The Four Games That Destroyed Rangers … And What Regan Did Next.
In his book, Downfall, Phil MacGiollabhain maintains that there were three games that did for Rangers; the first took place on 25 May 1967, in Lisbon. It haunted Murray from the moment he took over their club. He wanted to usurp that achievement and as it wasn’t his money he didn’t care how much of it he had to spend chasing the dream.
The phrase “they died chasing Lions” is an apt description. The obsession with winning that trophy had put their club in the deepest trouble.
By July 2011, Murray was gone.
His dream had been shattered and by that point he was a beaten man, trying to hold his business empire together as the full measure of the disaster he and his bankers had presided over in two decades became clear. He had sold up for a mere £1, forced by Lloyds to agree to a deal which allowed them to do walking away.
Ally McCoist was in the dugout. Craig Whyte was in the director’s box. All the elements of a perfect storm were coming together. At that time the scouting department at Rangers was working off two lists of potential signings. An A list and a B list.
Even Whyte knew signings would have to wait until they had that Champions League cash in the bank. He had his license, in contravention of the rules. Now all he needed do was sit back and wait for his manager to get the club to the Promised Land.
But events had already conspired against him.
Not many people realise that a crucial element in the collapse of the club had already come to fruition. It had happened in March that year, in Eindhoven. The full story of that night, and how it fits into the bigger picture, has never been fully understood.
I am grateful to Phil for his insight into the matter.
For the whole of the 2010-11 campaign, Rangers had been subjected to harsh scrutiny by European football’s governing body. And before every match they played in Europe a series of emails had gone to their press office, asking who the match delegate was and whether said delegate spoke English. The rationale behind this question was simple; the sender of those emails wanted to be sure that UEFA’s delegates would know what they were listening to.
And in March 2011, the email sender received notification that the delegate for the second leg of Rangers Europa League tie against PSV, taking place at Ibrox on St Patricks Day, would be a gentleman named Campbell, hailing from the north of Ireland.
UEFA would later cite the club for the behaviour of its fans in both the first and second legs of that tie, but Rangers’ anger was especially acute in the case of the second of them, the one at home. On that night, the UEFA delegate gave them a clean bill of health … but he was not the only agent of UEFA in the ground, and that’s where the problem was.
A delegate from FARE, Football Against Racism Europe, was also in the stand, and their report on that night was scathing, and devastating. Not only did it grab the attention of UEFA, of whom FARE is an accredited organisation, but it focussed the whole of Europe’s media on the behaviour of the Rangers fans. As a result, the club was fined and told that its supporters would be banned from their next European away match.
In the aftermath of that verdict, Martin Bain released a venomous statement which lashed out at FARE and alleged a conspiracy against the club. “”We have never said that sectarian singing is not a problem,” the statement read. “But this now has all the hallmarks of a deliberate and targeted campaign against the club.”
He was, of course, correct; the phantom emailer (whose identity, let’s face it, isn’t much of a secret or would be much of a surprise) has never been anything other than open and honest about his intentions and motivations, and he remains open about them to this day.
As a consequence of this, Rangers went into their European tie against Malmo with the crucial disadvantage of having no away supporters to cheer them on. They lost the first leg 1-0 at home. They drew the second 1-1. Would their fans have made a difference that night? We’ll never know, but their absence didn’t help.
After crashing out of the Champions League Whyte told his scouts to dump the A-List of signings.
The club was now in all kinds of trouble, pinning its hopes on Europa League group stage football to stand the slimmest chance of survival. It wasn’t to be.
Maribor took care of that, blowing them out by winning their home leg 2-1 and then snatching a 1-1 draw at Ibrox to plunge the club into anarchy.
Whyte told his scouts to dump the signing B-List.
And he told his financial officers to immediately stop paying bills as they came due.
From that moment on their fate was sealed. The SFA had broken its own rules to help them … and so Craig Whyte knew that he had friends at Hampden, friends who might even be willing to help deal with the aftermath.
And of course, he was correct.
From very early on, and certainly by November 2011, the SFA was well aware that one of its biggest clubs was facing an administration proceeding and probably much worse. Whyte did not bother to hide his intentions; his plan had always involved a switcheroo to beat HMRC over the Tax Case … from August he stopped paying any tax at all. And he reached out to the SFA for help in preparing as soft a landing as possible.
Scandalously, they agreed. Did they know he was intending to screw HMRC out of millions more? They must have, otherwise the lights would have gone out by December. Phil had written at the time about how they were living on fumes by then.
Having already risked the wrath of UEFA over side contracts, having given the club a license which deprived Celtic and other clubs of millions of pounds, the SFA was now actively involved in helping Rangers defraud the exchequer all over again.
The SFA had become party to a tax fraud.
And even worse was to come.
