Deluded Ally McCoist believes that Scottish football isn’t a level playing field.
Without going into detail the £800,000-a-year manager of the League One Champions made the claim as he previewed his club’s Scottish Cup third round tie away to Dumbarton at the Betty Butler Stadium.
It’s three years since McCoist last managed in the top division when his shameless club competed against 11 teams that were making monthly payments to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Custom’s while the Ibrox side paid their players net of tax.
For the previous decade, under Sir Dave Murray, the Ibrox club recruited stars like Nuno Capucho, Christian Nerlinger, Artur Numan, Stefan Klos, Dado Prso and others thanks to the Employee Benefit Trust that paid the players through a loan with no repayment schedule.
Prior to that using his close relationship with the Bank of Scotland Murray had access to an unlimited overdraft facility for over a decade with the government forced in 2008 to bail out the toxic debt accrued by Lloyds TSB who had taken on the Rangers (IL) account.
Since Rangers went into administration teams such as Kilmarnock, St Mirren, St Johnstone and Aberdeen have celebrated trophy successes with no financially doped rivals competing for honours.
As he prepares for just the second semi of his management career McCoist ventured into the subject of mind games despite his club lurching with administration and relying on Micky Ashley’s life support machine to meet the October payroll.
Discussing tomorrow’s League Cup semi final draw the former Question of Sport skipper said: “Ronny would be 100 per cent right in his beliefs if it was a normal playing field. But I don’t think anyone can argue that in recent years, Scottish football has been anything but a normal playing field.
“We have got three of the top five clubs in the country playing in the division below the top flight. So that doesn’t make it a normal playing field.”
Hearts and Hibs, who have both won at Ibrox this season, are in the second tier because there are twelve better teams than them, the Gorgie side finishing bottom of the Premiership last season with Hibs losing out in a play-off to Hamilton Accies. Neither club has deliberately withheld social taxes from HMRC.
Rather than indulge in spending way beyond their means the two Edinburgh clubs, and all but two Scottish senior clubs, have published audited accounts for the 2013/14 season recording that they remain a going concern.
Unfortunately the playing field in the Championship is far from normal with no sign of interest from the SFA or SPFL about the finances of the club from Ibrox.
Once the SFA insist of audited accounts for membership Scottish football will be on a normal playing field with clubs like Queens Park, Inverness Caley Thistle, Falkirk, Dumbarton and St Johnstone not getting punished on the pitch for living within their means off it.
