As February draws to a close and we head into March it is inevitable that there will be a lot of discussion on the forums and the websites about Rangers’ tainted league titles from the EBT years. The Supreme Court is due to sit on the Big Tax Case next month, and their verdict will probably be the one that stands for all time, although there is one more appeal option – to the European Court – for whichever party does not win.
I don’t expect the losers to take that up. Once the highest court in the land has spoken I expect that to be it.
This matter is about to reach its historic conclusion.
I think HMRC will almost certainly win. Few can understand how we got this far with one major victory for MIH and his subsidiaries. The matter appears clear-cut. The evidence appears both conclusive and overwhelming.
Should the verdict go that way, the debate over title stripping will begin anew. A lot of people would rather this one was left in the past; not a chance in Hell. The Lord Nimmo Smith verdict, as ridiculous as it was, was only justified under the aegis that the Tax Case was found to be lawful; that’s where the idea came from that there was “no sporting advantage.” If, as he argued, the law was being followed there was nothing to stop other teams from doing the same.
Once it’s established that this was not lawful, all bets are off.
There is a common misconception going around about this, and I want to address it before the debates over title-stripping actually start.
First, no-one is talking about “taking medals away” from people.
And no-one is talking about changing the results of games.
Let’s get something straight; there aren’t a great deal of our fans who want tainted titles.
That’s not what this is about.
I’m not interested in seeing Black Sunday being reversed in a judicial decision.
That day is imprinted on my soul, and will be for as long as I’m alive and nothing will erase or change it one iota.
We’ll never have good memories of it, we’ll never get those days and occasions back again, as our club will never get back the money that was stolen from it in lost revenues and potential earnings from Champions Leagues and what not.
This is about justice, not revenge.
Most fans I’ve spoken to feel the same way; we don’t want the retrospective awarding of those league titles and we never have. But Rangers can’t be allowed to keep them. Those which were influenced by EBT recipients being paid in a manner that wasn’t kosher have to go, and whether that puts as asterix beside them or simply results in their deletion from the records I’ll leave to others to decide. But they can’t stay as they are.
Look at the Tour De France history boards for a lesson in how it should look; that seven year deletion which represents Lance Armstrong’s victories is how Scottish footballs should look with the EBT’s, and this should affect leagues and cups both.
There are a lot of arguments we’ll hear on both sides of this thing, but only one of them is valid; Rangers cheated. We all know they did. The media is content to brand that a matter of opinion; so b it, for the time being, but once the Supreme Court finds in favour of HMRC that goes from being a matter of opinion to being a matter of fact.
And then people have to decide whether they let that cheating stand.