Tannochsidebear

Thanks Andy, and well spotted with the typo. Not sure its right to laugh at my own mistake but now you point it out its exactly what i did! With respect, I dont think the post above is really aimed at the likes of yourself, and that is to your credit. It is my general view and I know loads of good bears who frequent all forums and bear no ill will towards any of the others. There are of course very simple remedies to those Bears who dislike either a forum or a fans group (or individuals therein). There are plenty of forums to choose from, so finding one that suits any aprticular taste should not be too difficult. Its a bit harder with the fans groups as you have to make an active choice to get involved with the groups to encourage change. Join the RST and ask for change. Vote for it. Join the board and campaign for it. Takes time and far more effort than typing though so that rules out most people.

D&P have a lot to answer for, and have been way out of their depth in this case. Apparantly they failed to see just how big an institution we were and therefore how much attention and scrutiny their every move would be subjected to. To be fair, there are also an awful lot of things D&P have been blamed for that was completely outwith their control, and was mostly manufactured to suit an agenda elsewhere. An awful lot.

I would think this would worry all of us. However the consortium that he has agred a deal with supposedly includes and is headed by Walter Smith, so that gives us something to cling onto.

Your close, so fair enough. With such low numbers, how was it ever going to be possible to fund our football club, either through a CVA, or into next season? The follow followers of TBK are very quick to throw the questions out to other bidders, when in fact the bid they support so vociferiously was so badly funded and completely unworkable.

Slightly different as Whyte is being charged as unfit because he had a Directorship ban within 5 years of his appointment. That alone breaks the fit and proper test. My argument is who should carry out that check. CW himself, or the SFA?

If you go back to the OP, I dont believe Rangers fans are as divided "in real life" as is made out. I feel there is, and has been for a decade or so, an over-representative feeling amongst online forums, that does not echo the feeling amongst Rangers fans you meet at the matches, in the pubs, or in the workplace. The online community are very badly divided. I can see this and understand it, but feel it is very wrong. There are very strong and active (but small in numbers) groups within each of the online communities who are very prod of their "own" forum, and like to defend the position of their own forum against other forums. Take the RST for example. FF is its flagship due to mutual leadership. Those banned from FF due to admin/mod decisions go to Rm or here or elsewhere for their online Rngers "fix". They mump and moan about how they were banned from FF. Lets ignore for now if the bans were legitimate as it actually doesnt matter. Therefore they find a like-minded group who have lso been banned from FF. As FF is RST in the eyes of many, and has never been properly addressed by either, the RST is painted the same way. So we have a growing disgruntled number of people who feel hard done by on FF/RST. This is absolutely nothing to do with being Rangers fans. We pretty much as Rangers fans all want the same things. Our team to be successful on the park and well run off it. Nice and simple. The main disagreements I see between Rangers fans in real life generally are about tactics, players, the manager. Not forums. Never. Online, the arguments are far more political. Its all about the forums, the fans groups, individual fans and spokespersons. The real difference is that online people are far more willing to have go (anonymously of course) at other Rangers supporters beliefs. Also, the time available to have a rant online is generally far more readily available to people than on matchdays. I dont hear any calls for there only to be one fans forum to unite all the online fans together as one, when it is the online forums that are the most divided and divisive of all. But i do continually hear calls for the organised "real life" fans groups to unite, when in fact on almost all issues they are united. Funny that.

In reality the only footballing crime that has been committed is going into administration. The rules are quite clear and so is the punishment. Our punishment was enforced within a couple of hours of admin being officially announced. Thats it. The SFA are trying (why?) to land us (the club) with disrepute charges for our sole active Director not telling our sole active Director that he was up to no good. They are saying that the actions of one man for 9 months is more than enough to charge an otherwise properly trading club for 140 years with bringing the game into disrepute. I understand the appeal will go ahead towards the end of next week, and that the SFA, despite their 22,000 word hand-written judgement, do not have a legal leg to stand on, and an expected overturn of this kangaroo court verdict is a certainty.

Thats hilarious gunslinger. Remind me again how much their last bid for the club was? Let me ask this about TBK. How many are there, and how many of them are putting in more than £250,001?

The Miller bid was not a bona fide Newco bid. It was a very clever way of attempting to get a CVA done while protecting the assets temporarily. Obviously it had a big chance of turning into a liquidation, but the Assembly were prepared to wait and see with Miller's plan due to the serious shortcomings of the alternative, and the fact that there was also a good chance of it working and a liquidation avoided. There were no calls for protest from the Assembly or Association when Miller was named PB, no asking to email "questions" to Miller, etc. There were questions being asked and answered behind the scenes and they were waiting on the events to become clearer before commenting further. Something that should have been done elsewhere IMO.

