As an interesting tangent to the matters of Resolution 12 it has been confirmed that as far as UEFA are concerned the current club playing out of Ibrox aren’t the club that flopped in the 2011/12 qualifiers for the Champions League and Europa League.
The determined group of Celtic shareholders that have been behind Resolution 12 were never interested in the phoney Scottish phenomenon that allowed a club granted a licence in 2012 to take on the honours and titles of a club in liquidation while avoiding the pesky bills that delivered many of those trophies.
CLICK HERE for the UEFA letter confirming the new club status of the tribute act.
At the crux of Resolution 12 there is one simple question- did the SFA approve a European licence for Rangers knowing that the club had ‘qualified’ while refusing to pay a tax bill, which dated back to illegally registered players going back a decade.
The answer to that question is an overwhelming YES. Every document and communication confirms that there was a tax demand for £2.8m plus interest at 30 June 2011.
If the SFA had applied the UEFA rules properly Celtic would have been put into the Champions League qualifiers.
If Craig Whyte knew that this was happening HMRC would almost certainly have received their money rather than spending money on Lee Wallace, Carlos Bocanegra, Dorin Goian, Matt McKay and Juan Ortiz. For good measure Steven Whittaker, Steve Davis and Allan McGregor received bumper new contracts with significant signing on fees.
The sale of Nikita Jelavic would have solved the tax issue in a stroke, it would also have allowed the soon to be liquidated club to pay off Jelavic’s fee to Rapid Vienna.
Some simple house keeping by the SFA could have solved a lot of heartbreak. The fans of the club may have decided to march to Hampden but highlighting how the 2010/11 title had been won may have alerted the more intelligent supporters on how their club was operating.
All of these details have been uncovered by the shareholders involved in Resolution 12. For their own private reasons there seems to be no mood to challenge the SFA on a monumental error.
With the tribute act pushing for a European place with a going concern warning on their accounts is there anyone at Hearts, Aberdeen or St Johnstone prepared to stand up and ensure that if their club miss out it is to a club operating in the same business manner?
The UEFA letters will be a body blow for those that believe in the Survival Myth but until the SFA, who are in fact the member clubs, including Celtic, Hearts, Aberdeen and St Johnstone, bring transparency to the issues of 2011 it’s hard to take the governance of Scottish football seriously when the same characters are in place with no lessons learned.
CLICK HERE for more detail on Resolution 12 from Etims.