'Carve-up' fears over Old Firm meeting

Chief football writer

Monday 28 May 2012

CHARLES Green and Peter Lawwell have still to finalise plans to meet for the first time but the man heading a consortium to buy Rangers and the chief executive of Celtic may do so in the next 48 hours.

It is set to be another eventful week for Rangers

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Michael Grant

That has led to cynical suggestions that Green wishes to ensure ongoing agreement when it comes to voting in Wednesday's meeting of all 12 Scottish Premier League clubs at Hampden. The agenda for that includes Financial Fair Play issues, including possible increased penalties for clubs going into administration or attempting to enter the SPL as a restructured, newco club.

The meeting will also discuss proposed changes to the 11-1 majority requirement on votes relating to any financial issues. If Green and Lawwell agree to continue the status quo, the Old Firm can veto any change.If any votes do go ahead on Wednesday – decisions on the matters have been deferred at two previous SPL meetings – Celtic's views will be more closely scrutinised than those of any other club. Their representative at SPL meetings, Eric Riley, will be expected to reflect the fact that many of their supporters believe any newco Rangers should not be allowed in to the top flight. The club itself has been conspicuously non-committal about what it will do, mindful that Old Firm fixtures and Rangers' presence in the top division brings huge commercial advantages. That would be a point Green would wish to stress to Lawwell.Nevertheless, if Green gets his way the matter will be redundant, as there will be no newco. The terms of an £8.5m Company Voluntary Agreement (CVA) his consortium intends to propose to the club's creditors should be published today. That would then be voted upon at a creditors' meeting in 16 days' time – ie Wednesday, June 13 – before a 28-day so-called cooling off period in which creditors can change their mind. If it was approved at the end of that, Rangers would emerge from administration around Wednesday, July 11."Getting the CVA proposal is going to be a major milestone and it's going to be likely that will happen on Monday," said Paul Clark, joint-administrator from Duff & Phelps. "Clearly we put the proposal together speaking to the various principal stakeholders and we very much hope that they will view the proposals favourably." HMRC and Ticketus each have the power to block the CVA if they are unhappy with the pence-in-the-pound return it would deliver on the money they are owed. "Until such time as we get to the 13th we can't be certain, but we haven't put all the work in for nothing."There is no deal until there is a deal and that can't happen until there is a meeting of creditors. We wouldn't be taking this course of action if we thought it was complete folly."

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'Carve-up' fears over Old Firm meeting

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