When you have a potential loss to the tax payer of £75m, allegations of tax irregularities, political interference, alleged sporting malfeasance and stand of the brink of the largest corporate failure in Scottish history (discounting the bailed-out RBS) the profile of the story rises above the blogs and regular Scottish media.
Alex Thomson, chief correspondent for Channel 4 News, a man who reports from war zones, interviews prime ministers and presidents, decided to look into how the SFA were handling the current crisis in Scottish football. Yesterday he blogged on the subject, raising many of the questions we have asked in recent months.
On Twitter this morning he reported his experience in trying to get some sense out of the SFA, this is what he said:
“SFA say President Campbell Ogilvie is ‘distancing himself from the current Rangers investigation’ but did not explain how.
“Campbell Ogilvie ‘did not know’ about EBT contract when he was Rangers FC secretary?
“When we asked why not – that was his job – SFA said they didn’t know.
“SFA say their President and fmr Ranger secretary Campbell Ogilvie will not be interviewed by c4news about what he knew…
“SFA say their President Campbell Ogilvie ‘has no plans to stand aside from his job pending current Rangers probes…
“Interesting SFA have just accused me of ‘lying’, ‘pig-headedness’ and then put the phone down mid-conversation….
“all because I put their own statement back to them that Campbell Ogilvie denied knowing about EBTs at Rangers…
“And suggested there might be a perceived conflict of interest in his current position until the investigations are complete”
Three weeks ago we suggested that Ogilvie’s position as SFA president was untenable, saying “The association cannot have a president embroiled in a tax evasion scam which, even before a verdict has been decided, has already caused untold harm to his former club and the reputation Scottish football.”
The SFA have been able to dismiss pleas for sporting integrity and ethical standards from the blogsphere while the mainstream media have either chased the hapless fall-guy, Craig Whyte, or refused to take the Improper Registration of Rangers players seriously.
SFA chief executive, Stewart Regan, was flushed out his slumber by Mr Thomson’s comments this morning, Tweeting to the reporter, “Please could you confirm who you have spoken to. thank you.”
Stewart, if you really need to ask that question, you’re in more trouble than I thought. There are several thousand CQN’ers who could help answer that one.
Campbell Ogilvie and the SFA cannot hide from the facts of this crisis. He is president of the SFA and both he and the association must acknowledge there is work to do. We can only hope Uefa finally decide to take a look.
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The toff/aristo/gangster/masonic class that runs this demented UK has been getting away with it for donkeys years. They have this twisted sense of ‘entitlement, literally & figuratively, and when they get caught, bang to rights, they bluster & harrumph their way with legalistic bombast until they can scuttle away,hopefully with minimal consequences, to continue with ‘business as usual’.
Hopefully, in this case, it won’t be easy, and even if they squeak out of the worst penalties, their actions/will never be forgotten or forgiven.
THE ORIGINAL SADIES BHOY
You obviously remember it as well as I do.
Jock had returned,but the team was decimated by the departure of Dalglish,in particular,and injuries to just about everyone.
I remember we signed Mike Conroy from Port Glasgow Juniors on the Monday,and played him at Easter Rd on the Saturday!
We got beat 4-1.btw,and he was near-enough our man of the match.
We WERE in danger of relegation for a while,our form was a disaster,and our squad was decimated.
The Establishment smelt blood,and did their best to apply the hose.
Jock and the players did their bit,and so did the fans,and we should be grateful,but we were worse then than at any time I can remember.
Including Lou Macari’s time.
Moira Anderson that was her name. I cant remember the name of one of the suspects,but im sure one of there daughters acussed him of being a child molester,she wrote a book about it, i think her name was brown
malone 19- thanks,thought that too mate.wifi for me i think.
What is the point of the Rangers Fighting Fund? Is it a bit like the cutting up of iron fencing during WWII pretending that the metal was going to be used for spitfires and the like to keep morale up?
I hope they respond big style – keep the administration going as long as possible.
