If you’ve been here for 12 years you’ll know that Celtic Quick News started because there was a great untold financial story going on in Scottish football. Celtic were castigated by many, including a large portion of their own support, as “prudent”, while Rangers, then under the majority ownership of Sir David Murray, were lauded for their willingness to ambitiously push the boat out.
But there was a problem. Celtic were losing millions every year. Rangers were losing a lot more, £35m in one season alone. David Murray’s company, Murray International Holdings (MIH), were ½ a billion in debt to Bank of Scotland, and rising.
By this stage MIH’s steel business was dwarfed in significance by its property portfolio. They borrowed from the bank and, perhaps with an eye on the fantasy Ibrox Super Casino, gambled that the market would rise inextricably.
For a few years the debt kept rising. “What’s the problem?” many said, if the Bank are prepared to lend MIH and Rangers, their strategy must be sound. These were difficult times to be preaching financial responsibility in Scottish football, but the reality was written in mile-high font for many of us. “They’re going to crash and burn”, seemed inevitable.
Today we read the news that MIH are, like Rangers before them, finally liquidated. Ignore the reported £200m that Lloyds Banking Group (now owners of Bank of Scotland) lost, that’s just the loose change. The Bank had swapped debt for shares in MIH as clouds gathered. The true financial cost to Lloyds (significantly owned by UK taxpayers) is vastly higher.
Much of the story of David Murray will never be told, not while he’s alive, anyway, as it took place well away from verifiable sources. This might change after he’s dead. The one redeeming positive he brought to football was to end the sectarian signing policy at Rangers in 1989. For that he should be lauded, many before him had the chance to do the same but chose not to.
That aside, the influence of Murray and MIH was poisonous to his club. He sold out for £1 to a liquidation expert in May 2011, against the wishes of his own board’s advisory committee, as his club claimed its last ever league title. The rest, is poetic history.
As luck would have it, tonight I’ll be with some Celtic supporter friends. We’ll raise a glass to Sir David and his legacy. Thanks for all you achieved, David, it could never have happened without you.
Erik Sviatchenko is a lesson in the difference good players make to a team. He’s started 11 games since joining in January, we’ve lost four goals over that period. In our previous 11 games we lost 12 goals. His impact on team performance has been phenomenal.
We’ll miss him tomorrow – so should make tactical changes to accommodate the perceived risk.
Motherwell are on fire. Less than two months ago they were in the play-off spot. Now they need just one point to guarantee a top six finish. They will battle every second for that point. If we are going to win tomorrow’s game, we will need to put in our of our best shifts of the season.
Time to get it together, Celtic.
2,883 Comments- Pages:
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CELTIC
Podium.
——
THE GREEN MAN SAYS SACK THE BOARD on 8th APRIL 2016 10:54 AM
——
Our Dear Friend In Celtic….
Nay..Nay..And Thrice Nay..!
We Believe You Are Mistaken.
No-One Could Confuse Your Posts…,
With Those Emanating From CQN’s Most Notorious Crazed Cambuslang Blogger.
Like Those Of The Indefatigable KevJ…
Your Posts Stand Out On Account Of Their Wit,Style,And Perspicacity…
And You Do Not Affect A ‘Faux’ Middle Class Gentility…
Like We See From The ‘Poster From Darkest Cambuslang’….
With The Crazy ‘Ena Shairples’ Hair-Net…
And The New-Found Addiction To Those Mystical Tunnocks Tea-cakes…
BLESS..!!!!
———–
Mark McGhee Seen Walking Down Bellshill Main Street….
Lookin’ Pleased With Life…
As He Whistles,”Fields of Athenry”…
Tunefully.
Is He On His Way To Lennoxtown For A Medical….?
Who KNOWS..??
Time Will Tell..
Off OOT…
~~~~
Slàinte mhath!
You told the blog a long long time ago it was started to counter the negative story’s of the SMSM.
An Aberdeen win tonight and dropped points tomorrow will mean a very long week leading up to the semi final.
A reverse of that will mean League over.
We don’t need the hassle. Massive game tomorrow, hope Ronny can do it. And Hearts too.
Good Afternoon.
