Mr Regan, tear down these tainted titles!

AS the Court of Session in Edinburgh has ruled that the now-deceased Rangers' use of EBT's to pay their players was in fact illegal, the issue of title stripping has come to the fore again.

Predictably, the SMSM have quickly gone into overdrive in an effort to quash all talk of sporting sanctions but there is a growing groundswell for action to be taken which will not be ignored.

There are two questions to be resolved at the moment, when in any sane sporting jurisdiction, there would be only one. Namely:

1) Should titles and trophies won by Rangers in the EBT era be expunged from the historical record?

2) Should titles and trophies removed from Rangers' record be re-allocated to the clubs who finished in second place?




Firstly, the infamous LNS inquiry is the reason that thus far Rangers has been allowed to retain those trophies and titles. It is high time this was revisited, as even without the ruling in favour of HMRC it was a shameful carve-up (not to mention a contradictory mess) designed to reach a pre-determined conclusion.

When you wade through the legalese designed to bamboozle the ordinary fan, LNS failed to strip titles from Rangers for two reasons:

1) It proceeded on the assumption that Rangers' EBT use was legal, therefore the payments were not irregular

2) Defying all precedent, the SFA in the person of Sandy Bryson testified that player registrations are not automatically invalid due to rule breaches.

To take the first point, LNS actually found Rangers guilty of failing to provide details of all payments made to players, in contravention of the registration rules. Not only did they fail to provide these details, they were also deliberately withheld from both the footballing authorities and HMRC.

But in spite of not disclosing all payments to players in contravention of the registration rules, LNS amazingly decided that that was actually okay, because they would have been allowed to make those payments anyway. They broke the rules, but they didn't, if you like...

Furthermore, Rangers had not gained any sporting advantage by their making of irregular payments to players because, them being perfectly legal and above board, all the other clubs could have been utilising EBT's as well. We now know that this is emphatically not the case.


Then we have the quite incredible intervention of Sandy Bryson, which after all this time still beggars belief.

While previously Spartans were expelled from the Scottish Cup for fielding a player whose registration form had not been dated twice as required by the rules, Bryson testified that while Rangers had not properly registered their players, their registrations were not invalid because, well, no one noticed at the time so they were therefore valid!

The Court of Session has now ruled the use of EBT's is illegal. We now know that Rangers, from 2001 - 2011 were making illegal payments to players and this bald fact should blow the LNS Inquiry out of the water.

So what should be done now? Should the titles be stripped? On the face of it, of course they should! In any other sport, and in any other footballing jurisdiction, there would be absolutely no question of Rangers being allowed to retain the ill-gotten gains on its historical record.

But this is Scotland. This is the SFA. This is, well, Rangers. And Rangers is special. I propose now to outline the various arguments against title stripping and address those individually.



1) Rangers won those titles fairly and squarely on the park.

On the face of it, this is true (no laughing at the back there!). It was 11v11 on the pitch and they did win all those matches by their own effort and determination.

But this is a specious argument. It actually does not matter that they were won fairly and squarely on the park. There are rules which are binding on all clubs and you cannot pick and choose which ones to abide by and which to ignore.

When Celtic lost 1-6 on aggregate to Legia Warsaw in 2014, they won fairly and squarely on the pitch. They were by far the better team over the two legs. But they still fielded an ineligible player. A player who was suspended for the match.

It mattered not a jot that the player concerned was only on the pitch for a few minutes when the tie was well won, he should not have been on the pitch at all. In fact, he should not have been named as a substitute either and that alone was enough for Legia to forfeit the match 0-3.

Rules have to be stuck to. The moment you start to ignore rules, the game descends into chaos. We may as well make them up as we go along (like Sandy Bryson!).

So sorry Rangers, you didn't abide by the rules of the competitions you won in the EBT years, so all that effort and determination on the park is irrelevant. You fielded ineligible players. Players ineligible by the fact you were paying them via illegal tax avoidance schemes. Entire XI's should not have been on the park.

2) It wasn't the players' fault; they shouldn't be punished

Of course it wasn't the players' fault, and it's not them that should be punished. I see no reason to "take their medals off them." Let them keep them. They might even have a higher monetary value after the titles are stripped.

