Fade To Whyte: Glasgow Rangers - From Beginning to End to Beginning Again

I may have mentioned I was writing this a couple of times. Before you jump into it, let me just tell you what I wanted to achieve.

I read Downfall by Phil MacGiollabhain and, to be honest, I thought it was a bit pants. I wanted a narrative of the entire story, not just recycled pieces cobbled together into sections about Rangers. Being the idiot I am, I thought that if I wanted to take issue with the fact that Downfall didn’t fill my needs as a reader, I had better do something about it myself.

So began Fade to Whyte. It took a long time and, over the past year, I’ve fitted writing it around having a job that keeps me away from home 12 hours a day (not that I’m complaining, if anyone’s checking up on me, it’s just a long time!) and the waiting time and stress involved around the birth of my son Fabian which, as it followed a stillbirth in 2013, kept me occupied. I’m very sorry for keeping you all waiting and I hope some of you care enough about this labour of love to read it the whole way though.

On the blog this week, there will be a couple of other special posts - the end of season viewing figures blog will be up at some point (I get my writing done between 5:30 and 6:30am at the minute, so keep an eye out in a morning) and also I’ll be putting back up the old “Death of Scottish Football” post which is of similar length to this.

It clocks in at a monster 32,000 words which goes over 122 (double spaced, mind you) pages of A4 with a ton of footnotes as well.

It was never intended to be the be all and end all - covering every single small angle and piece of minutae that has happened in the Rangers saga. Rather, it is designed as a complete and accessible narrative that is as entertaining and readable for a complete newcomer as it is informative and interesting to those who thought they knew all there was to know. I hope it is as unbiased as it can be and I hope a Rangers fan can read it and agree with as much of it as a Celtic fan can.

I have posted the work below, but, for obvious reasons, the footnotes don’t work. If you want to view the entire thing, with footnotes (which are informative and funny), please click the below link to the document. Please read it. Please share it.

And, most importantly of all, please enjoy it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-jBM3SJ2G-7OknhGh3FfjDXCuS0RsfB7WsDfYXRiMjY/edit?usp=sharing

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For 140 years, an empire stretched from Govan. There are few clubs with a more legendary history than that of Rangers. 54 Scottish League titles, 33 Scottish Cups, 27 Scottish League Cups, 1 UEFA Cup Winners Cup with three other European final defeats. It is a record that even teams with a history of state sponsorship such as Dinamo Kiev or Steaua Bucharest can only look on with envy. It is a dynasty that took thousands to build. But it took the actions of only a few to demolish it.

To some, it’s a tale of sporting corruption. To some, it’s a story of the establishment protecting their favourite son. To some, it’s a warning against vast corporate misgovernance. But more than anything, it’s a story of people. It’s a story of how a century of success created an atmosphere around the club where success stopped being a reward and started to become seen as a right. It’s a warning of what happens when egotism was allowed to run riot to a stage where it eventually destroyed the club.

But, unlike many stories, it’s a story where the seeming death of an institution didn’t end the story. Rangers returned, not quite the same but not quite different. Rangers were cursed with a non-fatal death and, in doing so, created a storm that brought a footballing nation to its knees, that made conspiracy theorists of everyone and that, just when you thought it was running out of steam, found new legs.

It’s a story with all the classic elements of a high class fiction – malpractice, mistakes, races against time and plot twists so sudden and complex that they sometimes belong more in Westeros than in West Scotland. But this did all happen. And this is how.

















Part 1 – Et In Arcadia Ego

Even in Arcadia, there am I



























Chapter 1 – The First 114 Years

To many, the existence of Rangers and Celtic is like a pair of siamese twins, feeding off each other yet never thriving as one. It is therefore always easy to forget that Rangers existed fully 16 years before Celtic. But it was the introduction of their cross city rivals that really kickstarted the progress of football in Scotland. Although the Scottish Cup existed earlier, the Scottish Football League was created in 1890, with Rangers and Celtic as founder members. While Rangers existed comfortably prior to 1888, it was the creation of Celtic that was the catalyst for so much.

There will always be a debate as to whether, without the Old Firm rivalry, Rangers or Celtic would ever have become clubs the size that they were. But this defining rivalry is what helped drive both clubs forward and into growth. For the social issue, Celtic represented the Catholic, Irish immigrant side, Rangers the Unionist, Protestant, establishment side. With Glasgow having a large Irish immigrant populace, the issue was always going to rear its head in one way or another as British-Irish politics dominated the scene for over a century be that from Gladstone’s aims of Home Rule, through the Easter Rising and into the Troubles, all of these heightened the rivalry between the two clubs by imbuing the rivalry between the clubs with a nationalist flavour.

A key issue with Scotland that makes it different from the rest of the UK is that it’s rivalries are based around national identity rather than class. As seen also in Edinburgh, teams tended to be built around an ethnic group rather than what happened in England, where divides were built around class and Football became seen as the sport of the masses. In Scotland, the lack of development of Cricket and the geographical location of Rugby’s heartlands being separate to those of Football stifled any class divide from ever growing and allowed the nationalist rivalries to grow in their stead.

In the early 20th Century, this rivalry grew as both Rangers and Celtic experienced periods of dominance under long serving managers Bill Struth and Willie Maley. It is, of the two, Struth whose impact was felt the longest in Govan. Struth at Rangers was a phenomenon, winning titles, doubles and trebles during his reign. In 19 pre-WW2 seasons at the club, Struth guided the side to no fewer than 14 titles. This imbued the club with a sense of entitlement best summed up in an iconic quote from Struth himself:

“Let the others come after us. We welcome the chase. It is healthy for us. We will never hide from it. ”

This is the part that has become quoted verbatim endlessly around the club. However, less famous is what followed it:

“Never fear, inevitably we shall have our years of failure, and when they arrive, we must reveal tolerance and sanity. No matter the days of anxiety that come our way, we shall emerge stronger because of the trials to be overcome ”

Struth was wise enough to realise that success could not be endless. But the second part of that quote has been gradually excised from history. Ultimately, Struth’s wise words became remembered not for the note of humility in recognising the hurdles still to overcome, but in being misinterpreted as being a quote about supremacy being the natural state of Rangers. Struth’s urging to reveal tolerance and sanity in time of failure would go unheeded when the end started to come.

But, when Struth left the club in 1954, that was a long way off. Success simply continued under Scot Symon. In thirteen seasons, he accumulated 6 league titles, 5 Scottish cups and managed the man in Jim Baxter who was, arguably, Rangers’ greatest ever player. He also led Rangers into European, achieving a high level of performance in the European Cup Winners Cup with two finals in 1961 and 1967, both defeats to Fiorentina and Bayern Munich respectively but both games that established them as a premier side in European football.

However, across the city, a feat was achieved that caused decades of envy. While Symon was performing well, Celtic brought in Jock Stein, unquestionably their greatest ever manager and one of the greatest managers in the history of football. He started Celtic on the path to their two greatest achievements – Nine in a row and capturing the European Cup in 1967. While Nine in a row was to be matched in the 90’s, Rangers could not win the European Cup and the symbolic matter of Celtic having held aloft club football’s greatest trophy and Rangers having been unable to was to drive Rangers to want more and to make them forget about the tolerance and sanity in failure that Bill Struth had warned was required.

It would be wrong, however, to say that Rangers were unsuccessful during Celtic’s Nine in a Row era. While Scot Symon gave way to Davie White who gave way to Willie Waddell, Rangers were never awful. Symon left due to differences with the board leaving an inexperienced White to take the reins which he did with aplomb, finishing his first season with a points total that would have won the title in 11 out of the preceding 12 seasons. In Europe, Rangers reached the semis of the UEFA Cup in White’s only full season. White was simply unlucky to come up against a Celtic side that was at the peak of their powers and, in that respect, was perhaps a decent manager at the wrong time – after all, there is little shame in coming second in the league to the best team in Europe and it shows that his replacement, Willie Waddell, never came as close to overhauling Celtic in the league as White did.

However, Waddell’s failure domestically was more than balanced by him managing to win the European Cup Winners Cup, albeit a win that was somewhat overshadowed by a pitch invasion and that Rangers managed to anger General Franco by playing Barcelona in a friendly tournament which ensured they would not be able to defend their title. After this success, Waddell moved upstairs to be replaced by Jock Wallace who, eventually, managed to break Celtic’s hegemony domestically. While he failed to win the league in the club’s centenary year, Rangers managed to wrest back the league title in 1975, preventing Celtic from winning ten titles in a row and setting a high watermark of consistent success for future teams to aim for, but not surpass. Wallace’s acumen, combined with a decline at Celtic, allowed him to dominate proceedings in the mid 70’s as Rangers were able to spend money on players such as Davie Cooper and Gordon Smith whereas Celtic were forced to let go of their best youth such as Kenny Dalglish and Lou Macari. After completing two domestic trebles, board troubles once again forced a Rangers manager out and club captain John Greig became manager.

Greig was, to put it kindly, not the best. While his first season went decently, it soon unravelled as Rangers threw money at their problems with little impact and, although there was cup success, they failed even to get second place in the league on most occasions thanks to the emergence of the New Firm in Aberdeen and Dundee United. This repeated failure in the league cost Greig his job to be replaced with Jock Wallace for his second stint at the club after being rebuffed by Alex Ferguson and Jim Mclean, managers of the New Firm. Wallace’s second term was, however, far less fruitful than his first and, with the added competition from the New Firm, only cup success was met with league performance hitting a low. He, unsurprisingly, resigned before he could be pushed. This mid-80’s emergence of Aberdeen and Dundee United had given Rangers extra competition and, at this time, both Aberdeen and Dundee United reached European finals, with Aberdeen managing to overcome Bayern Munich and Real Madrid on their way to collecting the Cup Winners Cup. This was aided by the expulsion of English teams from Europe due to the Heysel disaster which shifted the axis of British football northwards as Scottish teams were the only ones who could attain success in Europe at this point.

