Campbell Ogilvie has denied any involvement in Rangers’ controversial Employee Benefit Trust scheme and dismissed calls that he should step aside as the SPL investigate the issue.
Rangers players and staff were paid through EBT’s for a decade with Ogilvie a director at Ibrox during that period and also receiving payments into his own EBT.
All football related payments to players must be lodged with the SFA with Ogilvie carving out a reputation in the game as an able administrator who knew his way around the rules of the game.
Rangers brought Ogilvie into the club in 1979 from the Scottish League as club secretary before promoting him onto the board before his departure in 2005 shortly before joining Hearts.
Despite his vast knowledge of the club and promoted role within Ibrox the SFA President claims that the mechanics of the EBT scheme weren’t part of his remit.
“No, not at that time, not at all,” Ogilvie responded when asked if he anticipated any conflict in paying footballers through EBT’s.
“I wasn’t involved in the negotiations of contracts. If I signed off the accounts it has been in good faith. I was company secretary by name, no hiding from that point.
“We had accountants and lawyers. I’m not an accountant, I’m not a lawyer. I’m a football administrator. At that time I wasn’t dealing with contracts.”
As a club director Ogilvie had a duty to shareholders to ensure that the club operated in a businesslike manner but the SFA President paints a haphazard picture of how Rangers were run under the stewardship of David Murray.
Even though he had his own bonuses paid into an EBT account Ogilvie seems to have had very little knowledge of how the scheme operated.
He added: “I’m going to put my hands up. I was there. I’m not disputing that. I was secretary, no matter what the duties were. For a year of that period from 2001 to 2002 I was a director.
“Probably a lot of you know the way the club operated. There wasn’t that frequent board meetings. You certainly wouldn’t necessarily know, I’m sure the other directors didn’t even know, who was receiving EBTs.
“That’s just the way the club was. I’m not going to hide from anything. I’m just telling you a fact that I didn’t know individually who was getting the EBTs.
“There’s a difference between perception and reality. It wasn’t my duty to carry it out. I don’t feel negligent, no not at all.”
The SPL are expected to look into the issue of out-of-contract payments made to players on June 18 with the evidence from the recent BBC programme ‘Rangers- The Men Who Sold The Jerseys.’
If found guilty of giving players unregistered payments the SPL have the power to overturn results and strip Rangers of titles
Rangers are still waiting on the verdict of the big tax case where HMRC are claiming that the EBT scheme was contractual and not discretionary.
The Ibrox club would be entitled to appeal against that decision- with the appeal being heard by the SFA.
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We didn’t really expect him to acknowledge what was done was wrong did we?
Nobody connected to that club has uttered a single word of contrition. It was somebody else’s fault.
When the going gets tough on this one are Ogilvie and co going to start pointing the finger at all of the accountants and suggest they weren’t fit and proper for the purpose? They might not do walking away but by Christ they are Olympic standard buck passers.
“It wasn’t me. It was someone else. I didn’t know anything. I vos only following orders”.
A five year-old could come up with a more convincing excuse. But Mr Reagan believes him
allegedly, stupidly, biasedly ?
He says he does not know players individually recieving EBTS, but he doesn’t deny knowing about the scheme
HMRC need to ensure that Duff & Phelps are stopped from selling off the assets of Rangers on Thursday for their own benefit as has been reported. The sale of the Assets for the cost of the Administration alone would be criminal as those Assets would clearly bring in a lot more than £5.5million.
The sale of the players alone would bring in at least £20million then the Stadium, Training Ground and Car-Parks.
All of those Assets would clearly gross a lot more than the £5.5million they would accept from Green if they were allowed to Liquidate the Assets. HMRC have appointed BDO as their liquidators and Green needs to be told there will be Assets available to him for the low price that Duff & Phelps would have him believe.
sounds a bit like germany after the war no one knew or took part in anything.
He is a bare faced liar.
Either he is:-
A) Completely Incompetent
B) A Cheat and a Liar
Which is it Mr Ogilvie?
Clearly they don’t do responsibility either…as CEO, a member of the board and a benefactor of the EBT scheme he MUST have known what was going on.
When it became apparent some years ago that HMRC were going to prosecute did Ogilvie own up to the SFA of his involvement…if not why not
Anyone nailing their colours to the Ogilvie mast should go down with him or be complicit in any attempted cover-up and expect to be sacked.
The shambles that is currently the SFA needs cleaned-up from TOP to bottom..starting with El Presidente or simply be abolished and replaced with a fit for purpose administration
“I didn’t know anything EBTs. Buuuuttttt, I did receive money from an EBT myself.”
Sounds plausible to me. Not!
didn’t know just following orders, this defence didn’t hold much sway at Nuremberg.
I don’t know anything. However, he did get 95,000 paid into his bank account. I bet he didn’t miss that. Maybe he withdrew it one night from the ATM when on a pub crawl with Chick Young. Nonsense. Sack this reprobate now.
it wisnae me, I wisnae there, well I wiz there but I had my eyes shut, naebody telt me anything, they wurnae playing wi’ me,
I was in the huff, a big boy came in and done it, it wiz dark, I wiz aff sick….”I dont feel negligent, no not at all”. Only in the murky world of scottish football would this person rise to the top!
So he just signed off accounts blindly and willy nilly, also says he wasn’t a lawyer or an accountant, then why was he carrying out duties of an accountant or lawyer? The house of cards will come tumbling down when the blame game starts