Charles Green Wins The First Round Of His Legal Fight With Sevco

Charles “Chuckles” Green today won the first round in his fight to have Sevco pay his legal expenses in the forthcoming court cases over his takeover of the assets of OldCo Rangers.

A few weeks ago, the former director and CEO stunned the club when he formally submitted paperwork asking them to cover his costs as he battles prosecutors over the events following Craig Whyte’s liquidation of Rangers in 2012.

Green’s legal team estimates those costs at around £500,000 … money which the club simply doesn’t have, coming in a month where rumours are circulating about the need to find external funding in order to meet the payroll.

Sevco no longer has a stock exchange listing, so there is no requirement for them to announce whether or not that funding has been found.

If it hasn’t, the first the fans and the press will know of it will be in the form of a short statement issued through a PR firm which places the club in administration.

If the funding is found, no-one will be able to scrutinise the small print, and perhaps we’ll not even know the actual source of the cash.

This is what passes for “transparency and openness” at Ibrox.

Green’s claim against the club was due to be explored at a hearing on Friday, but a fortuitous gap in the court schedule brought it forward three days.

The Sevco legal representatives mounted their case for having Green’s claim dismissed; the judge, Lord Tyre, disagreed and has announced that the matter will be explored in full during a formal two day hearing at a civil court on 12 – 13 November.

The legal costs of this hearing will stretch Sevco’s finances even further, of course, as today’s court appearance will have.

Green, who was the darling of the media and of the Sevco fans when he first took over the assets of OldCo Rangers, has since become a hate-figure in the eyes of all but those Celtic supporters who take enormous delight in the tribulations of the Ibrox club.

He got his nickname, Chuckles, as a consequence of his barmy statements and farcical behaviour.

Three years ago today, On Fields of Green published The Green Eyed Monster, which is still one of the most widely read pieces on the site.

In that article, the bizarre and contradictory behaviour of the man who, at the time, was a cult hero to the Ibrox faithful, was explored in full.

A short time afterwards, he convinced large numbers of fans to purchase shares.

In the aftermath of his Ibrox tenure, with fans bleating about millions having flowed out of its empty coffers, Green retired to a lovely new home in France.

He owes much of his good fortune to the pliability of the Scottish press and the gullibility of a customer base that purely and simply will swallow anything.

Today’s court-room skirmish was the first of many that will go a long way towards determining the future of Sevco Scotland, the company vehicle he used to acquire the broken bits of the liquidated Rangers, and who’s complicated history binds the SFA, the SPL and others to this sordid saga.

His unexpected, and quite brilliant, move to secure his legal fees from the very people who’s campaign of destabilisation helped remove him from the boardroom means that we’ll be laughing at his antics for a long time to come.