The result of all this was to be a revolution at Rangers brought about by ruthless opportunism under Graeme Souness and then exploited to its fullest by David Murray. The first 114 years, however, established Rangers as what it was, one of the top clubs in Scottish football with owners and managers who understood the ebbs and flows of football and understood that first place was a reward, not a right. It the remaining 26 years of the club’s existence, that mentality would change.































Chapter 2 – The Big Bang

The groundwork for Rangers’ Nine in a Row was laid in the late 70s. After the second Ibrox disaster in 1971 where 66 fans died of asphyxiation in a crush on a stairwell, the board, spearheaded by then manager and future board member Willie Waddell, sought to redevelop Ibrox to ensure nothing of the kind happened again. What resulted was a 44,000 capacity stadium that was modern by the standards of the day and, most importantly, safe. The £10 million outlay that had allowed this to happen led, partially, to the issues on the field during the period however, this also ensured that, in the post-Hillsborough world, little work was needed to be done to keep Ibrox up to standard. Quite simply, without the 70s redevelopment of Ibrox, the success of the late-80s and 90s would not have been possible and gave Rangers a massive head start in every other club in Scotland. Similarly, the same happened across the city with Celtic in the 90s, but that is to come later.

So come 1986, Rangers were in an extremely enviable position – they had money, little need to spend on anything other than the playing staff but without performances on the pitch to match their surroundings. With Aberdeen, Dundee United and Celtic all decent sides, Rangers could not establish dominance without investment. They could have simply consolidated, but led by director David Holmes, they expanded in the most fortuitous of circumstances.

Firstly, they hired Graeme Souness as player-manager. Souness’ playing career was winding down in Italy and the decision to make him manager was a shrewd one to ensure his experience in defence to improve the side, but also to imbue the side with a new energy from a young but untested manager. Souness’ natural leadership skills made him excel at Rangers and in management at this time and suited Rangers to a tee.

Secondly, after the Heysel disaster in 1985, English clubs had been banned from European competition yet English players still wanted to play in it. Rangers’ relative wealth at the time compared to English clubs allowed them to attract a wide range of English players. In Souness’ first season alone, he was able to attract Terry Butcher, England captain, Chris Woods, England Goalkeeper and Jimmy Nicholl, Northern Irish international. In light of such lavish expenditure, it is unsurprising that Souness’ first season in charge resulted in Rangers’ first league title in 9 years. The next season was less successful but still the influx of players came in and, with a quarter final loss, a respectable performance in the European Cup and such success only added to Rangers allure.

It was the 1988-89 season that was to prove the most fateful, however. It was the start of Rangers’ Nine in a row but, more than anything, it was the introduction of a then Mr David Murray. Murray was a prodigy. His business ventures had catapulted him to being a self-made millionaire by thirty and he wanted the status to go with it. Murray had, previously, unsuccessfully tried to buy Ayr United after his bid was rejected by shareholders. He soon turned his eye on a bigger fish. Little else would do for the man with the biggest reputation in Scottish business than to own the biggest club in Scottish football. Murray’s purchase of Rangers in 1988 and takeover as chairman in 1989 was designed with one thing in mind – to place Rangers and, by extension, David Murray, at the forefront of Scottish football and culture forever. The ownership of Rangers bestowed a prestige that no other action in his business could hope to achieve.

When conducting any examination of Murray, it is important to remember that, up to this point, every single hurdle placed in his way had been overcome. Even the loss of both of his legs in a car crash in 1976 appeared to be but a minor hiccup in his relentless ascendence to prominence in Scotland. While his takeover may have seemed from the outset an exercise in massaging his own ego and creating his own cult of personality, it is important to remember that, at the time of takeover, success seemed to come naturally to him and there was no reason to suspect that Rangers would not simply follow the same template as Murray had done with so much of his career to that point – the sky seemed to be the limit and for good reason.

Rangers themselves were in the ascendancy off the pitch as well. Between 1986 and 1989 (roughly the beginning and end of the David Holmes era), season ticket sales more than quadrupled to in excess of 30,000. Commercial income increased more than £1.7 million in that time also. For that reason, Rangers were an extremely desirable purchase for Murray being as they were successful on the pitch and their revenues were expanding on the spreadsheets. The £6 million paid for Murray in 1988 to purchase the club seemed like a steal (even though Murray only got it that cheap as the club’s finances were already in a position that made a quick sale desirable) and still seemed that way 10 years later. Meanwhile, Murray moved quickly to consolidate his power – David Holmes’ involvement in Rangers was finished by the end of 1989. Holmes last season seems the most fitting testament to his work in modernising the club – 1988-89 was the first of Nine in a Row, an achievement that wouldn’t have been possible without Holmes’ opportunistic talents at the helm. Holmes can be favourably remembered as the man who laid the foundations for a dynasty to be built, putting Rangers commercially ahead of any other team in Scotland.

Initially, Murray appeared simply to continue on the strategy already set out from Holmes but with considerably more bravado, as would become stereotypical of him. Whereas the first signing of the summer of 1989, the last of the Holmes Era was typically Holmes in that it was England international, Trevor Steven, lured with European football, the first signing of Murray’s chairmanship was decidedly different and worthy of more scrutiny. It was that of Mo Johnston.

Johnston was a former Celtic player and, crucially, a Catholic. Rangers, as the Scottish nationalist, Protestant club of Glasgow had never had a Catholic on the books, let alone one who had played for their bitterest rivals. Johnston had moved from Celtic to Nantes but he wanted initially to return to Celtic. Celtic assumed they had first refusal on the player, however Graeme Souness had David Murray’s ear and Murray saw an opportunity to not only stamp his authority over Celtic, but also to publicise himself and, at the last minute, swooped in to steal Johnston from under Celtic’s noses. The reaction was, predictably, outrage. Murray cast himself as the man who had broken a taboo, the Rangers fans soon consoled themselves over having to cheer a Catholic by the fact that Celtic fans reacted in a manner that cast Johnston as Judas (considering that the rejection of Celtic was almost entirely money motivated, it wasn’t that inaccurate a comparison) and the club has severely weakened their greatest rivals, as shown by Johnston scoring a winner in a match against Celtic in his first season at Ibrox. Perhaps forgotten in this is that Mo Johnston was a success at the club. In Murray’s own words:

“We signed him as a football player firstly, and also to break the tradition of this club in not signing a Roman Catholic. That was wrong, ”

It was an attention grabbing transfer and it would be wrong to assume it was ever meant to be anything but that. Rangers could afford to give a wage to Johnston, who was able to improve the side, even if the deal was primarily one based around ego and Murray would later admit that Johnston was signed more to break taboo than anything else. It would not be the first time Murray would sanction moves for players that were designed at least partly with the explicit aim of furthering himself. While this was one of the few that did not go down well with the fans, for it’s casting of Murray as a moderniser in Scottish football, Johnston would be one of the most successful ones.

Under Murray, Souness ticked off the titles 1 to 3 of Nine in a Row before leaving just prior to the third title being sealed to take over the reins at Liverpool. Souness was on the sidelines as he was a player – fearsome, imposing and uncompromising and, because of that, he had many run-ins with the Scottish FA, some with Murray and never wholly won over the Rangers support which is partly why the allure of the Liverpool job was too much to resist owing to his playing ties to the club. The man that followed him, however, was a different prospect.

Walter Smith was unproven when taking over at Rangers. His time in coaching, however, had made him unique in that his apprenticeship was for both New Firm managers (Jim McLean at Dundee United and Alex Ferguson with the national side) as well as working with Jock Stein in the national set up when Under 21s manager. He had been assistant to Souness as well so he understood the set up at Rangers already. Even without having any club management experience, it would have been hard to argue that Smith’s CV was anything but impeccable and that he had learned from the best. Once the 90-91 title was secured, Smith immediately made changes. English clubs had returned to Europe and the expensive Holmes purchases of England internationals quickly headed out the exit door (with little encouragement needed – Souness had already driven England captain Terry Butcher out of the club) in favour of less famous, but more promising players in soon to be Rangers stalwarts Andy Goram, Stuart McCall and Alexei Mikhailichenko that still cost the club over £7m in incoming transfers that season, an amount mainly recouped by the sale of Trevor Steven to Marseille for £5.6m.

It is 1992-93 that was the high point of Smith’s success in his first stint at the helm, as Rangers managed to excel in Europe for the only time in his first period at the club. The nascent Champions League of the time seems confusing to us now – after two knockout rounds, in which Rangers managed to defeat then English champions Leeds, the last eight teams were split into two groups of four. Rangers were place in group A with Brugge, CSKA Moscow and Marseille, with the top team in each group going on to play each other in the final. Despite not losing a game, Rangers finished second behind the eventual European champions Marseille. Marseille, however, were later convicted of match fixing a French league game to concentrate on their preparations for the European Cup final. While Marseille’s final win deserves an asterisk against it, it did not affect Rangers who simply failed to get the job done and their inability to win games at home let them down. While this was a great achievement for the club even though they fell at the penultimate hurdle, it rankled that Rangers were able to get so close yet still not match Celtic’s European record. It was the first time David Murray had had the taste of victory snatched away from him in his career and Europe would become an obsession for the club and, disturbingly, the catalyst for extravagant spending. The Summer of 1993 saw Rangers splash out a then record £4m on Duncan Ferguson from Dundee United who was purchased, it can only be seen, to set a transfer record and weaken a rival. Ferguson was regularly played out of position and made more impact on the face of John McStay than he did on the pitch for the club. Within 18 months he was at Everton, the club where he made his career. In Europe in the 93-94 season, Rangers failed to progress beyond the first round, and this would rapidly start becoming a habit for the club.

