Rangers Tax Case Scandal

[StevieM]

I know Ross has been following it - has anybody else?

BBC Scotland had a doco on last night exposing some of the things Rangers have been up to.

Basically, they seem to have made extra payments to approximately 80 players & staff that was over and above their contract lodged with the SFA. The payments were made from an Employee Benefit Scheme / Trust Fund in order to avoid paying tax.

Where Rangers have got in to trouble is that these paymenst had to have been "discretionary loans" to avoid tax and if they formed any part of renumeration or bonus would have been taxable. So Rangers essentially are allegdey to have used them to avoid paying tax and also as secondary or unregistered contracts, which is illegal, as all details of payments to players must be lodged with the SFA.

How does this have any bearing on Liverpool FC, well....

A list has been produced of people who received payments. Souness is one - who received a payment of 30k while manager of Blackburn, some 10 years after leaving Rangers... and shortly after the transfer of Tugay from Rangers to Blackburn - the inference being that it might have been related to the transfer.

Gregoary Vignal is another one who received payments - while he was on loan at Rangers from Liverpool - 173k. Kyrigakos received over 500k through the scheme while there.

Vignal seems to have been, the only loanee to benefit from the scheme, bar one other player, who only played 3 games and I've never heard of.

McLeish, Arteta, Kanchelskis, Ronald de Boer all received money. In total roughly 80 players & staff are named, with a total of around 50m thought to have been paid out. Celtic are alledged to have used an EBT to pay Juninho, but paid the tax.

Basically, it seems that the only way Rangers were able to attract top quality players and afford them, was to run dual contracts and avoid tax payments. The question will be are other clubs doing the same?

 

[Irish_Red]

A few English clubs were doing the same (supposedly 7 includingChelseaand Arsenal can't remember the rest) but a few have settled their tax bills over the last few months, I'm sure there are plenty more though. If the tax case goes against Rangers there could be a few more clubs going out of business.

Watched the program last night there didn’t seem to be anything new in it except for the figures released. Souness getting £10k 10 years after he left looks like a bung but it’s already been investigated and they couldn't find any written documentation to collaborate it.

Would be no fan of Scottish football but have to feel sorry for their fans, Murray has to take full responsibility for what happended its entirely his fault and can blame no one else but according to their supporters its a conspiracy and its everyone elses fault expect their ex owner.

 

[StevieM]

i wonder then, if English clubs have to lodge contracts with the FA and that if extra paymenst were made through an EBT scheme, even after the the tax was paid, would it result in illegal contracts.

In Rangers case, the argument is that, is there were dual contract then the players were incorrectly registered, therefore any match they played in would have to be voided or given as a 3-0 to the opposition.

Be interesting if that were the case in the England.

Melbourne's Rugby League team got done for unregistered secondary contracts a year or so ago, which resulted in them being stripped of previous titles, and left them a season where they not allowed to win any points regardless of the result.

 

[Rosco]

I don't know about unregistered contracts but English clubs use the image rights as the way around tax. The Revenue are kicking up a stink over it though so it might change in future.

The image rights are paid to a company owned by the player and he "lends" that money to himself from the company.

 

[StevieM]

I don't know about unregistered contracts but English clubs use the image rights as the way around tax. The Revenue are kicking up a stink over it though so it might change in future.

The image rights are paid to a company owned by the player and he "lends" that money to himself from the company.

I would imagine that the tax would then be the responsibility of the player as the owner of the company, so they'd have to go after individual players.