And we’re back! What a two days of systems nightmare. We went down at 7pm on Thursday. No conclusive information on why, we have had traffic volume related outages before, but this was on a more serious and persistent basis. We had to move the database to a new location and restore from backup to recover, we lost a few days articles. Better not speak to me about Fasthosts for a while.
We got access to the databases this morning and took the opportunity to upgrade facilities in the background. We’re on a new incarnation of WordPress and now have Facebook and Twitter integration. Good news is you can link your Celtic Quick News account with your Facebook and/or Twitter accounts, and share information from CQN to your social network timeline.
To do so:
Login to Celtic Quick News.
Cick on your name at the top of the Comments box to access your profile.
Scroll to the bottom of the page to access the Facebook and Twitter links.
Update your profile.
You will then see a Share link beside your comments.
Should we be Celtic Slow News for today? Here it is:
Rennes 1-1 Celtic.
Hugely important second half performance and Joe Ledley goal.
Your favourite billionaire is getting divorced and has claimed he has no money! Oh dear.
One year on, the SFA are still smoking out religiously offensive correspondents!
The Berlin Wall fell and I hear Elvis is dead.
Have a try at the Facebook and Twitter links and let me know what you think of it. I’m off for a break but will catch up later.
Most importantly, there is a Celtic fan called Andrew who will be walking about Belfast in a daze this weekend. If you see him, but him a beer.
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Celtic first..funnily enough…:)) yes a very productive day
.
Hey VHman….
Where is Your Twitter Tweet Tweet….? Do they Not have TWEETS in Blackpool….?
Summa ft TheGoldenMileTweetCSC
Had promised not to mention the ‘obsession’ again.
However, today a Herald journalist made the point that should They win this year’s SPL title in the wake of having ten points deducted, it would mean that Their going into administration would have proved to have been mortifying for two clubs.
No prizes for guessing who the other club is.
Celtic_First
John67 coming to my place for 9:45am tomorrow. Pick you up just after that?
SwanseaBhoy
Moonbeams WD. \o/ Supporting Neil Lennon 100%. C’mon the hoops. says:
Sent you an e-mail earlier, you get it?
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
my my goodness gracious me.
what a nightmare it has been without CQN
i dont no how long it will take me to get over it
Lenny Naw we don’t want tae skew the stats….. Ach Dae whit ye want, ye will anyway lol
Great to see the site back up.
What a few says it’s been…coming back from a shambolic OG, a fantastic 2nd half display from FF in particular and a good away point won.
Then all the fun of the huns and the interviews from craigy boy – or is it Walter Mitty – to today’s papers….Scotsman to English in particular was astounding… Funniest bit is he will kick Rangers staff out for talking to BBC staff but gives interviews himself to English and Jabba who are paid by the BBC as well as their papers.
Had a first ever look at Rangers Media when CQN was down and it’s quite scary.
First thing is there seems to be no moderator standards; the language used is appalling.
Worse they have bought the Whyte story hook, line and sinker.
How they could ever thing the BBC in Scotland is anti-Rangers beggars belief as you just run down the panel of their regular contributors.
Anyway, great to have CQN back.
I assume most of you will have read this, for those who haven’t.
Whytie is mad, or a genius.
Published on Saturday 22 October 2011 04:38
Tom English talks to Craig Whyte about that BBC documentary, the ongoing tax case at Ibrox and the departure of Rangers legend John Greig
Q. So you watched the BBC documentary on Thursday evening?
A. No, I haven’t actually seen it. I was with my kids so I didn’t particularly want to watch it with them. I’ll get around to it.
You haven’t watched it? So how can you threaten to sue the BBC on the back of it?
Oh, don’t worry, I know what was in it. I know all about the allegations they’re making.
And you think it was a stitch-up job?
