Due to a disagreement with with HMRC, he decided not to pay them at all and strip the club of any money he could. This individual will forever be scorned even after his dying days.
When Craig Whyte took over the club from David Murray, the previous custodian who ran up huge debts but managed to bring the debts down to 18 million. He was being forced to get the debt cleared due to a tax case regarding EBT's. (Employment Benefit Trusts).
This worried the bank, TSB, who took over from the Royal Bank of Scotland and were supposedly horrified at the amount of debt Rangers had.
David Murray had to tighten the purse strings and even though we could not buy players that we could before, Rangers were still winning titles and cups over our rivals, Celtic FC.
When Craig Whyte took over the club and prior to doing so. People within Ibrox warned David Murray not to sell to Craig Whyte due to his previous business dealings. Mainly asset stripping then liquidating companies.
David Murray, either under pressure from the bank to sell to Craig Whyte who promised to pay off the Lloyds TSB debt which would keep them happy or he was just glad someone was willing to come in and take the pressure of himself?
There is so much rumour and speculation regarding all the in's and out of what exactly went on, who knew what and who did what. All I can say is that no one really listened to the warnings regarding Craig Whyte and the upshot was that he shafted an institution and destroyed it's reputation in the world of football. And our rivals across the city took full advantage of the situation by stirring up a frenzy of hatred against The Rangers FC.
We now find ourselves in the Scottish football Leagues division 3. Something the SFA and SPL corruptly run powers that be tried to fiddle by getting us accepted into the 1st division so that we would not be out of the top flight for too long. Reason being is money. Rangers could guarantee high income for other clubs, TV rights and such. But the SFL who were being manipulated by the corrupt body of football in the offices of the SFA did not give them their wish. They accepted Rangers into the SFL and down to Division 3. This was accepted by the rangers fans as why should we now fight our case to go into Division 1 to help the clubs who kicked us out of the SPL. Scottish Premier League.
That would have been fine but when the SPL and SFA were found to be blackmailing the SFL clubs to get us put into Division 1, they quite rightly stood up and said Division 3.
This had the SPL clubs worried as they knew that without Rangers, they were not going to get as much money as they were used to from the likes of Sky TV.
There is so much I could go into regarding the state of Scottish football and how the hierarchy are run by a majority of people who have more than a vested interest in one club, our rivals, Celtic.
Corrupt is putting it mildly.
At the moment, they are scrambling to get a deal to save their necks and for the sake of Scottish football, to get Rangers FC back to top flight football. Before things badly backfired for them, the war cry was, "We don't need Rangers". Well, they found that out not to be the cause. They struggle to fill their grounds, those who took Rangers' place in European games have been nothing but embarassing to say the least. They started a propaganda war to get fans to fill the SPL grounds in the newspapers, radio and TV stations. All failed miserably.
They called it Sell Out Saturday. 3 games in and we are still waiting on the fans of the SPL clubs filling their grounds. Some could not even muster half full grounds. It became a laughing stock as Sky TV showed a comparison table of attendance figures. In one game at Ibrox, home of Rangers FC in the 3rd division had a crowd of over 49 thousand.
The fact that Rangers FC fans could turn out in such numbers showed the rest of the SPL clubs what a big mistake they made. And they know it.
The crowd at Ibrox created a world record for a fourth tier league crowd. The clubs and the fans who cried "we do not need Rangers" now regret saying this. They got their chance to boot Rangers when they were down and through bigotry, hatred and jealousy, they shot themselves in the foot by demoting Rangers.
They will be more than sorrow at our treatment by the corruptness of the SFA/SPL when Rangers are back on top. We the fans, and the club, will never forget those who could not wait to kick us whilst down, and we will never forgive.
There is talk just now of restructuring the leagues so that Rangers won't be away from top flight for the original 3-4 years as expected. This is not for our benefit, this for the sake of a lot of clubs going down the tubes because of the SPL?SFA stupidity and bigoted behaviour of the SPL clubs and called it sporting integrity.
Instead of having us walk away from our club, being all in despair and on our knees. We have picked ourselves up, accepted Division 3 and the decision of the SFL to put us into Division 3 with a renewed optimism, a new sense of adventure, and new sense of adding new chapters to our illustrious history. We have the opportunity to create more history, more world records and enjoy football again at grass roots.
