The football clubs of Scotland are happy to have been cheated for over a decade.
There is no other possible conclusion to the statement from the Scottish Football Association following the Supreme Court ruling that for over a decade Rangers (IL) used an illegal tax scam to cheat their way to trophies and prize money.
Falkirk and Queen of the South lost Scottish Cup Final to a club that failed to disclose full player payments to the SFA.
Why did they not disclose, because they knew that eventually their Employee Benefit Trust scheme would be challenged by HMRC.
Celtic lost five SPL titles during the period in question. Perhaps half a million pounds in prize money, the same again in merchandising and denied the opportunity to go straight into the Champions League or to enter the qualifiers at a later stage.
Any Champions League campaign would be worth £15-20m directly to Celtic. The transfer fee for a player with Champions League experience is considerably more than for a player who has played in the UEFA Cup or Europa League.
Despite these obstacles that have denied almost every club in the land a fair crack at success it seems that no club is bothered by these losses.
Concluding a brief statement from the SFA (the clubs) their board stated: “Accordingly, having had time to consider the opinion from Senior Counsel, and having examined the judgment of the UK Supreme Court, the Board has determined that no further disciplinary action should be taken by the Scottish FA at this time.”
The board and the clubs may not be taking any ‘further’ action but they may find that a number of customers will be much more careful about how they spend their money in future when a shrug of the shoulders is the response to a decade of financial cheating.
