Scottish Premiership

Why BBC Scotland’s Latest Documentary About Rangers Failed To Deliver

|

The last time Mark Daly fronted a documentary about Rangers, I have to confess I was less than impressed. 

He made a series of allegations about the new owner of Rangers, Craig Whyte, but failed to produce enough evidence to make people really doubt Whyte’s intentions and the truth about how wealthy he actually was.  But in the months after it was aired, it did become clear that Whyte was not to be trusted, as he put the club into administration on February 14th, and it emerged that he had funded his purchase of Rangers by mortgaging off years worth of season tickets to a company called Ticketus. 

A second documentary by Mark Daly appeared on BBC One Scotland on Wednesday night, called ‘The Men Who Sold The Jerseys’, apparently to explain how Rangers came to be in administration and awaiting the outcome of a court case with HMRC that could see Rangers charged with owing the taxman over £50million as a result of using EBTs (Employee Benefit Trusts) between 2001 and 2010.

It certainly seems like a valid reason to make a documentary, but the reality is that most Rangers fans are already know who is to blame for Rangers being in their current position.  It begins with Sir David Murray, the man who bought Rangers in 1988 and took a club already recovering from a barren spell in the 1980s on an almost unprecedented run of success, which included 9 league titles in a row, and the signing of top class players like Paul Gascoigne, Brian Laudrup, Ronald and Frank De Boer, Giovanni Van Bronckhorst and Arthur Numan. 

Despite that success, David Murray’s vanity and ego resulted in the club running up massive debts, and as the money in Scottish football dried up, it became impossible for the club to continue at that rate.  Lloyds bank eventually took over the running of the club, leaving then manager Walter Smith with little funding to strengthen his team, and it took the purchase of the club by Craig Whyte to remove Lloyds from the picture.

Craig Whyte promised much, including a substantial transfer budget for new manager Ally McCoist, a significant revamp of the Govan area surrounding Ibrox stadium and most importantly, a debt-free Rangers.  But he came with false promises, and having failed to push through multiple big money bids for players in the summer, he sold star striker Nikica Jelavic for just £5.5million in January, and then put the club into administration.

Click HERE to head to PAGE TWO

Share this article

0 comments

  • GaryBhoy says:

    Just how did the documentary fail to deliver??He did point out Murray didn’t use his own money to buy Rangers and the some of the main protagonists in the EBT scandal.Contrary to what you claim there was more information revealed than what has already been “alleged” in other media outlets, so far as far as i’m aware the only other reporting of this is being done by bloggers on such sites as Rangers Tax Case,Random Thoughts by Paul McConville and Phil Mac Giolla Bhain(much hated by RFC fans), the only single scoop by mainstream media was the Ticketus story but mostly they have been suffering from indigestion due to the “succulent lamb” that they were continuously being fed by Sir David Murray

  • Hi, i believe that i noticed you visited my web site so i got here to go back the prefer?.I am attempting to find things to enhance my website!I assume its adequate to use some of your concepts!!

Comments are closed.