A SUPPORTERS GROUP has made formal complaints against both broadcast and print media in relation to the coverage given to the Supreme Court judgment on 5 July that concluded that Rangers had cheated the taxman out of tens of millions of pounds.
The group, Club 1872, are unhappy with both the BBC and the tabloid newspaper The Daily Record and both these media organisations have had to content with various complaints and boycotts from unhappy Rangers fans over the period since the old club went into liquidation in 2012.
Indeed the Record is currently the subject of a boycott campaign from this group who are also a large shareholder in the club. By buying shares from Mike Ashley and raising funds via supporters contributions, Club 1872 are an influential voice within the corridors of power at Ibrox.
The BBC have refused to send their reporters to Ibrox so long as the club continues to ban their Chief Sports Reporter Chris McLaughlin from the ground.
Tonight’s statement adds to the tension between these two media giants and the club that simply does not want any comment or coverage on the industrial scale cheating organised by David Murray which netted the old Ibrox club 14 trophies.
While the SPFL have announced an enquiry into the events surrounding the so called Big Tax Case, they have also confirmed that there are no rules to allow for further punishment of the Ibrox clubs. This is almost certainly a result of the secretive 5 Way Agreement.
This is likely to lead to a Judicial Review and informed sources believe that there is a great deal of work going on in this regard at the moment, with more details likely to emerge within the next week or so.
Here is what the Club 1872 statement says:
“Club 1872 would like to inform members and the wider Rangers support that in the past day or so we have submitted several complaints to both the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) and the the BBC Trust. These complaints are regarding the coverage of the final result in the ‘Big Tax Case’ and also the recent decision of the SPFL to draw a line under the calls from Celtic and other vested interests in Scottish football to further penalise Rangers for use of an Employee Benefit Trust scheme.
“Some of these complaints are for lack of accuracy and others, specifically regarding BBC Scotland, are for what we consider to be biased reporting in favour of the previously mentioned vested interests. These reports are in our view designed to misinform and prejudice the general public against Rangers and have contained none of the balance required of the BBC.
“We hope and expect these complaints to be upheld but do not envisage having a definitive outcome to any of them for several weeks or months as we work our way through the complaints processes. With respect for those processes we won’t make any further comment until the outcome is known.
“It will not surprise anyone in the Rangers support to know that the IPSO complaint is for an article which appeared in the Daily Record newspaper. We would like to thank the Rangers community for the fantastic support we have had for our #ChangeTheRecord campaign. We intend to continue this campaign into the new season and hope that more and more Rangers fans are becoming aware of the need for us to fight for fairer coverage for our football club.”
