Rangers Have gone into Administration

Fuck, missed quite a lot last night.

fwiw, I was in the pub with an Aberdeen supporter in his 30s from Johnstone.

pfunkboy, did you *really* support Celtic for a couple of years then chuck it in the double-winning season? Did your dad never try to steer you towards Hearts?

Rangers couldn't
sustain it though. The spending
under Advocaat was ridiculous.

You just noticed this about 700 posts into a thread about Rangers going bust?

Twitter detectives recommending that a knowledge of financial assistance may be useful. So here we go:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_assistance_(share_purchase)

You'll need to add the end parenthesis on yourself.

Also this question:

Imagine you went to the bank and
tried to borrow money. They ran a
credit check against your company
and it was good. So they lend you
cash. Now imagine you set up a company with almost exactly the same name as the one with the good credit
history and paid the loan into that
one. Imagine that

These were both tweets from @celticrumours who I think were the people who first said to gain awareness of EBTs, first one I saw anyway.

Re ticketus accounts (many many posts back) - I checked Companies House and learned two things:
the accounts for the FY to July 2011 (a) might not even contain any reference to the Rangers deal, depending on when it was concluded and (b) even if they do contain ref to the Rangers deal, if last year is anything to go by, the accounts won't be available until April/May anyway; and
there are lots and lots and lots of Ticketus companies (which suggests to me that each ticket acqusition is run through its own entity) so finding the Rangers one would be a total mare.

Imagine you went to the bank and tried to borrow money. They ran a credit check against your company and it was good. So they lend you cash. Now imagine you set up a company with almost exactly the same name as the one with the good credit history and paid the loan into that one. Imagine that

The financial assistance angle is interesting, though I would be surprised if a CW would trip over that easy-to-avoid regulatory hurdle.

On a non-law point: the silver lining of a rangers pre-pack and div 3 re-entry would be that I could manage Rangers in Football Manager without feeling like I was cheating.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/430838_303121856408896_159033907484359_778793_1493357579_n.jpg

I assume that the name change thing is to do with Wavetower changing its name to Rangers FC Group, I would take it to be an insinuation that Whyte's group have taken money meant for Rangers. But that wasn't a loan. Also, lawyers, it's not *my* insinuation, just my interpretation of someone else's.

The financial assistance thing, I'm intrigued. A well-known self-promoting Irish journo/blogger is also advising a crash course in the Scots Law crime of 'uttering' which I roughly understand via Google to be using false documentation to commit fraud. Please correct me if wrong.

I am making no claim as to the veracity of whatever is driving these rumours. Just reporting hearsay from sources that have been right in the past as I thought them germane to the matter in hand.

You're even beginning to sound like a lawyer now

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you're supporting the various thirdhand bits and bobs I've picked up on - I'm just a bit agog at some of the stuff that people are talking about and the way that they are talking about it. Suspect that this is not because the people who are talking about the administration (being, all of Scotland) are more stupid than average, just that it's butting up against stuff that seems obvious to me from the work that I do.

I don't know any more about uttering than you do, ailsa, I'm afraid - criminal is not my area.

I'm trying to wangle my way out of libelling anyone, your honour.

I like to think I've got a fairly decent bullshit detector, hence only throwing in the things from people who have been fairly correct in the past, and seem to take care in what they put out there.

I also found out that thing about all the different Ticketus companies when I went a-googling, but it meant little to me other than 'this looks like detective work for someone else'.

all the different Ticketus companies

It would amuse me greatly if Not Really Rangers had tried to rip off Not Really Ticketus and there was no genuine money or tickets involved.

Various claims abound that Whyte is now in Monaco.

Can see it all now, Whyte found hiding in a drain just outside Larkhall, dragged out and paraded by an angry mob of Rangers fans...

If Ticketus were to structure their affairs as one-company-per-deal, it rather suggests their intention is to keep each of their liabilities separate so it can be hives off from the rest of the business if necessary. Implying either or both of: they don't pay out in one go, but have an ongoing obligation to pay (e.g. maybe they pay set sums by monthly instalments over the period); or the money they pay out isn't their own, but is sourced from some bank somewhere. The latter is kinda obvious, but the important implication is that there's a bank somewhere in the background who definitely will have made sure proper security is in place, certainly from ticketus assets but also more than likely from Whyte. i.e. the suggestion that he's been a bit cute and has managed to get hold of the money and dodge any liability to repay is almost certainly rubbish.

Uttering is presenting a false document to someone, as if it were genuine, to cause them to rely on it, to someone's prejudice. It's not clear to me how this is supposed to fit in here.

I meant to ask - is it known for sure that Ticketus actually paid the £24m, or even part of it?

Reading some theories that the suggestion of uttering relates to contracts of employment rather than anything to do with the takeover itself.

The administrators say they didn't have sight of the Ticketus money, though this may now have changed, further info to follow relating to this.

Remember Banstead AFC?

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2012/02/20/rangers-in-crisis-probe-into-250-000-payment-to-company-belonging-to-craig-whyte-associate-86908-23758080/

Craig Whyte concentrating fully on Rangers now, which must be reassuring for everyone.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-17105626

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2104025/Craig-Whyte-used-24m-Ticketus-money-pay-bank.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Drudge siren.

whole thing just keeps going from barmy to mental

Was just reading that before coming to post it. Just... wow.

I mean, we've suspected this, but there's more to come about how he secured it. Guy's got a brass neck, I'll give him that.

Can't see beyond liquidation now. They've already gone into administration and owe £9m to HMRC. They are running at a loss of £10m a year. They are unlikely to trade themselves back out of administration by 31 March thus don't have the potential to attain any quick dosh via Europe (even assuming Ally learns how to win a cup game). Their first 25,000 season tickets sold for the next four seasons aren't going to generate any income for them.

