It seems that things are especially relaxed at SPFL headquarters at Hampden.
How else could you describe the environment that asks fans to choose between Henrik Larsson, Jimmy Johnstone, Shota Arevaldze and Steven Naismith!
With all respect to the Georgian tax dodger and the walk-away hero of 2012 I suspect that they’d be a little embarrassed to be listed alongside two of the greatest players ever to grace Scottish and European football.
Undeterred and determined to prove their objectivity the article throws the floor open to discuss the merits of the four players with Gordon Strachan added to the mix.
Readers of this blog won’t really need to be refreshed on the merits of Larsson and Johnston- one scored 242 goals in seven seasons while the other won nine league championship medals despite paying full whack to the Inland Revenue, he also won a European Cup medal despite the same handicap.
Over on the other side we are reminded that Arveladze scored 40 goals in under 100 appearances with every goal coming in matches involving players whose full earnings weren’t registered with the SFA and SPL.
Among those team-mates were Tore Andre Flo and Ronald de Boer who had their meagre wages topped up through the Discount Option Scheme administered by Campbell Ogilvie.
Those payments created the Wee Tax Case which Rangers (IL) finally plead guilty to, for reasons best known to themselves the period from July 98 to November 2001 was dropped from the remit of the Nimmo Smith enquiry.
Naisy we are informed was one of the top number sevens through the mid-2000’s playing over 100 games for Kilmarnock before moving to Rangers. Every one of his medals were won at the expense of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, Rangers (IL) were fined £250,000 for over a decade of withholding player contracts from the football authorities. It’s not known if the fine was paid just like the money owed to 276 creditors when the shamed club went into liquidation.
If the SPFL wish to whip up Old Firm fever for Box-Office Doncaster they should maybe stick to the sixties and seventies when the former club from Ibrox only relied on honest mistakes to fill the blue room, tax payers from the Dave Murray era deserve some respect rather than gloating and goading.