Don’t tell them this but actually starving the club of cash would be better for them. Swift death, newco can begin it’s legal wranglings.
This is just money down the stank.
But then I am sure the bears will rally round and raise squillions again just as they did when they stiffed murrays share issue a few years back contributing less than £1 Million in their time of need.
It might give them another month, or two or three but ultimately the money is going to pay bills that will have no material benefit on what they pay to watch – the fitba.
It isn’t quite nero fiddling while rome (ahem) burns but it is a bit like him trying to douse the flames by taking a pee on them……. funny, but quite useless.
Aaaah….I’m so full of NHS medication & anger at the Orange Ordure that I can hardly type right. Thankfully,there are far better & wittier people than me who can articulate my feelings as I’d like to be able to.
Hail Hail.
timbhoy
The bus driver was called Gartshore and his daughter Sandra Brown wrote that book because she suspected her father was involved in the disappearance. His pal Gillhooly got ten years for child abuse, but hanged himself in prison. The church was Calder Parish church in Whifflet Coatbridge.
Police have refused numerous times to open the case.
The Huns R priceless.
CW uses season ticket money to buy them….BOO HISS !
The Blue Knights are going to use the same season ticket money to buy them….YIPPEE !
Madness.
pigalle
Tony Watt led the scoring as Celtic’s u-19 side beat Motherwell 5-2 to move within a point of leaders Hearts.
The former Aidrie striker scored four times in the first half- including three headers- as the visitors swept Motherwell away.
With the Twardzik twins, Filip and Patrik, away on international duty Paul George and Joe Chalmers returned to the side to face in-form Motherwell at Bathgate. Liam Gormley also started the match after scoring as a substitute against Kilmarnock.
George was quickly demanding the ball and sent in a fierce cross in the second minute that Watt headed powerfully past the ‘Well keeper.
Four minutes later the striker doubled Celtc’s lead. Chalmers cross from the left was met on the turn by Watt but after his first effort was blocked he got up off the deck to squeeze the rebound into the net.
Celtic were in total control with McGregor netting for the third game running when he slotted home the rebound after the home keeper had blocked a Darnell Fisher shot.
In the 28th minute Wattt completed his hat-trick with a glancing header from a McGregor cross then netted his fourth of the day 11 minutes from an inswinging free kick by McGregor.
Celtic eased up after the break allowing Motherwell to score twice but the result was never in any doubt.
With four games left to plasy, two against Rangers as well as Hibs at home and Motherwell away, John Kennedy’s side know that the title is theirs if they win all of their remaining matches.
CELTIC: Fasan; Fisher, Fraser, Jones, Chalmers; George (Miller 88), McGregor, Herron (Kidd 43) Irvine, Gormley: Watt (Atajic 88)
SUBS Trialist, Findlay, AlabbI
SCORERS Watt 4, McGregor
I think a rangers fighting fund is a great idea.
I hope that all their fans pump in at least one giro. This money is sure to disappear quicker than any flavour of jelly that is coloured green from the supermarket shelves. Which means when the Blue Nights, the Turquise Knights, and the Barron Knights are looking for a cash injection post with a post admin share offer. Some orcs will be pissed off not having another spare giro, some will be be annoyed they are being asked to dig into their joggy bottoms again for another ten boab, the majority won’t have a clue what’s going on, but one or two might just pay up.
timbhoy2 on 13 March, 2012 at 15:33 said:
The girl was Moira Anderson murdered in 1958. She was sent to the shops by her mother and never seen again. Many, years later the daughter of a Baxter’s Bus driver said that she believed that her father (Gartshore) had murdered her friend Moira. He had served a prison sentence for some form of child sex abuse and a local Church of Scotland elder was implicated also in the case.
The daughter alleged that her father who knew Moira enticed her onto his bus (it had been a very snowy day) and murdered her before dumping her body near the terminus at Townhead.
Go on the U19’s! Well done , Bhoys!