But Murray’s mantra was simple. As he explained to the Glasgow Evening Times in 1993 after they commented that, in his 5 years at the club he had purchased 13 £1m+ players:

“We’ll keep spending to stay on top… …I’d rather Rangers had an overdraft than not win trophies”

It was, then, in 1994, that everything changed. The first big upheaval, although not that anyone would have seen the long-term ramifications at the time, was at Celtic. Since the title win in their centenary season of 87-88, Celtic had withered on the vine. While Rangers spent money to bring in players and consolidated their position as the then top team in Scotland, Celtic, under the Kelly and White families, were prudent to a fault and seemed incapable of not only being able to match Rangers, but of being able to give them even a fight. Where Rangers bought proven internationalists, Celtic scoured the lower leagues dredging up names that fans still recoil in horror from such as Wayne Biggins. Where Rangers had developed Ibrox, Celtic had done nothing and although the heartstrings were tugged by the symbolism of “The Jungle” at Parkhead, the fact was simply that Celtic were far behind Rangers both on the pitch and off it.

In the early 90’s Celtic had made small steps of modernisation, which were forced along by the Taylor Report after Hillsborough – Parkhead’s vast terracing was about to be made extinct by legislation. An initial proposal was made by Brian Dempsey to move the club to a new, purpose-built stadium in Robroyston, however this was quashed by suspicion and Dempsey was quickly booted from the board. This, however, was the start of a conflict, not the end. The support saw this not as a move made to preserve the history of the club, but a move made by stubborn, desperate old directors who, in spite of their historical and romantic ties to the club, were no longer acting in the club’s best interests. Through fan protests organised firstly by Save our Celts and then, most prominently, by Celts for Change, general fan support turned against the board. In March 1994, this all came to a head.

On the 1st, Celts for Change organised a boycott of a game at Parkhead against Kilmarnock, resulting in an attendance below 8,500, clearly showing the board the deep feelings of the fans. Secondly, the board made a critical error – they had proposed plans in 1992 to relocate the club to Cambuslang in a plan similar to that they had ostracised Brian Dempsey for. On February 25th, they held a press conference stating that work was about to begin and that funding was in place through a company called Genifor. On March 2nd, Genifor stated that this was not the case. The same day, the Bank of Scotland received a request for payment for money owed by Celtic to Sheffield United. The bank, in an act of extreme parsimony that they would not repeat in the decades to come, demanded £1m to cover Celtic’s debts. At this point, the bank had run out of patience, a situation no doubt exacerbated by the board telling half-truths about the Cambuslang project, and were literally minutes away from calling in the receivers and putting the club out of business. The board had no option but to sell up or watch the club be boarded up. A saviour was found in an ex-pat from Canada, Fergus McCann, who took over the club on March 4th and proved to be several things – a realist to a fault, frugal with money and, sometimes, just plain odd. But one thing would show itself over the coming years – he was more than a match for David Murray.

As for Rangers in 1994, that summer saw another £7 million spent on players – positively, £2.4 million on Brian Laudrup, less so was the £2.7 million wasted on Basile Boli and the £2 million spent on Alan McLaren. The results of this were still poor as Rangers once more failed to get past even one club in the Champions League. It would mark a trend that began the season before – Murray was throwing money at trying to emulate Celtic’s European win, given added impetus by Rangers near miss in 92-93 making him feel it was a realistic prospect, and the only place that saw results was in their march towards reaching Nine in a Row. Where Celtic were able to have European success and domestic brilliance during their Nine in a Row, Rangers were incapable of performing even to the standard they should have on the continent.

1994 would mark the beginning of an arms race that would define Scottish football for nearly two decades. The next four years would realign Scottish football forever.















































Chapter 3 – 1994-1998: From Monopoly to Duopoly

Looking at this period, it is impossible to escape the contrast between the two men at the helms of the Old Firm. David Murray was splashing the cash with a compliant manager in hand in Walter Smith, Fergus McCann was prudent and rubbed every manager up the wrong way, ending up in court thanks to Lou Macari. It was also something that would play out in the media – whereas Jim Traynor of the Record summed McCann up by saying “The managing director rages at the world when he should be building bridges. These outbursts are not laudable, they are laughable”, he stated of Murray “To hear him speak was to listen to a man who believes himself to be charged with some kind of great and mighty mission.”.

This is not to paint McCann as a saint or Murray as a demon, however, these vastly opposing interpretations of the men from the same journalist show one thing – that Murray’s success had propelled him not to just be part of the establishment, he was the establishment himself and no journalist who wanted to have access to what was then Scotland’s undisputed establishment club could dare say a word against him. In contrast, McCann was a relative newcomer and, even worse, was a generally awkward person to get along with, as numerous managers and board members would find out. Compared to the smooth Murray, he didn’t stand a chance when it came to public image.

But in their first season in opposition against each other, nothing changed on the field. The 1994-95 season ended with Rangers top and Celtic 4th. In infrastructure terms, however, Celtic started the rebuilding process of Parkhead. This was important for two reasons – firstly, it gave Celtic the ground that they needed to challenge Rangers off the pitch for revenues and secondly, it allowed McCann to change the business model of the club by moving to a system of selling season tickets which had been decried by the previous board (as crazy as it seems to modern eyes, McCann met with a lot of resistance on the introduction of season ticketing) and expanding merchandising. In the backroom, Lou Macari was swiftly disposed of and replaced with Tommy Burns. While McCann’s relationship with Burns was often fractious, Burns did return Celtic, in time, back to the top of Scottish football and, in his first season, managed to win the Scottish Cup.

The 1995-96 season was one, therefore, with much anticipation. Celtic were seen to have recovered somewhat and, in the rebuilt stadium, were expected to do better. Rangers, however, had the financial advantage and this financial advantage gave them the signing of, perhaps, Murray’s largest ego trip, Paul Gascoigne. Even at this stage, Gascoigne had legendary status with many owing to his antics off the field as well as his talent on it. The list of frankly silly things that Gascoigne did at Rangers is a very long one, topped off by nearly starting a riot after dancing along the touchline playing an imaginary flute in an Old Firm game as if he were in the Orange Order, but his stay was a successful one in spite of his fall into the clutches of his own personal demons that Rangers did little to help (Gascoigne’s first stint in rehab was almost straight after his departure from Rangers so there were clearly underlying problems during his stay in Scotland which, while picked up on, were not acted on). Celtic had caught up during the season immensely, reducing Rangers’ advantage to 4 points in spite of Rangers spending over £11.5 million on players. In Europe, Rangers sneaked past Anorthosis Famagusta and into the Champions League group stage where their performances were little short of abysmal – 3 draws, 3 defeats and a 4-0 defeat at Ibrox the lowlight of the campaign.

The 1996-97 season was to be Tommy Burns’ last at Celtic, but it was the first on which Celtic and Rangers competed on what could be seen as an even standing financially and in playing staff. With personnel such as Pierre van Hooijdonk, Paolo di Canio and Jorge Cadete at their disposal, Celtic were well placed to mount a serious challenge to Rangers. Murray’s reaction to this was, all too predictably, to throw money at a problem till it went away. That season, Rangers spent £9.5 million, receiving no transfer fees in return. This included, most notably, £3.5 million spent on the Chilean Sebastian Rozental who, in three seasons at the club, played a total of 17 times making him one of Rangers notable wastes of money in this time. Once more, Rangers failed in Europe with 1 win and 5 defeats in the Champions League group stage. However, this was made moot by victory in the league meaning that Rangers had matched Celtic’s Nine in a Row. Murray’s obsession with overcoming Celtic was almost satisfied by knowing that he was so close to dwarfing Celtic’s biggest domestic feat. This obsession would become all consuming as the 1997-98 season began.

This, if anything, marks the turning point in the Rangers story. Murray’s stewardship of Rangers continued as it did because success came naturally to them and this success allowed him to expand spending without anyone batting an eyelid – after all, whatever he was doing clearly seemed to be working. It was in this atmosphere that Walter Smith too entered his final season for Rangers – after all, what could possibly top ten in a row? Winning the title was seen as second nature for Rangers at this point and as a foregone conclusion.

This justified arrogance was further enhanced by the fact that Celtic were in turmoil. After the end of the Tommy Burns era, Fergus McCann hired Dutchman Wim Jansen. However, Jansen was uncomfortable with the British managerial set up so styled himself as head coach with a general manager of football affairs above him as a conduit between himself and the board. Unfortunately, the man chosen for this role was Jock Brown. Brown was not only ill-suited to the role, but also clashed with Jansen immediately. Where McCann could be awkward, Brown was simply aggressive and on more than one occasion, the relationship between himself and Jansen blew up.

Of course, that the title could have been seen as almost a foregone conclusion in August didn’t stop the spending. Rangers spent over £14 million that summer, including nearly £12 million from players from Serie A alone. While this, as per usual, didn’t help them out at all in Europe, such spending far outstripped anything that could be managed by their domestic competitors – in fact, Rangers’ outlay in this time span between 1994 and 1998 was larger than any club in Britain. This was even starker shown by the fact that that summer, Celtic lost Pierre van Hooijdonk, Jorge Cadete and Paolo di Canio – their entire strikeforce which had scored 61 goals between them the previous season! To replace them, Brown brought in Darren Jackson from Hibs while Jansen used his contacts book to get his hands on the one Celtic player that, more than any other, set off the decline at Rangers – Henrik Larsson. With 174 goals in 221 games at Celtic, it is impossible to underestimate the contribution Larsson made to Celtic in his 7 years at the club. However, his first season was his least productive, especially when compared to what was going on at Rangers.

That summer, Rangers had spent £3.5 million on the Italian Marco Negri from Perugia. Negri was, bluntly, an enigma. His playing style was selfish in the extreme and teamworking skills nil. But his striking ability was incredible. By the time the year turned to 1998, Negri notched an incredible 30 goals including scoring 5 in one game against Dundee United. Propelled by his goals, Rangers surely could not fail to get Ten in a Row.

