06/08/11 FRIENDLY.RANGERS V CHELSEA (1-3).IBROX - GLASGOW.Rangers owner Craig Whyte (left) with manager Ally McCoist. (Photo by Alan HarveySNS Group via Getty Images)
With Manchester City being found guilty of 114 charges of cheating other football clubs there has been a frantic reaction reaction to an unprecedented story.
It is genuinely an unprecedented case.
Everton, Nottingham Forest, Leicester City and Sheffield Wednesday have all had points deducted for a variety of financial issues.
Bizarrely some have tried to draw a comparison with Rangers in 2012!
That claim only highlights the laziness and misrepresentation of the truth. Pushed by the football authorities and compliant legacy media outlets.
Rangers received next to no punishments from the SFA or SPL.
They had a 10 point deduction for going into administration in February 2012, beyond that nothing.
In response to administration they tried to sign Daniel Cousin while in administration.
Other clubs were owed ticket money and transfer fees but at Rangers they wanted to sign a player to make the team more competitive.
Back in September they club had stopped paying Income Tax and National Insurance to HMRC.
Every opponent in the SPL were playing players that they could afford. At Rangers they were using players that they couldn’t afford.
They could have cut their squad in the summer to match their budget.
RANGERS SPENT THEIR WAY INTO LIQUIDATION
Instead they splashed the cash on stars like Lee Wallace, Carlos Bocanegra, Dorin Goian, Juan Ortiz and Matt McKay.
Steven Davis, Allan McGregor and Steven Whittaker signed new improved contracts.
rangers were put to death by Hector for robbing the Queen. SFA did f*ck all except assist them in every way possible. Of course the SMSM will misreport as always.
— Saorse (@strochgarngad) September 25, 2026
HMRC caught up with Rangers, not the SFA.
Had the SFA applied Financial Fair Play Rangers could have been saved.
Instead the SFA looked the other way, granted a UEFA licence in 2011 despite the club having an overdue tax bill of £2.75 from signing Tore Andre Flo and Ronald de Boer more than a decade earlier.
Rather than live within their means the SFA hoped that a Champions League place would keep the lights on. Malmo put paid to that.
Rangers limped on till the end of the season, fulfilling their fixtures.
After that no one stepped in to take over the club, no one would take on their debts.
When Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth refused a CVA in June 2012 Rangers went into liquidation. There was no club left to punish.
Charles Green formed a tribute act from the embers.
The SFA created conditional membership. The new club was fast tracked into Division Three, ahead of Spartans and other compliant, solvent clubs in the Lowland and Highland Leagues.
There was no relegation for Rangers. They weren’t around to be punished. They were in liquidation by the time the football authorities acted.
MANCHESTER CITY AWAIT THEIR PUNISHMENT
No points deductions. Shamefully the SFA and SPL refused to apply any backdated punishments.
For a decade players had been used on dual contracts. Getting payments not registered with the SFA and SPL.
In July 2017 the Supreme Court confirmed that dozens of players had been fielded being paid through disguised remuneration.
Now that the verdict on Manchester City is out the spotlight is on the EPL.
What punishments do they come up with. Fines, points deductions, relegation and stripping of honours has all been suggested.
There is no precedent in Scotland.
Stripped of titles and hit with a points deduction/relegation City lose all of their appeal and attraction. Possibly their wealthy owners.
And then they will have to operate like other clubs, live within their means, spend what they can afford.
No one wanted to touch Rangers being forced to play by the rules.
If Manchester City go into liquidation they won’t find the authorities or media hiding from the truth.
Gretna 2008 replaced the club that Brooks Mileson threw fortunes at.
Rangers also went into liquidation.
There is no precedent in Scotland for the EPL to base their punishment on.
No matter how much the Scottish media try to frame things in that direction.
Rangers died by their own hand. The huns cannot accept this, nor that they did anything wrong,
The party line is that EBT’s were not illegal so they were unfairly punished, conveniently forgetting that in this case Contractual EBT’s which were used as disguised remuneration, ARE and were illegal, and constituted tax evasion rather than tax avoidance.
