings of the SFL members had been made clear, with clubs from all across the country choosing to do the right thing and apply the rules rather than think only of the financial implications. Tiny Albion Rovers, for example, voted Newco into the Third Division, despite knowing that as a consequence they would miss out on two full houses against local rivals Airdrie United, who were now promoted to the First Division, with the Monklands club left instead to consider the prospect of gates of around 400 for their matches against Stranraer, who were moved up from the fourth tier.

  Even Cowdenbeath chairman Donald Findlay voted against the Newco proposal, with the disgraced former Ibrox director expressing his disapproval of the methods used by the game’s administrators in no uncertain terms. ‘I won’t forget the way they [Regan and Doncaster] have tried to bend me and this club to their will,’ Findlay harrumphed. The result was announced by SFL chief executive David Longmuir in a statement which explained, ‘The member clubs have voted willingly to accept Rangers into the SFL. The only acceptable position was to accept the Newco in Division Three from the start of 2012/13.’

  The eventual outcome was, on the face of it, gracefully accepted by Green and McCoist, although the manager went on to accuse the league of pursuing ‘as hostile an agenda as possible’ towards Newco, and grudges over the summer’s events would be harboured at Ibrox for many years to come, especially towards some of the SPL clubs, with particular Schadenfreude reserved for Dundee United’s demise and relegation in 2016, when no less a figure than Walter Smith waded in to kick the club, which gave him his first opportunity in the game, when it was down.

  A motion of no confidence in Stewart Regan was called by Livingston chairman Gordon McDougall and seconded by Cowdenbeath secretary Alex Anderson, after an e-mail leaked to Alex Thomson of Channel 4 News suggested that the SFA had been attempting to carve up a deal with Green’s club behind the scenes, but SFL president Jim Ballantyne intervened and blocked the vote. Regan lasted a further five and a half years in his position as head of the SFA, eventually stepping down in 2018 in the wake of his failed attempt to recruit Michael O’Neill to the post of national team manager, while Neil Doncaster has since assumed the chief executive post at the amalgamated SPFL.

  In the end there was no Armageddon for Scottish football, with clubs such as St Mirren, St Johnstone, Aberdeen, Inverness, Ross County and Hibernian all winning major trophies after the decision was taken to place Newco Rangers in the Third Division, and although Hearts and Dunfermline both subsequently suffered their own insolvency events, their issues and problems pre-dated the demise of Rangers and, in some ways at least, were arguably associated with the flawed policies and agendas of the stricken Ibrox club, whose downfall served as a salutary warning to others about the potentially catastrophic consequences for even the biggest football clubs of reckless overspending and chasing fairytales.

  By contrast, while nobody was claiming that a golden era was dawning for Scottish football, the solidarity which had been demonstrated among fans, the disregard shown to the trumpeting of causes and the vested interests of the media and the game’s moneymen, as well as the continuing popularity and passion for football across the community in Scotland, all offered hope for the future.

  In the meantime, however, Charles Green was still struggling to get his new Ibrox entity up and running. The hapless owner was finding it difficult to win the confidence of the club’s supporters, with estimates of only 250 season tickets being sold ahead of the new campaign, which was scheduled to start as early as 29 July with a Ramsdens Cup tie against Brechin City at Glebe Park. Almost as soon as his asset purchase was completed, Green was offered a quick profit on his acquisition when another consortium, led by former manager Walter Smith and sponsored by wealthy local businessmen Jim McColl and Douglas Park, came forward and offered the Yorkshireman £6m for the club, £500,000 more than he had just paid. Smith claimed that his group had originally made its offer to Duff and Phelps, but the ‘11th-hour bid’, as it was dubbed by the press, came too late, with Green already assured of ‘preferred bidder’ status after entering into a binding agreement with the administrators.