It is the club which benefited from industrial cheating that has to be punished. The historical record shows that Rangers won those titles and trophies. Not Stefan Klos or Barry Ferguson. Rangers engaged in financial doping to win those titles and Rangers should be punished by having those titles and trophies erased from their record. If the players don't like that, then too bad. They were playing for a club which was cheating, and on an unprecedented scale. They can take that up with the club. If it can be contacted beyond the grave...

3) There's no proof the players wouldn't have signed for Rangers if they weren't using EBT's

No there isn't. But that misses the point. They were using EBT's, which were illegal payments. If they would have signed anyway, why bother engaging in a risky tax avoidance scheme in the first place?

Let's get one thing straight here, Rangers did not save any money by using EBT's. EBT's ensured that the players took home more than they would have if paid regularly.

If Celtic offered a player £20,000 a week, they would take home about £12,000 -£13,000 a week after tax.

If Rangers offered that same player £20,000 a week via EBT, they would take home about £17,000-£18,000 a week after tax.

If you were a footballer with no connection to Scottish football, which package would you find the most attractive?

Apart from the Rangers die-hards like Alex Rae, it is ludicrous to suggest that players would not have gone elsewhere if not for EBT's. They allowed Rangers to give players a significantly bigger wage packet than similarly placed clubs. Like Celtic.


4) It would be far too messy to strip titles.

If it was discovered that your place of work was riddled with asbestos, it would be really messy to fix it. You might have to relocate for a spell while the work is carried out, but there would be no question of saying, "Ach, let's just leave it there, it'd be far too much bother to get rid of it."

Similarly, triple heart bypass operations are very messy, but that's no reason not to do them.

Rangers' use of EBT's, illegal payments to players, threatens the integrity of Scottish football. If we accept you can cheat and keep the titles and trophies, where is the moral hazard to prevent cheating in future?

Yes it might well get messy. But that's no reason not to clean the Augean Stables of Scottish football.

5) There's not proof Rangers would not have won if they hadn't been using EBT's

No there isn't. But that misses the point. They were being paid by EBT's, which were illegal payments. There's no proof Lance Armstrong wouldn't have won six Tours de France even if he hadn't been using performance enhancing drugs, but he was using performance enhancing drugs which is against the rules.

We'll never know if Rangers would have won without EBT's, but that is Rangers' fault. They put that question mark over their own achievements by making illegal payments to players. If you cheat, you forfeit your winnings. Simple.



If I've missed any anti-stripping arguments, please let me know and I'll address them too.



So on to what should happen to the stripped titles - voided or reallocated?

My view is that they should be voided.

Fans of clubs like Queen of the South, Ayr United and Dundee were denied days in the sun at Hampden due to coming up against a financially-doped Rangers in Scottish and League Cup Finals. Those were once in a lifetime opportunities for some of those clubs, and those dreams were dashed by a club indulging in an unprecedented level of cheating.

But it's too late now to add those honours to the historical record of those unfortunate clubs. What enjoyment would the fans derive from it now? They'll see no lap of honour at Hampden. No open-top bus drive through the town. Their fans will have no stories to tell their grandchildren. That has all been denied them.

Similarly for Celtic, the club who lost out most often (SEVEN league titles). Celtic fans will never see the league trophy presented on the final day of the season. They'll never wait in anticipation for the Champions League draw. They'll never see the league flag unfurled on the opening day of the season. That has all been denied them.

Think of the historian of Scottish football a hundred years from now. He or she could look on the record and see that Celtic won 18 titles in a row between 1998 and 2015. He or she could see cups won by Queen of the South, Ayr United and Dundee.

But that would tell only half the story. Rangers' EBT payments; their cheating, will have been forgotten about. It would look to our future historian that there was nothing out of the ordinary going on in those seasons.

Voiding those titles, leaving them vacant for the historical record, would be a fitting way of remembering that the EBT years happened. A permanent reminder that Rangers Football Club cheated on a massive scale for over a decade in the pursuit of glory.

A permanent reminder that Scottish football itself was ruined by Rangers as Sir David Murray battled desperately to keep up with Celtic and destroyed the club in the process.

A permanent reminder that Scottish football does not tolerate cheating.

Those titles and trophy wins are tainted. Rangers certainly shouldn't be allowed to keep them, and really, who would want them now?