It’s outrageous. I actually can’t believe that they went with the allegations they went with. We told them. We sent lawyers letters all week, warning them that these things aren’t true and warning them what would happen if they ran with these allegations. They’ve run with things that are totally, completely and utterly untrue. It just proves the case that they are a biased organisation, biased against Rangers. They’ve done it several times this season. They’re completely biased. They did it to Ally McCoist. Every time they show something on sectarianism it’s Rangers fans. One has to wonder if there’s institutionalised bias in there. It’s outrageous what they’ve done. Absolutely outrageous. To accuse me on national TV of criminality is an outrage. I’m suing and maybe the BBC are going to be paying the (HMRC) tax bill.
Okay, this is raw stuff at the moment. But these things are always sorted out. You threaten to sue, there’s a rapprochement and everything gets resolved. Why is this one any different?
I don’t see any way back for the BBC. No. They’re not going to apologise. As long as I’m here there will be no co-operation between Rangers and the BBC. They won’t get any interviews with players or management. As far as I’m concerned, even if somebody speaks to them off the record they’ll never work for Rangers again.
How on earth can you enforce that?
The BBC are completely, totally and utterly out. They’re not going to get away with it what they did. They’ll suffer the consequences.
Let’s look at this closely. They said you were disqualified as a company director. Is that true?
I’m not comfortable getting into the specific allegations.
They had a government official – Robert Burns, head of investigations at the Insolvency Service – saying that you could, potentially, have faced a two-year jail sentence for your involvement in a company, Re-tex Plastic Technology while disqualified. Is that true?
I’m not going to comment on specific allegations other than to say on the basis of what I’ve heard the Insolvency Service said last night, I’m looking into the possibility of suing them personally.
Another law-suit?
For what he [Burns] said, he deserves to be sued personally. Because it’s a lie. If he said what I’ve been told he said, it’s a lie. The question to be asked here is if I’m being accused of something then why didn’t they pursue it, why didn’t they do something about it? The reason is because it’s not true.
They then tried to link you with a convicted fraudster, Kevin Sykes. What was your involvement with Sykes?
I’m sure that most people in their past has met somebody – 12 years ago, 15 years ago – and then you move on and you forget about them. To bring it up now, to associate him with me is an outrage. I haven’t seen the guy in 12-13 years. What’s the relevance of that?
This is a respected investigative journalist, though. Mark Daly is a good journalist. Why would he have it in for you? Why would the BBC have it in for you?
There’s no question but that this was a hatchet job. Look at the contributors. Alastair Johnston and Paul Murray, who are no friends of mine. Other guys on companies I invested in who wanted more money and I wouldn’t give it to them. It’s not impartial. It was biased from the start. Typical BBC attitude. They’re arrogant.
Did you hear that your old mate, Johnston, cried no surrender!
Yeah, I heard that. Alastair thinks he’s the fans’ hero. The funny thing is that he tells everybody that he’s never taken a penny out of Rangers, that he’s never wanted anything from the club, that he was put here for the good of the club and that he’s the biggest Rangers supporter and all sorts of shit. I haven’t heard from him since the takeover. But about a week or ten days ago he starts emailing me and says he’s owed 30 grand.
For what?
They were really nice emails to begin with. He was talking about his expenses and his flights to the States and Japan on Rangers business, first class tickets and all the rest of it, and reckoned he was due 30 grand in expenses. There was this series of emails and I was really surprised. So then he puts a deadline of last Friday on it and said if I didn’t pay it he was going to sue. There was an overhanging threat of a law suit if I didn’t pay him.
Another law-suit? How many are we up to now?
I’ve stopped counting. I said I’d look at the detail and get back to him, but I haven’t responded to his last email, which was Wednesday I think. He’s not due the money. These are guys who have never put anything into Rangers and have taken a lot out, even during the depths of the financial crisis at the club. They could have said we’ve done quite nicely out of this, we’ll walk away and wish the club well. People like [Donald] McIntyre outside the court the other day saying he wants the best for Rangers, meanwhile he’s putting a £300,000 arrestment on Rangers and taking us to court, even though he was there throughout all the financial problems. When Rangers made the Uefa Cup final [Martin Bain] got the same bonus as the players, £45,000 a man. Why would the chief executive be on the same bonus as the players? Anybody who wants money from Rangers I’m going to scrutinise it. Every detail, whether it’s deserved or not. If it’s deserved, we’ll settle and if it’s not we’ll fight it to the death.
