Official Rangers FC Thread

Former Dundee director Giovanni Di Stefano has bought a £1 share in the old Rangers and has promised that "sparks will fly" as the Italian goes out to prove that Rangers should never have gone into administration.

“SPL COULD FACE REPERCUSSIONS IN THE RANGERS AFFAIR” SAYS DEVIL’S ADVOCATE GIOVANNI DI STEFANO. THE RANGERS ACQUISITION “A SIMPLE FRAUD THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DETECTED.” NO BLAME ON MURRAY. BY GIOVANNI DI STEFANO
Craig Whyte is not actually a bad guy. He is however, an unlucky one and maybe also an irrational speculator. At the age of fifteen the stuff of legend has it that he bought some shares and made some money on the stock exchange. He then invested that in his father’s plant hire company only for that to go bankrupt with debts that today would equal in the millions. An omen for what was to come?

But by his mid-twenties he tried again but never really managed to grasp anything until he moved to Monaco where the author also holds a residence. He was seen at the Hotel de Paris but was rarely given the accommodation of prestige restaurants like ‘Le Grill’.



His ability to manipulate the media and internet search engines is one of some alarm. Today notwithstanding his serious financial troubles his Wikipedia page has been manipulated with the co-operation of ‘user friendly’ ‘give us a bung’ Wikipedia editors to state:

“He is chairman of a complex maze of interlinked firms from around the world thought to be worth more than £1 billion.”

It beggars belief and the fury of Rangers supporters if that statement is true because if he truly were worth anything of the like it would be a mere formality to pay the liabilities he was contracted and obliged to pay for acquiring Rangers.

David Murray on the other hand is 20 years older than Craig Whyte. In 2008 after years of honest and diligent work he was conservatively valued (including shares and assets) at almost £800m. As a direct result of banks manipulating the economy and openly cheating the public and those like David Murray the following year his net value dropped to under £100m.

There is no doubt that honest and diligent men as David Murray were defrauded by banks and government policy based upon dishonest intentions. The victims were those like David Murray.

But David Murray was to be a victim again. Knowing that he could not sustain Rangers Football Club he sold the company to Craig Whyte for £1 believing that Whyte would pay the debts and sustain the club. After all, David Murray had lost some £700 million in one year whilst Craig Whyte was supposedly worth billions.

Originally the deal with Whyte was that Murray would sell Whyte the debts of the club and Whyte would have a minority stake. In the end Whyte bought 80% plus of the controlling shares in The Rangers Football Club Ltd on the strict understanding that the debts of the club would be transferred to a company called Wavetower Limited incorporated on the 17th September 2010. That did happen but another condition was that the bank debts i.e. money owed to Lloyds Bank PLC would also be transferred to Wavetower Limited. That would effectively make Rangers Football Club debt free.



On the 6th May 2011 the deal was cemented in stone although it had been in discussion since 2010. Wavetower Limited became The Rangers FC Group Limited.

That company and that company alone should have been the company that held the legal liabilities of the Rangers Football Club PLC. What is more important is that Lloyds Bank PLC signed an assignment that codified the transfer of bank debts from Rangers Football Club PLC to Wavetower Limited whose new name would be the confusion that Whyte sought to ensure any payments due to Rangers Football Club PLC would be in fact paid to Wavetower Limited whose new name confused all even the bankers, auditors and ultimately the SFA/SPL/SFL.

Craig Whyte uses confusion to ensure success. Wavetower Limited now known as The Rangers FC Group Limited was in fact part of his ‘big’ company called Liberty Capital PLC. That company was incorporated on the 12 December 2007 and had anyone bothered to check would have found it was a dormant company.

David Murray and his advisors certainly accepted on face value that Craig Whyte had complied with the agreement to acquire Rangers Football Club PLC namely that Wavetower Limited shortly after known as The Rangers FC Group Limited had –with the important consent of Lloyds bank PLC- legally transferred the debt from Rangers Football Club PLC to The Rangers FC Group Limited..

Rangers Football Club PLC should technically have been on the 6th May 2011 debt free.

By deliberately confusing the newly named Wavetower Limited as The Rangers FC Group Limited evidence that has now come to light is that funds that were destined for The Rangers Football Club PLC that was debt free actually were paid to Wavetower Ltd whose new name The Rangers FC Group Limited was confusing to the debtors of Rangers Football Club PLC and to the bank since it would appear Whyte ensured his companies banked with Lloyds Bank PLC.
The Rangers Football Club PLC established and incorporated as a Limited Liability Company in 1899 was thus starved of income, whilst incurring day to day liabilities.

The deceit is actually a simple one that required only institutions to be confused between the companies.

Party to this deliberate and simple deceit albeit innocently are Lloyds Bank PLC who permitted payments scheduled for The Rangers Football Club PLC to be paid to The Rangers FC Group Limited again an easy error but one which constitutes both civil and criminal liabilities.