But the issue with enigmas is that when they’re good, they’re very good, when they’re bad, they’re very bad. Negri scored a total of three more league goals that season as Rangers foundered in the first two months of 1998, earning only 12 points out of 27. Meanwhile, Celtic had recovered from a stuttering start and, in the autumn, added Paul Lambert to their midfield, who would become a mainstay for the next few seasons. As such, it was the turn of the year that proved pivotal. Firstly, Negri sustained an eye injury in a game of squash and his recovery would be constantly hindered by niggles that decimated his playing time and destroyed his form. Celtic acquired striker Harald Brattbakk from Rosenborg whom, although by no means a great player, was to score the most crucial goal of all come the end of the season. As such, the traditional Ne'er Day derby came to be recognised as a game that would go a long way to deciding the destination of the title – Celtic managed a 2-0 win at Ibrox to seal a momentum changing moment.

Celtic, however, stuttered where Rangers stuttered and, come the final Old Firm game of the season, needed to win, but threw it away giving Rangers the advantage once more. It seemed to be that neither team knew how to cross the finishing line. As the season entered it’s final two games, 1 point separated the teams.

Firstly, Rangers played their last home game of the season, knowing a win would give them the advantage. They sat 1-1 coming into injury time in the second half. As the seconds wore on and the game entered added time to injury time, Kilmarnock’s Ally Mitchell struck to consign Rangers to defeat and mean Celtic’s task the next day was to simply win at Dunfermline. All too predictably, they drew, meaning the title went to the last day of the season, where only a win could do for either side. Rangers did what they needed to do against Dundee United, but with 18 minutes left, Celtic’s Harald Brattbakk scored the title winning goal to seal a 2-0 victory over St Johnstone. Had St Johnstone managed to sneak a draw, Rangers would have been champions by virtue of goals scored. As chants of “Cheerio 10 in a row” were shouted around Parkhead, one can only imagine what was going on in the Rangers boardroom. 2 days later, Wim Jansen left Celtic. Water Smith departed from Rangers also into a supposed retirement.

The symbolism of these 4 seasons cannot be underestimated. They are, perhaps, best summed up by manager Walter Smith who once commented:

“There is a Protestant superiority syndrome around this club … you can feel it.”

As an opinion, up until 1998, there was every right for Rangers to feel superior, they earned more, spent more and won more than any other Scottish club - they felt superior because they had proven themselves to be superior. Success made them part of the establishment, and their roots did give it a distinctly Protestant flavour. There seemed to be no real challenge forthcoming. Rangers were not simply of the establishment, they were the establishment itself – a decade of success had ensured that they could get the world to revolve around them. But in 1998, Celtic showed that the superiority that pervaded at Rangers was soon to end – with Parkhead rebuilt, they were commercially the equal of Rangers and by preventing Ten in a Row, not only had they shown themselves to be their equals on the park, they had ensured that Rangers would not be in a position to overcome their record of nine consecutive league titles. But while the superiority ended, the complex surrounding it did not.

After that superiority was shattered by the prevention of Ten in a Row, things accelerated. Murray’s ego was stung and the squad that had brought him Nine in a Row was dispensed with. Within 1 season of this loss, Rangers were £12 million in the red (£7 million more than had nearly seen the gates close at Celtic 4 years earlier), with a £23 million a year wage bill and had embarked on the biggest spending spree ever seen in the Scottish game that would eventually prove to Rangers and Murray that a business plan based on endless growth is unsustainable.









































Chapter 5 – “For Every £5 Celtic Spend, We’ll Spend £10”

Celtic had raised the stakes by winning the title and, in the summer of 1998, both Rangers and Celtic were set for fresh starts. Rangers had brought in Dutchman Dick Advocaat, Celtic, after a lot of deliberation, brought in Dr Jozef Venglos. Where Venglos was forced to scramble around to get players for good value (and he did, his time saw the purchase of Mark Viduka, sold for a handsome profit, Johan Mjallby and Lubo Moravcik, both who would become icons at the club), Advocaat was given use of the Rangers cheque book and used to full effect. Where, in the Daily Record’s words, Celtic had signed a “Blank Czech” in Venglos, Advocaat was given a blank cheque for players.

Rangers’ orgy of spending that year was unprecedented in Scottish football. Advocaat burned his way through just under £36 million in transfer fees - as a comparison, in the 2012/13 season, only 4 English Premier League teams spent more than that and, when adjusted for inflation, only 4 teams in the world spent more in 2012/13 than Rangers did that year. Not all of this money was wisely spent either – Gabriel Amato (£4.2m) played 28 games in 2 seasons, Colin Hendry (£4m) played 22 games in 2 seasons, Stephane Guivarc'h (£3.5m) played 14 games in 1 season and, most notably, Daniel Prodan never played in 3 seasons at Rangers, costing £2.2m and his non-appearance was, incredibly, due to a knee problem that was pre-existing when signed after Rangers failed to conduct a medical that would have picked the issue up! While some of the money was undoubtedly spent wisely, that so much of it was frittered away on inflated imports contributed a lot to spending that was required in the future.

In retrospect, it is easy to recognise that this spending was utterly unsustainable and impossible to justify. But when the league title was won, there was no need for any further justification to be made in the eyes of many – the ends justified the means. Rangers played better football than they had under Smith, enjoyed more success in Europe than they had since the 1992-93 season. Murray’s lavish outlay had put Rangers back in the driving seat over Celtic and made things appear as if their title win of a season before was no more than a mere fluke which, to him, was all it was ever going to be.

But this success masked a graver issue. This orgy of spending had, in 1 season, taken the wage bill above £23 million and taken the club £12 million into debt. The next chapter will go in depth into how Murray funded this lavish spending, but what is important to realise is that this massive spending was by no means a one-off. While the 1999/2000 season actually saw Rangers make a profit on transfers, they only did so by selling on some of their acquisitions of the previous season on for a loss, most notably losing £3.25 million on Colin Hendry meaning that what seemed a profit in transfer activities was, in reality, just reducing losses.

Celtic were entering a new era at this time as, after his 5 year plan to put Celtic on a stable footing was completed, Fergus McCann left the board and was replaced at the head of the purse strings by Allan MacDonald, who became CEO. MacDonald wanted to get Celtic away from the long held perception that they were a stingy club (a perception that was almost revelled in by McCann) – as such, once Venglos left the club, MacDonald convinced his friend and bona fide legend Kenny Dalglish to take the reins as Director of Football, expecting that the man Dalglish would bring with him to become manager would be of similar calibre to Kenny himself. Instead, Kenny Dalglish brought in his friend in ex-England and Liverpool winger John Barnes in what would be one of their most peculiar seasons ever.

While time has been devoted to the board room machinations at Celtic (as there were many), little has been said about those at Rangers. The simple reason is that there were none. Murray ruled the boardroom with an iron fist and packed the board with men who could be trusted to back him either through sycophancy or simply as they didn’t know better (John Greig certainly falls into the latter). Celtic’s boardroom, as would be seen again by the end of the season, was more of a democracy and often all the worse for it.

Considering how undeniably successful David Murray’s tactic of throwing money at their problems had been at Rangers, for Celtic to attempt the same was unsurprising. However, this was a single season interlude where it was Celtic who, for once, were the ones chucking money away. Barnes would later argue he didn’t really get a fair chance at Celtic but the facts tell a different story. Employed by a friend and given the full backing of the board, it would be hard to argue that Barnes wasn’t given every opportunity and ended up looking simply out of his depth, particularly after spending nearly £14 million on players of which £10.5 million was totally wasted on the talents of Eyal Berkovic (who, although he did have a deservedly large reputation from his time in England, never looked interested) and the infamous Rafael Scheidt who played 4 times for the club and was, quite simply, Scheidt by name and by nature.

The issue of Barnes’ reign was simply that he appeared to be unable to pull out a performance when it mattered. While he was undoubtedly hindered by a leg break suffered by Henrik Larsson, when push came to shove, Barnes was fired due to results alone. The league was out of his grasp early on and, when then First Division Inverness knocked Celtic out of the cup, it was the death knell of his reign in charge. Barnes took a team that, under Venglos was only 6 points behind Rangers to being 21 points behind Rangers despite spending over £8 million more than Rangers in transfers. Kenny Dalglish took over the reins until the end of the season but, having been responsible for appointing Barnes and signing off on wasteful transfers, his position was always untenable and even then, failed to produce much change in the form and results of the side. All the while, Rangers simply plodded on, improved their points total from the year before by 13 points and serenely strolled to the title, a cup win and a group stage place in the Champions League where, although they were knocked out, proved to be their most creditable performance for a long time after being in a group with Valencia, who would be runners up that year, and Bayern Munich, runners up the season before.

The 2000/01 season was one, once more, of change. In the boardroom at Celtic, the failure of the supposed “Dream Team” of Barnes and Dalglish has discredited some board members and the resulting shift meant that the Celtic board would become more unified than ever before as it came under the control of Dermot Desmond. While Desmond had been part of the club for some time at this point, the failure of the Barnes/Dalglish regime gave him free rein to run the club how he wanted with Brian Quinn made Chairman and, within 6 months, Ian McLeod as CEO. This also meant that Martin O'Neill was brought to the club as manager and O'Neill’s unwillingness to work with a Director of Football over him gave the board the perfect excuse to get rid of Dalglish. It proved a watershed for Celtic – Quinn was sensible and parsimonious, O'Neill was used to creating successful sides on a budget. After one season of lavish spending was allowed for O'Neill, Quinn cut costs where possible and put the club into profit. As best summed up by the man himself when asked if Celtic would react to Rangers’ spending, Quinn simply stated “We react to no-one”. Murray’s reaction to Celtic was the immortal utterance “For every £5 Celtic spend, we’ll spend £10” – and he did.

Literally, he did. Where Martin O'Neill broke the Scottish transfer record by signing striker Chris Sutton for £6 million, Rangers actually doubled it later that season by singing Tore Andre Flo for £12 million. Sutton had just endured a season in the doldrums at Chelsea where he was simply a curiosity piece as his style of play was totally unsuited to the team. Flo, also at Chelsea, was a renowned super sub but left to get playing time after always seeming to find a player in front of him. That summer, Celtic spent £17.4 million bring the team up to scratch, receiving £7 million in return. Rangers, in spite of having just won the league by 21 points, spent £31 million, receiving just £4.2 million back. Looking back, it seems hard to justify the amounts spent by either club, especially Rangers whose reward for spending that much money was to lose the title by 15 points, including 4 defeats to Celtic, the most humiliating being a 6-2 loss and a Champions League campaign that went poorly in spite of a very favourable group.

