Rangers Have gone into Administration

ok

its starting

It's too much to hope for that the BBC News story - that Rangers' administration/bankruptcy would void the TV current rights contract - could lead to council telly showing a game or two?

There must still be value to Sky in showing Celtic games, I'd imagine they'd keep showing at a lower price (like half the current deal or so)

would have thought so but no doubt they will want to renegotiate the fees

The third division contract would get even more lucrative too

What contract is that? With the Auchtermuchty Express?

In what way is paying Whittaker, Davis and McGregor £65,000 for 90 minutes work in the best interest of the creditors?

"The reason it (tax) hasn't been paid is that it hasn't been sent. They were deductions that were made at source that were fundamentally used to fund the club."

Throw the book at the bastards

ssn stopped showing it but i just found the whole thing is streaming on bbc
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/scotland/8501453.stm

its finished, did one of the hacks whistle a grand old team there?

Who let onimo in?

Point that stood out for me: @STVGrant"On registered docs, Whyte company is secured creditor. Remains to be seen whether valid"

lol tom

it doesn't seem to me to be completely bananas to suggest that deliberately hobbling your team (whose continued success generates - directly or indirectly - what revenues the business/club enjoys) would not be in the best interests of the creditors.

Rangers, should they hobble through the season, will finish second with or without those three players. The administrator should be looking to increase income streams (only way I can see anything there is to cancel season books and make fans pay in, which I think most of them would accept - as there're very few other way to increase matchday income) or to cut costs. If you can cut costs without affecting the "success" of the team then you should do so immediately. Getting rid of injured guys on big wages seems a no-brainer to me. Someone like McGregor I accept may be different - if there's still a Rangers come May he's a sellable asset and binning him now would cost them in the long term, if they have one.

A lot is dependent, I suppose, on what direction the administrator's intention to "get out of administration as quickly as possible" goes. Does he mean CVA and pay some debt and get back to normal functioning solvency or does he mean liquidation/pre-pack? He hasn't said, or I haven't heard.

I've been off the grid today - any actual big changes/announcements from the press conference?

Don't think so... unless Kerr hearing Grand Old Team counts

I think he just hears that in his head.

Conclusive proof of a pro-Celtic agenda in the press, innit. We're all paranoid.

ok I'm just reading this (tweeted live during the presser) from the RTC blogger and WTF

Did Ticketus believe that their loan was secured by Rangers FC, but was in fact secured by parent company that owns no assets except RFC?

Administrators confirm Ticketus money not on RFC balance sheet. Note Wavetower name change to The Rangers FC Group Ltd. Were they scammed?

Incredible that Ticketus might have fallen for such a basic scam. Classic Whyte: it would be hard to prove that it was fraud.

Note: we need confirmation from administrators that Ticketus are not part of RFC creditors, but it is looking very much like they were done

It would be good news for RFC if Whyte has used “minor name change on last version of documents” trick, but HMRC issue remains. No easy out.

Have Ticketus commented on any of this yet? This reads live they've been fecked out of £24m.

dear lawyers, please note I am only pasting shit from other bits of the Internet

It appears that Whyte may have scammed ticketus by convincing them that Rangers FC Group Ltd (formerly Wavetower) was actually the Football Club.

Just reading that very same info, having been offline most of the day then stupidly coming here first :(

Struggling to get a chance to catch up, but basically WTF covers it, I think.

lolol one of the administrators said that the debt had increased at the club since the takeover due to tax.

Um, not paying any tax will do that o_O

That cannot be right. No way would a £24m financing deal be done on the kind of slapdash basis that'd allow that to go through (or be upheld). They'd've wanted some security for the loan too, presumably. Someone owes them £24m anyway, so if not the club then who and on what basis?

Ticketus story on stv http://m.stv.tv/news/scotland/west-central/297828-24m-loan-for-rangers-future-season-ticket-sales-went-to-owner-craig-whytes-company/

I'm never going to understand this whole situation whatsoever.

Very good questions IK - you'd think that would have come up at the presser.

As I understand it Whyte took over Rangers FC with a company called Wavetower. Ticketus loaned money not to Rangers FC but to Rangers FC Group Ltd, which is the renamed Wavetower.

