Green paid £2.75M for players' contracts

, 11 July, 19comments  |  Jump to most recent
As the Rangers saga rumbles on, the latest revelation is that Charles Green made a payment of £2¾M for the players' contracts, as part of the £5½M deal for purchasing all of Rangers' assets.

Green's consortium apparently paid for the club's employees to transfer to his company under TUPE regulations — which protects employees' terms and conditions of employment when a business is transferred from one owner to another &38212; but, on the advice of their union, PFA Scotland, numerous players, including Steven Naismith, rejected the opportunity to transfer their contracts from Rangers to Sevco.

Green rejects the claim players are free agents and claims these players were in breach of contract. As reported earlier this week, Fifa have issued temporary international clearance for five ex-Rangers players who have now joined other clubs while the matter is under consideration.

Green apparently also paid £1.5million for "heritable properties", which include Ibrox Stadium and Murray Park training ground. The club's member share of the Scottish Premier League and its membership of the Scottish Football Association were each sold to Green for £1.

Quotes or other material sourced from Sporting Life



Reader Comments (19)

Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer


Pete Edwards
1 Posted 11/07/2012 at 21:39:27
So how are there any contracts to buy apart from any of the players who accepted to be transfered to the new company?!

Maybe the 5 players should take Green to court and have him for breach of these so called contracts he bought!

The man is just making himself look and sound dumber by the day!
Brian Williams
2 Posted 11/07/2012 at 21:48:44
He may well have paid for the players contracts, but that was when there was a Glasgow Rangers football club. When the club was liquidated those contracts ceased. The players then had the right (as does every other employee under TUPE transfer) to choose NOT to transfer to the new company.

He's clutching at straws because he's basically deep in the shit!

Brian Williams
3 Posted 11/07/2012 at 21:52:25
Sorry forgot to add this quote

"What does TUPE mean legally?
Employees who are employed in the undertaking which is being transferred have their employment transferred to the new employer. Employees can refuse to transfer (or "opt-out"), but depending on the circumstances of the case, they can lose valuable legal rights if they do.

Meaning they might lose pension rights etc......NOT that they can't choose not to transfer.

An act of desperation by Green!....nothing more.

Gavin Ramejkis
4 Posted 11/07/2012 at 23:13:56
TUPE is also a bit of a scam, technically its there to ensure the transfer of a contract of employment matches nd doesn't change the terms from the original company to the new one - Transfer of Undertakings and Protection of Employment which is a roundabout way to say you move to a new company on the same wages and bonuses and so on, what it doesn't admit is that the new company has every legal right to write brand new contracts of employment and hand them to the transferred employees the very next day (I've been there, seen it got the T-shirt), as I said on a previous thread the whole legal consultation process which has to take place during the business transfer includes the employees who have every right to say no and that is the end of that, they leave usually with a severance package. If Green wants to be an arsehole over it he should ponder an addition to his septic debt purchase with 5 ex employees seeking a redundancy package or just move on and let them move on too.
Gavin Ramejkis
5 Posted 11/07/2012 at 23:22:43
TUPE was amended in 2006 but for those who want a fairly explanatory read, page 11 of this pdf clearly states the employee's position on transfer http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file20761.pdf
Gavin Ramejkis
6 Posted 11/07/2012 at 23:30:43
By choosing not to transfer the 5 have agreed no redundancy package as they made themselves redundant, but Green doesn't have a leg to stand on
Mark Riding
7 Posted 11/07/2012 at 23:33:42
If it were tupe, we would only have to match his 'old' Rangers salary Gavin I believe, but I dont even think it is tupe in this case ? You may know more.
Load of bollocks all round reading into it more. I have today been reading a workers rights book, and its actually interesting stuff. Recommends always getting the union involved, which Im sure Naismith and his agent have.
NewCo Rangers are wasting their time and possibly money here.
Steve Gray
8 Posted 11/07/2012 at 23:47:04
I thought the players contracts are an agreement to supply a service, not a contract of employment, so TUPE wouldnt apply anyway cos the players are not employees
Gavin Ramejkis
9 Posted 11/07/2012 at 23:44:07
Mark,

As far as I know from my Rangers mate up the road, all five took advice directly from the Scottish PFA who I am certain will have access to employment lawyers and barristers. If Green is claiming to have bought the contracts as an asset transfer then this would fall into TUPE if he then offered the players transfers into the newco.

