I HAVE deliberately steered clear of the on-going speculation as regards Rangers FC and in particular that club's problems with the tax man. I can, however, say from personal experience that HMRC does tend to go in for grandstanding and posturing when it decides to go after an individual or company; but, once you sit round a table with an individual tax man, they tend to bend over backwards to be fair and are always entirely civil in how they conduct themselves.
This perhaps explains the fog of half-truths, misinformation and speculation which has surrounded the case of HMRC v Rangers FC. It will all come out in the wash and I would never attempt to predict the outcome.
What I will say, and given he appears to be an intensely private person he has perhaps done himself no favours thus far, Craig Whyte really must up his media game. Being head of Rangers isn't like heading-up any other Scottish or British companies and he has not impressed.
If I was Craig Whyte I would have - several months ago - told Ally McCoist: "Rangers are no longer a buying club; you can recruit via Bosmans, you can recruit, in the short-term via Under-23 Scottish players, for preference through sell-on deals with other Scottish clubs - but, your principal means of freshening-up the team will be through getting more out of the young kids we have and ensuring that, in the years ahead Rangers consistently recruit and nurture the top Scottish talent.
"The days are past when Rangers will pay big money for foreign players - the club cannot afford this".
For too-long Rangers have bought their players. They have failed one, perhaps two generations of young, very-often, Rangers-daft Scots. This they can no longer afford to do and if their management is wedded to the concept of: "Buy, buy, buy" then they MUST either adapt or be replaced. There is no alternative in the current state of the national or Scottish football economy.
I return again to the on-going and vexatious question of Team GB's Olympic Games row. Yesterday, within 48-hours of contacting them, FIFA's media team got back to me with the answer to a series of questions which I asked them.
I also put several questions to - the FA - who have asked me to telephone a certain member of their media staff, who will answer my questions; the BOA, FAW and IFA - who have acknowledged my enquiry of six days ago but not yet responded further; and the SFA, who haven't even had the courtesy to acknowledge my enquiry.
As I have said before - the SFA's whole stance on the Olympics issue disturbs me. They could, with one move, halt the BOA's demands for an all-UK side, which they say threatens Scotland's international independence - but for some reason will not.
It's no big thing: simply invoke Article 8/3 of FIFA's statutes as regards governance of the game, and the all-UK team cannot happen. The relevant passage reads as follows:
Scratch teams consisting of Players not belonging to the same club or Member shall not be permitted to play clubs or teams representing Members or similar teams unless authorisation has been granted by Members concerned and the Confederation on whose territory the match is planned. If the Players belong to clubs or Members from different Confederations, the authorisation of FIFA is required.
"Members" in this instance means individual member countries of FIFA - England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It is therefore down there, in black and white, that if Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales tell England: "You cannot pick our players for the Olympics" - then they cannot.
Given these are FIFA statutes - why is Stewart Regan continuing to insist: "There is nothing we can do to prevent Scottish players from playing in London?"
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