I must correct this that I see popping up everywhere nowadays. The RST were the ONLY Rangers organisation to come out and fully support TBK to the exclusion of all others. The Association and Assembly's position was, and has always been, that any bidder who got PB status and saved the club from liquidation would get their support. MD only speaks for his own organisation, does it well, and they have decided to jump in full steam ahead with TBK, as is their right, but the other organisaitons are being more cautious as there are a lot of things about TBK bid that dont work, and even more that still have to be answered, so that is why the other main groups have not backed any one bidder publically to the exclusion of others.

I cant see any reason why HMRC would do that to RFC in this case. RFC has a 140 year history of paying full taxes on time every time, until the CW era came along. With CW gone, there is no way HMRC would go down that road in this case, not matter how much they were pressed by the tims to do so.

Oh come on guys. I don't go in for sniff sniffing but this is as blatant as it gets, or the worst case of naivety I've seen in ages. But in the interests of playing along here goes, HMRC are not looking to make an example of us, it is English clubs that have the preferred football creditors rule that HMRC hate. HMRC have already had extensive talks with D&P and a deal is being agreed. Bill millers profit will come the same way he has made a profit elsewhere. Buy a company for a low price, make it run properly, and await much larger sale price. He doesn't need to be taking annual profits out of the club. Surely the OP remembers the Fergus McCann scenario? No Euro income for 3 years is only for liquidated clubs. Not Rangers. The SFA and SPL have tried to go all hardball on Rangers, but the rules and regs don't allow them too. This is what needed clarified and has been admitted by the SPL and SFA who are backtracking faster than you can say "is that a QC's letter?" Tell me again why a CVA won't be agreed? There is no alternative for the creditors who stand to actually get back a lot more than previously thought. Apart from Ticketus and CW of course. There is no reason to believe that the two company's will not rejoin in time after the CVA and shares are dealt with. BTW, using the well worn excuse about CFC's company number is a bit of a giveaway, and has absolutely no bearing in the Rangers case at all. Sorry about that. Now that I've answered your questions, you answer me one. If Rangers are guilty because of the actions of one man acting alone and should be thrown out for not having enough money to pay the bills, what action should the SFA have taken against a club I'm sure you know well who systematically covered up child abuse for years by passing it off as the evil doings of one man. Surely the club were guilty there too and should have been shut down, as paedophilia is certainly far more evil and wrong than being skint?

I dont agree with 20 points GA. The 10 points has to be looked at in conjuction with what administration means for the business of the football club concerned. The job losses, the player redundancies, sale of other assets etc. I believe it would mean almost certain relegation for all but the big 2, depending on what time of season the administration came in. If we are to change it at all, the only discrepancy I can see is that it treats a club going into admin in August the same as March, with just 10 points not really affecting a club at the tail end of the season if they have managed to build up enough points to that date, so perhaps a sliding scale of points to reflect the amount of season completed would be fairer.

There is a great punishment for going into administration as it stands. A 10 point penalty would almost certainly mean relegation for 10 out of our 12 clubs, by the time you add on the redundancies and cost-cutting that also comes with such an event. You've got to ask yourself what the SPL/SFA's role in all this should be about. The punishment of a club, or the assistance to keep a club alive while keeping a fairly level playing field? As far as I am concerned it is for the courts and creditors to work out what should be done financially to a club that has fallen on hard times, and for the football governing bodies to help each other in order for the game to survive. As for financial fair play, in the last 3 full seasons, which is what UEFA's rules will look at when they come into force, Rangers would meet the criteria given. Incidentally celtic wont meet the criteria for the three year period 2010-12 by the end of this season going by projected figures for this season coupled with the last two seasons.

SPL source indeed! How about 1546: Chris McLaughlin, CFC Sport "I've been on the phone to Doncaster and told him the Tims will go fuckin mental if they let they bassas off without cutting their balls off."

Good to see they are not just giving up, but having been in pole position for several weeks and unable to conclude (albeit not always their own fault), it is a bit rich to be so surprised at D&P finally losing patience and giving PB status to the first unconditional bid it has received in proper form. I'm sure there are a few more twists and turns left in this saga yet, but I cant help the feeling that TBK are just too short of the readies to get any proper deal done.

