Just when you think Graham Spiers has disappeared for good, he comes back infrequently to remind people that the standard of journalism in Scotland has reached rock bottom
I used to think that newspaper editors, and Radio controllers should be some of the most streetwise and incisive individuals around. You’d think that years of journalism and reporting from the streets would instil a common sense that would set them apart. Wrong.
Latterly I’ve come to the conclusion that they are living in a timewarp and so far removed from reality that they have completely lost perspective.
After all, Graham Spiers still seems to pop up in Scottish broadsheets and on the airwaves, despite a toxic reputation that he cannot understand a game of football, cannot get a scoop, and has the reverse midas touch anywhere he writes.
After months of offering very very little in terms of relevance, Spiers has jumped in to full rant mode at Rangers with regards to Charles Green’s pertinent observations of the SFA and SPL agendas against Rangers.
While Spiers likes to play the bumbling fool when it suits him, he also displays that narcisism that high profile journalists posess, and assumes a position of superiority, even when he is completely off the mark.
Right from the off, Spiers gets it completely wrong, and perhaps I should show just how wrong he actually is
“I am still trying to get my head around the senselessness of Charles Green and Rangers FC refusing to have any truck with the SPL’s investigation conducted by Lord Nimmo Smith into the alleged EBTs misdemeanours at the club.”
Firstly, the SPL’s investigation has already been carried out, and was carried out by Celtic’s law firm Harper Macleod, and more specifically Rod Mckenzie
Nimmo Smith is chairing an “independent” panel to sit on that evidence
“Nimmo Smith has been widely quoted in the past few days, but one plea he made that has virtually gone unnoticed was that anyone associated with Oldco or Newco Rangers, who believe they have a plea of mitigation to make about the club, should come forward and speak to the commission.”
David Murray stated several weeks ago that no one from the SPL, Harper MacLeod had not contacted him, nor anyone else from the “oldco”
Nimmo-Smith should be contacting Murray directly, rather than implying an open invite through the media for Murray attend a tribunal where the evidence has already been compiled without his input.
Expecting Murray to take part in such an arrangement is absolutely ridiculous.
In any case, Murray. like Alastair Johnston and Green, is very clear that no tribunal should be taking place until after the HMRC FTT appeal is decided
“What are Rangers so scared of? Why did the club obfuscate in passing on relevant documentation? What is there to hide?”
Murray’s position should be explained above.
Green’s position is explained in various statements.
Green’s statements are clear. The SPL are working to a pre-determined agenda which compromises the integrity of the tribunal.
While Rangers have stated that they do not question Nimmo Smith’s impartiality, and that he has been put in a difficult position by the SPL board, my belief is that he too is working to a pre-determined agenda, and that his request for input is meaningless, unless he formalises it.
Essentially, if he genuinely wished a credible and fair hearing for Rangers, he would throw out the slanted evidence of Rod McKenzie and the SPL, and tell them to start again once the FTT has been decided, with a directive to interview all stakeholders.
He hasn’t, which means he either has no intention of seeking all the relevant evidence, or is not being allowed to by the SPL board
His terminology in comparing Rangers alleged actions with match fixing would suggest the former.
“If Rangers are innocent of an alleged dual-contracts scam – and they may well be – then why does the club not step forward and argue its case?”
Because they have been through the process with HMRC and the FTT and await the judgement. The SPL kangaroo court should not be taking place until after any such judgement is issued
My understanding is that the case isn’t as cut and dried as many are making out. If it was it would have been finalised a long time ago.
At one stage, with a week to go before the commission’s preliminary hearing of September 11, Green and Newco Rangers were prepared to go and talk to Nimmo Smith. But, with a day to go, they swiftly changed their mind.
Interesting. Perhaps Green found something out about the panel that was not too his liking?
Why did it take from Sep 11 to Sep 26 for this to come to light ?
To quote Nimmo Smith verbatim from his preparatory notes on the Rangers hearings to be held in November: “Oldco and Rangers FC will continue to have the right to appear and be represented at the hearings and make submissions as they see fit.”
