RTC nails down how Dave Murray killed Rangers as the Mainstream deflects and denies

Running parallel to the death and liquidation of Rangers has been the shoddy denial of the facts and issues across Scotland. From those inside Ibrox, the football authorities and sadly the executives of Celtic who struggle to identify themselves without their O** F*** business buddies.

There is plenty of evidence from the eighties and nineties of suspect tax practises but feeding Dick Advocaat and the ego of Dave Murray cheered on by his media messengers ultimately paved the way to administration and liquidation.

As Celtic tooled up under Martin O’Neill, Murray turned to tax scams to recruit Ronald de Boer and Tore Andre Flo. Strikers recruited from Barcelona and Chelsea had token contracts registered with the SPL and SFA, David Taylor and Roger Mitchell said nothing as they enjoyed the commissions and bonuses from commercial deals on the back of the O** F***.

From being one off deals for Flo and de Boer, tax scams became the normal way to recruit players to Ibrox that couldn’t be afforded. Even ‘talents’ like Alex Rae and Steven Thompson were in on it, by 2005 most of the dressing room had their own offshore Trusts denying Inland Revenue of Income Tax and National Insurance.

At some stage Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs got suspicious, HMRC replaced the revenue in 2005 but they were met with denials from Ibrox with little appetite to investigate in Scotland. Way too many vested interests at stake, Murray was popular and very well linked.

In July 2007 the game changer arrived. City of London Police raided Ibrox in connection with on-going investigations at English clubs, some of the paperwork they uncovered was handed to HMRC. Suddenly the Jean-Alian Boomsong deal would become very costly. Very.

Murray being Murray he dug in and denied but after years of trying to offload the club he took £1 from a former billionaire, it seems that the background check was a look at the Daily Record.

Now we know that HMRC was cheated out of £56m in Income Tax and National Insurance so that players could be attracted to Rangers in a bid to stop Celtic and other clubs winning trophies, prize money and European places.

Not a word will be uttered by anyone inside the cosy world of Scottish football where Campbell Ogilvie, Rod Petrie and Andrew Dickson continue to prosper.

Llewellin joined The Times in August 2016 following five years and eight months at The Herald.

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