His job title is Head of Registrations and that gives Sandy Bryson a prominent role within the SFA as they try to draw in the wagons.
Bryson is at the top of the tree for player registrations and contracts and knows more than most what was going in with Rangers (IL) during a decade and more of industrial scale cheating.
Conning other football clubs out of trophies and prize money is one thing, denying HMRC is quite another with the invisible man of Hampden Park as compromised as his good friend Campbell Ogilvie.
When Rangers decided to switch to tax scams he never said a word. Tore Andre Flo and Ronald de Boer came from Chelsea and Barcelona for contracts worth half what Chris Sutton, Neil Lennon and John Hartson were collecting from Celtic.
Something fishy? Not a bit of it.
In 2006 Barry Ferguson returned to Rangers after an 18 month stint at Blackburn Rovers. Incredibly Ferguson’s contract was for around a quarter of the money he was picking up at the English club.
HMRC turn up at Hampden in June 2009 and demand to see every Rangers player contract since 1998 pic.twitter.com/6pSAD7NEHc
— Barcabhoy (@Barcabhoy1) September 13, 2017
Later we discovered that Ferguson was picking up £2.5m in an EBT, Rangers (IL) would have had to offer Ferguson £1m a year extra to have given him that figure legitimately in his take home pay.
Perhaps some words with SFA committee man Ogilvie could have helped Bryson understand what was going on? Or with another dedicated SFA watchman Andrew Dickson?
In July 2009 HMRC served a Schedule 36 notice on the SFA, they required to see the player contracts- Sandy is your man.
@StewartMRegan knew of unusual scrutiny of RFC by HMRC in 2009. See proof below. What did the SFA do? pic.twitter.com/NCKU1GoInB
— Rangers Tax-Case (@rangerstaxcase) September 11, 2017
The content of the Schedule 36 investigation can only be guessed at but on the back of the Metroplitan Police raiding Ibrox it was obvious that something dubious was going on, it wouldn’t take a criminal mater-mind to piece the jig-saw together.
Bryson’s conundrum was that it was taking next season’s Champions League money to pay last season’s bills at Ibrox.
Any weakening of the playing squad would threaten Champions League participation and we all know what happened after Ally McCoist’s side got knocked out by Malmo.
For some short term pain Bryson could have saved Rangers from the cycle that led to administration and liquidation.
He shouldn’t be in a position to assist Sevco 5088 from the same fate- and neither should anyone else just wanting to move on without a Judicial Review of the decision making that cost every club in Scotland prize money.
