Alex McLeish believes that his tax cheats of 2003 were a better side that Brendan Rodgers treble chasers.
While Celtic were at full stretch reaching the UEFA Cup Final and paying HMRC in full, McLeish’s side were knocked out of the Europe by Viktoria Zizkov in the first round and picked up the treble with the bulk of the squad having their wages topped up by EBTs.
In most circumstances using players that don’t have their full payment details disclosed to the football authorities would result in a 3-0 defeat but so far no action has been taken on the EBT years at Ibrox.
McLeish himself enjoyed a £1.7m EBT from his time at Ibrox but with those secret deals uncovered it’s expected that HMRC will be issuing fresh demands which will include penalties and interest for everyone that enjoyed the good times at Ibrox.
Speaking yesterday at an event to promote the weekend Scottish Cup semi-finals the former Scotland boss was asked to compare the current Celtic side with the teams from his era.
“I read Johan Mjallby’s comments on Tuesday and I’d have to agree with him,” McLeish told The Sun. “Martin O’Neill’s team was full of experienced men.
“I don’t believe this current Celtic team would beat Martin’s team. Would they beat my Treble- winning team? Of course not!”
After flopping in the 2002/03 UEFA Cup, Rangers (IL) finished bottom of their 2003/04 Champions League group losing their last four matches after opening up with a home win over Stuttgart and drawing away to Panathinaikos.
Celtic won the SPL title by 17 points, including a whitewash of the derby fixtures with the treble winners of the previous season finishing up with no trophies 12 months later.
CLICK HERE for the BBC list of Rangers EBT payments.