Giovanni De Stefano is an interesting character. He has acted as lawyer for a large number of famous and infamous names. His own legal history has been the subject of dispute and he presently awaits trial next year on fraud charges, to which he has tendered not guilty pleas.
So to he has been extensively involved with football, owning or attempting to buy shares in a number of football teams in Italy, England and Scotland. Indeed he spent five months as a director of Dundee FC as it careered to insolvency in 2003-2004.
Recently he has become a figure of encouragement to some fans of the Rangers Football Club. He has, apparently, acquired shares in Rangers Football Club PLC (in administration) which is now officially RFC 2012 PLC (in administration).
He has written to Duff and Phelps, the administrators of RFC claiming that a massive fraud has been carried out at Ibrox. He has offered to buy the remaining assets, if any exist, of RFC 2012 PLC.
He also claims that Rangers are entitled to play in the English Premier League and also the English Football League.
He has also promised repeatedly to reveal “the secret” of who now owns Ibrox stadium.
The big reveal came today on Twitter.
In his tweet here he stated:-
“IBROX SEARCH very very very ODD to say the least”
He included a printout of the Search which can be seen below. Click on it for an expanded view.
It seems to be Mr Di Stefano’s view that this document shows that RFC 2012 PLC still owns the ground, along with Scottish and Newcastle Breweries.
He stated:-
“Scottish and Newcastle Breweries PLC changed name to Heineken UK Ltd on 23 November 2009 so de jure seems Heineken and RFC PLC own all the stands and surrounding area as per the Land Registry drawing whilst the actual PLAYING FIELD remains uncertain BECAUSE when Scottish and Newcastle Breweries PLC were taken over the Land Registry were NOT notified of any changes. Now that was in 2009 and there are TIME limits in place when dealing with land…seems they were NOT respected so a good lawyer in Scotland in theory could argue RFC PLC is SOLE title holder of ALL”
If Mr Di Stefano had discovered that no one knew who owned the pitch at Ibrox, and that the “stands and surrounding area” were owned jointly by Heineken and RFC 2012 PLC, but that Heineken had lost its title to the land as the Land Register had not been notified, this would be a big story.
However, and with due respect to Mr Di Stefano’s skills and experience in court, he has perhaps never dealt with a Scottish conveyancing transaction, and thus not had to look at a Scottish Land Certificate.
Mr Di Stefano
The big problem for Mr Di Stefano’s theory is that title number GLA82306 is not the title for the whole of the Ibrox complex. Instead it is the title for an “office suite on the second floor of Argyle House”. Argyle House is an office building on the Ibrox site, forming part of the Govan Stand.
This title relates to a lease running from 1 June 1990 to 15 May 2015, and registered in the Land Register on 25th June 1991, between Rangers Football Club PLC, the landlord and Scottish and Newcastle Breweries Ltd, the tenant. The brewers leased office space in Argyle House for 25 years at a rent of £69,000 per annum, subject to rent reviews.
This title sheet therefore relates only to the interest of Scottish and Newcastle in their lease of the office. It is nothing to do with the Land Certificate which gave Rangers Football Club PLC its title to the office, and nothing to do with the playing field. They are covered under their own Land Certificates.
Based upon this document, of course it would not be possible to say who owns the playing field. However, there will be other documents which make that clear.
In any event Duff and Phelps made it clear that Sevco Scotland Ltd (now the Rangers Football Club Ltd) bought all of the assets and business of the PLC. As such an application has already been made for the title to be registered in the name of the new owner.
Is the document Mr Di Stefano produced “odd”? No.
Does it tell us anything about who owns the playing field at Ibrox, or indeed who owns anything else there? No.
Does it tell us that Heineken/Scottish and Newcastle are joint owners, or would be if they had simply told the Land Register that there had been a change of company name? No.
This document relates to one part of the Ibrox complex, an office on the second floor of Argyle House.
Perhaps Mr Di Stefano could take up the services of a good conveyancer to help him in his analyses. I could suggest the number of Harper Macleod, who are more than capable of explaining this all to him clearly. 🙂
Will Mr Di Stefano uncover anything of value? Perfectly possible, but at least with the title issue he seems to be barking up the wrong tree.