Derek Johnstone’s latest column manages to pull off the truly remarkable. It’s the single most crass thing I have ever read about the Sevco saga.
https://theclumpany.wordpress.com/2016/04/08/the-crass-car-crash/
Here also is an update on the latest charitable endeavour to be undertaken by our wonderful MSM…
https://theclumpany.wordpress.com/2016/04/07/the-sponsored-old-firm-a-thon/
My friends in Celtic, shameless re-post from the end of last article.
I’m sure the four of the Res12 Bhoys were expecting threats and intimidation from the forces of darkness. They would have embarked on this journey knowing that it was inevitable.
That is another reason why they deserve our thanks, support and patience.
When we quarrel, we should always be mindful that ultimately we share the same aspirations.
HH.
Ps: Fine tribute Macjay. You did your pal proud.
C’mon the hoops
RIP Kevin in Sydney. A wee candle will lit. Kevjungle: I understand you want many changes at Celtic mostly of the manager. That is your right. May I remind you that the dud has 2 medals in his collection at CP (but for really cheating bassas might even have a third) whereas your nomination is bereft on any such gongs. His record as a manager is underwhelming to say the least. Wasn’t he in charge at Sheepsville when Celtic beat them 9 0? For God’s sake punt somebody else for the position if you must. Me? I will stick with RD. HH.
CONEYBHOY&BMCUWP
The Huns.
1st Century…A bad lot then
21st Century.. Still a bad lot:)
Oh…and they are not fond of soap either:)
HH
Matt
they were, are now and will forever be capri suns
Teams come and go.
The Huns from Game of Thrones still exist.
—–
Mark McGhee Now Whistlin’ ‘The Boys Of The Old Brigade’..
As He Helps A Random Auld Dear…
Ontae A Red Bus….
BLESS!!
Wait..!! He’s Getting On HIMSELF ?
The 240 Tae Blythswood Square…
That Has Connections,To Lennoxtoon..
If I’m Not Mistaken….?
This Rumour Is Growing LEGS..? Right!
Calling All Roving Citizen CQN Reporters….
Mobile Phone Cameras To The Ready..
For Tomorrow’s Front-Page Splash…
In The Daily R*ctum..
——
The Res 12 group – Auldheid, Canalamar, Morrissey and BRHT – I really appreciate all the time and effort you have taken on this
Paul, no doubt you will be ‘shouted down’ by the Lawwell/Board-haters on here – they will ‘rope’ in Dermot Desmond, Peter Lawwell, Ian Bankier and Ian Livingston and attempt to ‘tar’ them with the same brush as Murray and his cohorts.
The seven or eight CQN ‘attack dogs’ who offer nothing except a never-ending cacophony of tripe directed at our club and its officers, with trite phrases such as – “bonuses”, “heated-driveways”, “conspiracy of silence”…etc, will be ‘chomping at the bit’ to have a go at your piece.
The majority of the support, whilst being somewhat unsettled and frustrated by our lack of progress on the park over the past two years and our ‘hit and miss’ signings record, know full well that the club is being well run within the financial constraints in which it is forced to operate – of course some mistakes have been made but that’s life. No Director or Board Member ever delibertly sets out to harm the club.
It seems to me that some among our support long for a ‘piece of the action’ and some of the ‘in-fighting’ that has now become the norm down Ibrox way – why? – I really don’t know.
Paul67
Dedryk Boyata played well in that same period with Sviatchenko and is a class above most Scottish centre backs, he’ll be partnered with the best of them tomorrow in Charlie Mulgrew. If the struggling frame of Mikel Lustig doesn’t make it, I’ll be happy to see Efe Ambrose at right back where his fresh legs would be a bonus.
After Aberdeen went on their first run most Celtic fans would have settled for being five in front before the split.
I expect a very different game from Motherwell who’ll fancy their chances to have more of a goal threat than Dundee, who play a spoiling game.
From Celtic once again, it’ll likely be two wide Roberts and GMS, and all subs fielded.
If feels funny supporting Hearts. :-(((
“perhaps with an eye on the fantasy Ibrox Super Casino”
——–
Paul – you’re not trying to tell us it isn’t happening!!!????
Excellent article. Feels like CQN 2004 all over again. Can you explain amortisation? :-)
Thanks to lennybhoy for sorting me with a ticket for tomorrow.
ChuffedCsc
Mr Pastry
Im not having a go here.
But can i ask you.
How do we know that the club is run so well?
Do we have to take your word for it?
Many people would disagree with your analysis.
I hope you recognise im trying to use a measured tone.
