The architect of Rangers’ administration and liquidation has claimed that the old club won the battle with Celtic. And it’s not the race to the footballing morgue.
Al Johnston was the chairman of Rangers who failed to declare the £2.8m outstanding tax bill when the old club applied for a UEFA licence in March 2011.
Had he owed up to the bill, the club would either have had to settle with Her Majesty or been barred from taking part in the 2011/12 Champions League qualifiers.
Either scenario would probably have scared off Craig Whyte.
With the help of Campbell Ogilvie, Rod Petrie and Andrew Dickson UEFA’s licence rules on tax debts were broken with Whyte taking charge of the club in May 2011. Nine months later the club was in administration, when a CVA was rejected in June 2012 the liquidation process began.
Johnston spoke today to the Press Association, denying and defying company law he made a case for the club formed by Charles Green in 2012 being the same as the one that went into liquidation that year. With the SFA, SPL, SFL and SPFL all refusing to report on the reality of going into liquidation the continuity lie has gained momentum.
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The Sun reports Johnston saying:
I left after we won the title for the third time in a row in 2011 and I wasn’t believing my ears about what was going on at the club and where it was going. You were hearing all the words like the Rangers have disappeared, they have died, it was a new club and all the stuff which self-interested people tried to maintain.
I always wondered about the mentality of certain Celtic supporters, not by any means most of them, who basically said our club died in February, 2012. You know what? If that was the end of Rangers and Celtic and if that was the end of the big game that started in 1888 (the first Old Firm meeting) all the way to 2012 – we won that game.
The way you determine it by the number of times (54) we won the top division. We were ahead in February, 2012 and in head-to-head victories, we were ahead of Celtic in 2012. So if you wanted to say the old Rangers of 1872 died – we beat you 2-0 and when the game started again in 2012, it will be 120 years or so before you can tie with us.
The new ‘Rangers’ started the 2012/13 season in the Scottish Third Division, played in the first round of the League Cup and Scottish Cup and also the SFL Challenge Cup. Motherwell represented Scotland in the Champions League qualifiers.
RANGERS DISAPPEARED- CLICK HERE for what Peter Lawwell told Celtic shareholders.