The Day Murray’s Ego Killed Rangers- by John Brown

The anniversary of Rangers going into liquidation passed without any comment or recognition in the mainstream media on Friday.

It could have been the opportunity to recognise the success of the Tribute Act, winning each of the Scottish domestic trophies within 12 years of starting off away to Brechin City in the Challenge Cup.

Obedience to the Continuity Lie is the issue, with each passing year the mainstream attempts to gloss over the events of 2012 but with their circulations crashing at the same rate as their credibility the truth remains out there.

Articles have been deleted on line but there are hard copies out there, the front pages are known. Craig Whyte has been portrayed as the villain of the piece, the man from Motherwell has no ethics but without doubt the architect of the death of Rangers was David Murray.

Dewy-eyed bears go on about delivering 9-in-a-row, Gascoigne and Laudrup and then the Advocaat Years but there was a massive price to pay for the ego of their Chairman.

The Advoccat years delivered five trophies out of nine and never got out of the group stage in the Champions League.

John Brown was on the inside throughout, as administration turned into liquidation on 14 June 2012 he told The Sun:

This is down to a mixture of arrogance and massive egos that got out of control. Couldn’t the other directors control men like Murray and Craig Whyte? They had a job to do as well and they failed.

I don’t think anyone from that nine-in-a-row era I was proud to be a part of can stomach to look at where we are now.

And in my eyes Sir David Murray has to look at the Advocaat era as the beginning of the fall of Rangers. We were spending sums of money we could not afford.

We were going beyond the budget. Money was being thrown at it. I mean Bert Konterman was on £18,000 a week! What the hell was that all about?

When we signed Tore Andre Flo for £12m Jim Duffy was reserve team coach at Chelsea.

He phoned me and said ‘Are they off their heads?’. Duff said he was fifth choice at Chelsea and a semi-retired Luca Vialli was ahead of him.

Then Richard Gough phoned me. He was at Everton and he’d played against him and he just didn’t rate Flo in that sort of bracket.

Those would have been two simple phone calls to make. Were Sir David and Advocaat not doing their homework?

It was not just the £12m, it was £30,000-a-week in wages, minimum. When you spend money like that, it’s just throwing it away.

As we know Flo wasn’t getting directly paid £30,000 a week, the contract registered with the SFA and SPL was for far less than Celtic were paying to Chris Sutton and Neil Lennon who joined at the same time.

Using the Discount Option Scheme which saw money paid into an offshore Trust Murray was able to entice Flo and Ronald de Boer who had moved from Barcelona to Ibrox.

Those two contracts led to the wee Tax Case which the club admitted guilt to but tried to kick down the road, when Murray was trying to sell the club to Whyte it was a £2.8m liability handed on to the former billionaire.

That bill was known of and overdue when the SFA awarded Rangers UEFA licences for the 2010/11 and 2011/12 seasons.

Murray preferred to sign footballers like Nikola Jelavic and James Beattie than settling with HMRC.

Had he settled the HMRC bills the SPL titles would probably not have been won giving the club access to the Champions League and the funds to stay in business, to keep on spending.

Before accepting a pound coin from Whyte, Murray had arranged for Ally McCoist to take over as manager from Walter Smith.

Not only did McCoist’s side lose to Malmo in a Champions League qualifier but he doubled up on that by losing to Maribor in the Europa League to wipe out UEFA prize money and three sets of gate money.

Whyte responded by no longer passing on Income Tax and National Insurance deductions to HMRC, on the park McCoist’s side lost a 15 point lead at the top of the SPL between November 6 and December 28.

CLICK HERE for the timeline into liquidation.

CLICK HERE for Keevins performs incredible u-turn on Rodgers as he accuses Celtic fans.

CLICK HERE for Santa Ponsa celebrates Celtic’s victory in the Glasgow Derby.