Paul67
I wrote a while back suggesting that we keep an eye on the roles of a whole range of people in this fast moving story- NED’S/ Smithx2 /Ogilvie etc.
They will all come in and out of focus until this story ends.
TBB did us a service at weekend however it struck me today that we have lost sight of the Close Bros loan around catering. I am sure others will recall that event in the early days of the MBB.
Sure they must now be in the creditor queue.
Ther
Meanwhile on Fantasy Island, they see the plane coming…
PAUL MURRAY today confirmed his Blue Knight’s consortium will lodge a bid to buy Rangers and meet this Friday’s deadline for offers.
Speaking from London after he held crucial talks with the club’s administrators, Duff & Phelps, Mr Murray also told the Evening Times he would proceed with the plan – which will heavily involve finance company Ticketus – only after he has shown fans groups “all the fine detail and receives their full backing with complete transparency absolutely crucial”.
Mr Murray is hopeful the Blue Knights will be granted ‘preferred bidder’ status to take control of the club through a Creditors Voluntary Agreement.
However, there remains takeover interest from groups in Singapore, North America and also from Scots businessman Brian Kennedy, the owner of Sale Sharks Rugby team.
These will also be considered by Duff & Phelps before a decision is made.
Mr Murray, a Rangers’ director for four years before he was deposed by Craig Whyte after his takeover last May, is fronting a rescue bid for the stricken club, which has now been in administration for four weeks.
Major players in his consortium are finance company Ticketus, which advanced Mr Whyte £24.4million for future season ticket sales – which he then used to buy the club.
Executives from Ticketus accompanied Mr Murray to the meeting with Duff & Phelps joint-administrator Paul Clark.
“We had a very good meeting with the administrators. It was an open meeting with very constructive dialogue and myself and the executives from Ticketus asked a lot of questions, and answered a lot of questions,” Mr Murray said.
“We are in good shape for Friday. We will be making an offer to buy Rangers. It’s obviously up to the administrators to evaluate any offers that come in, but I think they will have to crack on in terms of a decision.
“I would like to think we would get an answer next week and we are hopeful of being able to take control of the club and stabilise the situation.
“That is the main thing – Rangers needs to be saved in its current form and then plans can be put in place from there.
“In terms of the Ticketus involvement, what I want to do is make sure this time we have absolute transparency.
“My colleagues in the Blue Knights will sit with the fans groups and say to them, ‘This is the deal.’
“We will show them every detail and what we are asking them to buy into. It will be totally up front, with the best interests of Rangers the main factor at all times.”
The decision to bring Ticketus on board raised eyebrows, given that it was shown in a bad light due to its association with Mr Whyte.
He entered into an agreement to sell the company, which is an off-shoot of finance house Octopus and which has a net value of £3billion, more than 100,000 season tickets over four years. But he then used the money advanced to pay off an £18m Rangers’ debt to Lloyds Bank.
But Mr Murray was keen to outline exactly how the arrangement with Ticketus will work.
And he did not rule out it could be a short-term partner, with Rangers possibly reverting to a bank for its credit facilities should the club be returned to a sound footing under the stewardship of a new board.
He explained: “It is important to point out Ticketus is a very big business with substantial cash reserves. It has been painted in a bad light due to the Craig Whyte deal, but it entered into the agreement with him in good faith.
“We have held extensive dialogue about how it can work in terms of alignment with the Blue Knights.
“When you are bringing a consortium of 10 people together to put up funding it can take a bit of time.
“Ticketus will, in effect, underwrite stage one of our plan, which will be to back the cash purchase of the club and provide initial working capital. It can show quickly the money is in place.
“The Blue Knights will be a body standing behind them. The individuals will give personal pledges to Ticketus against the money used in stage one.
“We may not need all of the working capital set aside as you would hopefully have season ticket money coming in about the start of May. However, you have the reassurance of it being there as the transfer market opens. etc.
“Stage two would then be a share issue open to all. Again, the Blue Knights would be investing into that, as well as the cash pledges being put up to complete the purchase.