Unfortunately the team seems to be stuck in a very turgid rut at the moment and it’s difficult to see us raising our game significantly. We can only hope that whatever has taken hold can be shaken off sufficiently to get us over the line.
BSR,
Your pre game analysis sounds about right.
GREENPINATA on 8TH APRIL 2016 12:43 PM
If feels funny supporting Hearts. :-(((
It makes you feel kind of dirty, but on this occasion, 3 hail Mary’s and a Glory be to the Father should cover it -))
2 goals for Griff tomorrow…
Motherwell 2-3 Celtic
HH
Cheating/doping in football.
Can’t find the link. C&P.
****
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TagsSOCCER COLUMN DOPING EDITOR’S PICKS FOOTBALL TOMMY MARTIN TV3 See other tags
If football has a doping problem, do fans and media deserve some of the blame?
Expecting the drug testing regime to catch drug use in football is like trying to break into Fort Knox with a pea-shooter, writes TV3′s Tommy Martin.
5 hours ago 2,092 Views 3 Comments Share4 Tweet Email
Image: PA Wire/Press Association Images
“IN A DEMOCRACY, the people get the government they deserve.”
It’s always worth remembering the words of French philosopher Joseph De Maistre at a time like this.
Granted, it looks at the moment like we in Ireland might not get any government at all, and even if we do, we might wonder exactly what we have done to deserve the one we get.
But we will get the government we deserve, eventually, because of the simple fact that we will have voted for them, and all their works and empty promises.
Yet for some reason, we still feel able to castigate the various Leinster House factions, calling them muppets, chancers and self-interested schemers.
Newsflash! We vote for them! We put them there. That’s how democracy works!
Do we get the sport we deserve?
That’s another one to think about this week, particularly if you are a soccer fan. The Sunday Times report into the nefarious activities of Dr Mark Bonar turned the spotlight on the game’s nothing-to-see-here attitude to doping.
While Dr Bonar’s alleged client list included athletes from a range of sports, his claim to have jotted out illicit prescriptions for Premier League footballers received the most attention.
The notion of players from Arsenal, Chelsea, Leicester City and, er, Birmingham City shuffling furtively into a Harley Street clinic was salacious for two reasons.
Firstly, because football has maintained the Teflon-like ability to prevent the muck of doping allegations from sticking; and secondly, that people actually care about football, or at least in greater numbers than the more conspicuously drug-addled sports.
Whether you thought the Bonar story was the ravings of a fantasist, or the lid being lifted on a Pandora’s pill-box of shame, it’s been apparent for some time that football’s clean image is a mirage.
Decades-worth of allegations make that clear: from the ‘panzer chocolate’ of the 1954 West German World Cup-winning team to the EPO evidence against 1990s Juventus, right through to the claims of doctors like Eufemiano Fuentes and Luis Garcia Del Moral of involvement in doping in Spanish football.
This week has seen football once again accused of ‘omerta’ on drugs. Why does the sport refuse to deal with its doping problem? Why is it putting its head in the sand?
You may as well wonder why our politicians aren’t acting in the national interest.
Football isn’t the only industry to prove that self-regulation doesn’t work. Governing bodies and federations in less powerful and less wealthy sports have gladly abetted doping; why wouldn’t it also be the case in football?
That leaves the anti-doping agencies, the media, and the public. The UK Anti-Doping agency has an annual budget of £7 million. To put this in perspective, Cardiff City, bottom of the Premier League income table for the most recently available financial figures (2013-14 season), had revenues of £83 million.
So expecting the existing testing regime to catch drug use in football is like trying to break into Fort Knox with a pea-shooter.
The work of the Sunday Times, German TV station ARD, BBC Panorama and ProPublica in uncovering various drug stories in the last year suggests that, as with David Walsh and Paul Kimmage in the Lance Armstrong case, the media must take the lead in exposing doping in football.
But most of us in the media make little more than tokenistic contributions on this front, grabbing some reflected glory from those who do the real work, while spending much more time buttressing the vast edifice of the game’s popularity.
It makes us feel good to chair discussions on TV and radio programmes and commission pieces in print about doping in football, before moving on to talk in depth about Wayne Rooney’s goal-scoring slump or Cristiano Ronaldo’s self-esteem issues.