At the end of this three year period, Rangers had spent their way through £72.5 million in transfer fees, had a first team that consisted of no fewer than 44 players (6 didn’t even appear in the 2000/01 season, players who, between them had cost the club £5.5 million to buy) and who had, at the end of that season, achieved nothing. Looking back on these numbers now, it is wholly unsurprising that the club got themselves into trouble. Spending like it was the last days of Rome was never going to work and their business plan of never ending growth was simply unsustainable. However, for David Murray, being behind Celtic was also unacceptable. It was a balancing act between pride and parsimony and only one could win.

A key element of understanding the situation Rangers were in at this point is to understand how they were actually capable of funding such unrestricted growth. For the first few years of Murray’s stewardship the club was able to, more or less, fund itself. Thanks to influxes of TV money and opportunities for commercial activity, turnover rose from £6 million per year to over £50 million per year in the first decade of Murray’s reign. This, in itself, funded the Smith splurges. While Rangers were by no means in a healthy financial position in the mid 90s, if they were to implement a business plan that focused solely on the domestic game and not on attempting to conquer Europe, there is little reason to suspect that they would not have been able to consistently break even or make a profit. The issues in the mid-90s, as shown previously, were not with trying to secure domestic glory, it was with trying to secure European glory. What this meant for the club was that it did have to stretch itself that little bit further to attempt to meet its owner’s ambitions – signings such as Paul Gascoigne were not necessary to win the Scottish title, but they were necessary to make a European challenge which would have covered the spending on this type of player.

This further spending was funded by a series of investors wooed into the club by Murray’s promises of European glory and, crucially, entry into the English Premier League. While Rangers revenues were expanding, revenues of clubs in England were exploding at the start of what would prove to be, for the successful clubs, a boom that would last to the present day. The first major external investment was from a company called ENIC. ENIC are better known now for their control of Tottenham Hotspur but, at the time, they were simply a company looking for investments to take advantage of a football boom while it lasted and had investments in clubs in six different nations. Eventually, ENIC sold all their investments to focus on having sole control of Tottenham, but in 1996, they were a company ushered into Rangers with open arms to the tune of £40 million for a 20% stake in the club. This was to prove one of the least wise decisions ENIC would ever make. Whereas in their other investments ENIC held a controlling stake, at Rangers, it was always Murray who called the shots. Whereas in their other investments, ENIC were frugal (AEK Athens, in particular, were annoyed by that), at Rangers, they were not in a position to dictate policy to anyone. In spite of having a man on the board, ENIC were simply used as a cash cow for the club. With their £40 million, Rangers built a brand new training complex, Murray Park and spent more than ever on players. It is no coincidence that ENIC’s man on the board resigned in 1999, just after the club spent £36 million on transfers and £14 million on Murray Park. ENIC’s attitude of frugality did not mesh well with Murray’s attitude of success or bust. As Murray stated:

“Football’s not like any other business. If you buy, in industry, a £4 million piece of machinery that doesn’t work, you’ve got serious management problems. But, in football, you’ve got assets that sometimes you’ve got to replace because they are not working. No disrespect to Howard (Stanton, ENIC’s man on the board) or Daniel (Levy, Chair of ENIC now CEO at Tottenham), but they didn’t come from football backgrounds… …They might not agree with the way we’ve done it, but I’ve been at Rangers 12 years and we’ve won 11 championships and 20 trophies. Also, our turnover’s reached £51 million from £6 million. So I must be doing something right.”

Murray’s attitude towards investors was best evidenced with ENIC. Investors were not to be repaid, they were to be used then discarded. In 2001, ENIC announced they were looking to sell their stake in Rangers after being written down to be worth less that £15 million. It took them till 2004 to find a buyer, in Murray himself, for £8.7 million – a loss of £31.3 million on their original investment. This was in spite of a clause in the deal stating that ENIC would receive over £5.5 million when Rangers were invited into the English Premier League. ENIC’s chastening experience at Rangers served to prove how easy it is to turn a lot of money into a little by investing in football clubs. As a key to showing how quickly Murray burned through ENIC’s money, another share issue was needed in 2000 after three years of throwing money at the club. In February 2000, Rangers bank borrowings stood at an eye-watering £48 million, primarily having been driven by transfer fees. In the second half of 1999, while turnover increased 40% year on year to £29.8 million, Rangers still lost over £9 million after player registrations, interest and tax. The 2000 share issue raised more than £53 million for the club, £20 million from a new investor, Dave King, with the vast majority of the rest coming from Murray himself.

While King would remain active in the club for over a decade and remains trying intrigues to this day, his financial impact past that was limited from 2002 onwards owing to an exceptional tax case in South Africa, where he had emigrated from Scotland to. Charged with owing up to £100 million in taxes to the revenue service, his assets were frozen stifling any ability to make a further investment in Rangers.

But it is the next season that bears most worth in looking at. The 2001/02 season would be one of the most historic in Rangers history, not that anyone at the time knew it. The seeds of destruction were sown that season and Rangers would set off on the inexorable path to their own armageddon.



















Chapter 6 – Success By Any Means Necessary

To many, Christian Nerlinger isn’t a name that evokes much thought. In his playing career, he was one of many midfielders who resided on the fringes of a Germany squad that it would be accurate to describe as their worst ever. Once his career ended, he spent his time bouncing around the back offices of Bayern Munich until being replaced with Matthias Sammer after Nerlinger oversaw two consecutive league titles going the way of Dortmund.

To Rangers, however, Christian Nerlinger has a note of infamy. Christian Nerlinger was the first man to play with an EBT.

While Nerlinger was not the first footballing recipient of an EBT (that honour went to Graeme Souness and Walter Smith also had one prior to Nerlinger), Nerlinger was the first to step out on the pitch with one. So the question to be posed is, of course, why that is important and to understand that, we have to understand exactly what an EBT is, how it is constructed and how that could contravene the rules of football.

When a person is paid their wage, it is generally paid in one lump sum and taxed as one lump sum. With an EBT, the person is paid their wage as normal, except a portion of it is paid through an offshore trust and then on to the employee. By doing this, the portion sent through the offshore trust is not taxable and the wage is paid as a loan to the employee, albeit one with no intention of being paid back. These are commonly used with, for example, company pension schemes. The issue with Rangers’ usage of them was that they were used for normal contractual wage payments thereby avoiding tax and national insurance payments. This, in itself, isn’t a clear cut issue in terms of legality. Rangers were advised to go down this route by now struck-off solicitor, Paul Baxendale-Walker, who specialised in tax advice. This scheme was ruled as legitimate by a First Tier Tribunal in a split decision of three judges, however HMRC appealed to an Upper Tier Tribunal and, whatever the result, one can expect the issue to be appealed, if possible, once more.

But, crucially, why is this against the rules of football? According to the SFA’s own rules, any payments made to a player must be properly recorded and declared, otherwise the player has been improperly registered. While the SFA received copies of the players’ contracts, the authority to set up the EBT had to be given on a side letter – as such these players had dual contracts – one contract detailing what they were to be paid normally and one contract detailing what would be paid to them through the EBT, with only the first going to the SFA to be recorded along with the player’s registration as, of course, Rangers didn’t want to disclose potential tax fraud to anyone who didn’t need to know. Therefore, on a basic reading of this rule, it would appear that any player who took to the field that had a side contract was a player who was improperly registered and, therefore, should not have been able to play. Of course, the devil proved to be in the details.

Not that anyone knew this in the Summer of 2001. Nerlinger was simply another addition to the realm of talent that Dick Advocaat could utilise. That said, the summer was a quiet one by Rangers’ standards, perhaps as the Bank of Scotland now had a vested interest in the future of the club with a 7% share at this point, Rangers actually received more in fees than they spent with the premier shifts about being at left back with Giovanni van Bronckhorst moving to Arsenal to be replaced by Michael Ball from Everton for what was to be an injury spoiled time at Rangers. Meanwhile Celtic strengthened further with the addition of John Hartson to their front line, albeit he was to be the last £5 million player bought by Celtic.

It is, then, unsurprising that Rangers got off to a distinctly uninspiring start to the season, drawing three of their first six games and following that up by losing the first two Old Firm games of the season. Europe was little better with Fenerbahce knocking Rangers out of the Champions League and into the UEFA Cup where the highpoint was knocking Paris Saint Germain out on penalties after 210 minutes of goal-less action. It was, then, unsurprising that Dick Advocaat was not long for the job, being replaced in December by then-Hibs manager Alex McLeish. While McLeish was unable to salvage the league, which had already been secured by Celtic, he was able to collect both the League Cup and the Scottish Cup.

But what seemed in the short term the biggest thing to happen came at the conclusion of the season when David Murray relinquished his chairmanship of the club. While he retained his 66% shareholding in the club and stayed on in the background as honorary chairman, he was less involved than before and was replaced by John McClelland. In Murray’s own words:

“A strong team is now in place to assist John in reaching our financial, commercial and football targets which collectively must be more realistic as recently costs have soared and incomes remained static… …I feel a change in management style would be beneficial for the club as the whole industry faces new challenges”

McClelland was, in fact, given a poisoned chalice. Murray’s management style was to spend until success came and when success came so would increased revenues. The issue was that a business plan based upon endless growth was completely unsustainable. Within 2 and a half years, Murray would return with a new share issue giving him a larger shareholding and spending more money. In retrospect, McClelland was hired to carry out the cutting back of spending and saving of money that Murray had not only proven himself ill-suited for, but was also unwilling to do. McClelland was hired to be the bogeyman simply so Murray could ride back in as an all conquering hero once things were back on an even footing and this was borne out in the club’s actions in the transfer market while Murray was out of the chairmanship. What may have looked at the outset as Murray retiring out of the spotlight now looks like a plan to ensure that he remained in the spotlight for longer.