Obviously clear that a company starved of its true income cannot last long. The Rangers Football Club PLC within a year was insolvent even though it should not have been.
But Craig Whyte played his insurance card. He knew that if he was to be absolved of any wrongdoing he would need a scapegoat. He too would have to claim he was a victim as he did when his father’s company was bankrupted owing to his schemes and only his age saved him from prosecution then.

Whyte blamed an aide who had a previous conviction for fraud and that; he thought was his insurance policy. That is yet to be seen.

The police have now opened an investigation into the acquisition and it may well uncover a can of worms that will spread from Monaco to Glasgow and involving banks, investment house, auditors, advisors, stockbrokers all of whom must or should have known what was happening.

One person who will forever blame himself will be David Murray but he holds no fault only praise. His deal was simple namely that the debts of The Rangers Football Club PLC be transferred to what he believed to be Wavetower Limited soon changing to The Rangers FC Group Limited and Lloyds Bank PLC assigning the bank debts to Wavetower Limited which it did.

The SPL have today voted in its secret session not to admit The Rangers Football Club PLC to the SPL. They say that company no longer exists and since the company is in administration and insolvent then it has no right to play in the SPL and fails the criteria test.

If The Rangers Football Club PLC had not been openly defrauded of part of its income it would not be insolvent. It was not insolvent on the 6th May 2011. The Administrators have failed to institute proceedings or obtain at least Restraining Orders against the Companies that benefited from the fraud. Lloyds Bank PLC that permitted payments directed to The Rangers Football Club PLC and paid instead to The Rangers FC Group Limited may well carry a liability and at the end of the day it will be the case that The Rangers Football Club PLC was not insolvent.

The SPL itself a Limited Liability Company may well find itself before the Courts for damages. That is why there is a rush to liquidate The Rangers Football Club PLC so the potential fall-back is mitigated.
It is estimated that millions of pounds that should have been paid to The Rangers Football Club PLC was diverted to The Rangers FC Group Limited and other names with similar ‘Rangers’ in the title.

One company however, that is solvent and which the SPL could use to permit Rangers Football Club namely the team to play is RANGERS LOTTERIES LIMITED that started its life in 1964 as RANGERS POOLS LIMITED.
It is certainly part of the ‘Rangers’ family and the SPL Rules do permit associated companies in specific circumstances to assume the share held.

It is an avenue the SPL would be well advised to consider quickly because once it is established as it will that The rangers Football Club PLC was not insolvent and was defrauded by a simple mechanism escaping all the sophistications now in force any damages caused by the SPL or other sporting bodies may well cause those bodies to be insolvent.

Mr. Hassard wrote:Why is all this crap still going on? We have been voted into SPL Division 3, can we not just leave it at that? I don't want us reinstated into the SPL, I don't want a SPL 2, it's just not fair and just because we're Rangers doesn't mean we have to be treated any differently from any other club. We are lucky just to be voted into SFL 3, as like Gretna and Clydebank, we should of started again in the senior leagues below SFL 3 such as the East of Scotland Football League first division and waited until an opportunity to get into the national league structure arose.

We are lucky to be where we are, and most of our fans realise that. If other clubs can't cope financially because of the Rangers situation, tough. They should be ran and managed better in order to cope with such happenings. I just want all this crap put to bed so that we can start concentrating and looking forward to next season.

MickStupp wrote:

Mr. Hassard wrote:Why is all this crap still going on? We have been voted into SPL Division 3, can we not just leave it at that? I don't want us reinstated into the SPL, I don't want a SPL 2, it's just not fair and just because we're Rangers doesn't mean we have to be treated any differently from any other club. We are lucky just to be voted into SFL 3, as like Gretna and Clydebank, we should of started again in the senior leagues below SFL 3 such as the East of Scotland Football League first division and waited until an opportunity to get into the national league structure arose.

We are lucky to be where we are, and most of our fans realise that. If other clubs can't cope financially because of the Rangers situation, tough. They should be ran and managed better in order to cope with such happenings. I just want all this crap put to bed so that we can start concentrating and looking forward to next season.

So do I, it's just this Giovanni di Stefano guy has bought shares in the oldco (which still isn't liquidated) and has asked for an investigation.

Weather130 wrote:I cannot wait for the Division Three battle of the Rangers when these guys get to play Berwick Rangers.

Weather130 wrote:I am curious if Rangers will be close to filling Hampton when they play Queens Park. What do you guys think?

Laurencio wrote:

Weather130 wrote:I am curious if Rangers will be close to filling Hampton when they play Queens Park. What do you guys think?

Depends on the players they will have I suppose? If they have most of their stars still at the club then there's really no reason why Rangers supporters wouldn't watch them tear the division a part

TheRangersFan wrote:Apparently we still don't have a license to play soccer this season. The rumours I read suggest that we will be taking a year out and then invited into a new spl2 set up.

Don't think I believe that, but still seems a ridiculous amount of trouble for this license. Everyone just wants to get on with the season.