Could we have been more canny with our old debt?

[calscot 0]

If it wasn't for the BTC would we not have had about 6 or 7 bidders for Rangers last year?

 

I believe we could handle the bank debt and the WTC but it's the potential £75m bill that put us where we are and in the hands of Whyte - who either seen an opportunity to make an easy few million or is a patsy for the insolvency event for someone else.

 

All the bidders have now come out of the woodwork as the the tax case will be neutralised by either a CVA or Newco.

 

I think the question is that seeing as SDM reputedly lost about £100m at Rangers, if that is true, you have to wonder why he couldn't have left us in a much better state? Running Rangers properly and investing £100m should have had us debt free, successful and in great financial shape with excellent facilities - and a decent squad.

 

To be honest I believe if managed properly we could have been very successful and in the black without ANY external investment and EBT's. We might not have seen the likes of Advocaat, Kanchelskis, Hendry, De Boer and Flo but there's plenty of better value players (and manager) who would have done the job - at least domestically. In fact with good probability, a better job. Advocaat was mediocre at best against a less expensive Celtic squad.

 

If Murray had been savy, we'd have a healthy Rangers and he'd be £100m better off and not seen as a failure and a pariah.

[caseyjones 0]

The finances of MIH were the reason for Murray needing to sell, not the problems at Ibrox. Had Murray been able to shuffle the debt around again, he would have done so. His ego will have taken some pounding with all this. Whyte had his plan for us and he carried it through, helped by an unquestioning Rangers support, until getting rumbled by the media.

[der Berliner 3,820]

Pragmatically thinking, you do wonder what the impact of Whyte's problems with HMRC (beyond Rangers) had to do with our fall from grace too. It's all murky waters there, but if HMRC indeed had a bad relation to Whyte, they should get their fair share of blame too. And that is aside from picking us as their show case for the use of EBTs.

[calscot 0]

Whyte had his plan for us and he carried it through, helped by an unquestioning Rangers support, until getting rumbled by the media.

 

Maybe you should have been on this site at the time. He was questioned here at every turn. In fact he was given quite a bit of opposition here - I was completely on the fence playing the wait and see card - which made me one of the more supportive ones here.

 

I hardly think he was rumbled by the media, it was when he was forced to play his hand early by HMRC.

 

To be honest, we've still to see if Whyte didn't just profit from a very dirty job that really needed to be done...

 

If we come out of this with a CVA, new owners and debt free without the shackles of TBC then will he have done us a favour? If that's the case then how can you say he's been rumbled at all?

 

Until we know the full facts and motivation, he's definitely NOT been rumbled.

[caseyjones 0]

Maybe you should have been on this site at the time. He was questioned here at every turn. In fact he was given quite a bit of opposition here - I was completely on the fence playing the wait and see card - which made me one of the more supportive ones here.

 

I hardly think he was rumbled by the media, it was when he was forced to play his hand early by HMRC.

 

To be honest, we've still to see if Whyte didn't just profit from a very dirty job that really needed to be done...

 

If we come out of this with a CVA, new owners and debt free without the shackles of TBC then will he have done us a favour? If that's the case then how can you say he's been rumbled at all?

 

Until we know the full facts and motivation, he's definitely NOT been rumbled.

 

Apologies, I am guilty of generalisation, as there were people questioning him from the start.

 

The Ticketus story came out in the summer and was met with a denial, with Keith Jackson being banned from Ibrox for a while because of it.

 

Then there was the denials and threats of court action following the BBC documentary, only for him to admit that he had been banned as a director - five weeks later.

 

The Ticketus story reared it's head once again, with a partial guilty plea, before having to admit all.

 

Fuck knows what it will take for some to see that he has been bad for Rangers!

[calscot 0]

 

Fuck knows what it will take for some to see that he has been bad for Rangers!

 

Maybe a compelling explanation?

 

I don't know if he's been a net good or bad yet. But I can't see much of an alternative. What would you have preferred? Murray paying HMRC £10m a year for 10 years? Plus £3m a year to LBG?

 

Whyte looks like he could be pretty handy - someone to get rid of the big tax case, the rest of the debt and put us in decent hands for the future. The fact he's a pantomime villain even gives us the excuse that he's nothing to do with us and that we hate him, which makes it difficult to use him as a stick to beat us with in future.

 

Just what's your case against him that makes him overall bad for the club? Apart from lying, a few missing millions and the Arsenal shares, what is his huge negative effect?

[Zappa 0]

Selling over £40m worth of future season tickets for £24m is pretty damn negative cal.

[stewarty 2,060]

What has killed us has been the shitstorm of MIH, and in turn the club (per AJ), being pressured by Lloyds for the club to be sold to a new owner; that owner being a complete shyster who made a number of false promises, gambled on Champions League income to keep the club afloat in the short term (imo) and then had to use monies due to HMRC for PAYE, NI & VAT as well as increasingly desperate financing deals with the likes of Ticketus and Close Brothers to maintain the facade of control. All the while he has weaved an increasingly complex web of company securities and solicitor accounts to protect his interest and further reduce the risk he will not get a pay off for his trouble. How CW can be seen as anything other than a morally ambiguous chancer is beyond me.

[forlanssister 3,114]

Maybe a compelling explanation?

 

I don't know if he's been a net good or bad yet. But I can't see much of an alternative. What would you have preferred? Murray paying HMRC £10m a year for 10 years? Plus £3m a year to LBG?

 

Whyte looks like he could be pretty handy - someone to get rid of the big tax case, the rest of the debt and put us in decent hands for the future. The fact he's a pantomime villain even gives us the excuse that he's nothing to do with us and that we hate him, which makes it difficult to use him as a stick to beat us with in future.

 

Just what's your case against him that makes him overall bad for the club? Apart from lying, a few missing millions and the Arsenal shares, what is his huge negative effect?

 

Who failed to publish accounts?

 

Who failed to hold an AGM?

 

Whose incompetence has cost us a minimum 1 year ban from Europe?

 

Who neglected to reveal their banning as company director?

[Zappa 0]

How CW can be seen as anything other than a morally ambiguous chancer is beyond me.

 

That's putting it extremely politely as well stewarty! His recent interview with Delahunt was quite incredible. If he wasn't telling bare-faced lies he was completely avoiding answering the questions with anything remotely resembling a credible answer.

 

Delahunt: Are you up on where the rest of the Ticketus money is?

Whyte: Every penny of the Ticketus deal went into the club.

 

Delahunt: How do you explain that Duff & Phelps say it didn’t?

Whyte: The money is still in the Collyer Bristow client account but that’s not part of the Ticketus money.

 

Delahunt: What is that money, then?

Whyte: I’m not going to go into that but every penny from Ticketus went into the club.

 

Ladies & Gentlemen!

 

We give you Craig Whyte: Con artist, fraudster, swindler, scammer, pathological liar and mythomaniac.

Edited April 13, 2012 by Zappa