If Rangers are guilty,they must be expelled

I can't believe it's come to this...in relation to the Rangers saga (why hasn't anyone labelled it Rangers-gate yet?) I'm going to use the example of Italy as a bastion of morality.

That's right, Italy - the country of the mafioso, the land of Silvio Berlusconi and his Bunga-Bunga parties, a nation whose football clubs seem to be dogged, every few years, by tales of scandal and corruption.

But, in Italian football, there is at least precedent for punishing clubs.  Even the biggest ones, as demonstrated by the Calciopoli affair.  Three major teams were implicated in the match fixing scandal, including Juventus, winners of the previous two Serie A titles.  The Turin club were relegated a division, started the next season on minus-nine points, and were fined £31 million.

They also know what to do with clubs that go bust.  Fiorentina were another club punished as part of Calciopoli.  When they went under in 2002, there was no 'newco' solution, not even a thought of a reprieve.  The new entity rejoined the league three tiers lower.

Now, the Rangers situation is hardly the same as either of those, but my point is that major European clubs have messed around before, and been suitably punished for their actions...severely.

And the actions of Rangers Football Club increasingly call for sanctions of which Scottish football has never seen.

THE CURRENT PUNISHMENTS
The SFA have already concluded their investigation into the running of the club over the last year, and particularly the deliberate non-payment of tax/PAYE on wages during the Craig Whyte 'era'.  An independent panel concluded that only match-fixing could be more heinous.  Their report implicated several directors as either complicit or having deliberately turned a blind eye, and suggested that expulsion from the SFA was seriously considered as a punishment.  That was felt to be too harsh, and instead a 12 month transfer embargo was declared.

Rangers had their appeal rejected by another independent panel...after all of about three hours, which may or may not suggest it was considered frivolous.  Incredibly, they are taking this to the civil courts.  Considering both independent panels have included a Law Lord, it would be a surprise if the verdict is overturned.  But going to civil courts over footballing matters, instead of the Court for Arbitration in Sport, is against UEFA and FIFA rules, and football's governing bodies have stamped down hard on this sort of thing before.  Swiss club Sion tried to appeal against a transfer embargo of their own earlier this season, and the Swiss FA and it's clubs were threatened with expulsion from FIFA and UEFA if they didn't punish Sion - in the end the club ended up with an astronomical fine and a points deduction which would have relegated them had another team not gone bankrupt.

Why are Rangers continuing to fight?  I suspect it's a delaying tactic, to try to suspend the embargo for long enough that they can sign players this summer.  Or it might be at the behest of 'preferred bidder' Charles Green, whose interest in buying the club would surely be tempered by being unable to improve the squad for a year.  But the onus is now on the SFA to stick it to the Ibrox club for taking this action, or risk being punished by UEFA and FIFA themselves.

Of course, this is only one of the issues Rangers are dealing with...

THE OTHER ALLEGATIONS
These centre around the EBTs - the loans to offshore trusts that the club used to pay players some of their wages without having to pay tax on them.  This was the centre of Mark Daly's BBC investigation.  There are two issues with these.

Firstly, the tax man thinks they were illegal and wants around £100 million in back taxes, toot suite.  Rangers' appeal against this demand went to a tribunal and the verdict has been awaited for about two months.  Obviously, if Rangers are ordered to pay up, they will be unable to, and HMRC becomes the biggest creditor by a distance.  For all the positive spin in the Scottish papers about 'doing a deal' with Hector, it is believed the authorities have their eye on several English clubs who have been doing the same thing.  Cutting a deal with Rangers would encourage other clubs to behave as irresponsibly, in the knowledge that, if caught, they can get away with paying only a fraction of what they should.  Some of the clubs, and amounts, involved, would be much bigger than Rangers and their potential debt - in the long run it may be in the tax man's interests to make an example of the Ibrox club.

Does that make sense, or has my train of thought gone wildly off the rails?

Moving on, the other factor with the EBTs is whether they were against SFA rules, which require all player contracts and payments to be declared.  If the Gers had been dodging tax, they gained an unfair financial advantage over other clubs - both in Scotland and in European football.  Each of those players would have been ineligible to play under SFA rules.  The BBC investigation found evidence of more than 50 players, and 20 staff, who had benefitted - there were some matches where the entire Rangers team might have been ineligible to play.

The SPL are conducting an investigation into this - you'd think that, if these payments had been declared, such an investigation would be open-and-shut.  What is staggering is that this investigation started on 4 March, and only this week did the SPL demand that Rangers pass them all the relevant documentation...after the BBC investigation aired.  The SPL's involvement in this, so far, has not covered them in glory...but more of that another time.

THE FINANCIAL SITUATION
Rangers run out of cash at the end of the month.  The players who agreed to wage deferrals are due to return to their normal rate of pay - and I believe, get all the wages they are owed from the last three months - or they can leave for a fraction of the fee Rangers would normally demand.  The senior players in this situation are:

Allan McGregor
Dorin Goian
Kirk Broadfoot
Lee McCulloch
Maurice Edu
Steven Davis
Kyle Lafferty
Lee Wallace
Steven Naismith
Steven Whittaker
Carlos Bocanegra
Alejandro Bedoya
Neil Alexander

That's 13 players.  Could a fire sale of these guys make the club even a total of £10 million?  I'm not convinced.

Duff and Phelps (more on them later too) require the Charles Green consortium to pay ongoing costs throughout the summer until a CVA is agreed, but the rumoured CVA offer - 6p in the pound - is so derisory that creditors might feel more confident if they were paid in magic beans.  Liquidation - however you put it, it's the same as going bust - looks inevitable.

This week, the English FA dealt with the case of Darlington, who formed a Newco after going into liquidation.  Their verdict?  Relegate Darlington four divisions.

THE FAIR PUNISHMENT?
The SFA have already sanctioned Rangers with a transfer embargo, and that was just for the actions of the past year.  If they are found to have been paying players illegally for about a decade,that would surely be grounds for significant action, well beyond the transfer embargo.  If they are liquidated - well, it is not unreasonable to say that were any other Scottish club liquidated, with the exception of Celtic, they would be thrown out of the SPL and their Newco offspring would be invited to duel with Spartans and Gala Fairydean for a spot in the third division.

In this blogger's view, were Rangers to be liquidated, and to be found guilty by the footballing authorities of having been paying players illegally, they must be expelled from the Scottish Premier League, and from Scottish football.  By all means then invite them to reapply for the third division.  But no other punishment fits these crimes.  There is nothing, except match-fixing, that they could have done in footballing terms which is worse.

But, if I have time in the next few days, I will try to go into how the SPL, the other clubs, and the Scottish Media are determined - against all ethics and morality - to keep the Rangers monstrosity alive - and why.

L.