  Instead, with more of a 13th-hour bid, Smith now approached Green directly once the club’s liquidation was confirmed. Claiming that the best way forward was for ‘Rangers people who know the club inside and out to control its destiny’, Smith and his consortium were backed by the Rangers Supporters’ Trust, who issued a statement urging fans not to buy season tickets in an effort to force Green into agreeing
to a quick sale. Smith’s bid was hastily declined, however, but Green, aware of the former manager’s standing among his putative customers, made a counteroffer to the legendary figure and tried to recruit him into his new venture, chiefly in a cheerleading capacity. Rejecting the job offer, and announcing the withdrawal of his bid after apparently receiving certain assurances from Green, Smith could only offer the new club the best of luck for the future. ‘We wish the new Rangers football club every good fortune,’ he stated.

  Further doubts about Green’s credibility and trustworthiness among the Ibrox clientele were alleged by former Ibrox defender John Brown, another ‘real Rangers man’ who claimed to have put together an international consortium of investors to buy Green out. Brown had been alarmed by Green’s apparent unwillingness to provide proof of ownership, with the suggestion remaining that the new owner was still somehow involved with the disgraced Craig Whyte, an arrangement which, if true, seemed to preclude the possibility of an immediate sale. Demanding that Green ‘show us the title deeds’, Brown spoke before a large gathering of fans outside Ibrox. ‘You come into my house and I’ll show you the title deeds in my name. Now get tae… [gesture], this is my house. Why is Charles Green not coming out and just showing us that bit of paper?’ Brown asked on the steps of Ibrox in front of supporters who hung effigies of former owners David Murray and Craig Whyte.

  It all seemed very confusing for the club’s beleaguered supporters, who had witnessed their team go from the Champions League to the Ramsdens Cup in the space of little more than a year. Bewildered by administration, liquidation, TUPE regulations, Green and Whyte, and the indignity of being shafted by Her Majesty, now fans were even unsure if they should come out and offer their support to the relaunched Ibrox entity. In the end, it was club legend and manager Ally McCoist who played a key role in getting the supporters back on board, despite their ongoing reservations about Green.

  Ahead of their opening Third Division fixture against Peterhead at the Balmoor Stadium in Aberdeenshire, McCoist declared, ‘I’m a firm believer that the most important relationship at a club is between manager and chief executive. We are in the very early days of ours but it is growing day by day and we each have a good appreciation of the other’s situation within the club… Our fans deserve to see top-class players at Ibrox and this is just the start of the rebuilding process. We have already added top quality to the squad – Ian Black, Fran Sandaza, Dean Shiels, Emilson Cribari and Kevin Kyle – and I can assure fans more players will follow before the transfer deadline. We need to add to the squad to prepare for the next two seasons in the SFL and season ticket money is a major source of income for the club.’

  It worked, and tens of thousands of supporters came forward and bought season tickets ahead of the new campaign, with the deadline for ‘renewals’ extended following the manager’s call to arms. The only outstanding issue was the club’s membership of the SFA, which still had not been settled in the days leading up to Newco’s opening fixture of the season against Brechin City at the end of July, a match scheduled for live transmission on BBC Alba. Charles Green had paid a nominal £1 for Rangers’ membership of the SFA as part of his asset purchase, but with the Ibrox club heading for liquidation a transfer of membership to the Newco had yet to be approved by the governing body. The stumbling block appeared to be the sanctions which were hanging over the stricken club, imposed by the SFA’s independent judicial panel in April, most of which Green and McCoist were still belligerently contesting.

  The SFA had the power to insist on the penalties against Rangers being applied to Newco under clause 14.1 of the governing body’s Articles of Association, which stated, ‘Transfer of membership will be reviewed by the Board, which will have the complete discretion to reject or to grant such application on such terms and conditions as the Board may think fit.’ The matter was only resolved at the last minute by the now infamous ‘five-way agreement’ between the three regulatory bodies, the SFA, the SPL and the SFL, as well as the two Rangers clubs, ‘Oldco’, consigned to liquidation and represented by Duff and Phelps, and Green’s ‘Newco’, still at this point officially known as Sevco Scotland Limited. According to the secretive agreement, which has never been fully published, in return for the transfer of SFA membership, Newco agreed to pay the football debts of the old Rangers, including the £160,000 fine for bringing the game into disrepute, and to accept the transfer embargo which had been imposed by the judicial panel but sent back to the SFA by the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

  Prior to the eventual agreement, McCoist had continued to complain about the transfer embargo, stating, ‘It is important to remember we have already had a ten-point deduction from the SPL, lost our Champions League place for finishing second last season, had a £160,000 fine, been refused entry to the SPL, been relegated to Division Three and lost the majority of our first team squad – yet still the governing body has chosen to impose further sanctions.’

