Summary: Phil and Anto are joined by Scottish freelance reporter Kieran Canning to take a deeper look into the Rangers FC tax case at the behest of HMRC and how the club arrived at this point with the British Government. We get into the factors to gauge the Doomsday scenario and if HMRC could fully enforce the liability which could force Rangers into extinction in its current form or whether a phoenix football club would have to establish itself once all the tax debts are resolved. There are three separate potential minefields facing Craig Whyte including failure to keep up with Pay As You Earn remittance and how the club had fallen behind on overall tax payments and a tangled web of EBTs and an arrangement with Ticketus which has served to undermine any ability to cover what is owed. We also examine how the media has not done proper investigation, failing to live up to a responsible level of scrutiny when stories were there to be reported even before Whyte took over the club. Ally McCoist, current manager of the club, has not been in communication with Whyte adding further speculation about the future of the football club itself. Craig Whyte now admits using money from the sale of future season ticket income to complete the takeover of Rangers in May 2011, so it becomes even more troubling that the club could even rescue itself in the short to medium term given that the ticket base and merchandizing has already been leveraged. In closing, we try to establish what the impacts to Celtic and, ultimately, to the SPL and Scottish football should Rangers be relegated or forced out of business even for a period of re-organization.
