29/07/89 TESTIMONIAL.AIRDRIE v RANGERS (1-3).BROOMFIELD - AIRDRIE.Rangers striker Maurice Johnston. (Photo by SNS Group via Getty Images)
Frank McAvennie has claimed that Mo Johnston was paid £1m directly into a bank account to sign for Rangers in 1989.
That transfer went through shortly after McAvennie left Celtic to return to West Ham with Bill McMurdo the agent behind both deals.
Agents were a rarity at the time, only the top players used them with McMurdo the first to be based in Scotland, breaking into the business during George Best’s spell with Hibs in 1980.
Johnston left Celtic at the end of the 86/87 season, joining Nantes for a fee of around £400,000 which was calculated by UEFA based on his age and salary at the time.
In France his game improved, he returned to the Scotland international squad and was the key striker in the campaign to qualify for the 1990 World Cup Finals in Italy.
With Celtic struggling badly in the 89/90 season it was seen as a major boost when it was announced that they had signed Johnston from Nantes for the following season.
Despite posing with Billy McNeill in a Celtic shirt the contract was never signed, rumours of problems started to surface, especially tax related but having been out of the UK for the 88/89 tax year that shouldn’t have been an issue.
53 minutes 50 seconds
Recalling a stay at Johnston’s home in France for a Simple Minds concert
McAvennie: He said that he could be signing, he told me in January that he’d be signing for Rangers. Jim (Kerr of Simple Minds) had a bet with him, he never gave him it, obviously, he never paid him but
Houston: Do you remember what he was wearing, when he came back and signed for Celtic?
McAvennie: He got a million pounds put away in his bank account didn’t he?
Dykes: Is that right?
McAvennie: Aye, Rangers put in a million pounds.
The more stories that emerge from that transfer it seems obvious all along that Johnston and McMurdo had a deal in place to go to Rangers with Celtic brought in to soften his arrival at Ibrox.
Rather than return to Glasgow as the first so-called Catholic signing the deal was made more palatable by joining Graeme Souness at Ibrox after snubbing Celtic.
Getting £1m cash in the bank would have been a huge deal at the time, top players in Scotland and England were being paid at most £100,000 a year which would be subjected to Income Tax and National Insurance.
Around that time there were tax related disputes over how Graham Roberts and Mark Hateley were paid at Rangers, in 2012 HMRC refused to accept a CVA which pushed Rangers into liquidation from administration. In the 13 years since then no senior Scottish club has gone into liquidation.
TAXPAYERS paid one million into his bank account…
Or certainly ultimately did in the end !
That shellsuit reset merchant isn’t even worth your pen Joe Bhoy. I really don’t have an issue with a player signing for any club – even the arch rivals of the team they support. If it happens to be a renowned uber fascist, racist ring wing Klub, then that’s on their conscience. What I do have an issue with is the dishonest underhand and disrespectful manner in which that “deal” was reached. It speaks volumes about Le Petite Merde. I sincerely hope karma catches up with him. May be he’ll come back reincarnated as a ginger fkwt….no, wait a minute
Editor: I’m highlighting the long standing lax tax arrangements at Rangers and how the old Celtic board walked into a trap then bolted. FIFA ruled that Johnston had signed a contract but Jack McGinn pulled out which allowed his Rangers move to go through, Johnston could have been frozen out of football.
He’s a perfect example of the difference between a Protestant and a Hun.
Absolute low life scum,still get angry,how he used Celtic in this shambles.All the crap about how he wanted to play for us,May he have a painful horrible life
Mo Johnstone, the man who didn’t so much rise above bigotry as slither underneath it.
Low life scum…Would love a face to face with the wee rat…Then… ” Oh definitely guilty M’Lud …ah skelped him good and proper.”
The Celtic board, meek and mild, anything for a quiet life. Any other club would have had Johnstone banned from football, certainly Rangers would not have let us off the hook if case were reversed.
Hope HMRC are on top of this.
One million quid or one hundred million quid, it matters not. It’s still 30 pieces of silver. I was in the group of Tims that were absolutely raging that we ‘signed’ this total ned again. Celtic were at Love St the following day. One half of the Caladonia St end was singing ‘Mo, Mo super Mo’, the other half were singing ‘Mo, Mo f**k yer Mo’.
Still, being a convicted criminal, that wee fkr found his spiritual home at Ibrox. He will never again be able to set foot in his native land. Hun bastard.
Hail Hail.
Judas bastard, never again to set foot in his home land hope he enjoys his old age
We should have used the legally binding agreement he signed and reneged on to freeze him out of football. He could have been the test case for Bosman transfers and won the case – five years down the line, aged 33 and with his legs gone, a beer gut and no decent offers to pick from. Instead of “leaving on a Bosman” a player could be described as “going for a Maurice”, which sounds like a euphemism for having a dump. Had we done that, he’d probably be driving a private hire car round Glasgow tonight. Instead, our clueless board of the period let him be used against us on and off the pitch while going full steam ahead towards the iceberg…..