We’ve been having a little poke around in the insolvency laws today, and we have to inform Wings Over Scotland readers with shame and regret that we made a mistake in our Rangers Liquidation FAQ a couple of days ago. It turns out that it is in fact permissible for a new company to take over the name of an old one, so long as the old company was purchased in the process of liquidation, an exemption which would seem to clearly apply in the case of Rangers.
In the light of bizarre and intriguing recent developments, then, we’re faced with an interesting prospect: a new Rangers FC, playing next season under the old name, in the old colours, with the old history, in the SPL, at Ibrox Stadium, led by Walter Smith, with the current playing squad, completely free of debt and with a £20m bank balance from season ticket sales. (After paying back the bargain-basement purchase price.)
One can only imagine the tone of triumph from the Govan club’s friendly supporters.
The Big Tax Case would be irrelevant, buried with the oldco, as would the SFA investigation into dual contracts and the punishment for bringing the game into disrepute. Tens of millions of pounds owed to the taxpayer would simply disappear in a puff of smoke, as would the millions owed to other football clubs, to Ticketus, and to hundreds of smaller creditors for whom the money could (and now will) be the difference between their business surviving and dying.
The new Rangers wouldn’t be eligible to play in European competitions for three years, but business would otherwise carry on exactly as it did last season without interruption. It doesn’t seem much of a punishment for 10 to 20 years of deliberate, blatant, industrial-scale cheating, robbing other clubs of tens of millions of pounds and driving the Scottish game to the brink of destruction in the process, does it?
The above is, of course, a best/worst-case scenario according to which side of the debate you’re on. Even if the new Rangers could secure an 8-4 Yes vote to their entry into the SPL, the SFA could apply conditions and sanctions, as could the other clubs in return for their vote. But the new Rangers could always renege on any promises it made (eg in respect of agreeing to a change in SPL voting rules or sharing TV money), and it could challenge any SFA conditions in the civil-law courts, were the SFA to be so toothless as to let them get away with doing it previously.
The press is reporting that the attitudes of several of the the other clubs in the top division is hardening against the notion of admitting the phoenix Rangers directly to the SPL. In the circumstances we can’t say we’re surprised.