Jean-Alain Boumsong has revealed that Rangers EBT scheme gave him sleepless nights!
The French defender joined Rangers on a Bosman deal in July 2004 and was bought by Graeme Souness for Newcastle six months later for a fee reported at £8m.
From the moment that he signed for Rangers the French defender was linked with a move away from Ibrox with Souness making Boumsong one of his first signings at Newcastle despite showing no interest in the defender when he was available on a Bosman six months earlier.
Last month a BBC documentary claimed that Boumsong had £630,000 paid into his EBT with the defender admitting that he found the details of his Ibrox deal worrying.
“When I discovered it I first refused to sign the contract,” he told The Sun. “It’s important to be able to sleep at night without fear of being chased by the tax office.”
“My salary was paid normally, but there was a trust. I was not comfortable with that, to be honest. I didn’t know anything about it until the day I was going to sign.
“When I discovered it I first refused to sign the contract and said: ‘what is this?’ I didn’t want to sign because it seemed strange, we don’t have that kind of payment in France and I didn’t know anything about it.”
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Boumsong added: “When I left Rangers, for example, to sign for Newcastle, it was for a normal contract with normal payment but the day I was signing for Rangers I was told it was legal.
“I was not comfortable with it, because it wasn’t a normal way of payment, but I was told it was fine.
“As players we don’t know everything about the law but my advisors said: ‘it’s okay, you can sign it. It’s legal’.
“I wouldn’t have signed otherwise. If I thought it was wrong legally I wouldn’t have gone. It’s important to be able to sleep at night without any fear of being chased by the tax office.”
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Is there any relation again with Souness, who received EBTs whilst the blakcburn manager?
The Boumsong transfer to Newcastle stinks, both clubs, the player & agents all KNOW it. However the case has been investigated and EBT withstanding there is little that can be done I suspect. Newcastle were ripped off by Souness and it’s up to them to pursue the matter if they wish.
Not much good the player coming out with stories of unrest now at the deal years later after he has taken the cash or is he offering to now pay the tax due – which I doubt.
We should not get side tracked, deal with ALL the EBT’s keep the pressure on ALL who have benefited and highlight the clubs who have been cheated.
There is NO place for CorpseFC in the SPL nor the 1st Division. Corpse FC are NOT a football club, they CANNOT accept ANY fixtures so should resign immediately from the SPL. Only then can CuckooFC submit an application for consideration by the SFL.
Just because his agent said it was legal doesn’t mean it was. I wish HMRC would get a move on and expose the truth. We need to know how many titles they won by cheating.
Souness has signed players from Rangers for big fees,when he was manager of Liverpool,Blackburn and Newcastle. What was the £30,000 ETB for ????
The deals involving boumsong, ferguson, and tugay all stink but as a certain man has said ‘this is just the beginning’ I bet there are loads of players/agents searching frantically for the now infamous ‘side letters’! You will see a lot more coming out of the woodwork trying to absolve themselves of blame, maybe even a few ‘legneds’
TBH, if an employer told me the cash I was recieving was all legal and above board I would take it as a given that it was.
The blame lies fairly and squarely at the feet of the employer, with a little help from user friendly agents.
Expect to hear this excuse being used repeatedly in the forseeable future.
I agree. The agents are now going to be having the sleepless nights I think. The agent is employed to make sure all of this stuff is above board. they are on the hook. The players and other recipients like souness, ogilvie and murray to name three, cannot exactly pl;ead ignorance though. These three are the reason ranmgers corruption has been exposed. The SFA have a golden opportunity to clean up their act here but I suspect there are too many on the inside there to do the right thing. It would out too many people from the establishment.
The EBT’s were “LOANS” and as such the Liquidator BDO should be encouraged by ALL to go get the money back from ALL the people who were given the LOAN’s.
It will be interesting to hear what they all have to say once they have to repay those loans so the Creditors like HMRC can get some of the money owed to them back – How much was paid from the EBT’s £50Million or so, now that sounds like a nice amount towards the Creditors debt.
The admission from this guy on top of the others only makes the case for the titles to be stripped from the defunct Glasgow Rangers History stronger. The SPL should be taking action NOW to correct the record books.
Unfortunately they will not be able to take action against the New Club The Rangers as they have no connection to the old Glasgow Rangers whose history once corrected will be in the bin.
I don’t think there’s any argument there pat, ignorance is no defence in the eyes of the law.
When I think of the taxman, I’m reminded of Henry talking about the big boss Pauli in ‘Goodfellas’.
‘You’ve had a bad week, give me the money!
You’ve had a fire, give me the money!
You’ve had a death in the family (somewhat appropriate), GIVE ME THE F########’N MONEY!!!!’
Dead Rnager’s F.C used to boast that they held the world record for having the most titles. Well they do have the world record but it’s for a Scottish club having cheated more football clubs than anyone else in the world. Waow! what a record. . .dirty lousey cheating swines.
Just gets worse and worse for these lousy pariahs! And better and better for me!!!
been smelling a rat about this for years.
All I smell now is a stinking rotten corpse