Sir David Murray: football’s answer to Fred Goodwin?

The conspicuous mammon which is an essential part of this town is enjoyable. A hedonistic night in the Lizard can linger long in the memory, and when you are stuck on that tight dance floor, the crushing impact on one’s wallet is an afterthought.

Glasgow Rangers Football Club lived one perpetual night in the Lizard under the ownership of Sir David Murray, which has proven to be twice as costly, as this week’s step towards administration showed.

When Murray took over Rangers in 1988, the club was living up to its anthem, Tina Turner’s ‘The Best’: England internationals, the highest number of season ticket purchases and Britain’s best stadium were some of the redeeming features which were part of the club’s portfolio.

In the initial period under Murray, steel magnate, Rangers went from strength to strength; the club’s legendary “Nine in a row” sequence of championships occurred, while off the pitch Rangers were able to outspend their rivals, Celtic FC in particular, in an astronomical fashion, prompting Murray’s ill-fated utterance in the 1990s that “for every fiver they spend, we’ll spend a tenner”.

In 2012 Rangers are stuck in a rut. The club are paupers. The gradual distance between European leagues such as the English Premier League, backed by Sky, or Spain, where Barcelona and Real Madrid are able to negotiate massive TV deals, and the Scottish League is part of the problem.

Nonetheless, Rangers have been ruined by Sir David Murray’s financial misbehaviours.

When Rangers were pursuing their ill-fated dream of Champions League glory in the early 2000s under the leadership of Dick Advocaat, the stellar cast that he had assembled – Arthur Numan, Ronald De Boer, Giovanni Van Bronckhorst and Stefan Klos to name but a few – required payment.

Rangers, under Murray, used off-shore tax accounts to pay these players, therefore avoiding scrutiny and more importantly payment to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.

This historic tax bill reared its head in 2010 when HMRC began to chase up these loose ends (Rangers’ directors were still using these shady Employee Benefits Trusts to pay themselves recently) and the speculation surrounding its eventual value places it in the range of £40 million plus.

The result could be the demise of the most successful football club in the world in terms of trophies won. 140 years of tradition, a club which is held in deep affection not just in Glasgow but across Scotland, Northern Ireland, North America and other far flung outposts gone, embarrassed by the ineptitude and vanity of one man.

Murray, since selling the club to Craig Whyte, has vanished. However, an analysis of his 23 years at Ibrox is quite simple – his unsustainable business model of spending based upon mere speculation, which saw the club in 2004 in £71 million worth of debt, has driven something which was once the embodiment of Presbyterian thrift, endeavour and conservatism (it is no coincidence that the greatest ever Ranger was a resolute defender called John Grieg) into the ground.

Therefore, if one Edinburgh-based businessman (Sir Fred Goodwin) can be stripped of his knighthood on the back of his mockery of a titan of Scottish society, surely the same can happen to another?

Sir David Murray pertains to being a ‘captain of industry’, an individual worthy of respect. His handling of Rangers has clearly shown that he is neither one of these.

If he were to relinquish his knighthood, voluntary or otherwise, it would be a sign to not only the supporters of the ‘Quintessentially British Club’ but the Scottish public that failure in public life is not rewarded. We can but dream.