Craig Whyte 'offered £15m to pay Rangers tax case from personal wealth'

Craig Whyte: The Rangers owner was banned for brining the game into disrepute.© SNS Group

Rangers owner Craig Whyte offered to pay up to £15m should the club lose its big tax case appeal, according to Scottish FA documents.

The SFA also reveal in its judicial panel findings that Sir David Murray had "no option" but to sell his 85% stake in the Ibrox club because of financial pressure, including his company Murray International Holdings being approximately £700m in debt.

On Friday, the reasons for the sanctions imposed on Rangers for various rule breaches, including bringing the game into disrepute, were released.

In the document, the panel noted that in takeover discussions Mr Whyte had given personal guarantees about his ability to pay off part of any tax bill arising from the first tier tax tribunal.

The panel found: "The matter of a potentially adverse ruling in 'the big tax case' was discussed and Craig Whyte represented to [Rangers director] John McClelland that he would be prepared and able to meet any liability falling upon Rangers FC in that tax case up to a value of £15,000,000 from his own personal wealth.

"Despite the representations made by Craig Whyte, the directors of Rangers FC were provided with no details or evidence of any financial matters or proof of funding or assets relating to Craig Whyte or his companies."

Mr Whyte did not attend or take part in the judicial proceedings which resulted in him being banned from holding an official position in Scottish football for life, as well as a £200,000 fine.

Rangers FC were also fined £160,000 for bringing the game into disrepute, while they were also hit with a 12-month player registration embargo by the SFA for the various rule breaches. Administrators Duff and Phelps have appealed against the sanctions, which will be heard by a tribunal made up of Lord Carloway, Craig Graham and Allan Cowan next Wednesday.

The judicial panel said it considered terminating Rangers SFA membership because of the seriousness of the rule breaches, but decided that the punishment was "too severe".

In its findings released on Friday, the SFA panel found that after Mr Whyte’s takeover the club continued to deduct around £1.2m a month in PAYE Income Tax from employees’ wages, but none of the money was handed over to HM Revenue and Customs., meaning that the business was run for ten months on unpaid taxes worth more than £13m.

Ken Olverman, finance officer at Rangers, had his bank authority reduced under Mr Whyte, who would not allow him to sign cheques for more than £100. In August 2011 he was contacted by HMRC officials regarding invoices "for many millions of pounds" it had found relating to Rangers FC on the books at Ticketus. He claimed to have "no knowledge" of the invoices raised by the club in relation to the £25.3m Ticketus deal.

The following month he saw the invoices and felt "the nature and format of the invoices was entirely different to that of invoices raised within the finance office of Rangers FC. He was of the view that it appeared as though ‘Clip Art’ computer processes had been involved in their creation. They did not appear to him to resemble any invoices he had ever seen issued by Rangers FC. Having sight of the invoices confirmed his view even further that they had not been created within the finance office of Rangers FC."

According to the panel, the invoices from Rangers to Ticketus for the season ticket deals "related to sums of many millions of pounds and the VAT element in each of them had been the subject of offset by Ticketus in the submission of its VAT returns for the last period. Such was the size and impact of this offset of VAT which had been paid by Ticketus in respect of these invoices, that Ticketus had made a claim for payment of a substantial sum to it by HMRC by way of recovery of VAT paid."

In the judgement issued on Friday, the panel said "the massive extent of the failure and the intentional and calculated manner" in which Rangers did not pay their taxes "aggravated the [SFA rules] breach even further."

The judicial panel said that Rangers' directors and employees could not try to blame the mismanagement of the club on Mr Whyte. In its reasons, it added: "The question might be 'What could they do?' The answer is 'They could have made public the activities of Craig Whyte of which they were aware or ought to have been aware.' Their fiduciary duties owed to the company might for example have led them to disclose to the Plus Stock Exchange that no accounts were likely or that no AGM was likely to be held on account of the conduct of Craig Whyte and that there was a complete breakdown of the corporate governance of Rangers FC."

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