The incredible arrogance of Alastair Johnston was exposed in court yesterday with a claim that HMRC would need to be educated in how to deal with Rangers.
Johnston was chairman of the club as they ignored tax demands in order to put a team on the park and bloat the bank balances of footballers through Employee Benefit Trusts.
It was win at all costs at Ibrox at the turn of the decade with a club wholly dependent on Champions League money to keep the wolf from the door.
Johnston was billed as a big hitter in the International Management Group who would unlock the door of investment from North America.
Typically nothing was forthcoming from Johnston with the Rangers brand virtually unheard of and certainly unloved outside of local backwaters.
With Celtic presenting a credible threat towards the Champions League lifeline panic was setting in the air as reality crept in at Ibrox.
Describing the scene at the Craig Whyte fraud trial The Daily Record reported: “The jury of eight men and seven women were told of a board meeting at the club’s Murray Park training complex on March 11, 2011, when the small tax case was again discussed.
The board were told of legal advice saying the “settlement would be the best course of action”.
“But then chairman Alastair Johnston said that HMRC should be “educated” about the club’s ability to pay. Minutes recorded at the meeting said: “Mr Johnston suggested that the discounted option scheme should be used to educate Her Majesty’s Revenue & Cutoms of restraints on the club’s ability to pay.”
“Findlay said: “Were you aware, as the Rangers financial director, the kind of pious hope that among certain members of the board of the Rangers Football Club was that since Rangers couldn’t afford to pay, the Revenue might say, ‘Oh, never mind’?”
McIntyre said: “No, I was certainly not of that opinion but the Revenue do allow time to pay.”
“Findlay said: “If you owe the Inland Revenue, let’s say from the big tax case, £50million, let’s go along and say, ‘Sorry chaps, we can’t afford to pay’, that the Revenue are supposed to say, ‘Well, who cares, we’ll write it off’. Pious pie in the sky.”
The trial continues today with Dave Murray in the witness box.