Former Rangers chairman accuses SFA over licence

Former Rangers chairman Al Johnston has accused the SFA of negligence in relation to the dual contract issue that has sparked an investigation from the SPL.

Following yesterday’s outburst from Charles Green and Paul Clark of Duff & Phelps Johnson used the Rangers Supporters Trust to point the finger at the SFA.

In March 2011 Johnston sparked open warfare in the BBC Sports Desk by mentioning HMRC’s investigation of the EBT issue as the gorilla in the room.

That issue prompted the SFA to make further investigations before providing the club with a licence to operate in the 2011/12 season despite their last audited accounts being published in June 2010.

The SFA licence allowed Rangers to compete in the 2011/12 season during which they went into administration with the liquidation process currently underway.

Reflecting back on that issue Johnson told the Rangers Trust: “The SFA is complicit in all of this because they have not at least up until now had the courage to publicly acknowledge that they either ignored or did not really understand the well-publicized structure surrounding the relationship that Rangers FC had with certain of its players.

“I have been reviewing my files from around April 2011 relating to the annual routine of Rangers FC applying for and being granted a license to participate in organized football in Scotland.

“Because of the publicity surrounding our club at the time, the SFA wrote to us asking for more details about the public speculation concerning our financial and tax situation.

“The latter obviously referenced the impact of the EBT schemes as creating a potential taxation liability. The club responded accordingly and provided details, as it had done in previous years, by declaring player salaries, bonuses, benefits, etc., but also payments made to a Remuneration Trust.

“The SFA compliance officers must have known, both from the description and context of the reports, that such expenditures had some connection to player compensation. However, without any further investigation at the time, Rangers FC received its SFA license to compete in the 2011/2012 season.

“Rangers, therefore, were entitled to believe that they were not in breach of any SFA regulation requiring reporting of player compensation. If there was any question that the essence of these payments to a Remuneration Trust could have endangered the proud historical record of our team, then why was it not raised long before then.”

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