Players left by their droves and the enemies laughed. But we are bringing in new players who are willing to play for Rangers FC in the third division. All over the world, media are reporting events, recording our fight against the corruption of Scottish football.
Rangers FC are the only club filling out grounds now, filling up Ibrox, buying season tickets and enjoying the last laugh for now.
New players are still wanting to come and join the Ibrox revolution which is absolutely wonderful. Young players are also getting a chance to shine which was hard for them to do in the premier league.
Our first game in life at the bottom was a cup tie in the Ramsden's cup against Brechin City. We won 2-1 after extra time. It was not going to be easy as so many players left and we were left with bare bones as a team. But we got there and Brechin City got a wonderful cash injection for their club.
The SFA had imposed a transfer embargo on Rangers FC meaning we could only sign players under the age of 18. Rangers took this to court as it was not in the rules of Scottish football to do this. A made up punishment. Rangers won the case but it later transpired that if we do not accept this transfer embargo, we will not get our licence to play football. Corrupt? Blackmail? Make of it what you will?
There is still an issue over the EBT's and they want to strip Rangers of titles or cups we won during the times of use of EBT's. There is nothing illegal about EBT's but where stopped as the loophole was plugged by HMRC.
But the SPL feel players had dual contracts, which is not allowed. We are still to hear the outcome of this but we know they are going to find us guilty no matter the evidence we produce to say otherwise.
We are hopeful that somewhere in the corridors of Ibrox, lawyers are awaitng to pounce on the SFA and SPL whatever happens regarding the EBT's.
As we have been kicked from pillar to post, unable to stick up for ourselves due to hold ups, set backs, no owners, no leadership, nothing. We had to accept what came our way or we would not get a license to play football.
Under duress, Rangers had to accept things. I do hope, that once things run its course. WE WILL BITE BACK.
After the Ramsden's cup game against Brechin City FC. We then headed to Peterhead for our first league game in division 3. They held Rangers to a 2-2 draw and it showed we will not be able to just turn up and expect to win our games.
Not all Rangers thought it would be easy, but many did. This showed that it won't be easy. The expectation is that Rangers should win the 3rd division league easily enough, but it won't be plain sailing.
But, how are the Rangers fans enjoying life in the 3rd division? World record crowds is testimony to the fact. They are loving it. New grounds to visit, new fans to banter with, new cities and towns to visit. Helping small clubs financially. Making new friends.
It's not all pretty as some grounds are just what you would envisage from the very old days of football. Total basics. But still the Rangers fans are accepting it and loving it. And fans are still buying season tickets.
This is much to the annoyance of the SPL clubs who had us dead and buried. Our game against East Stirlingshire was a most enjoyable day. Winning 5-1 and enjoying meeting new fans who also had a great day out at Ibrox.
This was followed by a game at Falkirk FC in the Ramsden's cup. Winning 1-0. this was our second giant killing of the season so far. Brechin are in division two, and Falkirk in Division 1.
Our next game is against Berwick Rangers on Sunday 26th of August 2010, so we get to play in England. :)
Then we play Falkirk again on the 30th of August, in the League cup at Ibrox.
As our new adventure continues, I will hopefully keep a blog going as to how we progress.
Never in the history of Scottish football has it been known for a club to kicked so much whilst down. But as the phoenix arises, beware those that kicked us whilst down. We will be back to where we belong and we will seek revenge!
Enjoy the adventure fellow bears and look forward to the retribution of our enemies.
Our results so far:
| JULY | ||||||||
| Sun 29 | Brechin City | A | 2-1 | W | Ramsdens Cup R1 | |||
| AUGUST | ||||||||
| Tue 07 | East Fife | H | 4-0 | W | League Cup R1 | |||
| Sat 11 | Peterhead | A | 2-2 | D | SFL Third Division | |||
| Sat 18 | East Stirlingshire | H | 5-1 | W | SFL Third Division | |||
| Tues 21 | Falkirk | A | 1-0 | W | Ramsdens Cup R2 | |||