There is an air of mystery about you, though. Nobody really knows much about you – where you got your money from and how much you have.
Good.
So where did you make your money and how much do you have?
If I asked you how much money you have, you would be within your rights to tell me to f*** off, it’s none of my business. All that matters is that I’m delivering on what I said I would deliver on. Rangers are in a better place now than they have been in the last three or four years. That’s what’s important. As long as I deliver on what I said I would deliver on what difference does it make?
What other businesses do you have, we know nothing of this?
I’ve got more than 20 other businesses in the UK and across various parts of Europe and I’m involved in all sorts of things. I’m a prolific deal-maker, but the only one you get to hear about is Rangers. I’m doing deals constantly. This morning I’m working on a decent size deal with a fairly well-known business but it will never get any attention.
Why not?
Because I don’t want it to.
Again, why not?
Why should I? I’m stubborn.
Give us the names of a few of your companies that you’re really proud of?
No. Good effort but I’m not going to name the companies because that’ll create a level of scrutiny for them and I don’t want to have that. I just want them to get on with business. Look, I can’t complain about it because I put myself in the position. David Murray told me what it would be like. I’m fortunate to be in the position I’m in. You know my thoughts, I’m not a publicity hungry type of guy. This stuff doesn’t sit naturally with me. I’m only doing this now because of that BBC thing.
Okay, let’s talk about the tax bill. You said not that long ago that you we were going to fight it if the outcome went against you, but you said the other night you might not. What are you thinking?
I’m not going to box myself into a corner on this one. What I said to STV was that there has to be some finality sooner rather than later. I don’t see how we can live like this as a business with this thing hanging over us for another year or two years, it’s impossible. If we’re trying to sign long-term deals with sponsors or corporates it makes life more difficult.
Fine. So talk us through what you will do in the worst case scenario. Rangers are hit with a massive debt bill. What happens next?
There’s a solution to it either way. Either we win the case or we don’t win the case and if we don’t win the case I’ll still control the club and so the club will be there forever.
But what happens if the bill is £49m?
Clearly, an insolvency would mean the business would have to go through a formal restructuring.
Insolvency? Restructuring?
It’s hard to say at the moment because there are different ways to restructure a business. People talk about administration as one option and that might well be one of them.
Putting the club into administration is an option?
For sure.
What would that entail? Are we talking here about the club re-forming as New Rangers FC and the tax bill is eliminated. It’s not that simple, right?
It’s not as simple as that but that is one potential outcome. It’s not desirable, not something we want to do and I’m doing everything I can to avoid it.
You wouldn’t think that the club going into administration would be a blight on its proud history?
You can’t erase the club’s history. That stays.
But it would be mortifying?
Other than a regrettable event in our history I don’t think it would be as bad people think it might be. But that’s not what I want. It’s something I’d rather avoid, if at all possible.
Have you regrets about the way you’ve handled the tax case, the secrecy surrounding it that has given way to endless speculation?
Yeah, with hindsight I should have probably said more about this when I first came in but on the other hand we were battling to win the league at the time and I didn’t want to put negative issues out there. As soon as the league was over, I should have come out and said ‘Look, there’s a big job to be done here’. I should have got my message out a bit sooner.
If you were a betting man, where would your money rest? Victory for Rangers or victory for HMRC?
I’m not a tax expert so it’s a difficult one. Our legal advisers say we’re going to win but HMRC’s advisers say they’re going to win. I wouldn’t like to bet on it either way, to be honest.
You seem to be constantly fighting people. The tax man, Bain, McIntyre, the BBC, various solicitors firms, all sorts of people. Levy & McRae took action over an unpaid bill of £35,000. Why is there so much hassle?
