Former Rangers manager Alex McLeish has fired shots at his former Celtic counterpart Martin O’Neill for questioning refereeing decisions during their time in Scottish football. McLeish said: “We’d never head down the conspiracy rabbit hole,” implying that O’Neill had done that. However, it wasn’t too long ago that there was a conspiracy rabbit hole which became public knowledge and ultimately led to the liquidation of the old Rangers. It was a conspiracy rabbit hole that McLeish knew all about and he made an astonishing admission during a documentary about the EBT scandal which preceded the demise of Rangers in 2012.
EBTs and disguised renumerations were uncovered during McLeish’s time as manager at Rangers. The scale of this was so large that sometimes an entire XI was fielded with improperly registered players! Indeed, when a BBC documentary team probed into that considerable conspiracy rabbit hole in May 2012, it was found that 63 players and 24 staff members received EBT payments and 53 of them were provided with ‘side letters’ detailing the structure of payments. Furthermore, many of the previous tax advantages of that particular arrangement were removed as part of the 2011 Finance Act!
During the documentary about the affair, Alex McLeish admitted that had Rangers not paid players as much as Celtic then they would not have been able to compete with them. Clear evidence of a sporting advantage one would think, after all it was the entire point of signing players, which they couldn’t attract or afford, without these methods.
Throughout years of winning trophies with the use of EBTs, the authorities said nothing. A judge even claimed there was no sporting advantage gained by using them. Yet, McLeish has the gall to claim that O’Neill is simply indulging in conspiracy theory when questioning the establishment and historic refereeing decisions.
We also wrote an article with a wealth of factual uncovering over the years, demonstrating genuine reasons for Celtic fans and players to be suspicious about aspects of the game in Scotland. Unfortunately for the likes of McLeish, factual evidence cannot be denied, nor can his documentary quotes be wiped from history.
Why Celtic Fans Have Reason To Feel “The World Is Against Them”