Im just waiting for the oncoming Timmy onslaught to declare that Rangers have "got away with it" without any punishment. Lets have a look at this a bit more fully now. Up until May 2011 we traded like every other club in the country. Precariously close to the brink and in a bad financial shape. Our problems were only confounded because our owner's (Murray) other business interestes were in bad shape and the bank were running his affairs, which by default included us. We had debt of around 30% of one years turnover, which compares favourably to most other SPL clubs. In May 2011 there was a change of ownership. CW came in on a fraud, and with our failure to gain entry to the CL or Europa League group stages, our income for the year was never going to match our expenses. CW tried, as do most failing business owners, to rob peter to pay paul, and didnt pay HMRC and other creditors on time, instead preferring to meet player wages and other (allegedly personal) expenses. For 9 months he run us into the ground, and on 14 February the game was up as HMRC refused to give him any more time to pay the outstanding PAYE and VAT, and we went into administration. 9 months out of our 140 years of unblemished history and faultless tradition. In 140 years we have never had any similar financial troubles thaat seen us not be able to pay HMRC or football or general creditors. In other words, this was most certainly a "first offence". Usually when this happens in court, a judge will look at your previous record and apply a sentence that is either soft or hard depending on such record. In football terms, the rules were already in place for such an event. A 10 point penalty is applied to any club that goes into administration. We took our penalty with good grace and got on with it. I hear talk about £150M of debt. The official figure of £55 is the only figure in play and that included about £40M that accrued under CW's 9 month watch, being Ticketus and HMRC. Instead of talking about mitigating cirucmstances surrounding our entry into administration as I believe would have been appropriate, the talk in this country has only been about how to magnify the administration into 140 years of financial abuse and over-running the game and how we should be punished for all the sins of the game. The games 2 authorities both went on the offensive almost immediately, no doubt pushed into it by a baying mhedia that demanded far more punishment than the crime merited. New rules have been talked about, including enormous fines, points deductions, transfer embargos etc. All for a first offence for a club that has given so much and behaved so well throughout its history, helping many other clubs in their own difficult times throughout the years by playing benefit matches etc. I truly believe the circumstances behind our entry into administration should have seen our club excused the 10 point penalty, as it was something the "club" could not have foreseen or done anything about. Our club's company had been taken over and run by a single individual, answerable to nobody, shared information with nobody, and nobody at the club knew what was going on apart from him. I am absolutely certain that if it was the 2nd biggest club in the country that had fallen into administration in the exact same circumstances, they would not only be no talk of extra, new, far more punitive punishments, but instead it would be all about protective measures against the true victim, the club, from scavenging dishonourable men taking over clubs in the future. The talk would be of trying to get UEFA to give them a lcience becuase it really wasnt their fault at all, a big boy done it and ran away. Because that is exactly what happened to us. And now that the end game is about to be played out, I would not be too surprised if the authorities come under even more pressure to give a certain club even more of an advantage than they have currently by jumping on the throat of the defenseless but still fighting biggest club in the country and trying for one last kick at the beast before he gets up and roars back at them. No punishment? We have been punished far more than we deserve for what was completely out of our control. A 10 point deduction which killed our bid for a 55th title and no European licence for 2012-13 is a very heavy price to pay for a club that could not have done anything different. If someone can tell me exactly what "the club" could have done differently and why "the club" should be punished more than what was in the rules as they stood at 14 February, I would be glad to debate it. No punishment indeed. Not from where im standing.

In the annual accounts of RFC each year there is a section about related party transactions. This shows how much Murray Companies paid into the club to sponsor, advertise etc, and how much was taken out in reverse in services provided. For a few years in the last decade it was a ratio of 10 to 1 against. One year I recall was £11M out to Murray companies, £1M in. Thats a lot of "not one penny". I dont have a database of all the old figures and accounts, but obviously if you were so minded you could access it and see for yourself. For clarity, I am not saying Murray trousered £11M, but the profit margins on those services would not have been insignificant. Also, as BD says, the Assets that were sold to his companies from Rangers "at face value" and subsequently sold on. The contracts that were given to newco's of his that an independant newco would never have been able to get without any service history (Azure, Response). Those contracts with Rangers were the stepping stone to getting big contracts elsewhere (look, i've got the Rangers contract, you can trust me with your business). He did move money around his empire, most notably the £50M a few years ago, which was branded as cash out of his pocket into the club at the time, but he also was able to use our big annual losses against profits elsewhere in his group and recoup some of that. All easily checked on studying the accounts over the years, as has been done on the boards at the relevant times.

