Conflict, not contrition, now King’s mantra

A FRIDAY night in June 2012 and Dave King had a few things to get off his chest on Rangers Employment Benefit Trusts (EBTs). Flying home to South Africa following two days of Charles Green bluster, Sportsmail’s call was returned from a departure lounge at Heathrow Airport. Contrition was on his mind. ‘With regard to EBTs, I was on the board, so I have to take some responsibility,’ King told this newspaper. ‘And I follow the logic of the argument that, if we lose the tax case, then we probably gained some competitive advantage. ‘The way that Rangers have treated the authorities — instead of having a conversation with them around reparation — has been regrettable.’ Forgive those of us who raised eyebrows, then, when the latest Ibrox statement on EBTs appeared on Thursday night. ‘Irrespective of the final outcome of the tax appeal,’ wrote King in a strongly-worded missive, ‘the football team had no advantage from any tax savings from the scheme put in place by the Murray Group. ‘It is extraordinary that representatives of other Scottish clubs should even wish to re-engage with this issue.’ It’s an extraordinary volte-face. And it hardly takes a masters in psychology to work out why it happened. Rangers supporters believe the club’s board of directors were too passive when the bomb dropped in 2012. They now want a strong, aggressive board to resist title-stripping at all costs. Men who will stand up to the Ibrox-crisis junkies and bloggers driving the narrative. Celtic supporters want the same. And, with an awkward AGM coming up next Friday, the Parkhead board were happy to give them what they wanted last night in a retaliatory statement. It doesn’t say a great deal new. It’s hardly a call to arms. But the phrase ‘sporting integrity’ is back on the agenda. And Rangers supporters are now convinced Dave King was right. Their titles are coming under attack. It’s a slightly depressing business. Unless or until BDO seek leave to appeal, there will be no halt to the antagonism, anger and statements. Higher authorities than the media will judge the rights and wrongs of all this. Until they do so, there is no chance of us all moving on. This stuff isn’t building bridges. It’s blowing them to bits.