29 Sep 2026 17:48:10
With Manchester City being found guilty of all these charges up until 2017, i wonder what punishment they will receive? 🤔 I do think they'll be relegated, but in all honesty i don't take delight or wish to see this happening to any football club ☹️.
29 Sep 2026 18:02:03
Could take a while to sort out , city will fight it and tie it up in court and drag it out , is there a possibility the league could be postponed maybe before start of next season , not to mention other teams who might want to sue for relegation and lost money etc , one thing for sure the lawyers will be rubbing their hands.
29 Sep 2026 18:21:33
They need brought to account but the ramifications of endless legal battles from clubs affected will do untold damage to the game. You know they pay their high profile solicitor £5000 per hour. The amounts spent on court cases going forward and indeed up until now is eye watering. It will drag on for years yet, terrible state of affairs.
29 Sep 2026 18:24:32
If they cheated - and as massively as they have been found to have cheated - then they deserve everything that's coming their way, and probably more.
29 Sep 2026 18:38:03
£20m / £30m fine and move on. The EPL don't have the guts for anything else.
29 Sep 2026 18:53:36
830.69 million, relegated? Should be banned entirely.
29 Sep 2026 18:57:10
Everton received a points deduction for relatively minor offences. Systemic and sustained cheating over many years, sham contracts, inflating revenue by £831m from what little I've read about it. They will be relegated that's for sure, to where is the question. Action has to be taken by end of this season so as to not impact European places from this season.
The lawsuits from all of the clubs who will want their compensation will follow. The owners might have deep pockets but this will cost them dearly. Being stripped of trophies is the next big question, I don't see how they can't be based on the scale of this.
29 Sep 2026 19:03:38
And they're still denying it in their statement.
29 Sep 2026 19:12:06
Should Rangers have been banned indefinitely and had titles stripped with our cheating.
Genuine question for those with that opinion because scale aside we done similar type offences and actually went bust costing people and companies a great deal in the process.
29 Sep 2026 19:14:42
Honestly thought they wouldn't touch them , but to be fair they took on a club with a lot of money so I have to say they have done the hard bit , and the will drop down the leagues and a massive fine .🇬🇧.
29 Sep 2026 19:27:49
TommyGunn we were not found guilty of cheating at any point , we were using a system to pay players that was legal at the time and subsequently declared illegal by the government. Interesting that HMRC came to agreements with other clubs including Arsenal but wouldn't do that with us .
Also we were actually punished by the football authorities for Whyte deciding to not pay taxes so throwing us into administration then liquidation , which should have resulted in points deductions like it had for other clubs but that wasn't enough for us apparently .I wonder why?
29 Sep 2026 19:39:05
Manchester City and Rangers cannot be compared as the same because their financial offences, structural nature, and underlying regulatory contexts differ significantly.
Legal experts and figures from both clubs emphasize that the scale and mechanisms of the rule breaks are distinct.
Rangers faced outright liquidation because they could no longer service their debts or operate as a going concern. Manchester City's charges relate to regulatory inflation and non-cooperation/concealment rules rather than imminent bankruptcy.
Totally incomparable by all accounts.
Nature of charges
Alleged systemic deception, concealed sponsorship revenue, and disguised funding to bypass Premier League Financial Fair Play (FFP) over a nine-year period (2009–2018). | Use of Employee Benefit Trust (EBT) schemes for tax avoidance/non-payment under previous ownership, leading to severe structural insolvency and liquidation.
Operational Impact
The corporate entity remains extraordinarily wealthy and stable under state-backed ownership, contesting the verdicts through ongoing legal appeals. | The original corporate entity suffered total financial collapse, entering liquidation and forcing a new corporate vehicle to restart in the bottom tier of Scottish football.
Regulatory Framework
Handled under Premier League independent disciplinary tribunals with intense global scrutiny and complex commercial liability. | Governed by Scottish football authorities (SFA/SPL) dealing with licensing, tax compliance failure, and insolvency rules.
So to answer your question, no we shouldn't as the difference in the obfuscation and deception is off the scale, compared to us as ably explained above.
