THOUSANDS have signed a petition demanding answers from Scottish football's governing body over its awarding of a licence to allow Rangers to play European football in 2011 despite tax issues.

A petition launched by a Celtic fanzine contributor is the latest step in a campaign - known as Resolution 12 - to challenge the decision-making process within the Scottish Football Association.

The Resolution 12 issue is expected to be raised at Celtic's annual general meeting today (Wednesday) with some fans believing the club should take the matter up with the SFA.

Glasgow Times:

The Ibrox club were given a license to play in the Champions League five years ago despite ongoing issues with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs over payment of tax relating to their use of Employee Benefit Trusts. UEFA rules state clubs taking part in their competitions must declare any "overdue payables" to the taxman and reveal details on whether there is a commitment to repay amounts, or a dispute over any bill.

Failure to disclose information during what is referred to as the "monitoring period", which is spread over two dates in June and September, can result in sanctions.

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Some Celtic shareholders raised the matter at the club’s 2013 AGM, believing the club could have lost out on millions of potential revenue that would have been due to them had they entered the Champions League that year instead of Rangers who, the requisitioners believed, should not have been allowed to enter the competition.

Their questions centred on whether the Ibrox side under previous ownership fully disclosed the details of an unpaid £2.8m tax bill to taxman ahead of their participation in the Champions League five years ago.

The club then owed the money in relation to their use of Employee Benefit Trusts, in a bill that became known as the “Wee Tax Case”.

Accounts of the Rangers Football Club Plc, the oldco now in liquidation, for the last half year of 2010, and published in April, 2011, showed that provision had been made for: “a potential tax liability".

Glasgow Times:

The taxman were known to have begun targeting he club in the spring of 2010, nine years after Rangers starting using the scheme, and as EBT loopholes were being closed.

Court of Session judges decided in November that Rangers' use of EBTs from 2001 until 2010 to give millions of pounds of tax-free loans to players and other staff broke tax rules. But the decision in what is known as 'the big tax case' is being appealed to the Supreme Court.

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Rangers Football Club plc, the former operating company, went into administration in February, 2012, after a £9 million PAYE and VAT debt was amassed to the taxman under Craig Whyte's leadership. The oldco renamed RFC 2012 plc is in liquidation.

Liquidators have previously confirmed that £72m of the £94.4m owed to HMRC relies on the taxman's claim that Rangers was liable for its use of EBTs.

Some Celtic supporters took the unusual step of placing an advert in a Swiss newspaper urging the European football governing body UEFA to intervene in the matter.

Glasgow Times:

But UEFA said in June it will not investigate as Rangers was not granted a licence to participate in the 2012/13 UEFA club competitions, the club entered the fourth tier of Scottish football and it was not able to play in UEFA competitions for the next three years in any event.

A newly launched petition signed by over 3000, demands that the SFA respond to allegations that it acted inappropriately in awarding the European place to Rangers.

In a letter to be sent to the football governing body, the petitioners say: "We, the undersigned, respectfully request that the SFA must respond to suggestions that they knowingly and purposefully issued a licence to Rangers FC whilst the club was in breach of the required conditions surrounding overdue payables to HMRC, enabling them to compete in the UEFA Champions League in season 2011-2012."

The Scottish FA stated that Rangers did not have any overdue payables at the March 31 deadline set down for clubs to make successful applications for an endorsement for a UEFA club licence.

If Rangers did have an overdue payable by the June deadline, they would have had until September 30 to prove the matter had been resolved.

It is said that there was no question of Rangers having been excluded from European competition in 2011/12. Instead, any sanction would have applied to future seasons.

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And SFA chief executive Stewart Regan has previously said that the governing body has nothing to fear over its handling of Rangers' European licence in the 2011/12 season.

Glasgow Times:

He insists that the SFA followed the rules in allowing the Ibrox club to participate and the body had been in dialogue with Celtic Football Club on the matter.

In the end, Rangers' European adventure in 2011/12 did not last long as they were knocked out in the Champions League's third qualifying round with an aggregate defeat to Swedish side Malmö at the beginning of  August. By the end of August they exited the Europa League with defeat in a qualifer against Slovenian team NK Maribor.