Source: Michael Sohn
We accuse football of refusing to address doping because of powerful vested interests, when we in the media are also one of those interests. We are like the middle-class cocaine user who gives out about the latest crime wave, unwittingly contributing to it.
As fans, it was easy for most of us to turn away from athletics and cycling in high-minded scorn at their litany of pharmaceutical fraud.
Would we be so bullish about spurning football, taking away the eyeballs and TV subscriptions that prop up the world’s biggest sport, were evidence of a massive doping culture to emerge?
Or would we behave like US fans, bored of drug scandals and blithely indifferent to the use of PEDs in their marquee sports, allowing a de facto tolerance of doping to persist?
We get the government we deserve because that’s how democracy works; we get the sport we deserve because we are the ones who help make it too big to fail, too powerful to bring down and too mutually-enriching for us to want to.
Football may be silent on doping; but the people, it seems, have spoken.
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Comments (3 Comments) Ordered By: Popularity Leave a comment
Eel Knack Mole
3 hours ago # 0 8
Bowler, he is not stating categorically that there is a big drugs issue.
Given the size, global reach and wealth of the sport, it defies logic that football could be as clean as it appears. So the writer is asking are fans and media really that interested in finding out the truth?
Reply Tweet | Share | Report this comment
Robert Cummins
2 hours ago # 2 2
Am I the only one who doesn’t care if athletes dope?
Reply Tweet | Share | Report this comment
Bowler
5 hours ago # 22 3
Is there any evidence of doping or are you going on the tabloid doctors comments if so i could say the author of this piece is on drugs & we as readers have a right to know.
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Bourne
I’ll be happy to see Mulgrew back in. I know his lack of pace can be concerning but his ability to vary our play with longer passes could be important. In addition, he wins the majority of his aerial challenges.
Apologies for c@p the Book of Kells.
This is all I meant to post.
Paul67
Could you delete my previous post.
TagsSOCCER COLUMN DOPING EDITOR’S PICKS FOOTBALL TOMMY MARTIN TV3 See other tags
If football has a doping problem, do fans and media deserve some of the blame?
Expecting the drug testing regime to catch drug use in football is like trying to break into Fort Knox with a pea-shooter, writes TV3′s Tommy Martin.
5 hours ago 2,092 Views 3 Comments Share4 Tweet Email
Image: PA Wire/Press Association Images
“IN A DEMOCRACY, the people get the government they deserve.”
It’s always worth remembering the words of French philosopher Joseph De Maistre at a time like this.
Granted, it looks at the moment like we in Ireland might not get any government at all, and even if we do, we might wonder exactly what we have done to deserve the one we get.
But we will get the government we deserve, eventually, because of the simple fact that we will have voted for them, and all their works and empty promises.
Yet for some reason, we still feel able to castigate the various Leinster House factions, calling them muppets, chancers and self-interested schemers.
Newsflash! We vote for them! We put them there. That’s how democracy works!
Do we get the sport we deserve?
That’s another one to think about this week, particularly if you are a soccer fan. The Sunday Times report into the nefarious activities of Dr Mark Bonar turned the spotlight on the game’s nothing-to-see-here attitude to doping.
While Dr Bonar’s alleged client list included athletes from a range of sports, his claim to have jotted out illicit prescriptions for Premier League footballers received the most attention.
The notion of players from Arsenal, Chelsea, Leicester City and, er, Birmingham City shuffling furtively into a Harley Street clinic was salacious for two reasons.
Firstly, because football has maintained the Teflon-like ability to prevent the muck of doping allegations from sticking; and secondly, that people actually care about football, or at least in greater numbers than the more conspicuously drug-addled sports.
Whether you thought the Bonar story was the ravings of a fantasist, or the lid being lifted on a Pandora’s pill-box of shame, it’s been apparent for some time that football’s clean image is a mirage.
Decades-worth of allegations make that clear: from the ‘panzer chocolate’ of the 1954 West German World Cup-winning team to the EPO evidence against 1990s Juventus, right through to the claims of doctors like Eufemiano Fuentes and Luis Garcia Del Moral of involvement in doping in Spanish football.
This week has seen football once again accused of ‘omerta’ on drugs. Why does the sport refuse to deal with its doping problem? Why is it putting its head in the sand?
You may as well wonder why our politicians aren’t acting in the national interest.
Football isn’t the only industry to prove that self-regulation doesn’t work. Governing bodies and federations in less powerful and less wealthy sports have gladly abetted doping; why wouldn’t it also be the case in football?
