Arthur Numan has given the EBT game away by admitting that he only played for Rangers (IL) for money.
Ronald de Boer, Barry Ferguson and Alex Rae have all claimed in the past that the glory and excitement of playing for the club lured them to Ibrox rather than the massive offshore payments that their agents were arranging to avoid tax.
Numan joined Rangers in 1998 from PSV Eindhoven on what was believed to be an ordinary contract.
In November 2001 at the age of 32 he was weighed in with a new contract which gave him £510,000 ‘tax free’ while keeping him to Ibrox for a further 18 months.
That deal was worth around £6,500 per week to the player. Going by the rules that every other club used Rangers would have had to pay him £10,000 per week to have the same effect. The SFA and SPL weren’t given details of Numan’s EBT payments.
Effectively Sevco saved £270,000 by denying Her Majesty her share of the wages. In July 2017 the Supreme Court ruled the scheme was disguised remuneration.
Speaking to Simon Ferry on Open Goal Numan said: “I was discussing another contract in the January with Martin Bain in the Dubai training camp and they offered me a contract but I thought they were taking the mickey.
“Before that I had spoke to them and I said ‘I know the situation with the club but I’m happy and I’ve always been treated well’ and I wanted to take a wage cut of 40%. But they offered me a contract that I think was 80% less.
“It didn’t feel good to accept that offer so unfortunately I had to leave. I had five great seasons and I had the best time of my career in Scotland
At the age of 33 Numan retired never to play again.