Levy & McRae acted for Rangers previously and under Law Society rules they shouldn’t be acting against their client so when they represented Bain we complained about them to the Law Society and to be fair we were a bit bloody-minded when we said we weren’t going to pay them because they started acting for Bain against us. That was the reason we didn’t pay them. They took us to court and with hindsight it would have been easier just to pay them.
I think people use the profile of Rangers to try and take us to court and think we’ll settle because we don’t want the bad publicity. For me, I’m bloody-minded. Why should I fall for that one? I’m getting more and more thick-skinned by the day.
Is this the most hassle you’ve had in business?
For sure. But this is what I signed up to. Nothing on this scale has happened to me before and nothing on this scale will happen to me again. Even if you owned one of the clubs in London I don’t think you’d get this level of intensity in the national press. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. No football club owner in Scotland has had the hassle that I’ve had.
Like you say, you buy Rangers and you accept the obsession that comes with it, right?
Right.
So what about all your cash flow, then?
The arrestments by Bain and McIntyre don’t help, but we’re fine.
No issues about paying your bills?
No.
What about your transfer dealings? Lots of players signed but not a high net spend, not the £5m you said it would be?
It’s a lot higher than people think. Our net spend is about £5.7m or thereabouts. That includes things that people forget about like agents fees and so on.
You said you’d invest £5m a season for five seasons, roughly. That £5m was including agents fees and other costs?
If you’re going to sign players then you have to include the cost associated with it, legal costs, agents costs, all sorts of costs. Of course you have to include the costs.
People will always ask how could you think this is a sound venture?
You can have a proper business model in football but it’s not easy, I’ll give you that. But I also think that Rangers are a huge club with a huge support base worldwide and with tremendous commercial potential that is untapped. Our costs are too high and will have to be reduced. Long-term, we can make this a successful business.
The tax case could be Armageddon, though?
I don’t think it’s Armageddon. Everybody knows that, in reality, Rangers are always going to be around. You might get idiots on bulletin boards saying that Rangers are going to disappear but that’s not going to happen.
Finally, John Greig walked away during the week. He was a player you admired greatly. An icon. Was his departure a reflection on the way you run the club?
It was unfortunate. John could have stepped down a different way. We could have shaken hands and wished him all the best, which I still want to do. Unfortunately, I heard it from a newspaper rather than from John. I thought we always got on well. He’s a legend and will always be welcome.
Welcome back Paul67
So much to talk about in the last 2 days
Well done to the Hoops for a battling draw in Rennes
Whytey got shredded in a BBC programme and was asked in the Scotsman about the names of his ‘successful’ businesses
His answer? “I’m not telling you”
The end is approaching
Sammi + Hooper both fit for tomorrow
Well, its true eh? you don’t know what you have, until its gone…..thank god its back, well done Paul67.
So what is this with the SFA Paul? is there even more dirt on them?????
Did Carter Ruck sabotage the blog?
Welcome back CQN. Congrats to all who worked hard to make it so.
Fasthosts? What a misnomer!
Congratulations Paul67!
I thought you had been macgiollabhained
Paulus LXVII, Salve Salve;- Welcome back, that certainly was a miss. Could some techno savvy Timite post a link to the bizzare White interview with “Uncle” Tom English in today’s hootsman ; incredible stuff even he must see it through his soup engrained spectacles.
Btw I don’t do the facebook or twitter thingy, too advanced for me.
Greenwells
Magister Mundi sum!
Got to admire the brass neck of Whyte – what a chancer he is
Now I know how a junky feels- geez stuck in the deep Sarf is bad enough without being exiled from CQN – ole Philvis is a social worker compared to the lOcala down here- I am on my third Tongue having bitten clean through the other two for diplomatic reasons.
The birds all fly in circles cos they’ve got 2 right wings!
Looking forward to getting home and catching up on the disintegration of Whytie
Hail hail
MICK11 says:
22 October, 2011 at 15:38
Mick,Don’t know what this line was about but surely they cannot have got any worse?
Surely?