That leaves the anti-doping agencies, the media, and the public. The UK Anti-Doping agency has an annual budget of £7 million. To put this in perspective, Cardiff City, bottom of the Premier League income table for the most recently available financial figures (2013-14 season), had revenues of £83 million.
So expecting the existing testing regime to catch drug use in football is like trying to break into Fort Knox with a pea-shooter.
The work of the Sunday Times, German TV station ARD, BBC Panorama and ProPublica in uncovering various drug stories in the last year suggests that, as with David Walsh and Paul Kimmage in the Lance Armstrong case, the media must take the lead in exposing doping in football.
But most of us in the media make little more than tokenistic contributions on this front, grabbing some reflected glory from those who do the real work, while spending much more time buttressing the vast edifice of the game’s popularity.
It makes us feel good to chair discussions on TV and radio programmes and commission pieces in print about doping in football, before moving on to talk in depth about Wayne Rooney’s goal-scoring slump or Cristiano Ronaldo’s self-esteem issues.
Source: Michael Sohn
We accuse football of refusing to address doping because of powerful vested interests, when we in the media are also one of those interests. We are like the middle-class cocaine user who gives out about the latest crime wave, unwittingly contributing to it.
As fans, it was easy for most of us to turn away from athletics and cycling in high-minded scorn at their litany of pharmaceutical fraud.
Would we be so bullish about spurning football, taking away the eyeballs and TV subscriptions that prop up the world’s biggest sport, were evidence of a massive doping culture to emerge?
Or would we behave like US fans, bored of drug scandals and blithely indifferent to the use of PEDs in their marquee sports, allowing a de facto tolerance of doping to persist?
We get the government we deserve because that’s how democracy works; we get the sport we deserve because we are the ones who help make it too big to fail, too powerful to bring down and too mutually-enriching for us to want to.
Football may be silent on doping; but the people, it seems, have spoken
***
Roy C
Glad you got sorted. Great news that the Celtic areas have all been sold.
I am Auldheid
Keep fighting the good fight HH
Just heading under the Channel Tunnel. Glug, glug….
Paul67 et
Paul, I think thomthtim has just launched a hostile takeover for the blog!
CELTIC MAC on 8TH APRIL 2016 1:09 PM
Paul67 et
Paul, I think thomthtim has just launched a hostile takeover for the blog!
****
I demand a seat on the blog, or is it the bog?
Macjay
Condolences to you and the family of your good buddy Kevin on his passing away. Thoughts and prayers.
Auldheid, just reading back after a few days leave of absence from social media and noted Canmans post re. threats towards your good self. Chin up buddy. Knowing these cretin’s my only surprise is that it has taken them so long to take this route. Certainly is evidence that Resolution 12 is now regarded as a looming threat to the Ibrox/Hampden Masonic lodge that they now take seriously.
Stay safe guys and once again cap doffed to you all for your efforts.
MWD
Desmond named in the Panama Papers….
Curious that the Final (or any) Report to Creditors is apparently unavailable.
Thomthethim @1 pip emma- best thing I’ve ever read on here.
It was like a Rubik’s Cube, except with words instead of multi coloured squares.
—-
Breaking..! Breaking..!
The Roving HON-Man….
Reporting LIVE…!Exclusively For CQN..
From Blythswood Bus Station
Mark McGhee Has Alighted From The 240 Bus…
The Eagle Has Landed !
(Reg : TI67MMS…. B.T.W.
For All You Omnithologists )
After Helpin’ Off All The Auld Dears FIRST..
Wi’ Their Zimmer Frames An’ Their Wheelchairs…
He’s Now Singing,”For It’s A Grand Auld Team Tae Play For…”
As He Headed Straight For A Nearby Florist & Fruiterers….
Arranged A Delivery Of Roses And Pomegranate Fruit By InterFlora
Tae Some Auld Dear In ML-Somethin’..
A Granny Owen Coyle…..??
Quick…HON-Man..!
He’s Just Jumped Intae A BLACK CAB..
Singin’ “Things Are Turnin’ Out Rosy”
[ Fae “Oklahoma”…? Or Mario Lanza In ‘The Student Prince’ ?…… Ed ]
Quick..! EFTER HIM…HON-MAN..!
There’s A Buttermulk Dainty In It For YOU…
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