29 Sep 2026 20:44:57
Gers
LBH We were forefront in costing businesses lotta money and deserved what we got. However its all in past. Were now forefront inll making businesses money. So no fall out.
29 Sep 2026 21:00:41
I am not advocating anything really, I was just interested in the perceived difference.
Still struggling somewhat because it feels like the financial regulations are much more robust now and in both cases the underlying accusations of financial doping is the issue of contention rather than the regulatory framework at the time.
I don't really like the framework in place right now so struggle to feel any anger towards city but have seen a lot of fans feeling that way.
I also find the issue of financial doping in the EPL kinda funny because it's like a comedy sketch kinda thing.
I do think they should be severely punished but I don't really understand the passion for that from Rangers fans because it feels very familiar to the response we seen from other fans to our club.
29 Sep 2026 21:14:03
Apart from relegation and huge fine I'm not sure what else can be done. The EFL doesn't come under the same rules, as Leicester exploited. Stripping titles means nothing.
30 Sep 2026 01:52:09
Whats the highest transfer fee they paid in the last 10 years, then multiply it by 5 as a fine , then enough points deduction to guarantee relegation, then move on.
30 Sep 2026 03:16:10
I don't think they'll get relegated. If they try that then they will play the super league card!
30 Sep 2026 06:56:19
Fork, really couldn't disagree with you more.
There are huge similarities between Man City and Rangers use of dual contracts for financial doping.
The only difference is there is a set of specific rules that the EPL can hold Man City accountable to.
30 Sep 2026 07:17:10
As you're entitled to do, yes the use of EBT's put us on our knees and led to liquidation, but the scale and level of their "doping" and obfuscation is off the chart, for me it's one facet of similarity in a raft of outright deception, after looking at it yesterday, I'll agree to disagree.
30 Sep 2026 07:34:01
Financial rules, interesting.
The amounts of obscene money thrown around in that League by teams purely because of huge amounts of TV revenue and massive financial backing from owners/cooperations/countries and they think the rules make it fair.
Yes Manchester City should be punished appropriately as they have been found to have broken the rules in place.
However, fans of other football clubs in the EPL taking the moral high ground in a League that lost all its sporting identity a long time ago is slightly laughable.
30 Sep 2026 07:40:34
The use of EBTs was an HMRC issue not a league issue which is why those that HMRC agreed to settle with including many English clubs faced no football sanctions. It's a totally different situation from ours which was administration/liquidation we were relegated for not the breaking of rules.
30 Sep 2026 08:16:37
No, the EBTs became a league issue when they weren't disclosed to the league. we are legally required to disclose all financial contracts, bonuses, and remuneration given to players. to maintain the illusion of the EBTs not being remuneration we hid the side letters which were found to say the payments were that. they did tackle Arsenal but they settled early with HMRC whilst Murray continued to argue until the end that the EBTs were legal.
and yes EBTs at that time were not strictly illegal but the specific way the club used them was ruled by the UK Supreme Court to be a form of tax avoidance and disguised remuneration rather than genuine, non-taxable loans. does anyone actually believe that any of the players at that time were going to pay back the money they were loaned so they were in effect another form of disguised remuneration.
so on a different scale perhaps to Man City but it is fundamentally the same sports-integrity issue, although the financial mechanisms and the rules being broken are completely different. Both cases centre on a football club allegedly "cheating the system" to build a squad it could not otherwise afford, but they operated in entirely different ways.
anyways we were punished and moved on so City will be (eventually) and will do the same. they have more cash so might do it more quickly.
30 Sep 2026 08:33:47
I see no similarities between us and Man City. EBTs were perfectly legal until HMRC realised that it was a loophole.
30 Sep 2026 08:43:19
Completely different scenario, scale and at a completely different time with different rules in place as to what happened at our club.
We got punished more than appropriately, have moved on and still are hindered financially by the punishment of starting at the bottom League.
The titles we had a hand in winning have more than evened out as a result of our punishment.
Hopefully Manchester City will get punished appropriately but I find it hard to revile in this as it's the ordinary fan I feel sorry for, football clubs exist for communities and are an escape from the harsh reality of life for the ordinary people.