“Stage three would be to renegotiate the terms of the Ticketus arrangement to something the club can afford to pay. Craig Whyte did it short term and we would arrange something far more attractive to the club.
“That said, it could be we may ‘take Ticketus out’ down the line once the club is on a stronger footing and stabilised. We could look at other more traditional options.
“People may look at Rangers as some kind of financial basket case, but when the business is running properly under the stewardship of the right people there is no reason why we could not have normal credit facilities like other clubs.”
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS on 13 March, 2012 at 15:55 said:
Bobby I’ll bow to your superior knowledge but I thought we haven’t been in danger of relegation since the 50s when Jackie Cantwell scored a number of goals that saved us late on in the season.
The incident was an outrage (I’ll now add that to my list of reasons for wanting RFC to disappear into oblivion) :-)
I thought I heard that guy Kennedy saying in an interview he wasn’t interested in buying rangurs.
I am keeping some jelly and ice cream in reserve for the day that one, at least, of the MIB are folded into this melange of misdeeds.
I remember the John Gordon (from Newport on Tay) game well. Does anyone remember him calling Big Billy over to him. When the big man reached Gordon he towered above him with his chest puffed out and frightened the cr*p out of him. The Rangers eh! Cheats then and cheats now.
Are Ticketus a finance company?
Interesting statement re ranjurs on their web site:
http://www.ticketus.co.uk/
Ragers new Blue Whyte Night Night
T O S B
Her body has never been found. One story is she was put in a grave that was prepared for a funeral. Gartshore used to grow orange lillys in his garden and bad Bhoys wd to pull them up the night before the Walk. <)0)))))
Paul67 etal.
They are starting to crack?.Nacht der langen messer,(The night of the long knives) shall be upon us soon.
When the united front that they have been endevouring to hold on to, starts to slip,they are in serious trouble,the infighting has started and the end is nigh.
All it took was a few enquiries from Alex Thomson a C4 Newsman, to ask a few pertinent questions and all hell breaks loose,accused of telling lies,my money is on Alex Thomson would be the only one that’s telling the truth.
Why would he lie?.This man doesn’t work for the Scottish Red Tops,I’m sure they wouldn’t be averse to telling a few porkies.
We have two new men in charge of Scottish Football,If they want to stay a bit longer in their jobs,they need to distance themselves from this quagmire that has arrived in the Scottish game.
Gordon Mc Queen wrote yesterday that what is going on in Scottish Football now is making us the laughing stock of the Sporting World,it’s quite depressing to read that.
I wrote on here a couple of weeks ago that it would take a couple of years to clean up this mess,reading about what is happening now,I wonder when it will all end.
I feel that the courts will be busy for a few months,(years)settling all the infighting that’s going to come up,could there also be jail time for a few?.They deserve it,but will they have the bottle to take the perpetrators to court.If proven, they will have committed a criminal act,and a custodial sentence would be just.
Nacht der langen messer,seems appropriate here as they have already tried to besmirch the good name of the Whyte Knight,but he may outlast them all.
Go on my son.Ride a straight course, and true.
Murray forgot to mention Stage Four.
Hector comes along, laugh’s like f*** and takes everything away…
ASonofDan – it appears young Murray is keeping his powder dry with regard to the Big Tax case. He must have a cunning plan to deal with the £75 Million ‘problem’……
If Hans Christian Anderson did football…..
Has the Alex Thomson show been on or is coming on CH4??
2nd request.
Bontybhoy
We are on the same page.
I m wondering if fundamental beliefs of both major religions are a reason.
I cannot comment on Protestantism but Catholicism has admission of wrong,contrition and forgiveness as a key feature.
Does that make it easier for those from that tradition to see things in that light?
Equally does the Protestant belief on contrition etc make it harder/impossible for them to admit to wrongdoing?
Im going to have to do some research unless other bloggers can answer from knowledge.