To pick up on Bluedell's OP, it is clear Mark is speaking emotionally about something he clearly fears for the club, but I have to come down mostly on BD's side of the argument here as a lot of the arguments are dual arguments and cant be used as reasons to back one bid over another as they apply to both. I cant do the multi quote nice wee balloon thingys so I will just count the balloons in nuber order! 1. David Murray made plenty money out of Rangers, of that there is no doubt. The price to be paid for Rangers at the very bottom is a relatviely small one and with the proper management, direction and foresight should see the value of the club substantially increase over the next decade. 2. I think answer 1 covers this. 3. The club has to be run on a break-even basis. This has been the fans groups warcry for many years and I dont see what difference the two potential owners would make to this point. 4. Unlike the TBK bid, Millers has no mention of the fans paying through a share issue. There is absolutely no proof of any asset-stripping plans and this, while of course could be true, it could also equally be nonsense, and the absense of any factual back-up tends to lend more weight towards the latter. 5. There is definately a link between club 9 sports and Miller. Ellis was certainly involved at one point. Miller now says he isnt involved (if I remember right from a few weeks ago). The Ellis question remains a big big doubt as he clearly is bad news. The only "evidence" of this recently has been rumour from TBK camp, so it has to be taken with salt. It will be up to Miller to prove he is nowhere near this deal, now or in the future. 6. I am glad to hear Miller is looking to promote us in the USA. With us having 3 USA international players on our books and a lot of ex-pats living in the USA, this makes sense. I dont believe it will cost a fortune to do this, but nor do I believe it will be a huge money-spinner, but it is certainly the right thing to do. Not to mention it might help our fellow Bears in NARSA see our games more easily and maybe cheaper which would be welcomed. 7. This is the main reason I have opposed the Miller bid to date, and favoured other bids. The newco route means no Euro football for 3 seasons. It remains to be seen if 2012-13 will even count as one of these seasons. If not, that will be 4 seasons without Euro football. Our club cannot expect to compete for above average players without the money from Europe, or the prestige of playing in Europe. We can take the example of the late 80's where we were able to attract Terry butcher, the captain of England, to our club only because English clubs were banned from Europe. The money on offer was similar, but the lure of Euro footy worked a treat. With the current financial model in England we can only compete with Championship clubs as it is, so take away our one big draw and this will see us unable to attract quality players to our club. 4 years of this will see a squad on the park that will not be anywhere near the quality required to be called Rangers players, and will make it almost imposible to be realistic title contenders for the next 4 years. After that 4 years is up, it wont be all change overnight as we all know it takes time to build a squad, so we can (theoritically) look forward to the scum getting near to 9IAR before we are able to challenge properly for the title. 8. We have every right to be suspicious, and when you have been championing one bid so hard to the exclusion of all others it is obviously extremely hurtful when your champion fails. Again though, the answer here could be in the undoubted value that buying low, selling high in business brings, and there is no doubt that Rangers are very very low at this moment in time. The difficult questions will come now that a PB has been declared, as indeed the very many difficult questions we as fans have been wanting to ask the Blue Knights if they got there, and we can only hope that Miller has the answers we seek. What we must hope is that this story is about a guy from North America who seen an opportunity to buy a massive club which is on its knees, turn it around and disappear with a big profit in a few years time. Not that something like that has ever happened in Glasgow before!

The cold hard facts are that TBK have had two and a half months to get a deal done and have consistently failed. They were duped by the Ticketus mob, didnt raise enough cash or get enough knights, and have only themselves to blame for their failure. Im as disappointed as the next bear that they didnt get over the line, but its not Miller's fault, nor D&P's fault. D&P gave TBK every opportunity to get the job done, and were ready to name them as PB on at least 2 seperate occassions only for TBK to pull out at the last minute as their deal broke down with Ticketus 2 weeks running. Lets focus now on the next couple of weeks of due diligence and wait until we hear from Miller himself on what his plans are for the club, both during and after this process is completed. There will be many questions to be asked of him and his team, and this is where our focus should be now.

Aaahh, I wasnt aware it was a retweety thingy that confuses the hell out of me. Who knows then!!

That will be tonights Reporting Scotland headline sorted out then wont it?? (no laughing at the back now)

If the RST are tweeting about a PB being announced in 24 hours, then that can only mean that TBK have got it after all. If it was Miller, the RST wouldnt be tweeting about it, and TBK would be throwing more dirt at the Miller bid in another last gasp effort to stop them being defeated. As for another rugger chap coming to be our CEO, and if this guy is a former MIH employee to boot, that is very worrying indeed. Our last MIH/rugger chap almost killed us!!

Im sure most of us would accept being in admin over the summer and into next season if it meant a workable CVA could be achieved and no liquidation was necessary. It would mean a further 10 point deduction for next season. The transfer ban is entirely another matter and is the SFA's punishment for us "allowing" CW to do what he did to our club. Motherwell only got 1 deduiction of 10 points despite being in admin for nearly 2 years. This is what prompted the rule to be changed to 10 points per season, as it stands now.

Just think Frankie, 1872 punters at a minimum of £100 a head gives the fighting fund £187,200 from one event alone. There is no doubt the money is needed as things continue to play out and one delay follows another, so everybody should get behind this as much as possible. For £100 you get your name up on a plaque inside the tunnel of our famous stadium forever more. I was sold on this before that added bonus but it makes it a complete no brainer now.