Despite TUPEing out of Sevco it seems that many of the events of the last twenty years have escaped Steven Naismith.
In 2007 wee Naisy joined a Rangers team full of players that they couldn’t otherwise afford as Dave Murray admitted under oath during the Craig Whyte fraud trial.
While Naismith’s agent wisely steered him clear of the EBT scheme most of his team-mates were getting a large portion of their wages stashed into dubious offshore accounts.
Captain Barry Ferguson had £2.5m put into his trust, Kris Boyd had a more modest £215,000 set aside, Sasa Papac had £319,000 in his trust with Nacho Novo enjoying a £1.2m nest egg.
Without those funds Naisy would have found himself playing alongside team-mates of the calibre of Jason Holt, Andy Halliday and Martyn Waghorn.
Every medal in Naismith’s collection was won alongside team-mates that were only at Ibrox due to the ‘tax free’ offers made by Murray.
Now that some sort of level playing field in terms of wages has been established it seems that the former Rangers (IL) striker is struggling to come to terms with the reality of life post liquidation.
“Celtic won the league at a canter and the fan base, everything, will just die away if that continues,” the striker told BBC Scotland as thousands of Celtic fans queued up for hours to buy newly released season tickets.
“If it’s the same old every year, it gets boring and Scottish football needs strong teams at the top.
“When you think back to when Hearts were challenging Celtic and Rangers for the title [in 2005-06], it was so exciting and it gets many more fans involved.”
For Naisy’s benefit that spending spree by Hearts led to administration in 2013 although their fans got together to avoid liquidation.
“For Rangers to be that far behind Aberdeen and Celtic isn’t acceptable,” Naismith claimed. “As a club, this is a massive summer for them to get to the stage where they are competing again.
“To be back in Europe again is massive for them and for everyone in Scottish football. They need Rangers to be challenging.”
With no overdraft facility from a bank the minute the Three Bears get fed up with their monthly donation Sevco will be plunged into administration with liquidation virtually inevitable.