A few pages further on in his notes, and applying his desire to have all evidence and all voices considered in this saga, Nimmo Smith adds: “We [hope] that Oldco, Newco and any other person claiming an interest and wishing to appear will give intimation to that effect. We wish to emphasise that the doors remain open to Oldco and Newco to appear and be represented…”
Never mind Charles Green’s antics, what about Sir David Murray? Given Nimmo Smith and his commission’s desire to establish clear blue water between itself and the SPL, what can possibly stop Murray from coming forward to give his side of the story?
Nimmo Smith chose his words carefully in terms of testimony about EBTs: “…any other person claiming an interest…”
In this Rangers saga, I can think of no viable person who suits those words more than Murray, the man who set the Ibrox club on the fateful course of EBTs in the first place.
As stated above, Murray has never been formally invited to contribute to the investigation, and his focus has to be in fighting his case against HMRC, not a kangaroo court set up by Rangers’ enemies.
Murray avows that Rangers are innocent. He claims this is a stitch-up by people – whoever the heck they might be – to damage Rangers. Murray says the EBTs, the famed “legal loophole” to paying taxes, were used properly and legitimately.
I severely doubt Murray’s interpretation on this but, more than that, I want him to be given his chance to come before the commission to protest his and Rangers’ innocence.
Can someone provide a single valid reason why Murray would not to come before – or present evidence to – Nimmo Smith?
Not to? What does that mean?
The Commission is flawed for a number of reasons, from the choice of lawyers, to the lack of will to talk to Murray, and the commission being set up before the FTT final judgement, which suggests an assumption that Rangers are guilty.
There is absolutely no reason why either Murray or Green should treat the tribunal or those who commissioned it with anything other than contempt.
The SPL and SFA have been flawed in their handling of the Rangers case – everyone can see it. But the SPL is trying to make up for that by ensuring that its claim that Rangers FC warrants an investigation will be a claim carried out with the utmost impartiality and clarity.
Such a claim is not only inaccurate and misleading, it is laughable for many of the reasons I have stated above
You have to be a conspiracy theorist of fantasist proportions to somehow believe that Nimmo Smith and his two QCs, Nicholas Stewart and Charles Flint, are “agenda-driven” or “biased” in any way. This commission will once and for all cut through the cant and farrago of this case and reach a judgement on all its available evidence.
This is also not true. Neither Green nor Murray have questioned the impartiality of any of these men, but have questioned the agenda of the SPL board, and the SPL lawyers Harper MacLeod.
Perhaps the tribunal will be the next step,
Nimmo Smith, Stewart and Flint, apart from their renown in judicial matters, appear to have impeccable credentials. This is a costly exercise for the SPL, but it is worth it. Personally, I will very happily embrace this commission’s guilty or innocent verdict on Rangers, for those very reasons.
I’d suggest that Nimmo Smith may shortly find his credibility shattered, unless he throws this case out. The credibility of all three is at risk.
In the EBTs/dual contracts controversy, Rangers face two imminent announcements: the tribunal on the so-called “big tax case” and then the Nimmo Smith hearing. The two are subtly linked: one is about EBTs and alleged tax evasion, the other is about player contracts and disclosure.
This story, with its claim and counter-claim, is more complex than anyone could imagine. Rangers could win one case and lose the other, or win or lose both.
My own hunch, given what I’ve been told, is that Rangers have been in the wrong. But far more able scrutineers than me might find otherwise
Your own “hunch” is worthless, as you have not seen the evidence. On the basis of the above, you are clueless.
It is clear that Rangers believe the second to be worthless, and they’d be right, as they are believed to have both a strong case for themselves, and strong evidence to suggest that other SPL clubs have undertaken arrangements which have not been declared in any way shape or form to the SPL, while there is public documentary evidence of Rangers declaring their EBTs to the SPL and SFA.
Charles Green is not for letting this go either. If it would be wise for anyone to see sense and back down it would be the morally bankrupt SPL, before they become the financially bankrupt, (and former) SPL.
While it would be no surprise to see the SPL as a collective take one last ditch blind suicide attempt to kill Rangers, given their actions to date, the more influential members of the SPL could be intent on taking the SPL to the point of no return.
With falling crowds, and the Sky deal ready to die, it may be that the SPL members who care more about the future of their own club will step up and take action to stop the SPL bullies killing the game in Scotland.
I’d suggest if they don’t, their clubs will die and will never return.
Why Rangers FC, Green or Murray would not want to go before Nimmo Smith and present their case, remains baffling.
Only if you are stupid
Bill.
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