Actually that Ticketus statement is signed by Luther Pendragon – the mythical King Arthur’s faither.
greenmaestro,
He did.
But you know that old saying about facts and a good story …
ASonOfDan on 13 March, 2012 at 16:07 said:
Why is Murray sitting with Duff and Duffer when the MBB owns rankness.
The administrators can’t see the good ship orca without him can they?
Bluster and fuffenstuff the lot of them…
SP
THEORIGINALSADIESBHOY
Just to enlighten those who were not there,or refresh the memor of those who were,the incident went as follows.
Corner to us at the hun end,McAdam goes up for the ball,blatant push in the back while he’s in mid-air.
Loud shout,ref runs towards the spot,followed by celebrating Celtic players.
Leaving poor old Frank and Peter Latchford……….
It was DEFO offside,I was in the enclosure,pretty much in a line with the pass-Cooper?
Cue a minor invasion,the players refusing to re-start the game,and Big Jock coming on to the pitch and centring the ball-GET ON WI’ IT!
Bad,bad times,and I hope Gordon and a few others are in a place where I hope never to be.
RT
Tom English set out the Murray plan. It depends totally on HMRC either becoming a bank or giving away taxpayers money to those who stole it.
HMRC cannot compromise on principles without severely damaging their raison d’etre.
I will only worry when Hector is standing next to Murray. Everything else is total pash. Ticketus, Blue Knights, mean nothing with 3 bills owed to HMRC.
Hector doesn’t do walking away…
Gordon_J backing Neil Lennon on 13 March, 2012 at 16:15 said:
I get it. So the meeting next week will be where The Admins agree with the Knights that MBB doesn’t get a penny. Sorted.
Murray’s cunning plan seems to be ignore the big taxcase and hope it goes away, Duff & Duffer’s cunning plan is to ignore Our Hero in the hope that he goes away
Knights and Whyte flapping, never reaching the end,
Letters I’ve written, never meaning to send.
Beauty I’d always missed with these eyes before.
Just what the truth is, I can’t say anymore.
‘Cos I gubbed you, yes I gubbed you, oh how I gubbed you.
Gazing at peeple, some red in hand,
Just what I’m going through they can’t understand.
Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend,
Just what you want to be, you will be in the end.
And I gubbed you, yes I gubbed you,
Oh how I gubbed you, oh how I gubbed you.
Knights and Whyte flapping, never reaching the end,
Letters I’ve written, never meaning to send.
Beauty I’ve always missed, with these eyes before.
Just what the truth is, I can’t say anymore.
‘Cos I gubbed you, yes I gubbed you,
Oh how I gubbed you, oh how I gubbed you.
‘Cos I gubbed you, yes I gubbed you,
Oh how I gubbed you, oh how I gubbed you.
Breath deep
The gathering gloom
Watch lights fade
From every room
Bedsitter peeple
Look back and lament
Another day’s useless
penny is spent
Impassioned lovers
Wrestle as one
Lonely man cries for love
And has none
New mother picks up
And suckles her son
Senior citizens
Wish they were young
Cold hearted orc
That rules the Knight
Removes the colours
From our sight
Red is gray and
Yellow white
But we decide
Which is right
And
Which is an Illusion
Blue Knights in Tight Satin
And a ‘Fighting’ fund.
What exactly is a ‘Fighting’ fund?
It’s always brash and bold and unsubtly aggressive, with them. The Peepil, The Fear, The Fighting Fund…
What a bunch of big stupid weans they are. Can they not just dip into charity money?
What? They already are?
What next – The ‘Aggressive Life Support’ Fund?
The intimidating death rattle fund?
The ‘Them’s fightin’ words Pappy’ Fund?
The ‘We’re quite sad and anachronistic and struggling to adapt and want everything to stay the same as long as it stays the same for the benefit of solely us’ Fund?
u
Are they taking pledges for the fighting fund?
If the huns dont do walking away and neither does MBB & Hector. Theres gonna be a long bout of standing over Poundland way.