Boycotts and a director’s duty to promote the success of a company – by Malcolm Combe

Who is Malcolm Combe? His blog biography reads as follows:-

Bachelor of Laws. Scots lawyer working at the University of Aberdeen. English qualified. Took far too long to write this bio. Blogs on legal issues and might veer into other purportedly intellectual stuff from time to time.

Tweets about legal issues, fitba and music @basedrones.

I do not propose to add to that except to say that his legal musings are always of excellent value, and he is far better at getting to the point than I ever am!

I would commend his blog, and his prolific Twitter feed to my readers.

Advertisement

The “Strong Leader” in Football – What Matters Most – The Role or the Achievements?

A new blog has recently emerged onto the field of Scottish football writing – The Rangers Standard.

As it says in its manifesto:-

“The Rangers Standard is a project aimed at promoting positive and innovative thinking about the club and its role in Scottish football and society.

This is an opportunity to examine the club’s history and development, re-claim neglected or forgotten parts of its heritage, and reflect on how the Rangers community develops from here and how that future might be shaped by the concerns, hopes and visions of committed supporters.

We will encourage debate on all aspects of the club and will not shirk from confronting the hard topics such as sectarianism, national identity, and misgovernment by the custodians of the club in the recent and not so recent past.

We welcome well-constructed arguments and spirited polemic: the contributions of non-Rangers fans will be accepted provided they are constructive.”

In its guidelines for those seeking to contribute it states:-

“4. In time we will accept articles from non Rangers fans but these must relate in some way to the club or issues surrounding it and must be constructive.”

The piece below was written for the Rangers Standard, but failed even to achieve the accolade of a rejection.  Whether it was too long, too short, too dull, too negative or insufficiently constructive I do not know. Nonetheless I wish the project well. You can never have too much good writing.

Sadly though I cannot add the Rangers Standard to Labour Hame, Scotzine, the Open Justice Project, the Helensburgh Advertiser (many years ago) and the Scottish Football Monitor amongst the places from where my words of wisdom have been inflicted on an unsuspecting world.

The Rangers FC v the SPL and Dundee Utd – The Plot Thickens

As well as the issues directly relating to Dundee United’s £30,000, analysed in detail below, the statements emanating from the Rangers FC regarding the matter contain some interesting comments, perhaps indicating that Mr Green is not entirely sure of his ground.

First of all, if Mr Green believed that the Rangers FC no longer owe any Scottish clubs a penny, as he stated, then he needs to be educated as to what “debt” actually is. It would be strange for a businessman to have attained the heights and successes he has if not aware of that!

In addition, one of the arguments for the continuity of Rangers is that, whilst the companies which from time to time own the club might change, then club itself goes on forever. Therefore the administration and liquidation of the former owner has no bearing on the continuity of the club. By that analysis therefore, it was not “Rangers” which went into administration, but simply the corporate owner.

Would it surprise fans of the Ibrox team to see Mr Green now admitting that it was the club, and not the company, which went into administration?

Finally turning to the SPL prize money issue, there are lots of interesting legalities regarding waivers, title and gratuitous alienation which I will look at in detail in a soon to arrive post re what BDO might and can do as liquidators. For now there is the possibility that (a) ambiguous legal drafting has caused this mess (b) that newco might have acted, with authority from Duff and Phelps, to the prejudice of oldco’s creditors or (c) some other possibility has resulted in this mess. (I suspect Douglas Adams’ Infinite Improbability Drive is generating the continuing events in this story!)