Tonight Phil MacGiollabhain has revealed that there is a new tax issue at Ibrox with the company encountering the problems that crippled the old club leading to administration in February 2012. Four months later Her Majesty refused a CVA pushing the club into liquidation that has still to be completed.
Keeping upto date with monthly tax payments is essential for companies in the UK although a little leeway may be allowed with the Treasury running up unprecedented levels of debt to avoid a complete crash of the economy.
The funding of the club formed in 2012 by Charles Green has been something of a mystery in recent times. While Celtic produced interims at 31 December 2019 and audited accounts for the year to 30 June 2020 nothing has been published from Ibrox since June 2019.
In the year that followed the club agreed £10m in transfer fees for Ryan Kent and Pip Hellander, since June 2020 a similar sum has been pledged for Ianis Hagi, Cedric Itten and Kemar Roofe with the wage bill rocketing.
MacGiollabhain has kept close tabs on financial matters at Ibrox over the last decade, in August 2011 he had the exclusive news when Sheriff Officers for HMRC visited over the £2.8m owed for the tax scams used to pay Tore Andre Flo and Ronald de Boer.
Today an impeccably well-placed source confirmed to me what I had already been told previously by another informant. Now that I have ‘double sourced’ the story I can publish with confidence.
My information is that Sevco, around the time of the first lockdown, owed a substantial seven-figure sum to HMRC. I know the exact amount but have agreed not to publish that figure.
My source told me today that the outstanding monies ‘are being paid down on a staged basis’. Once more I am fully appraised of the size of these instalments and the frequency of payments.
Over the last two months two £5m loans have been converted into increasingly diluted shares but with the Season Ticket money from May and June likely to be running low the day to day costs, especially payroll will be causing concern.
A year ago the club had picked up the gate money from four glamour pre-season friendlies, four Europa League qualifiers and three sell-out Group Stage matches. Those 11 pay days are missing from this season’s accounts.
Since Dave King kicked off his Trophyless Revolution in March 2015 there has been a succession of benefactors willing to come up with the funds to meet the annual shortfall of around £10m.
If the club are behind with payments to HMRC the winter paydays could be a sweat with the pressure on Ross Wilson to deliver a worthwhile fee from Steven Gerrard’s stars when the transfer window opens on January 1.