Will Sir David Murray pay the tax bill for Rangers?

I recently had a useful chat with a senior Scottish sports journalist in the media centre at the AVIVA stadium. We were both there for the Carling Cup.

We were discussing the Rangers tax case when he told me of the dominant view of this problem within the upper echelons of the Ibrox club.

“I’ve spoken to various people at Rangers and they say that they are confident that they’ll win the case, but if they lose the case then Murray will have to pay the bill.”

I asked him why he thought Sir David Murray would pay this bill?

“He would have to. I mean morally he would have no choice. If he didn’t his reputation as the owner of Rangers would be in tatters. ”

When I asked him did he think that Sir David would have a spare £55 million?

My journalist buddy merely shrugged.

Much of Sir David’s Murray’s wealth at the height of his powers was tied up with Murray International Holdings. Just as people in Dublin discovered that they were millionaires simply because they had a home in a certain area of Dublin much of MIH’s value was notional.

Now that the debt for equity swap puts MIH, like Rangers, in the effective control of the bank it is difficult to see where this cash for the HMRC case will come from. His wine company is doing well and it isn’t part of the MIH group which means that it isn’t under de facto effective bank control.

Industry sources I contacted disregarded the possibility that Sir David Murray’s wine company would have a spare £55 million or so in petty cash.

If my colleague is being well briefed from within Rangers then there is a level of wishful thinking at Ibrox apropos the tax case that surprises me.

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