The week of Rangers lifting the Scottish Premiership title is a strange time for the Chief Executive of the SPFL to be talking about events nearly ten years ago but, as already reported by Vital Rangers, Neil Doncaster has made some startling revelations in an interview with The Herald.
The court case between the administrators and liquidators rumbles on and at the heart of the argument lies how little was raised by the sale of players, a valuable squad being bought, in the end, for little more than we paid for Borna Barisic.
In the article, Doncaster expresses his surprise at how reluctant the administrators were to cash in on a host of internationals, recalling in particular how an offer for Steven Naismith was rejected only to see him leave for nothing just a matter of weeks later:
“What happened at Rangers was different from the usual practices of an administration.
“Especially because in the circumstances where a sale of the business and assets of the company was pursued, there was always a risk that [the player] would not generate any return at all because he would have been free to refuse a transfer of his employment contract to a Newco.
“I accept, however that it was open to Steven Naismith to refuse a transfer to another club, such as West Brom. But I would have been surprised had he not wanted to go to West Brom, a team that were playing in the English Premier League.”
The report also details how ten of the regular first-team squad were valued at over £20million and yet were bought by Charles Green for only £2.75m, confirming what many suspected at the time, something about the whole affair just doesn’t add up.
Vital Rangers Goal of the Season
Defoe v Livingston
Roofe v Standard Liege
Jack v Kilmarnock
Tavernier v Dundee United
We should never have gone into liquidation, the squad value alone should have prevented that, never mind assets like the training ground and Ibrox stadium, but – for once – Doncaster is right, when desperate for money, why would you turn down a bid for any player?
Hopefully the court case will get to the bottom of what really happened and why such calamitous decisions were made, however, after seeing what happened in other cases that collapsed, I won’t hold my breath.