Laughing At Rangers Stops Us Crying For Scottish Football

APOLOGIES for the delay in posting this piece, but, I have only just stopped laughing at Tuesday night's events in Luxembourg. You really have to laugh at Rangers going out of Europe, at the first hurdle – beaten by: “The fourth-best team in Luxembourg”.

I say, you have to laugh – the alternative, and believe you me, it is a horrible alternative, would be to burst into tears at the state of Scottish fitba.

Rangers have been in a mess for most, if not all of the present century. As someone who was around Scottish basketball when the then Mr David Murray took it rapidly down the road to ruin by the way he ran his team: Murray International Metals.

Sir David Murray - picture courtesy of SNS Group

He recruited the best Scottish players, then added expensive imports including coaches, spending way above the budgets of the other Scottish clubs, in an effort to win in Europe – then, when a bigger toy – Rangers – came along, he dropped the sport.

He wasted money on big-name coaches and players and, as the other basketball clubs beggared themselves trying to compete, Scottish basketball went downhill, rapidly.

Does that story seem familiar. There is no sign now of MIM, and some other basketball teams from the MIM era, while the overall game in Scotland is much-reduced. At least, in spite of Rangers' liquidation and insolvency events involving some other clubs, Scottish football endures, but, much-reduced.

Post Murray, the chancers who feasted on the corpse of Rangers got it even more wrong than the knight of the realm managed. They tried, and failed, to convince the public their new Rangers was old Rangers – they did the things Rangers had always done, and it didn't work.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but, maybe if, back at the start, in the bottom division, Ragners had trusted in their young players and allowed them to grow and flourish during the climb through the leagues, maybe they'd have been able to put-out, on Tuesday night, a team capable of beating a team of Luxembourg part-timers.

But, they didn't and we have all had a good laugh at Rangers' expense.

Now, to the other part of this week's theme of: “Let's all laugh at Rangers”, the outcome of The Big Tax Case.

I have some sympthy for the club, and for Sir David. For a start, nobody likes paying tax, anyone who says they do is a liar. Taxes, like death, are inevitable. We MUST pay them, but, we would all rather pay less.

Footballers have short careers, during which they earn big money. The tax regime makes it difficult for them to offset their big tax laibility of their peak years, against perhaps decreased earnings, when the glory years are over. So, it stands to reason, footballers at the top will seek to decrease their tax liability.

As far as I know, EBTs were not in themselves illegal, when the Rangers players and management were taking-up the offer of one. However, it does seem as if the type of EBT which the Murray Group offered was illegal – even if the definition of illegality was retro-actively arrived at.

Therefore, Rangers, under Murray, cannot be accused of “financial doping” - they used a tax avoidance system which they thought was legal, but was not. Had they used another system of taxavoidance or offset which was legal, they would have; and they would have got away with it. They would still have recruited the players they did – they did not cheat.

There was never an intention to “cheat”, They recruited players they could afford, or thought they could afford in the open market. They did nothing wrong, other than to use the wrong type of EBT. Tax avoidance is not a crime – Rangers honestly thought they were avoiding tax – which is not illegal; instead, because of the system they used, they found themselves retrospectively charged with and found guilty of tax evasion – which is illegal.

To my mind, the calls for leagues and cups to be taken off the club are therefore wrong.

However, the SFA does not come out of this well, but, the SFA getting things wrong is nothing new, it has been happening for generations, and, until there is a will among the guys running the clubs for change, the SFA will continue to make bad mistakes.

But, since all these club directors – to a man and maybe a woman – would crawl over broken glass to get their own SFA blazer and a place at the trough – do not look for change, any time soon.

The aftermath of Tuesday night has been hilarious. Watching the reaction of the wider elements in the Rangers' support has been great fun, but, oh dear! We have real problems amongst the underclass who follow that club. Scotland continues, in some ways, to be a sad wee backward country.