When he signed for his boyhood heroes in January 2003 Steven Thompson picked up two contracts.
The usual type was sent to the SPL and SFA, handily there was another one for £475,000 paid into an offshore trust that wouldn’t be subject to Income Tax or National Insurance. Not a penny to the NHS, the schools or the Armed Forces.
To be paid £475,000 conventionally his employers would have had to pay out around £800,000. Thompson was at Ibrox for three years meaning that he effectively picked up £3,000 a week on top of the salary registered with the football authorities.
As his playing days wound down he worked his way into the Sports Department of BBC Scotland, perhaps Neil McCann (£500,000, Billy Dodds (£190,000) and Kris Boyd (£215,000) vouched for his talents.
— RhebelRhebel (@RhebelRhebel) May 16, 2020
With no football in Scotland since March 13 the authorities have had the difficult task of deciding how to conclude the season, in the top flight most clubs have played 30 of their 38 matches.
Celtic are the runaway leaders at the top of the table, 13 points clear with eight matches left to play. A ninth successive title was inevitable for Neil Lennon’s side, dreaded by the state broadcaster.
Across the board BBC Scotland have campaigned against the options available to the SPFL. None of them will come out and say it but following that through would leave the last resort- Null and Void.
No one at the BBC will push the case for Null & Void but their opposition to everything else leads to just one conclusion.
Yesterday on their football podcast Thommo’s high horse was hitched up between Sporting Integrity and Morals. Two subjects that he is ill-equipped to lecture on after accepting £475,000 of disguised remuneration over a decade ago.
BBC Scotland’s football podcast discussed deciding the Premiership based on average points per game, after 16 minutes Thompson shared his anger:
I’ve been consistent with this from the start. It’s morally wrong, sporting integrity is all about a fair outcome and I don’t see this as a fair outcome.
We talked there a wee tiny bit about league reconstruction, reconstruction, to take it off the table when it was the only way of doing something that was morally right to me sums up where Scottish football is right now.
CLICK HERE for the BBC Scotland list of players paid through disguised remuneration, including Thompson.