Desperate King issues fresh rant as Sevco are mocked in Court of Session
The South Adrican based criminal, who has yet to invest a penny in the club and who is facing Christmas in Wormwood Scrubs, launched his latest call to arms shortly after Charles Green’s legal team ripped apart the club/holding company/parent company myth at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.
At one stage Jonathan Brown, representing the big ‘anded businessman from Yorkshire told the court: “ The team are paid by Sevco, play at a ground owned by Sevco trained by a manager who is employed by Sevco, fans buy tickets from Sevco”
He added: “I realise that Rangers being the same club is a matter of life and death to some.”
In an attempt to deflect attention from those proceedings Mr King decided to go to war with un-named clubs who haven’t said a word since Lord Drummond Young declared Rangers (IL) guilty of avoiding tax in the Big Tax Case and enjoying a sporting advantage with players who’d have been elsewhere if it wasn’t for the tax scam.
Last week Sevco’s audited accounts carried a going concern with £2.5m needed to see out the season with some of that money needed in December with an assumption that Mark Warburton will sell off some of his stars during the January transfer window.
In a rousing rallying cry to the deluded the Sevco chairman claimed: “Irrespective of the final outcome of the tax appeal (which might take several more years) the football team had no advantage from any tax savings from the scheme put in place by the Murray Group.
“Throughout the period in question the shareholders were committed to providing funding to the Club. The tax scheme may have reduced the need for shareholders to provide higher levels of funding so, as I have tried to make clear in the past, any advantage gained would have been to the company and its shareholders, not the team.
“Certain players may not have signed for the Club without the perceived benefit of personal tax savings but there was no general advantage for the player squad, or the performance on the pitch. We would still have signed players of equal abilities if one or two had decided they didn’t want to sign under different financial circumstances.
“Secondly, Lord Nimmo Smith has fully and finally dealt with the legitimacy of the continuity of the Club’s history. There is no more to be debated on that issue.
“The team are paid by Sevco, play at a ground owned by Sevco trained by a manager who is employed by Sevco, fans buy tickets from Sevco” 1/2
— James Doleman (@jamesdoleman) November 12, 2015
“Finally, it is extraordinary that representatives of other Scottish clubs – who admit the damage done to Scottish football by Rangers’ removal from the Premier League – should even wish to re-engage with this issue. It is time those individuals, who represent other clubs, recognise their legal and fiduciary responsibilities to their own clubs and shareholders rather than submit to the uninformed ramblings of a few outspoken fans to whom attacking Rangers is more important than the well being of their own clubs.”
If the club could have afforded to put the £49m payments through the books Mr King could explain to shareholders why the club refused to pay Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in September 2011 and was unable to put together a CVA.
The criminal added: “This is a misguided attempt (that will ultimately fail) to rewrite history and defeat Rangers off the park when their teams could not do so on the park at the time. The history of many other clubs would have to be rewritten if this illogical argument was to be consistently applied.
“Having reviewed documentation that has become available to me I believe that Rangers was harshly and, in some instances, unfairly treated in the period leading up to demotion from the Premier League. However, that is now history and I have publicly stated, with the full support of the recently installed board, that we wish to put the past behind us and move on in partnership with all clubs throughout Scotland to improve and restore the image and quality of Scottish football as a whole. This will be to the benefit of all clubs.”
Yesterday Ibrox chief exec Stuart Robertson spoke of the need to build relationships with the SFA and SPFL with an early statement from the club advising that it was time for everyone to move on.
If there is no appeal from BDO on December 2 against the Big Tax Case every club in Scotland must issue a statement to investigate the EBT cheating seasons while finally nailing the same club myth.
Almost certainly Sevco will be in administration by that date, sending out some home truths will kill off the fantasies fed from the blue room of dignity to the deluded and gullible.