Rangers FC Group Ltd paid the £18m debt owed to Lloyds Banking Group. Rangers FC owe that money plus interest to Rangers FC Group Ltd.

(I can't remember what order this all happened in but it's somewhere on rangerstaxcase.com)

I've no idea how Ticketus get their money back.

https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/21438

onimo's explanation is my understanding too - I assumed the Ticketus loan was somehow going to Wavetower to repay the wonga.com loan that paid off the Lloyds debt as I said upthread, but it never occurred to me that it would totally bypass Rangers.

Thing is, if the money from Ticketus didn't go into Rangers FC (the club) and didn't go through the club's books, and the money from Rangers FC Group Ltd (con artists formerly known as Wavetower) to Lloyds didn't go through the club... then Craig Whyte's secured status against the club isn't, um, secure?

I'm not a finance dude and I've no idea if that makes sense?

Celtic issue a "Get back in yer box" statement to Eck Salmond

After Mr Salmond's comments were reported on Thursday, Celtic released a statement re-asserting this position.

It said: "We are very disappointed with the first minister's claims that Celtic 'need' Rangers and that Celtic 'can't prosper unless Rangers are there'.

"This is simply not true. In a series of interviews given just three days ago, we made it abundantly clear that Celtic has a well-defined strategy and a business plan independent of the fortunes of any other club. That remains absolutely the case.

"The predicament of Rangers is clearly a serious and complex matter with a whole range of possible outcomes.

"However, we are extremely well-qualified to make our own position clear and have no wish to see this being misrepresented for political reasons."

Good on them.

Don't know if this helps or not?

http://www.kerrydalestreet.co.uk/single/?p=11171279&t=8648238

I'm no financial expert but this Ticketus deal sounds like a big, fuck off pyramid scheme.

Or can someone explain how it's not.

It's more like a payday loan scheme except Whyte borrowed four years wages at once

Ticketus' loan to Wavetower must be secured, you'd think, in which case it would presumably be against ownership of the club itself would be the security unless Wavetower has other assets. But as the club has been notably on dodgy ground for ages, I'd've thought a more likely route would be security by personal guarantee by Whyte, which given his history would presumably entail a further security-against-his-security over Rangers' assets, assuming that's possible.

Oops. What I mean is Whyte's floating charge is the one concrete asset of any value that we know about, so it must be the security by some arrangement or other.

Thinking a little more, there must have been some other asset to start with, securing the wonga.com loan. And future ticket revenue's an asset too obviously, though Whyte has no title to it personally and obviously it'd be cavalier to say the least to rely on that in current circumstances even before all this.

http://i42.tinypic.com/5kpq93.jpg

lol at the thought of Celtic fans voting to stay within the UK to spite Salmond and Rangers fans voting for independence due to Her Majesty closing them down for not paying tax.

Look what @STV_Andy dug up: Craig Whyte on 5 Feb "Believe me, every single penny of the Ticketus money has stayed in the club."

he didn't say what club ;)

Mark Daly on twitter: Strathclyde Police confirm they've been passed a dossier of info on #rangers and are conducting a preliminary examination of it.

jim w@tson and foolston and co must be watching whyte with admiration. (except the man in the white suit would never get caught)

I can't speak for any other Celtic fan but my vote won't have anything to do with this shambles. It does, however, reinforce much of what I feel about Salmond.

what is in the dossier though?

all politicians are opportunists. would have been no different had labour tories or libs been in charge tbh.

Dossier put together by a former board member. I imagine there's some substance there.

aha. that's big then.

amazing that whyte has been there a year and already made murray to look like a saint compared to him. Murray will no doubt bullshit everyone insisting he just made a mistake and thought it was all legal and all that guff . Whilst Whyte couldn't possibly have the brass neck to even try that.

He can't possibly escape jail can he?

He has a lot of previous for questionable takeovers and treatment of creditors and renaming companies and liquidation etc etc and his punishment so far seems to have been spending a few years in Monaco. He might be a bit fast and loose with finances but he's maybe not the mug he's being painted as.

yeah , hopefully they can get him though. but he knows exactly what he's doing.