I find it a bit ironic other clubs fans taking the moral high ground with the financial picture in the EFL at the moment which is not a level playing ground anymore.
30 Sep 2026 09:43:47
Whether or not the use of them was right is a different question. If it broke football rules why did no other club that used them face any sanctions from Celtic to Arsenal and all the many other clubs that used them? Making a deal with HMRC doesn't change whether they all broke league rules.
30 Sep 2026 10:02:36
Bar, that suggestion sounds reasonable.
30 Sep 2026 10:10:24
There are obviously differences, however both involve allegations about financial reporting and regulatory compliance
The allegations against Manchester City centre on whether the club provided accurate financial information, particularly around revenue, sponsorship income, remuneration and compliance with financial regulations.
Our EBT case revolved around the club's use of EBTs to make payments to players and staff and whether those arrangements were properly disclosed and compliant with football and tax regulations.
In both cases, the core question is not simply "did money change hands? " but whether the relevant authorities were given a complete and accurate picture.
Also both create legitimate arguments about sporting advantage
There can be no debate that the EBT scheme helped attract and retain players that might otherwise have been unaffordable.
Likewise Manchester City artificially enhanced revenue, or under reported costs, could have allowed greater spending on players, managers and infrastructure than would otherwise have been permitted.
As a result, both cases are essentially "financial doping".
30 Sep 2026 13:04:37
Kaiser the answer to that is that Arsenal declared their EBT scheme to the FA whereas Rangers didn't and the detail was hidden in side letters, which we should have provided to the SFA; but we didn't.
both clubs benefited in potentially having more funds to invest in their squad so as EHL says a definite form of financial doping. not as bad as City but still an advantage.
30 Sep 2026 13:18:32
EHL, EBTs were legal when we were using them and it was only later that the HMRC changed that and back dated moneys owed. They were being used by other clubs and businesses at the time and as I say Arsenal settled out of court for a reduced amount something HMRC would not do with us, for some reason. Yes, it was an attempt to bend the tax laws but at the time we did it it was not illegal.
It also should not be forgotten it was NOT that case that threw us into administration it was our new owner Craig Whytes refusing to pay our day to day tax bills that did that (hence the phrase The Small Tax Case).
That was because he was allowed to fraudulently buy the club and then didn't have the money to run it . He was passed as fit and proper by the authorities so there is plenty of blame to go round.
30 Sep 2026 13:36:35
WSL, this information isn't difficult to find - providing you actually want to read it.
Many people at the time believed our EBT arrangement was a legitimate tax avoidance structure, but the courts ultimately ruled that it did not achieve the tax result Rangers claimed.
The important distinction is:
Tax avoidance: Arranging affairs within the law to reduce tax.
Tax evasion: Deliberately concealing or misrepresenting information to avoid tax.
When we used EBTs between 2001 and 2010, EBTs were not inherently illegal. Many companies across the UK used EBT structures, often with professional tax advice. The argument was that payments made into trusts and then advanced as loans to employees were not taxable earnings.
However, after years of litigation, the UK Supreme Court ruled in 2017 that the Rangers scheme did not work for tax purposes. The Court agreed with HMRC that the payments were effectively remuneration for employment and should have been subject to PAYE and National Insurance.
So although in principle EBTs were valid - our application of them was not. Also, just because multiple organisation / football clubs used EBT's, it doesn't mean that they all used them in the same way.
30 Sep 2026 13:40:44
The reason we did not have a deal with HMRC is that they used us as a legal test case to create precedent for going after others who done the same. It's why it went on so long as had to make its way through the court system.
I did not like what we done but I thought that was a terrible decision because Rangers are way more than a normal company and to use us as a test case was totally wrong imo.
If we had just went bust because of the skulduggery of Whyte we would not have ended up in bottom tier, it was all the outrage over the EBTs which caused that. I thought the outrage with us was way OTT and pretty much feel the same with City.
Yes, they broke rules but football fans trying to delete the sporting outcomes is a bit of a nonsense imo.
30 Sep 2026 14:58:20
They should be fined at least £500 million nand banned from Europe for 5 years, this cheating on a massive scale, also put on League 1. I have no sympathy for the whatsoever.