Those two Murray-less seasons saw Rangers win the treble in 2002-03 but with nothing in 2003-04. Both seasons saw poor European performance but this has to be put against a backdrop of severe thrift behind the scenes. Both seasons saw Rangers receive more in transfer fees than they paid out and both saw a drop in the wage budget. Expensive players such as Arthur Numan, Bert Konterman and Tore Andre Flo who were all taking home large wages but who were all also past their prime were shipped out with cheap replacements brought in such as Zurab Khizanishvili and Hamed Namouchi. However, the balance sheet was improved by spin – in Rangers 2003 figures, the value of its property was revalued up by £39 million to £120 million, 1.5 times its original value. This £120 million included a £4 million depreciation that was simply eliminated. At the start of 2002, Rangers had £47.3 million in Shareholders funds available to them. In that year alone, Rangers lost £35.3 million, leaving only £12 million in funds available. While 2003 saw some belt tightening , there was still a £29.6 million loss made and, without the revaluation, the club would have been in negative equity. This, combined with a net debt of £68 million and a £17 million overdraft that the Bank of Scotland were reluctant to increase, left them to go begging to Murray who extended a credit facility of £15 million of which, mid-2003, £4 million had been utilised. One could argue that, at this point, the club were trading insolvently. While not voiced due to a compliant press, there were surely doubts about the club’s ability to carry on as a going concern.

However, just before his return, it would also be fair to say that Murray was becoming as reliant upon Rangers as Rangers were on his generosity. Murray owned Rangers via a conglomerate known as Murray International Holdings (whom the EBTs were set up via). While the company “owned” Rangers, the ownership of Rangers and of MIH itself was very much a one man show – Murray owned 82% of MIH and, by the end of 2004, 90% of Rangers. So while Rangers’ losses were small compared to the size of MIH which, at that time had turnover in excess of £250 million, Rangers contributed more than their fair share to MIH when it came to some of the other arms of that conglomerate – Financial advice MIH subsidiary Charlotte Ventures made a quarter of its turnover in 2003 giving advice to Rangers, Carnegie Information Services billed Rangers for £1.1 million in IT services and Azure Support Services an incredible £2.8 million in catering which was over two-thirds of its entire sales! The £4 million Murray had lent Rangers in credit was being ploughed straight back into MIH. The complex situation at Rangers was even dragging MIH down – MIH owned Rangers via a subsidiary Murray Sports which was set up to have the then 65% stake transferred to it in 1999 owing MIH £53 million. In 2003, that stake was worth £28 million and was Murray Sports’ only asset – as a result, MIH wrote down Murray Sports’ debt to it by £7.6 million and, as a result, wrote down the value of Murray Sports itself by £4 million meaning that Rangers cost MIH £12 million in 2003, enough to take MIH out of profit that year.

What this did was tie Murray to Rangers and Rangers to Murray. Murray could not afford to let Rangers go under without writing £53 million from MIH’s books, which would put MIH at risk and make him look like an egotistical fool. In addition, Murray couldn’t afford to sell the club – he would have to barter for £53 million rather than the £28 million that the stake was actually worth, especially in light of the fact that any new owner may not want to subsidise MIH by using MIH subsidiaries for contracts. And that is before the £68 million of debt and the consistent losses in the tens of millions that Rangers was making. No purchaser would want to pay off Murray to the tune of over £50 million and then clear out £68 million of debt to right the ship. Murray was stuck into Rangers and needed to hope that some generous benefactor had £100 million lying about.

It is rather incredible, then, that Murray’s return to the chair in the Autumn of 2004 would be with another share issue. In June 2004, Rangers debt stood at an eye watering £73.9 million. This would have been OK had the share issue been well subscribed. It wasn’t. Of £51.4 million raised for the club, only £307,000 came from new shareholders and an amazing £50.3 million came from a new MIH subsidiary. Why do this? The alternative was that Murray buy Ibrox and rent it back to Rangers to clear debt – fans refused to accept that so the share issue was the only plausible option for the club. But looking at it nine years later, the madness of the move is clear. Murray’s solution to Rangers being in nearly £74 million of debt was to buy more shares (taking his stake up to 91.8%), dilute shareholdings for the second time in 5 years and, in effect, create another Murray subsidiary that was over £50 million in debt to MIH with little to no hope of there ever being much repayment made. The complex house of cards that Murray financed Rangers on could have collapsed at this point, with MIH out £53 million for the Murray Sports investment. Instead, Murray “rescued” the club and put MIH with a £103 million liability should anything ever go wrong.

Rangers, at the end of 2004, were an anomaly. On the pitch, they were successful and still had players of a quality to reflect the success that was expected by the fans and Murray. Off the pitch, they were a basket case – cutbacks couldn’t compromise the playing staff, so older players were sold, younger ones brought in and wages diverted through EBTs so as to circumvent HMRC, the club was only afloat because Murray had ploughed £100 million of MIH money into the club in the past 5 years and the club only had equity as its property value was dubiously revised upwards by nearly £40 million. And none of it was being covered by the press.

This is the point at which it is fair to say that Rangers were beyond the point of no return. £100 million is no spare change, even for men richer than David Murray, so he was committed to Rangers until the very end. Rangers too were committed to Murray – without Murray’s money, they were dead. The only way for the club to survive was to start breaking even and hope that performance on the pitch stayed high as well as there being no large, unexpected debts on the horizon.

Unfortunately for Rangers, neither happened.

































Chapter 7 – The Fall of the House of Murray

David Murray returned to the club at the end of the 2004 Summer transfer window and, with his share issue in hand, immediately set about getting success for the club. The Summer transfer window was dominated by free transfers, with £1.45 million spent in total. The first Murray transfer window of his second reign resulted in £6.9 million spent, albeit this was supplemented by the receipt of £8 million from Newcastle for Jean Alain Boumsong.

Boumsong, as a player and as a transfer, is worthy of examination. Boumsong was obtained by Rangers on a free transfer in the Summer of 2004 and acclimatised rapidly to the Scottish game meaning that, by the time January came around and the transfer window opened, an £8 million deal had already been finalised with Newcastle and Boumsong was on his way. This deal, not too surprisingly, raised a few eyebrows as Newcastle had shown no interest in Boumsong when he was available for free just six months earlier. This was put in harsher light considering that Boumsong’s time at Newcastle was not a prosperous one and was not well regarded by fans. In fact, it raised so many eyebrows that it was the subject of a police enquiry. The Stevens Enquiry was designed solely to investigate accusations of corruption in English football and, as part of this, documents were taken from Ibrox with regard to the Boumsong deal. While no impropriety was found in regards to corruption in the transfer deal itself, it would give cause to another enquiry which was to have more far-reaching consequences. As part of the Stevens Enquiry, one of the documents taken by police was Boumsong’s contract, and also his side contract detailing payments into his EBT. This document was of special relevance to HMRC, who would get involved a little way down the road.

The season itself was a successful one with Rangers winning the title on the last day of the season and also tasting success in the League Cup. Financially, however, fudges were present. For the season, Rangers made a profit on ordinary activities before tax of £12.4 million, but this was helped by a gain on player sales and a purchase back of shares from a subsidiary. £15 million in shares were purchased by the subsidiary in 2000, bought back by the club for £1 and this boosted them into profit because of this exceptional gain of £15 million! The club’s financial strategy, however, was not changed. From Murray’s statement in the accounts:

“Regular and prolonged European football is a key target for everyone at the club as this had the twin impact of improving financial performance and meeting the sporting aspirations we all have for our club”

This gets to the root of a key issue at Rangers during this time – the financial health of the club was based around the sporting health of the club and vice versa. Were Rangers to fail totally in Europe, they would fail totally financially.

That issue would gradually begin to raise it’s head in the seasons to come. Rangers business plan being based on success meant that there was a certain inflexibility about their approach should things not go according to plan. The most important aspect of this was Champions League football. With the SPL at this time carrying qualification places for the top 2 in the league at this time, all but a disastrous season should have seen Rangers, at worst, depart the Champions League at qualification stage for the UEFA Cup which would at least give them a small financial boost. The 2005-06 season would, therefore, be an odd one as Rangers fluffed their lines domestically, finishing third in the league, winning no trophies but getting to the last 16 of the Champions League which mitigated the loss of any Champions League football in the 2006-07 season. This saw the end of the McLeish reign at Ibrox in which he managed to win titles in spite of massive cutbacks at the club although, thanks to wage payments made through EBTs, the cutbacks were not as high as they could have or should have been.