And then there's the big tax case...

Yeah - here's an idea (probably already fully explored elsewhere): CW is the deliberate patsy, happy to take the club into a liquidation/pre-pack to clear the debt (and to take the heat associated with such a course), so he can sell on a pretty much debt-free new entity to an interested buyer for a profit, that buyer being hailed at the saviour of RFC, while CW nobs back off to the relative safety of Monaco with a few £m in his pocket.

Why would that new entity automatically be the successor club though? Aiui if liquidation does happen, everything's up for grabs ('everything' being basically league membership, which'd be vacant). If it was England, fans would already have the successor club in gestation, rather than waiting for some new saviour to appear.

I reckon Ticketus might have a thing or two to say about that if there's a new team of Phoenix Bluenose FC playing at Ibrox next year? Also HMRC. I assume there's a cunning plan to circumvent this too.

xpost, IK, I genuinely don't think there's any consideration been given to AFC Rangers by any of the fans.

I reckon Ticketus might have a thing or two to say about that if there's a new team of Phoenix Bluenose FC playing at Ibrox next year? Also HMRC

Ticketus, as far as I can see, have no security over the assets of the Club/company, so they may be pissed that RFC goes down but they are less of a problem - if whatever sum of consideration has been paid by them is repaid - or is at least repaid to them in a greater proportion than the pennies in the pound that they would get through a CVA - then what do they care? This line of thinking is working from the perhaps shaky assumption that Ticketus haven't already got security/comfort elsewhere re the repayment of the consideration.

I guess in a way it's not surprising; it's just not that kind of plucky underdog club.

I think what I am saying is we don't have access to anything like enough information to make informed judgements on what is happening, so we're having to make assumptions. And I think that the biggest assumption that I am making is that all of the actors in the takeover drama have taken (and followed) competent legal advice. If this assumption is wrong (or the advice has been taken and ignored) I am going to look like a div, but, hey, it's the internet, so I look like a div anyway.

Tickets will have security from Whyte though? That story said that at time of payment he wasn't connected to Rangers in any way.

Cross-xp to self: assuming that the successor club would want Scottish league membership. Imo they'd be daft to, having been given a blank slate to start from.

Yeah, presumably - if the story we have is that CW got T to advance the LBG-clearing monies in advance of the deal happening* is true, then I would expect that T would have taken some security somewhere.

*and this could have worked - T might have been persuaded to transfer the cash to CW's lawyers under an undertaking that they won't be released to anyone other than back to T if the takeover doesn't take place, which would allow LBG so see the lawyer's bank statement showing funds in it (neglecting to mention that the monies aren't released to CW), which satisfies LBG, which means that the takeover can happen, which leaves a small window of conditionality in the somewhat circular funding arrangement (and the financial assistance problem - which can be whitewashed) to be dealt with. It's back to sharp practice but doesn't on the face of it look illegal.

it's just not that kind of plucky underdog club.

Understatement of the century, They Are The People after all

That route looks right xp.

But who owes Ticketus the £24m? Evidently it's Whyte; I understand the administrators to be saying none of the deal is on the club's books.

So what about the future ticket sales? They're committed to Ticketus somehow, but they're revenue from contracts between club & supporters, and which haven't been formed yet. As the club are in administration, when those contracts are concluded, the administrators keep hold of the cash to pay secured creditors first, then unsecured. This would give Whyte his money to the value of the security, and thereby pay Ticketus.

If the contracts are never concluded, the same route is followed, except that the club does so out of a much smaller pot.

I think so, yeah, but the whole ticketus arrangement makes it seem more likely to me that there will be a new entity and part of Whyte's sell-on conditions will be that the purchaser will cover the costs of the Ticketus indemnity/security.

My Celtic-supporting boss was round at my desk yesterday, to tell be about how Rangers should take fan ownership of the new entity under the "Spanish model" and have it work its way up through the divisions. I suspect that, by and large, Rangers fans have quite enjoyed the Moneybags Dictator approach to ownership over the last 20+ years, so will be looking for more of the same.

Yes, a smaller humbler Rangers is a concept that seems to go against everything they've ever stood foor

Rangers Supporters Trust is led by Mark Dingwall, ffs, a man whose fanzine is banned from Ibrox.

So this uttering thing. Third party ownership of players? That's the word on the twittervine (which I heard last night, but it seems to have grown some legs and is being investigated).

my barber knows a guy who knows a guy who says an expensive injured Scottish full back and an expensive not at all rapey goallie won't be sold because their club does not own them

Aye, we must get our hair cut in the same taxis, or something.

Cheerio Matt McKay, we hardly knew ye.

http://sport.stv.tv/football/scottish-premier/rangers/298295-matt-mckay-to-leave-rangers-for-south-korea/

Could post links to lolsome Daily Ranger stories about Matt McKay but I think you can guess the content

Would it possibly be along the lines of "he's the Australian Iniesta/Messi" type hyperbole?

Rangers Supporters Trust is led by Mark Dingwall, ffs, a man whose fanzine is banned from Ibrox.

Corrected for accuracy - Dingwall is on the board, but he's not the heid yin, though is often their mouthpiece to the media.

http://news.stv.tv/scotland/west-central/298288-owner-of-sale-sharks-rugby-club-makes-tentative-enquiries-about-rangers-takeover/

you'd think they'd have had enough of sharks

Brian Kennedy, thought it said Brian Dempsey there for a moment

And Sales.

More digging into the past of the multi-billion-zillion-off-the-radar-trillionaire:

http://scotslawthoughts.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/craig-whyte-gold-dealer-leavebritain-com-or-the-tale-of-a-suave-bullionaire/

Brian Kennedy is one of those hard to tell but sounds a wee bit Timmy names.