Whyte flag over Ibrox

Ten years ago today, Scotland’s establishment club was sold for a quid to a guy called Craig Whyte.

The whole of Planet Fitba had been breathlessly told about this mystery billionaire.

Indeed, we were assured that “his wealth is off the radar”.

At the time, your humble correspondent used his NUJ contacts in business journalism to try and build a profile on this Whyte chap.

I rather suspect that was a great deal more research than heroic stenographers at the Daily Record.

Mr Whyte had retained the services of a heavy-hitting law firm in London. Several editors got letters warning them of legal action IF they wrote anything about their client that was defamatory.

A well-placed source shared one of these missives with me.

Exactly ONE MONTH after  Sir David Murray received one pound sterling for the club he had acquired in 1988; I wrote this rather satirical piece.

At that point, the intrepid shills on the sports desks were still gushing about the text of Mr Whyte’s wealth and the pantheon of football gods that would soon be signed for the mighty Rainjurrzz.

Of course, it was all bollox.

From my research into Mr Whyte, I knew that he was no Warren Buffett.

Indeed, he was something of an insolvency impresario.

During that time, the back of this site was flooded with abusive messages from the Ibrox klanbase.

They believed what the shills had told them on the sports desk.

 

However, once the  man forever known as Super Salary managed to get RFC dumped out of TWO European competitions on the bounce, the spreadsheets meant one thing:

Insolvency.

This site was a contrarian throughout season 2011-2012.

Quite simply, the Ibrox club did not have the cash to see out the season.

Mr Whyte’s error was staring into the headlights after the second match against Maribor.

However, his plan appeared to be to wait for the big tax bill to drop after a decision by the First-Tier Tribunal.

Ironically the Knight of the Realm had told this legal team to play for extra time on that one.

Consequently, the Suave Billionaire was forced to run the club on PAYE remittances and the VAT cash.

By the start of February, Hector had seen enough.

You know the rest…

When Administration day had arrived, the shills on the sports desks were blabbing incoherently about a CVA and nothing really to see here.

The same week I was confidently writing that liquidation was inevitable.

Ah well…

The death of Rangers in 2012 was an epochal moment.

A two-horse race had been reduced by one.

After that, only Celtic could stop Celtic as Sevco Scotland Limited was born with the birth defect of the “Onerous Contracts”.

Now, I suspect that those creative deals had a specific bit of real estate in mind.

Of course, it should have been Sevco 5088, but that’s a scéal eile.

So after Rangers died in 2012, Planet Fitba had ONE big club.

Indeed, it would take a stunning level of narcissistic incompetence or a deeply held belief in the “Old Firm” for the city rivals to throw away that advantage over the tribute act.

Imagine that…