It is a very strange situation as technically the contract isn't worth a balloon as the company ceased and stopped paying the players, thus breaching it and giving the players full rights to walk. Rangers would have held the player registrations but again the company no longer exists and the newco can't hold them as they aren't affiliated to any FA.

As the last affiliated FA to work with Rangers, the SFA need to resolve the issue by demanding the player registrations and then releasing them to the teams the five have moved to.
Mark Riding
10 Posted 11/07/2012 at 23:54:53
Thanks Gavin, its the fact that the NewCo isnt actually a 'real' football team that must be clouding the issue, by real, I mean, it does not yet actually play football in a Scottish League. Bonkers all round. I cringed when I read we had got involved with a ticket company today by the way ( think ticketus ). Id rather we sold Baines than BK try and pull of some crazy fund raising deal.
James Flynn
11 Posted 12/07/2012 at 00:03:08
Why is this fellow wasting time? He just purchased one of Europe's storied franchises for roughly half of what Arsenal paid us for Arteta.

I would think he'd be pouring all his efforts into getting Rangers back into some league in Scotland. Isn't that what Ranger fans want to know about? That they'll have a Club to follow next season at all? I would think every utterance from Green be best served assuring followers "We'll be back where we belong. Don't you worry about that." or some such.

This makes no sense. Can't see the forest for a tree. Oftentimes in sports club ownership, owners do so many dumb things, you wonder how they got rich in the first place. Green's conduct makes me wonder again.

Mick Davies
12 Posted 12/07/2012 at 03:01:18
Can't understand how the other consortium, with Walter and co. never got the nod to takeover, With a football man of integrity like him at the helm, I'm sure things would be a lot different and maybe, these players would have worked out a compensation package to help the club. As it stands, this Green idiot is looking like Delboy turning up in fancy dress, only to find a wake. More villain than hero
Chris Williamson
13 Posted 12/07/2012 at 08:41:19
So Steven Naismith has breached his contract. Rangers should sack him. The only winners out of this will, as usual, be the solicitors.
Noel Early
14 Posted 12/07/2012 at 08:57:30
Rangers deserve everything that they have got themselves into; they spent way above their means just to get the better of Celtic.

They say Celtic and Rangers are the same-sized clubs... nonsense in my opinion. I've traveled a good bit in my time and Celtic are a worldwide brand with a greater fanbase and much more potential income. Thousands travel to their home games from all over the world.

The whole saga is getting boring at this stage, but it's a stark warning to clubs like us not to be spending above our means — not signing Rodallega for £70k a week is a good start.

Andy Crooks
15 Posted 12/07/2012 at 09:23:08
Gavin, was there not a quite recent ground breaking judgement regarding Tupe in which 6 in which 6 bus drivers in London successfully sued their new employer. The outcome apparently has made it extremely difficult for employers to terminate an employee's contract and offer a new one under different terms. The drivers were able to remain employed while suing for unfair dismissal.(Stand and sue).
Brian Waring
16 Posted 12/07/2012 at 10:25:23
Surely if Green is pursuing this, he must be getting legal advice saying he has a case?
Tony J Williams
17 Posted 12/07/2012 at 10:40:27
Brian, there is always some smart arsed lawyer who thinks he can win a "no win" case.......whilst totting up the man hours and having pound signs go around in his eyes. Look at Stevie GBH getting away with his assault and battery or probably s20 GBH
Gavin Ramejkis
18 Posted 12/07/2012 at 18:48:10
Andy I think thats what the 2006 rewrite of TUPE was for, when it forst happened to me it was way before 2000 and the new company I moved to simply stated the TUPE period was over as all employees barring three or four transferred then changed everyone's contract including mine, at the time I walked over a £500 a year pay rise which I was due anyway under my previous T&Cs, as it ended I was earning nearly double elsewhere within 12 months of leaving but that was local government to the real world, it was the start of where I am now. The Economic card which Green would have played against the players was clear, gone from the SPL to a lower league and all having to take pay cuts, the bus driver case sounds like a classic constructive dismissal which industrial tribunals live and breathe for, most not getting that far before an out of court settlement is made, they must have not been as smart as they thought and made a decision to change the contracts without enough grounds for a economic argument again detailed in the BERR pdf
Bob Parrington
19 Posted 13/07/2012 at 02:30:34
Isn't SLAVERY illegal in Scotland?

Add Your Comments

In order to post a comment, you need to be logged in as a registered user of the site.

» Log in now

Or Sign up as a ToffeeWeb Member — it's free, takes just a few minutes and will allow you to post your comments on articles and Talking Points submissions across the site.


About these ads