The club committed illegal acts which resulted in huge amounts of unpaid taxes, that in turn resulted in their eventually being liquidated due to inability to meet these tax debts.
Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs administered the coup de grace.
The incorporated entity that was Rangers died following liquidation from which there is no comeback.
Incorporation means that there was no separation of club and company, so it was impossible for only the company to have been liquidated, despite what the huns and the media toadies would like you to believe.
Rangers is dead. That is it.
What happened to them bears no resemblance to what is happening at Man.C., nor what might happen to the Manchester club.
It is a false comparison and demonstrably so.
They all reported it at the time that they died
It’s very easy to find online
No matter how hard they try to rewrite it
It’s all there
They’re a stain on the Scottish game. The new club still believes the rules don’t apply to them. Somehow they continue to field a team that they simply cannot afford. They have lost well over £100m since their formation in 2012 and their survival depends on the willingness of their owners to bail them out every single year. The SFA and the SPFL turn a blind eye just as they did with the dead club. That ended well didn’t it? If they qualify for European football next season, it’ll be interesting to see how UEFA reacts.
Its now well over 300 million andcounting for the first admin event.
…agree with all the above comments, as deed as a dodo….and yet, as a support we all cream our pants when the games come round and celebrate wildly when we win….just as if it is the deed club still alive and kicking.
It isny enough to claim they are deed for the moral high ground then get all giddy when we play them, we validate their existence and the survival lie every time we do.
I don’t and never will use that name to refer to them ever again, it’s Sevco for me.
Of course I get challenged whenever I do and get the old “obsessed “ thrown at me.
But the most argumentative are usually teenagers as they weren’t around when it happened and have never really cared nor wanted to verify the facts, older generations don’t really get too into it cos….they know basically, and generally retreat with a mumble.
We Celtic fans do more to validate the OF and the deed club than most of their own fanbase.
That’s just fact.
Until we all, en masse, start singing from the same hymn sheet, then maybe, as Ronan says, it’s best to say nothing at all.
For years now I’ve tossed up between the Sheep and Hearts for my fav game to watch, such is my disdain for that entity and all who push the lie.
Just my own personal opinion on it, and I’m sure there will be plenty that will never be able to see these games any other way than OF, but not me, over 60yrs a supporter and I managed to break the habit.
Barely watch any of these derbies, and don’t miss them either.
Spot on Bhoy4life.
We give them validation by adherence to the ‘OF ‘ Myth.
The ‘OF’ is as deid as Old Co. Gone and never coming back no matter how much the Moonhowlers cry and moan. When the Yanks have either run out of patience with the demands of the Ibrox hordes or they have screwed every last $ out of the Peeppul there won’t be nothing left but a shell and the boys from the good ole US of A will sell the ground to the developers and disappear Stateside.
Old unelected Lord Nimmo Smith in court decided on a £250.000 thousand pounds fine as punishment for the tribute act rather than legitimate title stripping for theRangers Mark 1 because he said there was no ‘advantage ‘ of play on the pitch using EBT’s and side letters ! Really !
So by offering decent players high salaries and top end bonuses and many other perks ( buckshee in effect ) to entice them to play at Ibroxland …then those were deemed legitimate and lawful by M’lud ! Did he not know that otherwise they did not have a snowball’s chance in an erupting volcano of recruiting these players using the genuine salaries and payment methods every other team in Scotland has to adhere to in the transfer market ?
The quarter mill fine never ever got paid either …not a single copper penny as by the time of the ruling in court the Mark 1 outfit were already in administration and ultimately liquidated ! Another farce of the rules .
I believe that theRangers going out of business in 2012 is the biggest ‘cover up ‘ in Scottish sporting or business history ? We will only know a fraction of went on there in Govanlandia.
There are a select few who knows where every body is buried and what actually went down ..and down …and down but will never tell ! Sworn to secrecy …in blood !
Some Celtic ‘supporters’ still call them ‘Rangers’ (Sic)…
I pulled up a guy called Phillip Cooney on Read Celtic about this and will forever as long as I’ve breath in ma body !