Only A Game !

Awwwww, lets get this right even though its wildly off topic. We did not sign Beattie because he refused an element of pay as you play. Beattie will NEVER manage more than 15 games a season for whoever he ends up at because his leg muscles are shot to threads. Beattie's sole contribution of note for Hearts was to beat a goalkeeper unopposed from 12 yards in a key game. Most of his time at Tynecastle was spent on the treatment table. We honestly wont miss him in his current state of fitness. We did not sign Black. Not because of issues not related to his performance or wage demands. In fact we didnt make him an offer of any kind because the owner, rightly or wrongly, wanted him out of the club and that had been decided months before the end of the season.Black will be a loss because he grew as a player last year but he's been a bit of a naughty boy. We have at least 4 players on more than Black was on and we've moved on 6 players on more than Black was on. The money wasnt an issue in Blacks case and Beattie wanted way more than he was worth fitness wise. We've made an operating profit in the last two years and reduced the debt by £12 million. Yes we are cutting back and yes we needed to cut back, but we have the 2nd highest player budget in the SPL, have retained most of our cup winning squad, and we're in no danger whatsoever of going into administration or liquidation whilst Vladimir Romanov is the major shareholder

If you are a former director of Woolworths and you have unpaid tax liabilities that you have no intention of paying your company would be a Phoenix company acting illegally. If you are not a former director of Woolworths but have bought the assets and the intellectual property, you are still a Phoenix company, but your not doing anything wrong, even if the former entity known as Woolworths owes millions in unpaid taxes. You'd probably have to change the name for clarity between the two companies but you could do it perfectly legally.

Correct, and they dont give a tuppenny shit about the badge or the logo or the name Rangers FC being used. Thats a matter for Companies House. BDO's only concern will be the transfer of assets from one entity to the other at the knock down price it was all transferred at, because that is there only possible avenue of securing money for the creditors (apart from pursuing the individuals responsible for the tax evasion) However I would have thought they would have done something about that by now ( having those assets frozen for example) so it may be that they feel that even that avenue is a non starter. By the way. Sevco5093 for those who are interested, is the new temporary trading name for a previosuly liquidated company that is involved in Clinical Research and are based in Cardiff. Nothing to do with Rangers or Charlie Green whatsoever, just the next Sevco number available to Companies House.

They have been issued it as a temporary trading name by Companies House. There are thousands of companies in the UK called Sevco or who have been known as Sevco, consecutively numbered by Companies house, none of them related to each other. If you started a new company but hadnt been approved to call it what you really wanted, you'd be given the name Sevco and a number. Sevco isnt a company as such, its a holding file name for Companies House. It would appear that they had to register in Scotland and Scotland doesnt have the Sevco prefix so they called it Sevco Scotland. Sevco5088 is nothing more than number they are filed under at Companies house. You wouldnt be able to call a Company Sevco and pick a number. Companies House give you the name and number whilst you decide what your real name is going to be.

There is. Companies House wouldnt allow you to register those names and Sevco/Rangers would enforce removal or name change. (just like the parent company of Easyjet sucessfully (in most cases) did a few years ago with over 80 companies who used the name 'Easy' in their name

Phoenix companies are not illegal, in fact they are encouraged and provided for in company law. The only, or the main, illegal aspect of a phoenix company occurs when the directors of the previous company 'phoenix' a new company with the main or sole aim of avoiding tax liability. Newco IS a phoenix company in some ways. i.e they are trading at the same address, carrying on the same business., with many of the same employees. However they are not acting illegally doing that. Havent a clue about images, logos, naming and branding. Shouldn't imagine it makes a whole lot of difference to anyone who matters(HMRC for example). I believe they may have to make some minor alterations but they will still be, quite clearly branded as Rangers FC and you'll hardly notice any difference in their logo or branding, and thats perfectly legal if approved by companies house. HMRC certainly do not forbid phoenix companies. Its not their place or in their power to do so. They would only be concerned if the phoenix company was to have a commonality amongst the directorship, given that there is an massive unpaid tax liability involved. Something else needs to be said here. Despite the wishes of the broad base of Scottish football fans, even if BDO were to walk into Ibrox tomorrow, liquidate the Oldco AND the Newco, re-possess the stadium, the car park and Murray Park and sell it to Tescos, the entity that is Rangers will not disappear for ever. No business with 100,000 potential customers a month willing to pay an average of £50 each a month, will disappear completely.

Sky have a contract for at least another season and possibly two. The unsigned deal that is on the table is an early renewal and an improved deal. Thats not to say that they wont walk away completely because of the broken clause that Doncaster agreed to, or even re-negotiate the current deal and bin the renewal altogether, but my guess would be that they are waiting till the end of the week to see if they have Rangers games included and they'll be fitting their schedules round that. I hope so anyway as I was planning a larger chunk of armchair fannery this season.