  The manager, however, seemed to be confusing punishments, imposed by external bodies, with the mere consequences of the club’s own actions; of the list of sanctions mentioned, only the paltry £160,000 fine was a genuine punishment for Rangers’ transgressions, the rest simply constituted what followed under the normal course of events as a result of the club’s erroneous behaviour. Like the convicted fraudster pleading for clemency after being caught embezzling from the firm – ‘I’ve lost my job and my wife’s left me, so please don’t send me to jail’ – McCoist’s disingenuous appeals cut little ice and the transfer embargo was eventually accepted by the club, although not with immediate effect.

  The ban would not be applied until 1 September, allowing the manager to stockpile players for the challenges of the Third Division before the transfer window closed. Green had also been insisting that the SPL should drop its inquiry into the club’s use of side-letters and undisclosed payments in the implementation of the controversial EBT scheme between 1998 and 2010, after an initial investigation by the league’s solicitors, Harper Macleod, found ‘prima facie’ evidence of a case to answer against the Ibrox club. The logical conclusion of a decision going against Rangers and the club being found guilty of fielding improperly registered players in over 700 matches would have seen results being overturned on an unprecedented scale and the numerous trophies amassed over the relevant period being declared void and stricken from the records.

  McCoist had already stated defiantly that he would ‘never accept’ the club being stripped of titles it had won during the EBT years, but with time running out before the start of the season, Newco were not in a strong position, and the inquiry chaired by Lord Nimmo Smith went ahead, but with a restricted remit. With the five-way agreement signed by all the respective parties, a transfer of membership between Rangers FC (In Administration) and Sevco Scotland Ltd was approved, although as Rangers were still officially an SPL club at the time, an unprecedented ‘conditional membership’, for which there was no proviso in the SFA’s Articles of Association, had to be granted in order that the Ramsdens Cup tie at Brechin could go ahead on time, a contrivance which failed to weaken the perception that the game’s administrators were making things up as they went along.

  When full membership was confirmed the following week, the final encumbrance to Newco’s participation in officially organised league and cup matches was removed; the good ship Sevco was about to set sail. And it would prove to be an eventful journey, with the response of the supporters producing world record attendances at Ibrox for a fourth-tier club, as fans also enjoyed following the team to some of the more remote and overlooked outposts of the Scottish game, a testament to Glasgow footballing passions and confounding those who assumed that few people would come out and support a disgraced institution playing out of the Third Division; players were brought in on extortionate wages, including Brazilians, Spaniards and Scotland internationals, provoking all the old clichés about sledgehammers and cracking nuts, and leaving many people wondering where all the money was coming from; there
was a share issue in December 2012 which raised an estimated £22m, but the out-of-control club burnt through the cash at such a rate that by February 2014 the new Rangers entity was running out of funds once more and had to be bailed out by loans from Laxey Partners, an Isle of Man-based hedge fund and the club’s biggest single shareholder, and director Sandy Easdale, who between them put up £1.5m to see the club through to the end of the season.

  Meanwhile, suggestions remained that Charles Green was still in cahoots with fall guy Craig Whyte, with Green’s defence against the accusation, after Whyte revealed taped conversations of the pair discussing their takeover strategy, seeming to suggest that the Yorkshireman had, instead of colluding with Whyte by agreeing to be his frontman, tricked the former owner and obtained the sole ownership of Sevco from him by deception. The SFA immediately wrote to Green seeking clarification and answers, but instead of proceeding with an investigation into whether the banned Whyte was still involved with Newco Rangers, the governing body allowed the Ibrox club to commission their own inquiry into the matter instead.