Many Rangers fans point to Sir
David Murray as to where it all began, many more identify Craig Whyte as the
instigator, but the reality is while both of these (and others) were massive
factors in Rangers’ travails, the most oft-forgotten one has to be upon Scottish
football itself.
That vote in 2012, to condemn the
newco to Division 3, has done arguably as much damage to Rangers as Whyte & SDM. Internally, they were massively at fault, and no one would ever
alleviate Whyte of blame for the plainly malevolent role he played especially,
but the ‘cut the nose to spite the face’ type hatred from the bowels of
Scottish football condemned Rangers every inch what our former
owners managed.
I fully expect SPFL fans outwith
Rangers to scoff at this, to claim I am ‘playing the victim’ and that Rangers
are ‘rightly reaping what they sowed’.
And yet, where is the evidence
for this?
The one massive jewel in the
‘hate the cheating Rangers’ crown is the Big Tax Case. The pursuit by HMRC of
supposed tax owed as a result of Paul Baxendale-Walker’s EBT scheme employed by
Murray was the
big stick to beat those evil Rangers with. Yet Rangers won the case.
“The majority view reflects the
argument that the controversial monies received by the employees were not paid
to them as their absolute entitlement.
“The legal effect of the trust/loan structure is sufficient to
preclude this. Thus the payments are loans, not earnings, and so are
recoverable from the employee or his estate.”
Baxendale-Walker, the pioneer of
the scheme relating to Rangers, said:
“This was tax planning which any
taxpayer – rich or poor – can use. We now know that it was legal and effective.
HMRC will now have to answer some very hard questions.”
So, no law-breaking there. Black
and white, as ruled by judges in an independent tribunal.
After this, the one thing left,
which absolutely was illegal, was then-owner Craig Whyte’s deliberate retention
of NI, PAYE, and VAT payments from players. The one which forced the club into
administration.
This was indeed completely wrong,
and the man knew exactly what he was doing. But did Rangers as a whole deserve
the punishment of being cast to division 3 based on the malevolent acts of one
criminal?
And yet, Scottish football fell
all over itself to beat the Club down when it had the chance. Everyone knew
Rangers would massively struggle to survive in Div 3, with critically reduced
income being the biggest component of such an obstacle. They even knew their
own Clubs would suffer hugely. But they did not care, because damaging/killing
Rangers was more important to them than their clubs’ survival.
A poll, carried out prior to the
newco vote, saw 55% of respondents say they would rather their own club went
bust than Rangers were allowed back into the SPL.
With small-minded petty hatred
like this, Scottish football and its fans did more to hurt Rangers than
anything we did ourselves.
Yes, Craig Whyte was a true
snake, intent on damage, and he broke the law. But the big carrot in the
Rangers-hating case was the BTC, the one ‘journalist’ Mark Daly so eagerly
condemned the Govan Club for – and he won a BAFTA for his documentary.
Which we now know was based on
absolute lies.
So yes, we take responsibility
for some of what happened – Whyte was our owner and he broke the law. But he
was intent on doing so, while our fans, management, players and internal staff
took the abuse from Scottish football head on. Oddly enough, rather than
‘punishing’ Rangers these days, SPL fans mock the club with Whyte references.
That does not strike me as
justice, it strikes me as a group of astoundingly petty, hate-filled fans
determined to make Rangers suffer where they can. Indeed, the fact the man is
actually popular among SPL supporters especially those from Parkhead, rather itself
symbolises the mentality.
This was never about ‘justice’
for Scottish football:
It was about hating Rangers.