McLeish’s replacement would be the shortest lived managerial reign in Rangers’ history. Paul Le Guen came to the club with an impeccable CV. At Lyon, he had led the club to three straight league titles and to the quarter finals of the Champions League building what was universally recognised as the best French league side in a long time. After leaving Lyon, he took a year out of the game in which he turned down offers from clubs such as Benfica and Lazio before eventually pitching up at Rangers. A three year contract reflected the justified confidence Murray had that the new manager would be a success. Le Guen, however, was a disaster. Firstly, Murray backed Le Guen in the transfer market, with over £4 million being spent and, aside from £450,000 spent on the Bosnian Sasa Papac, all of it wasted on players who were failures at the club. Most notorious of these was the £1.85 million spent on striker Filip Sebo who, in spite of an extremely high work rate, seemed to have a pathological aversion to scoring goals creating a mocking chant of “Sebo” which is still heard around grounds to this day to represent a player who has failed to score despite favourable circumstances. Le Guen was employed to give Rangers a complete makeover and the transfer dealings showed that. With 21 players out and 14 in in his one transfer window in charge at Rangers, it is hard to argue that he succeeded in doing that, albeit succeeding without any results. While Le Guen went unbeaten in Europe in six games, domestically, he was far less successful. Rangers were knocked out of the League Cup by a lower league club at Ibrox for the first time in their history while, in the league, their chances were all but ended by a disastrous autumn where, at one point, they earned only 7 points out of 21. All this could have gone well regardless of the results had Le Guen kept the team onside. Le Guen had a serious issue with then-captain Barry Ferguson over discipline – where Le Guen thought he was the boss and the captain merely his spokesperson, Ferguson’s idea of the captaincy harked back to the air of “protestant superiority” that pervaded around the club as mentioned by Walter Smith. Le Guen’s new methodology did not mesh well with Ferguson who had been brought through the youth ranks and saw himself as Mr Rangers. To Le Guen, no player was bigger than the club, even the captain. It came to a head at the Christmas party and Le Guen’s thoughts on how a player should behave in leisure – it was a case of a manager’s attitude of physical preparation combined with a Frenchman’s drinking habits of a glass of wine and it clashing with the British binge drinking culture. A series of poor results over the Christmas period confirmed to Le Guen what he already thought – that the culture at the club couldn’t change to what it needed to be unless the captain who was directing the culture changed as well. Le Guen stripped Ferguson of the captaincy and dropped him from the side attempting to cut the head off the snake. This was a step too far and Le Guen left the club by mutual consent three days later. While Le Guen thought that no player was bigger than the club, a player was bigger than it’s manager. In many ways, Le Guen was right – the culture of the club did need an overhaul but the superiority complex went outside the playing staff and into the boardroom where the actions of an outsider could not be seen to overcome the wishes of a Rangers man. It was the establishment overriding the authority of an outsider who thought that he knew better. No-one will ever know whether Le Guen really did know best.

Two things that happened in the immediate aftermath of Le Guen’s departure are, perhaps, the most telling of all. Firstly, from a young French manager, Rangers went to employ Walter Smith for his second reign at the club. Secondly, in Smith’s first game in charge, Rangers won 5-0, their biggest victory of the season. If Le Guen left because he clashed with the establishment, Smith’s return was welcomed with open arms as he was nothing if not part of the establishment himself.

Rangers form did pick up towards the end of that season, but it was the next season, 2007-08 that would prove his most successful, if also one where another issue arose. Rightly, the focus so far has been on events based on those directly connected to the club, however this season, at the apogee of Rangers success, it would be the fans who would let them down.

Firstly, however, Smith would get the freedom to splurge once more, spending over £10 million. While £9 million of that was recouped through the sale of Alan Hutton in the winter, that was, on reflection, a sale forced upon him by the club’s financial position as all fees were paid in the summer only. Even in spite of Champions League participation and an incredible run to the UEFA Cup final, Rangers still only posted a profit of £7 million, in spite of the European run providing them with over £20 million in additional revenue. Rangers still had debts of over £21 million and, without the Hutton sale, this would have been in excess of £30 million.

Domestically, while Rangers trailed Celtic in the league, they were able to win both cups. It was, however, one of the most gruelling seasons ever endured by a team with them playing 68 games in that one season thanks to their European exploits. Rangers run to the UEFA Cup final that year has been much analyzed but it does deserve plaudits as one of the greatest achievements ever in Scottish football. This was no longer the Rangers of massive fees for players with big reputations. This was a Rangers whom had cut the cloth and was made up of journeymen such as David Weir, Lee McCulloch and Barry Ferguson – all players who had prospered in England but were entering the twilight of their careers.

It was, however, not all positive. While Rangers did incredibly to get to the UEFA Cup final, it was done in perhaps the most turgid manner imaginable. If Rangers were to be in Europe as an advert for Scottish football, they failed miserably, providing in their eight games in the UEFA Cup, four 0-0 draws, 5 goals scored and 2 conceded. The real issues were, however, with the fanbase. Rangers had seen a prelude of what would happen at the UEFA Cup final that year in their visit to Barcelona earlier in the season in the Champions League, which prompted Spanish paper El Mundo to print a searing diatribe against the club and it’s fanbase calling them “undesirables”. This would, however, be nothing compared to what happened in Manchester.

The UEFA Cup final in Manchester was, perhaps, the single most damaging public relations disaster suffered by Scottish Football until Rangers collapsed. With it being so close, virtually the entire Rangers fanbase descended upon Manchester for the final, with an estimated 500,000 in the city. Not too surprisingly, the city’s vendors decided to make hay while the sun was shining and the majority of fans in the city had been drinking since early morning. Small scale scuffles had occurred early in the day, with one pub being closed by police and fights had started to break out at midday, nearly eight hours before the match even started. A fanzone set up in the centre of the city for each set of fans was rapidly overrun and the city centre was a heaving mass of drunk Rangers fans. Large scale issues started when a giant screen erected to show the game to the fanzone failed. Engineers sent to fix it were bottled and fans started to turn their ire on the fanzone itself, tearing down railings and starting fights. It was at this time that the riot police arrived and clashes with police began. Hundreds of Rangers fans attacked police resulting in 39 police being injured and running battles between fans and police throughout the night. What should have been the crowning achievement of Rangers history became its largest black mark. Pictures of rioting fans were beamed around the world and overshadowed the game itself. That Rangers lost a match was irrelevant, they lost face. Their reaction was equally flawed with the club, via chief executive Martin Bain, blaming “supporters that don’t normally attach themselves to our support” attempting to shift the blame. The real story was different – one judge called it the worst violence in Manchester since the Blitz. The damage it did to the image of Rangers was irreparable. Whereas in the UEFA Cup final of 2003, Celtic fans received plaudits and awards for their conduct in Seville, Rangers received scorn. While the financial impact of the riots cannot be calculated, it was a nail in the coffin of the club as it ensured that the name Rangers would be stained forever with the indelible taint of hooliganism.

And little did the rioters that night know that that night would be as good as it would ever get for them. In the four years since Murray’s return, the finances hadn’t improved, the playing staff hadn’t improved and the club was still reliant upon success and European football to survive. When things started to unravel, they did it quickly.

A year after Rangers had reached the UEFA Cup Final, David Murray announced that, for the second time, he would be looking for a way out of the club. It was the culmination of a series of unfortunate events that would ensure that Murray had little choice but to dispense with the club whom he had built his own personal empire around. Every single one of the events showed the vulnerability at the heart of Rangers and of MIH itself due to the unsustainable business practices that David Murray had encouraged at the heart of his companies.

The first business plan to fall was Rangers own plan of unstoppable growth through success. Without European football, revenues would drop significantly meaning that Rangers would be incapable of balancing their books and their debt would immediately spiral out of control. The UEFA Cup revenues were immediately reinvested in the playing staff. Further bolstered by the £7.8 million sale of Carlos Cuellar to Aston Villa, Rangers spent £17.8 million that summer and were drawn up against Lithuanian runners up FBK Kaunas who were rank outsiders in the second round of qualifying. Incredibly, Rangers contrived to lose the tie and, as a result, were out of Europe for the season. The effects were immediate on the club’s finances – in the 6 months to December 2008, Rangers lost £3.8 million and by the time March came around, Rangers were offering voluntary redundancies to staff. Cuts were also made to the playing staff with two players leaving permanently and a succession of loans made to try and keep the wage bill down. All in all, for the year July 2008 to June 2009, Rangers revenues fell £24.7 million and their debt rocketed up £9.6 million to £31.1 million. The collapse of the broadcaster Setanta further gloomied the outlook, costing Rangers an estimated £4 million per season from 2009 onwards due to the forced restructuring of the SPL’s TV deal. The result was clear – the system of basing Rangers’ business plan solely around the concept of untethered, unrestricted and consistent growth based upon exploitation of European revenues was utterly discredited. Rangers had lost a fortune thanks to the club’s early exit from Europe and, with the fall of Setanta affecting revenue over the medium term and the playing staff trimmed, the outlook for Rangers competitivity in European competition was lower than it had been in decades. The situation was as it had been when Murray first departed the club – costs needed to be slashed across the club. Murray’s departure could, then, be seen in similar terms – that he simply didn’t want to be tarnished with the brush of being the harbinger of austerity at the club and a drought in the trophy cabinet. But this theory fails to explain why Murray would look to sell the club when he did not do so in his first departure from the club. Perhaps it was simply recognition that, this time, the situation was that much graver.

The second issue that Rangers had was due to the global economic climate. The fall of the Bank of Scotland due to it’s irresponsible lending practices had put Rangers in a quandary – Rangers’ spending had been spurred on by the Bank of Scotland’s irresponsible lending practices to MIH. The share issues had simply moved Rangers debt onto the balance sheet of MIH and the money MIH had gotten to spend on taking up these share issues was borrowed in turn from the bank. MIH were able to rob Peter to pay Paul for as long as the Bank of Scotland allowed it only. The fall of Bank of Scotland into public hands via Lloyds Banking Group meant that the days of easy credit were well and truly over and that companies that had an excessive amount outstanding had to be brought into line. In 2009, MIH owed Lloyds an incredible £1 billion. As a result, Lloyds virtually ran MIH and, as a result, Rangers, whose share of the bill was in the region of £30 million. The impact this had on Murray was devastating – the Sunday Times Rich List estimated his wealth in 2008 as £720 million, in 2009, £500 million, in 2010, £110 million. In 2 years, Murray had lost just under 85% of his entire fortune. And that was the difference between this departure and his initial one – first time round Murray knew he could come back riding into town once the club had been put back on a sound footing, splash the cash and be hailed as a hero. This time, the bank was calling the shots – Murray knew that not only were cuts at the club going to be harsher and deeper than before, but also that he was unable to use MIH money to bail the club out. Past that, Murray did not have the resources personally to do anything. He had been trying to quietly depart the club from the start of the the economic troubles in 2006 but had to make it more public in 2009 because of the position he was in. Rangers was in massive debt, MIH was in massive debt, Lloyds Banking Group were telling him what to do and the frivolity of owning a football club was not the sort of investment that ever looked likely to return the bank any of the money he owed. From now on, Lloyds called the shots.

