The Daily Record has reported on an astonishing court case in which the liquidators of Oldco Rangers – BDO – are taking administrators Duff and Phelps to court over an alleged failure of duty when carrying out their responsibilities.
The article revolves around the claim that Duff and Phelps should have sold both Ibrox Stadium and the Auchenhowie training ground – then Murray Park – so that a large percentage of the claimed debts could be paid off.
BDO claim that as much as £29million could have been raised in the fire sale of property and not only that, they are claiming that players should also have been sold to make a dent into the figure that now stands at £64.5m with £51m in dispute following a recent adjustment from HMRC.
I always felt that we were forced into liquidation a lot sooner than was necessary, especially when we had assets available that could have be offered as leverage in one shape or another, that HMRC held all the cards and forced the hand of the administrators never sat right with me.
Should Ibrox have been sold to help pay the debt to HMRC?
Yes
No
We had a valuable playing squad and the fact that none of them were sold to help pay the debt off still sticks in my throat, at the time, players like Steven Naismith, Steven Davis, Allan McGregor, Carlos Bocanegra, Kyle Lafferty, Sone Aluko and Steven Whitaker would all have attracted reasonable fees – even if they were reduced to make allowances for the predicament we found ourselves in.
What happened remains a scandalous stain on our long and illustrious history with the responsible characters not only making money out of the farce, but getting away it in the process, all this latest episode has done is serve as a reminder of how badly managed the whole sorry affair was.