Less than white
The man he was less than white,
Some they painted him black,
Out of the cupboard the stories,
From a frenzied media pack.
Now all this gets you thinking,
Just what the hell is going on,
Is the guy really for real,
Or maybe just a pawn?
You think that this was all planned?
To get us looking the other way,
A Convenient little scape goat,
Merrily leading us all astray!
Vmhan who Supports Neil Lennon says:
22 October, 2011 at 15:36
Naw, I will listen to my elder and wiser CQNer as I widnae want to skew the stats…:)
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
PS…I suspect the ‘Nos’ will have it regardless…100%
cardiffbhoy, of this parish, put this on Twitter earlier:
“cardiffbhoy
@SwanseaBhoy1 @rangerstaxcase they are delusional. Ironically Celtic fans don’t trust our real billionaire yet they dont doubt that chancer!”
He’s right of course, but why?
If this charlatan owned Celtic we would be all over it like a rash, right? Yet they seem to buy every line he’s feeding them, despite a complete lack of plausibility.
What is it that makes us so different?
SwanseaBhoy
Welcome back Paul67 missed the news.
Hail Hail
Welcome back CQN
Paul67
Managed to give up E- lites while site was down.
Gordon_J
Delighted to see you posting. Hope you’re on the mend.
SwanseaBhoy
bsr
brill :)
Welome back CQN withdrawl effects that were gradually getting worse are now subsiding shakes now down to a minor tremble
jimmci says:
22 October, 2011 at 15:41
MICK11 says:
22 October, 2011 at 15:38
Mick,Don’t know what this line was about but surely they cannot have got any worse?
Surely?
———————————————————————————————————
Well, to be honest, it certainly wouldn’t surprise me.Thats for sure….i’m sure Phil will have something on this also then.
Good team performance by Celtic in France and a tale of two very contrasting draws, in our last two games.
The latest a mini triumph and were it not for some comedy cuts, who knows what may have happened.
Cha Du Ri, whom it was difficult to figure positionally during periods, stroked the ball past an astonished Fraser Forster, who admittedly was shocked, but he could have at least thrown one of his gloves after the ball, which might even have stopped it trundling in.
Neil Lennon was right, and others were wrong, as Fraser Forster made three saves, I don’t think our other keeper would have, and the much maligned Loovens was ( this time ) a better option at CB.
The key to success IMHO was Victor Wanyama as an extra midfielder, at the expense of the outdated twin striker role.
We still made chances, and I hope Neil Lennon resist chopping and changing the side, at least we have restored some consistency, as the lone striker role can mean a equal number of chances, they just fall to the single striker. If the supporting midfielders do their job goals will come.
Neil Lennon the young developing manager got this one right, with the players at his disposal and dispelled the silly mythical cliche, of having lost a dressing room.
Onwards to a convincing win over the Dons.
Welcome back to you Gordon_J
Partizan
Will get you at superstore about 2.35pm if that suits you?
Glenn Gibbons: Whyte’s BBC ban displays lack of astute leadership
Published on Saturday 22 October 2011 02:31
THE myriad implications of BBC Scotland’s investigative documentary on Rangers owner Craig Whyte the other night began to produce serious repercussions almost before the end credits had stopped rolling.
The most striking of these would be reports that the lead character in the drama had instructed his lawyers to take legal action against the corporation.
This reaction would not be received in any quarter as a shock, since the programme had alleged that Whyte could have gone to prison as a consequence of behaviour in his business career that amounted to a criminal offence. Even so, the haste with which he counter-attacked seemed to be merely the latest example of a tendency towards impulsive, potentially ill-considered hostility.
Whyte, it will be remembered, had already withdrawn “all co-operation” with the BBC even before the programme had been aired, citing “repeated difficulties” over the latter’s coverage, and accusing the station of bias against Rangers.
To anyone with even a superficial knowledge of how the communications media operate, that charge would appear absurd, almost infantile in its naivete. Whyte’s own well-documented protectiveness of his privacy, with its undertone of secretiveness, would be enough to make him an irresistible subject for any story-hungry editorial team.
