Did some Rangers’ players have two contracts?
Darryl King, an experienced journalist with the Herald and Evening times, seems to think they did and said so on live radio.
From what I can gather the story centres on the possibility that Rangers players had a PAYE contract that said how much they were being paid and the amount of PAYE and NI they would have deducted at source.
So far so ordinary.
However there is an allegation that there was SECOND contract and this told the player how much would be lodged in the Employee Benefit Trust for him. These monies would then be “lent” to the player from the Trust.
If these second contracts exist then they effectively constitute suicide notes for Rangers in the big tax case.
If this story is true then it has possible consequences for the football authorities.
A player’s contract has four parts and they are identical in content.
One goes to the SFA, one goes to the appropriate league (SPL, SFL etc.), one is retained by the club and the player, of course, has his part.
Therefore a Players’ contracts being lodged with the SFA is non-negotiable.
So who knew what and when did they know it?
Any reasonable person might ask the following:
(1) Did the second contract exist?
(2) Were both contracts lodged with the SFA?
(3) If only one contract was lodged with the SFA were they aware of the existence of the second contract?
I spoke to someone involved in football administration today about these putative second contracts for some Rangers players he said that the SFA accepted paper work from club s ”on face value” and did not have the resources or the inclination to investigate them.
I think that may have to change.
