To then argue that insolvency does not breach that timeline is to employ Alice in Wonderland logic. The effect of which would be to ensure that no football club could ever be compulsorily dissolved. By extension, companies about to be liquidated could adopt the same law-defying approach: sell off the core of the business under the asset “goodwill” and resurface under a new company name but with the same core business activities as before, claiming an unbroken historical timeline. Of course, this is nonsense because it is unlawful.
Lord Nimmo Smith has been used in evidence in support of the notion that old Rangers FC survived liquidation. He said that a football club can exist separate from its holding company. Now we have the bizarre position where not only can a football club be separated from its history and its history be sold on (even if the club is subsequently liquidated along with its holding company), but a club can also exist without an owner.
If the Manchester United Board decided voluntarily to liquidate Manchester Utd Plc then Manchester Utd FC would no longer exist, except in the minds of its supporters. To argue that Manchester’s history could be auctioned either pre or post liquidation defies interpretation in the real world of insolvency.
Lord Nimmo Smith was also wrong when he said that Rangers FC still exists. He was reflecting the view of the SFA who, we know, know Sweet FA, not least their own arcane humpty-dumpty rules. Dr Gregory Ioannidis, a leading authority on Sports Law, agrees that “the history of a club cannot pass from one company [into liquidation]to another”. The import of LNS’ claim was that the new Rangers FC could be punished for the sins of the old Rangers FC, if they were one and the same club. If he had maintained that claim and punished the Rangers by that time plying their trade in the SFL then a court challenge would have immediately nullified that punishment on several grounds:
1) such a punishment would harm newco and newco had nothing to do with oldco.
2) The Rangers in the lower leagues is a new club (insolvency law saw to that) and, like newco, had nothing to do with the sins of old Rangers.