But, more worryingly for those looking for signs of dynamic and astute management at Ibrox, the banning order clearly took no account of the probability that it would breach the BBC’s contract with the Scottish Premier League as a rights holder, with entitlement to full access to all media activities at the club
If and when the television people invoke that right and the prohibition is, inevitably, repealed, it will result in an embarrassment for Whyte and his board that should have been obvious and avoidable. The episode suggests that, whatever benefits or otherwise the Whyte administration may have to offer Rangers, they are a long way from efficiency in the matter of managing publicity.
If that sounds like a triviality compared to Rangers’ overall concerns, it has been shown to be important because nothing that has occurred in recent times has done anything to dispel the uncertainty that has settled on the club since Whyte’s accession. Instead of taking a firm, perhaps even aggressive, pro-active stance on a number of issues, the Rangers owner and his team have been consistently sluggish in anticipating problems and taking pre-emptive action. The result is an impression of mainly unconvincing attempts to undo damage.
Even a relatively unimportant (and certainly unsurprising) development such as the departures of former chairman John McClelland and iconic figure John Greig were badly handled, with Whyte actually admitting that he had no idea the two men were unsettled and felt marginalised.
His denial that Greig, specifically, had been removed from the decision-making process in the boardroom sounded ludicrously implausible, having been made a full day after the former player, manager and director had given his “exclusion from the corporate governance of the club” as his reason for resigning.
Whyte’s habitual discomfort with the various arms of the media may partly explain some of his poor performances in that regard, but nothing he has said in public – despite the occasional banner headline proclaiming a “revealing honesty” in forthcoming interviews – has lifted the widespread unease over Rangers’ financial health in his care.
Court action by a firm of lawyers to recover a £35,000 bill for legal fees and the ring-fencing of £3 million of the club’s money as insurance against upcoming claims by HMRC and former directors Martin Bain and Donald McIntyre have simply reinforced the impression of extremely limited resources.
With regard to media manipulation, Whyte could take lessons from his predecessor, David Murray, whose control of most of the personnel in the mass-circulation red tops was so complete that he did not even have to conceal the economic devastation his policies were inflicting on Rangers.
Evidence of the damage was obvious enough to make the detached observer’s eyes water, but Murray was assured that his every claim – however contradictory it may have appeared when set beside the club’s annual returns – would be accepted by his media poodles without question or demur. Whyte’s seeming pre-occupation with privacy, on the other hand, has already led to the discomfiting likelihood that his utterances will be met with a certain scepticism.
Just as well nothing important happened in the last couple of days. :-O
One of the things that may have slipped by un-noticed is the apparent use of two diferent excusses for not paying Levy & McRae. http://scotslawthoughts.wordpress.com/2011/10/22/did-craig-whyte-and-rangers-mislead-the-court-of-session/ Marks someone out as a crebible witness in any further dealings with authority… not.
On another matter, the Celtic board are legally bound to act in the best financial interests of Celtic. If the SPL/SFA try to wangle a reinvented Rangers right back in to the top flight, the board might have no choice but to vote them back in.
Welcome back everyone been a funny few days
.
PAUL67….
Maybe the Next time CQN Goes Down you Could make Some Extra Money Stating….
The E-Lites are Out….For a While
Summa ft TheDarknessCSC
Harking back to the Rennes game, I thought at the time the keeper was 100% to blame for the goal but what irked me even more was his failure to turn and chase, if that ball had hit the post the condemenation of him would have been overwhelming. To be fair to him he redemmed himself a bit with some good saves in the 2nd half but for me still a causal factor in our defensive problems just not good enough.
“Your favourite billionaire is getting divorced and has claimed he has no money!”
Yes, Dermot Desmond divorcing himself from Celtic?
Great news.
Silver City Neil Lennon says:
There will be no wangling or reinvention involved.
As I understand it, the SPL penalty for going into administration is the deduction of ten, in this case, meaningless points.