After a flurry of activity at the start of September the SFA seem to have gone quiet on the issue of Resolution 12.
Stewart Regan doesn’t want to rake over the coals of the serial compliance failures on his watch but the Craig Whyte trial threw one particular issue firmly into the spotlight.
There is absolutely no doubt that Rangers (IL) owed HMRC money from the wee tax case on 31 March 2011 the day that the SFA approved of their licence to play in UEFA competitions the following season. The SFA accepted without questioning the application made by Paul Murray, Alastair Johnston and Dave King who were all aware of the overdue tax payable, as was Andrew Dickson.
At that time the club finally admitted to the HMRC debt in their accounts with chairman Alastair Johnston describing the still to be determined Big Tax Case as the elephant in the room.
Either the SFA knew about it and hoped it would go away or were completely in the dark about the financial crisis at a prominent member club. When the club was sold for £1 in May 2011 alarm bells ought to have been ringing across Hampden Park.
Had the SFA did their job properly HMRC would have been paid £2.8m in order for Ally McCoist to lead his side into the Champions League qualifiers and a potential £20m windfall.
Picking up on the story CQN reports from Not The View: “Significantly in Resolution 12 terms, it emerged in the Craig Whyte trial that Rangers had accepted liability on 21St March 2011 with no dispute for the £2.8m tax due from their use of Discount Option Scheme EBTs in 2000/2002. (The wee tax case.)
“This acceptance rendered the £2.8m an overdue payable at 31st March 2011 under UEFA FFP Article 50, a status confirmed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2013 when Greek club Giannina FC appealed against a refusal by UEFA to accept their application for a UEFA license in circumstances that very closely mirrored those in March 2011 at RFC including Giannina’s use of private agreements, which UEFA deemed breached fair presentation of their accounts and a reason to refuse a license.
The article adds: “It was confirmed in the Craig Whyte court testimony that the liability was no longer potential at 31st March, Rangers having accepted on 21st March 2011 that they owed HMRC £2.8M. Any discussions thereafter were not about disputing the liability but agreeing terms to pay a back tax liability with its genesis in 2001. There was no dispute, but this misleading message of ongoing discussions was carried forward in the subsequent monitoring submissions made by RFC under Craig Whyte, after his takeover of RFC in May 2011, on 30th June (Art 66) and 30th September 2011. (Art 67).
“When it emerged at the trial that the above justification for granting a licence was questionable, the SFA had no alternative but to instigate an investigation by their Compliance Officer, whose job it is understood is to gather together all relevant material and decide if there is a case to answer.
“That case should not just focus on the part of RFC in this saga but also that of the SFA in terms of whether they used all their powers to first establish the true status of the liability, then did they cover up the truth when it became evident an overdue payable existed in August 2011 when Sheriff Officers called at Ibrox to collect the£2.8m overdue.
“At time of writing on 25th October 2017 that SFA investigation is still underway and Celtic FC are waiting for the due SFA judicial process to run its course in order to be able to respond to Resolution 12 and shareholders.
“In 2013 Celtic’s official response to the Resolution, based on what they were told by the SFA at the end of 2011, was that the Resolution was unnecessary.
“If no acceptable explanation that clearly demonstrates that neither RFC nor the SFA have a case to answer emerges from the Compliance Officer investigation, pre-or post the AGM on 15th November 2017, then Celtic will have to decide if
a) they are going to stand by their initial stance that the Resolution is unnecessary, or
b) pass Resolution 12 and take the matter to UEFA, or
c) Justify not doing so to their shareholders
The club are keeping shareholder’s representatives in the picture as matters develop.