The Murray era ended officially with the sale to Craig Whyte, but his era ended truly in 2009. Between Murray’s departure from the board and announcement that he was looking to sell the club, he was not in a position to wield power. His only function was to sell the club. One can only imagine how the figuratively castrated Murray felt at the point in time having seen his empire crumble to dust around him – his power eroded, his ego stung, his abilities questioned. All that remained for him was the loyalty of the Rangers support who remained unaware of just how much Murray’s irresponsible business practices had contributed to his own downfall. To them, he was still the hero who had put millions into the club, who had brought trophies and consistent success to the club. Were success judged solely on trophies, Murray would be unquestionably one of the best owners ever. That, however, is not the case. Murray came into Rangers with failure as an alien concept and, in his first 15 years at the club, failure remained just that. Even the hiccup of Celtic preventing ten in a row couldn’t fail to take away the air of superiority that pervaded around the club. The problem was that Murray got drunk on the smell of his own success. He spent every penny the club had, and more, to ensure that the club was a success. Like a schoolyard bully, he was personally incapable of allowing himself to be perceived as a villain, leaving for the first time simply so someone else could take the blame for making cuts and simply so he could come back in with his blank chequebook to a hero’s welcome. His departure in 2009 was similar in that he could not cope with being perceived as the bad guy (hence the future reliance on those at the club at blaming the bank for the club’s issues). It must have been a horrible epiphany to be personally incapable of publicly taking blame yet surely knowing personally that the blame for Rangers debts laid solely at your own feet. The Murray era as such was a paradox – without Murray, Rangers could not possibly have hit the heights they did yet in Murray’s rush and ambition to hit those heights, he built in the weaknesses that ultimately pushed the club to the brink – high borrowing, high debt and a reliance on European football that was never guaranteed.





























Chapter Eight – The Whyte Knight

When David Murray left Rangers for the second time, they were already in dire straits - £31 million debt with most of that owed to Lloyds who were, at that point, more or less dictating policy to the club. This was shown best by the club not spending a penny in the transfer windows with £4.3 million coming in from sales. The first team was reduced further with six players leaving permanently. Rangers were still able to retain the league title, more thanks to the poor performance of Celtic than any excellence at the club. In addition, Rangers reached the Champions League group stage, ensuring that there was some European income. This was reflected in the debt falling by £4 million over the season which would suggest that the club was moving in the right direction for once.

A new issue arose, however. The EBT scheme that had been running at the club since 2001 had been noticed by HMRC and their opinion of it was very different to that of Rangers. Where Rangers saw a legal mechanism through which to reduce tax paid, HMRC saw an illegal mechanism designed to defraud the UK tax authorities of money that was rightfully theirs. The information on this had been passed on to them by the Metropolitan Police who had obtained the documents as part of the investigation into the transfer of Jean Alain Boumsong to Newcastle. In early 2010, HMRC issued a tax assessment to Rangers which stated that they believed Rangers owed them. Over this time, Rangers had managed to “save” over £24 million in taxes paid due to utilisation of the EBT scheme. HMRC now wanted every penny of that with interest in the region of £12 million on top of that. Further to this, for having used these for so long and as punishment for contravening HMRC regulations, a penalty of £15 million was put on top of this. All in all, HMRC wanted Rangers to pay them £51 million which would have meant their total level of debt would be somewhere in the region of £80 million. Unsurprisingly, Rangers decided to legally challenge this. This would kick into motion a legal battle which has lasted over 4 years but, ultimately, it’s impact would be more as an ongoing threat rather than for any action.

The reason for this is simple. Until the legal wrangling was over, any prospective purchaser had to cope with the reality that, at any time, Rangers could be slapped with a £51 million tax bill payable as soon as possible. Combined with the fact that Rangers were unable to turn a profit without European football even though costs were being cut across the operation. Rangers, while not at this point doomed, were certainly on life support. Any buyer would have to cut costs further and hope that HMRC failed in their attempts to extricate £51 million from the club. It reduced the potential buyers to the mega-rich or those prepared to take a mega-risk.

One of those who most certainly fell into the latter category was the man who bought the club, Craig Whyte. Whyte, unlike Murray, knew what failure was, having had his first company go bankrupt but he then turned his attentions to venture capitalism with a distinct interest in finding companies who were clearly troubled, getting them for as low a price as possible and then turning them around (or liquidating losing as little as possible). Rangers, in that respect, represented a perfect match. The price for them would be artificially low due to the well-publicised fact that their debt could jump up by £51 million thanks to the tax case. There was potential at the club to make money as, with European revenues coming in, Rangers had reduced debt in the 2009-10 season and, even if the tax case meant liquidation, Whyte would be able to keep the purchase price down enough so that it wouldn’t be an issue for him if Rangers did liquidate.

The 2010-11 season would, therefore, be one of change in the boardroom. The biggest battle was to sell Craig Whyte to fans before he bought the club. Rapidly, the PR machine whirred into motion to cast Craig Whyte as the second coming – that he was a self-made billionaire was one of the more ludicrous claims that came out about him throughout the season. Whyte battled for the hearts and minds of Rangers fans in a manner that no incoming owner has ever had to in the history of Scottish football but when he did get his hands on the club for £1 in May 2011 (plus the elimination of the debt to Lloyds), it was a plan that had succeeded and he was welcomed to the club with open arms. It was not without opposition, however. While David Murray was happy to sell his shares and Lloyds were happy to be rid of Rangers debt, other board members, such as chair Alastair Johnstone were reticent about Whyte’s plans to fund the club. They would be proved right. The desperation to get rid of the club was such that those whose opinion really mattered didn’t care whether their saviour was a prince or a frog.

Over that season, Rangers had performed creditably in Europe and had, once more, managed to pay back a bit of the debt. The club looked like it was on the right track for once. However, that could not have been further from the case. While Lloyds were content with the progress being made, the fact remained that the tax case still hung over the club. Rangers had attempted to settle with HMRC in late 2010, but this had been flatly rejected. HMRC were holding out for the full amount of the bill and nothing less. This decision by HMRC was incentivised by the fact that they knew other clubs had carried out EBT schemes and, as such, Rangers were being used to set precedent for any future football clubs that HMRC wanted to chase for money. Settling with Rangers would have set a dangerous precedent for any further, juicier court cases they may have in the future.

Rangers were far from out of the woods and this was down to exactly how Craig Whyte financed his purchase of Rangers. For a businessman like Whyte who explicitly looks to reduce risk to himself where possible, the idea that he himself would pay off Rangers’ debts to the bank of £18 million in one fell swoop is not one that would ever happen. But Whyte had to pay off the debt somehow and he had the perfect way with which to do it. Whyte contacted a company by the name of Ticketus, to whom he mortgaged three seasons of season ticketing revenue. While this practice is not that irregular as teams look to ensure that they have cash available for the summer transfer window, Whyte mortgaged the season ticket revenue to Ticketus before purchasing Rangers with the explicit intention of using their money to pay off the debt to Lloyds. It was, to him, the best of both worlds – he would have a Rangers where costs had already been cut, that was debt free to the banks and, as long as incomes kept on coming in at the same level as they had been with European football, after a couple of further seasons of thrift, Whyte would have the club completely debt free and be able to sell on for a profit. When this became public, David Murray came out with the farcical comment that Whyte had duped him into selling the club – this was in spite of the Rangers board having expressed doubts before the sale. While Murray did perhaps act rashly and Lloyds had concurred with his judgement (albeit, they were getting paid in full so were unlikely to care that much), it does not take away from the fact that Murray had been privately trying to get out of the club since 2006 and had publicly been doing so since 2009 and, when also considering the potential impact of the action from HMRC, it would be fair to describe Murray as a very motivated seller.

It would be fair to say that no-one expected just how quickly Rangers would fall from grace and, perhaps, it was because of one man. At the end of the 2010-11 season, Walter Smith stepped into retirement from Rangers and was replaced by his assistant, Ally McCoist. McCoist was, of course, a legend as a player at Ibrox and had a lengthy apprenticeship as assistant at Rangers. As such, his first European games were moments to remember as fans hoped for the start of a new glory period. While Rangers domestically went unbeaten until the end of November, their European campaign died before it started. Initially in the Champions League, Rangers were dumped out by Malmo of Sweden after ending up with 9 men in the second leg. This deposited them into a play-off for a Europa League group spot against Maribor of Slovenia in which they fared no better. There is, perhaps, no moment which sealed Rangers’ fate more than this – deprived of European income, there was simply no way that Rangers could possibly turn a profit and, in the eyes of Craig Whyte, if there was no way that that was possible, then there was no alternative other than administration.

It is difficult to guess exactly what Whyte was looking for from the club. The best theory must be that he chose Rangers as a purchase because of personal attachment (Whyte was a Rangers fan) that was amplified by the sniff of an opportunity to do what Murray had done – turn himself into a hero – but with the additional incentive of a potential large profit at the end of it. Once it became clear to Whyte that this was no longer a certainty, he simply put his business head on and limited his losses as much as possible. The plan for him from this point onwards was to get out and lose as little as possible. Had Rangers been able to get the £20 million plus that Champions League Group Stage participation would have earned them, they would likely never have gone into administration. But thanks to the talents of Ally McCoist in managing to go out of Europe in August after losing two ties that should not have posed a problem for his side considering the teams Rangers were pitted against, that was no longer an option.

The end, when it came, was all too inevitable.









































Part 2 – Terminus

The end of the road



























Chapter Nine – Death and Taxes

Each element that contributed to the death of Rangers deserves its own spotlight and none has been more blamed than that of their tax affairs. The EBT Schemes were, without a doubt, misguided policy in the boardroom but it almost gets undeserved attention. When Rangers liquidated, the outcome of the First Tier Tribunal had not been released. It was the threat of a massive tax penalty that killed Rangers, not a penalty itself. In fact, Rangers would be found by the FTT not to have broken any laws with their usage of EBTs. So what part did the EBT scheme have to play in the demise of Rangers?

What is perhaps best