Ally McCoist demands Government Inquiry into Ibrox transfer deals

Ally McCoist has called for a Government Inquiry into events at Ibrox. 

It seems that events this season are troubling the only man to have managed both Ibrox clubs.

More than a decade of operating while paying full Income Tax and National Insurance has taken a heavy toll on the 2012 Tribute Act. A trophy count level with St Johnstone doesn’t feed a bizarre in-built superiority complex.

Winning the Close Season Cup and the International Break satisfies most bears but not the next generation of fans.

MCCOIST AND A GENERATION OF REALITY

All that they have known is failure upon failure. The primary one kids that watched McCoist sign Kevin Kyle and Ian Black are now eligible to vote. Events at Ibrox have barely given them a moment of joy.

As manager or pundit McCoist has been quids in. If there is a pay day he’ll have his hand up and looking for over-time.

On Thursday night the cheeky chappy was in Budapest, sharing his insight on the 2-1 defeat from Ferencvaros.

Over the previous two nights McCoist was on co-commentary duties watching the Champions League.

Going from that to watching his own team take one point from six matches against Genk, Sturm Graz, Brann Bergen, Roma, Braga and Ferencvaros is a sobering experience.

After his TNT pay day McCoist shared his pain and frustrations with TalkSPORT listeners, telling them:

I’m not winding you up lads, I was actually shocked at what I was watching, some of the level of defending was unbelievable and then you finish the game up front with the centre half Fernandes and Chermiti.

It was just as poor as I’ve seen in a long, long time, see the money Rangers have spent and it’s a lot of money. I’m telling you right now, man, there should be a government inquiry. Honestly, it’s unbelievable.

UNBELIEVABLE?

There was been a lot of unbelievable events at Ibrox since November 1988 when Dave Murray bought control.

There has never been a Government Inquiry. The SFA has produced a few whitewashes.

McCoist knows Murray very well, he negotiated his contract to become Rangers manager in 2011 with Sir Dave. He later told reporters that he never looked at it, he just added his signature.

In 2012 he TUPE’d his contract to the new club. In December 2014, shortly after losing to Alloa in a Challenge Cup semi-final McCoist resigned, triggering a pay rise and 12 months on gardening leave.

RANGERS TAX CASES

In 2000 Ronald de Boer and Tore Andre Flo were signed for combined fees of £17m. Amazingly their contracts registered with the SFA and SPL were lower than their deals with Barcelona and Chelsea.

That one later became The Wee Tax Case. It was triggered after the Metropolitan Police were given a warrant to rain Ibrox in an unrelated matter.

Neither issue resulted in a Government Inquiry. McCoist was assistant manager to Walter Smith at the time.

In 2012 Rangers went into liquidation owing 276 creditors around £80m.

A Tribute Act was set up, Ibrox Stadium and Murray Park were sold for a combined figure of £5.5m as face painters, florists, newsagents and tax firms waited years for an eventual pay-out of 11p for each £ owed. HMRC and various football clubs also lost out. HMRC were owed £56m when Rangers went into liquidation.

In 2022 the Scottish Government announced that pay-outs of over £50m have been made for malicious prosecutions on the bank of Rangers being liquidated.

Charles Green was paid £6m plus his legal costs.

Dave Whitehouse and Paul Clark were paid £10.5m each plus legal costs according to BBC Scotland.

There will be no Government Inquiry into the transfers of a job-lot of losers into Ibrox. No-one really cares about the deals done in the summer for Youssouf Chermiti, Thelmo Aasgaard, Manny Fernandez, Joe Rothwell and others.

Perhaps if more media scrutiny had been put on Andrew Cavenagh, Kev Thelwell and Paddy Stewart some of those deals might not have gone through.

Thelwell, Stewart and Russell Martin have all lost their jobs. That is the way that football works Ally, deal with it.

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