ALLY BAGS A TREBLE!
Green hits out after snubbing Rangers probe
THE initial meeting of the commission set up by the SPL to investigate the company that formerly ran Rangers began yesterday at Hampden.
Representatives of the Ibrox club did NOT attend after newco chief executive Charles Green argued the SPL has no jurisdiction over them following Gers’ demotion to the Third Division.
The three-man panel, chaired by Lord Nimmo Smith, is stepping up its investigation into transactions from the Employee Benefit Trust (EBT) scheme run by former Rangers owner Sir David Murray.
The meeting finished around 6pm last night due to Scotland’s World Cup qualifier against Macedonia at the national stadium and is due to continue today.
Rangers could be stripped of league titles if found guilty of making undeclared payments to players between 2000 and 2011.
Green (above), whose company bought the business and assets of the soon-to-beliquidated Rangers for £5.5million in June, revealed yesterday that the Govan club would snub the hearing.
He said: “Neither the
THE ULTIMATE
SPL nor its commission has any legal power or authority over the club because it is not in the SPL.
“This should have been done when the SPL had jurisdiction and they didn’t do it.
“You are allowed to have an EBT, you have to disclose it, and of course there is a whole raft of information that when these EBTs were being used they were disclosed.
“They were in the accounts, it’s public knowledge.
“Rangers were a public company, you can go on the internet and see the disclosures.” RANGERS manager Ally McCoist has handed new deals to a trio of young guns in a bid to secure their long-term futures at Ibrox.
Barrie McKay, Lewis Macleod and Robbie Crawford have all put pen to paper on contract extensions.
McKay had been linked with a move to Everton before last month’s transfer deadline but has committed himself to the Light Blues instead.
The 17-year-old has signed a new contract that keeps him at the club for another five years after arriving from Kilmarnock in the summer of 2011.
Debut
The striker made his competitive debut against St Johnstone in the last game of last season.
He netted Rangers’ firstever goal in the Third Division in a 2-2 draw at Peterhead.
Macleod, 18, has started all eight games this season, while 19-yearold Crawford has made four appearances so far, including his senior debut as a substitute in the first match of the campaign in the Ramsdens Cup against Brechin.
Both players have penned contracts that will keep them at Rangers until the summer of 2017.