Posted by Paul McConville
Random Thoughts Re Scots Law by Paul McConville 
Ah don’t want to go there with DeStefano – he’s too scary 🙂
IMHO Coward………….:)
reverse psychology a like gio 🙂
lets have a wee look at gios video messages to sevco shareholders
part1
part2
and last but not least part3
http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/devil-s-advocate-giovanni-di-stefano-appears-in-court-over-fraud-allegations-1-2460424
Well intentioned misdirection, maybe one day he will pull decent info together……………maybe not, good to see all his followers are still blindly going down the alley with him.
“Giovanni De Stefano is an interesting character”
Paul. Your words are perhaps too kind!
I would describe him as a ‘loose cannon’ eiith short of wadding and a few shots!
I only posted one title search there are five others and the Land Registry confirmed to me in writing the actual playing field is a mystery their words not mine but I concur. The problem is that I am not barking up the wrong tree but relieving myself and the tree don’t like it. Best g
@gio di stefano hi gio a dont mean to get personal but how many shares did you have ?cant you mention the under value sale ,the 500,000 missing from the food and bervierage account under d&ps watch a do belive your on to something but am intermidate and the jargon you go on about is just to tecnical for me ,theres lots of info on here for you two read and go throw see what you can come up with also paul welcomes guest posts to do articles if you want more audiance as you are aware every topic leads to a lead of some sort.
a forgot to mention contact the bdo and your local mp they have to help if you have factual wrong doing ,also a call d&ps because you have shares they have to entertian you d&p spent 900,000 on food and only sold 300,ooo rough estimate creditors report real figures also whyte might still have link
Can we see the Land Registry confirmation?
@martin a think gio will share what he has in due course it must be costing him time and money to do all the research ,dont you have anything to add dont you have anything to add you sound like a polite bomber brown show us the deeds 🙂 we will just have to wait and see hopefully in the future he can reveal all to us
Thanks Mr Di Stefano for the contribution.
The title to Ibrox is split into various bits in connection with various leases, as indeed can be seen from the fact that Glasgow City Council has different parts of the complex listed separately for business rates purposes.
I am not disputing your statement, as I am in no position to do so, that the Land Register told you that the title to the pitch was a mystery. All I would say is that you are clearly a very persuasive man to get them to commit to such a lack of knowledge!
Mr Green and his company (and more particularly his solicitors) are in for a huge surprise if it turns out that he has not purchased the pitch, as clearly he intended to do so.
Your further posts on this will be of interest.
Paul
Di Stefano has to be the biggest hypocrite on the face of the Earth. Banging on about fraud at Ibrox. Rangers fans, please don’t take this Walter Mitty seriously.
Barking indeed!
You could have deleted the words ‘up the wrong tree’ at the end of the article without changing its message…
This is the guy who defended Garry Gltter in his child abuse trial, and he was not his most disgusting client.
It was hilarious to watch the reaction when this was pointed out to the Sevconian hordes on the “Bear’s Den” site, what with them being obssessed by the subject.
Up until then, they were swallowing this idiot’s rantings , hook, line and sinker.
They went straight to “Tasmanian Devil ” mode. Not because of who he had defended in the past (Saddam Hussien was another of his clients) but because someone had the audacity to make that knowledge public.
Mind Numbing hypocrisy does not even begin to cover it.
News just in…. Journalist Moira Gordon has joined both Bill Leckie and Andy Walker on the latest FC Sevcovia “Hate List” on the “Bear’s den” forum. I’m sure the contributors there are “proud” of the vile abuse they are hurling at this woman as we speak.
Truely disgusting stuff !!!
I don’t believe that too many Rangers fans take what Mr Di Stefano is saying seriously.
For the record, the Land certificate references relating to Ibrox are GLA29402, GLA46849 and GLA210958.
The 2 former certificates relate to areas of ground outwith the stadium itself which are already registered in the Land Register. The latter is the stadium/pitch etc itself, which until now has been recorded in the Register of Sasines only, but is in the process of being registered in the Land Register.
All 3 are being combined in a single Land Certificate, presumably under the GLA210958 reference. The owner of all 3 areas is The Rangers Football Club Ltd (although at the time of the relevant dispositions, the company was still known as Sevco Scotland Ltd.)
Di Stefano is not a lawyer in any jurisdiction, and as his previous musings on Rangers oldco never actually having bought the club as the transfer from the unincorporated voluntary association in 1899 was not valid, was complete and utter pish, based on English contract law, and not Scots contract law, his views can safely be ignored.
Maybe he could find some money that belongs to a group of Miners.
Maybe he could find the taxpayers’ money sitting in the pockets of thousands of Rangers fans who paid subsidised prices at Ibrox for over a decade.