JABBA THE AGNIVORE

BIG BROTHER AND THE HOLDING COMPANY

The news that Hearts are about to go belly-up has brought all the Trigger's Brush FC supporters out of the woodwork. Amid all the gloating they are demanding that Hearts are relegated the way they imagine their team was. They still can't seem to get their heads round the fact that they were not relegated; their club died and started over again. No matter how much they scream and shout it does not change what really happened. Hearts are going into administration and will be deducted points, exactly the same as happened to Rangers.

Bomber Brown, meanwhile, is accusing Hearts of cheating; holding back from going into administration until now so as to avoid relegation. So all the appeals for the supporters to buy season tickets etc was a sham, then? Obviously, Brown's links to Ibrox have clouded his judgment and he thinks everyone's out to get him!

Instead of the Brushers whining it should be Hearts supporters that are complaining. Why is their team being deducted 15 points when Rangers were only deducted 10? Is that fair? SPL rules specify a penalty of -10 points, as happened with Rangers, so why the extra penalty for Hearts? The rules also specify that any further insolvency event will incur the same penalty. I would expect SFL rules to be the same, so 'Rangers' should have started the season just ended with a ten-point deduction. Of course, being a different club this rule did not apply to them!

The Brushers like to interpret the rules to suit themselves and are not above lying if it helps to promote their agenda. I have seen a couple of them argue that the SPL rulebook explicitly separates the club and company. This, of course, is pish! The only time the term 'holding company' is used is in the regulation concerning registration of playing grounds:

 "A Club participating in the League must:-

A2.5.3.1 itself, or through a subsidiary or holding company of such Club, own its Registered Ground;"

That's it. Nothing about the company and the club being separate entities.

Some Brushers even go so far as to lie and say that SPL rules say that a club cannot trade, only a holding company. Again, this is pish. Throughout the SPL rulebook the only 'company' spoken about is the SPL itself. All the member clubs are referred to as just that: clubs. It is also interesting to note that UK law specifies that if a holding company owns a subsidiary, that subsidiary must be a trading company! So that puts their gas at a peep.

It is interesting to have a look at how the 'holding company' model works and what a holding company is for. In essence, the holding company is just for providing initial funds and collecting dividends; it has nothing to do with the day-to-day running of subsidiaries, its business transactions or even its debts. Any debts incurred by the subsidiary are solely the responsibility of the subsidiary; the holding company is not liable. In this way, if the subsidiary goes into liquidation then the holding company is unaffected.

This, of course, puts a whole new slant on affairs at Ibrox. If Rangers were insolvent then the club, not the holding company, would be liable for the debts. The attempt by everyone involved, including the agnivores in the Scottish media, to turn the holding-company model upside-down is disingenuous and does not stand up to scrutiny. A holding company cannot be held liable for the debts of a subsidiary. If they wish to claim that the club was a non-trading entity, then they have broken the law. And if they try to claim that the club is just an asset, like the ground, then the whole edifice comes crumbling down. How can an asset be a member of the SFA/SPL/SFL etc?

The bottom line is that Rangers went into liquidation and the club now resident at Ibrox is a new one. Any other explanation involves either breaking the law or re-writing the whole notion of what a club actually is! Maybe this guy Kieran Prior, with his off-the-radar IQ, can come up with a better story!

Speaking of Kieran Prior, I was interested to read his take on what is currently going wrong at Trigger's Brush FC. According to Prior, there is too much money being paid out to those in charge at Ibrox. I think no matter who you support we can all agree that Traynor is not earning his money. Even if he is only being paid a tenner a week, that's £10 a week too much! What, exactly, does he do? Prior, however, is not interested in Big Jabba's sinecure; he's after somebody else. The whole article in the Daily Record was a tirade against Brian Stockbridge; how he is earning too much, how he contributes nothing, how he shouldn't be there. Unsurprisingly, Prior admits that he is a friend of Malcolm Murray! So that's another one ready to take sides.

So this guy, who has threatened to buy more shares, is out to get Stockbridge while supporting Murray, the Krays have yet to show their hand, Blue Pitch Holdings are still hanging around like a bad smell and it doesn't look like Craig Whyte is going to give up anytime soon. All this before The Laxative arrives in December to further complicate things!

I see Big Brother is back on our screens but everyone has lost interest. The goings-on at the Big Hoose are much more entertaining and the Ibrox boardroom has a bigger collection of cheats, crooks, weirdos and assorted attention seekers than the Big Brother House could ever hope to assemble!

The Board of Directors of Trigger's Brush FC.