Paul Murray has admitted that Sevco aren’t likely to find a NOMAD and has pleaded with the SFA to ignore their rules to allow Dave King to join him on a new look board of directors.
The evening before the EGM Mr King promised a NOMAD within days after WH Ireland had walked out on Sevco but the company that runs the club has only got four more working days to find a NOMAD or be de-listed from the Alternative Investment Market.
Mr Murray was a director of Rangers until May 2011 with Mr King remaining on the board until liquidation in June 2016. According to SFA regulations anyone on the board of a club in the two years prior to liquidation is barred from holding office in another club for five years.
Speaking to the club’s TV station today Mr Murray admitted: “The decision taken by WH Ireland, the previous NOMAD, to resign on March 4 triggered a suspension of the club’s shares on the AIM market on that day and you then, under that regulation, have 30 days to lift that suspension.
“There are two separate issues here, firstly the nomad replacing the previous nomad, which we are in discussions to try and do but there is also the AIM regulator as well and they have to be satisfied with the company and the procedures around the company.
“We have until April 4 to do that but that timescale wasn’t to our choosing, it was actually forced upon us by the resignation of WH Ireland and we’re working very hard to comply with that timescale.
“We have said all along that Rangers International Football Club is a public company and that decision was taken some time ago, whether it should be a listed company is another question.
“We have said that we will endeavour to have the listing restarted and have the suspension lifted so that is what we will do and that is the plan we have.”
With it highly unlikely than any Nominated Adviser will deal with the toxic combination of Mr King, who was described as a glib and shameless liar by a South African judge in a case in which he was handed 41 two year prison terms, and Sevco attention will turn to the SFA to see if they overturn their own rules on liquidation.
In any discussions one of the first questions that should be put to Mr Murray and Mr King would be why they didn’t object to the £5m spending spree in 2010 to bring in Nikica Jelavic and James Beattie when the club owed HMRC £6m for the wee tax case going back a decade to the payments made to Tore Andre Flo, Craig Moore and Ronald de Boer.
Looking to that issue Mr Murray said: “The processes regarding both mine and Dave’s fit and proper persons test are pretty advanced.
“We have said, and we will honour the fact that, we want to rebuild the relationship with all the governing bodies and we have to respect their processes and procedures and we will do that.
“One of them is fit and proper test for all the directors, not just Dave and I but also the two Johns and James Blair.
“That process is ongoing, there is a lot of due diligence that the SFA have to do and we respect that these things have to be done properly and gone through carefully.
“We expect to get an answer at some point in the near future. One of the reasons Dave chose not to go on the board was because we wanted to respect those processes.”
Should Mr King and Mr Murray both become directors it leaves the door open for HMRC to go after a phoenix company for the £20m unpaid at the time of liquidation as well as the ongoing appeal over the Big Tax Case.