I assume thats available to confirm somewhere official and not just a bit of scaremongering, because if SKY ARE pulling out completely, some clubs WILL be fecked !!!

No chance of them signing any of those players IMO. Why ? They simply wont need players of that calibre for the next two seasons and very probably cant afford any of them anyway, and certainly not all of them. Might have happened if they got into Div1 just to be 100% certain of promotion, but signing players of that quality for Divs 3 & 2 is absolutely crazy IMO.

Contractually and morally, of course you are right. I was stating doncasters position, not necessarily my own opinion. The £2 million payment exists in part because the SFL's TV rights were worth jack shit at the time. That's no longer the case and Doncaster is clearly coming under pressure from SKY to have them included on what's already on the table. He can either say yes to that, assuming the SFL agree and give the SFL a bung for the rights or he tells SKY to bolt. Which do you think he"ll prefer to do ? If he can get a decent deal from SKY and has to bung the SFL £3million, he won't want to bung them another £2million on top of that. He is saying that's it's one or the other if you ask me. Not that I am saying that's right. It's what I believe he is trying to achieve.

TV rights issue seems to be blocking confirmation of Rangers SFA membership. Doncaster, having devalued the SPL TV rights by his outbursts over the last 3 months, now has SKY TV on his back wanting the rights to Rangers games included in the package, presumably the package they are about to sign up for, and presumably at a reduced rate. Clearly that isnt within Doncasters power to deliver in his own right but somehow he has managed to get it onto the agenda as far as the terms and conditions of Rangers SFA membership is concerned. He can now blame the SFL if the SPL TV deal goes tits up. Doncaster states that if they cant have the SFL TV rights to pass on to SKY as part of the SPL package then they cant pay the £2mill to the SFL. I think what he actually means is that they cant justify it, rather than cant financially afford it. If the SFL believe they can negotiate a separate deal with SKY and its a lucrative one, then I think there is merit in what Doncaster says about the £2 million. If the SFL have their own TV deal then why should they get the £2 million ? The SFL will obviously want to get the best TV deal they can and see their way of doing that as being a separate deal with SKY. SKY want it included with the SPL rights. Doncaster has well and truly f**cked up the TV deal in other words and SKY are holding all the aces. What should happen ? Doncaster should tell SKY to ram it and that the SFL is not included on whats on the table. SKY can then take a decision as to what they want to pay for the SPL. Doncaster, unfortunately has backed himself into a corner by his devaluing of the deal and will have to accept whats on offer before resigning immediatly. The SFL should cut their own deal to the highest bidder for the 3 years they'll have Rangers and they should waive the £2 million. What will happen ? It depends on who's got the most bottle and can afford to take it to the brink. The SFL I suspect as they have nothing to lose (i.e no TV deal in place as it stands at the moment)

Good point which not many have picked up on. Are we to suppose that a raft of top end SFL clubs, the vast majority of whom have voted against being in a league with Newco, are suddenly going to about turn, jump ship and join SPL 2 ( presumably with the same Newco they just rejected out of hand) SPL 2 is a fantasy. The top end SFL clubs wont want it because they'll believe, rightly in my opinion that re-construction is a better deal. The SPL clubs darent vote for it because anything that results in anything other than Newco in SFL 3 this coming season is, on their part, commercial suicide. I'm assuming that there will be a collective explosion of fan power if the vote stipulates SFL3 or no SFL at all (which is possible if not probable) and the SFA in cahoots with the SPL and the SFL overturn that and force them into SFL1. They must surely know they couldnt possibly get away with that. Forcing them into the SPL in the event of a 'wrong' vote is also unthinkable if they really do have the interests of the game at heart. There would be defection from the game on a massive scale IMO Nut, their hands are tied. They MUST accept the decision of the SFL clubs, even if that decision is no to the SFL altogether. There is no other course of action that can be taken without destroying the game in Scotland altogether.

Okay, we assume Rangers would fill the stadium. Would Dundee ? Possibly if they were doing well. Would Dunfermline ?

Sorry but that just cant be right ?

You dont think its more likely that BDO will step right in there, as they should have perhaps done the last time, and take control of the assets, slice them up into little bits and making it impossible for anyone to come in who wont pay a decent price for the bits ? If they dont play this season they'll go under AGAIN. I still think there will be a Rangers re-born, ( a business with 100,000 POTENTIAL customers a month wont disappear forever)but it wont be at Ibrox, it wont have the money to be there. It wont have the current structures and it will be a long time before we see them at any significant level. All IMO of course.