So much happened yesterday, I’ll be as brief as possible:
Newco Rangers sent their counsel to the Court of Session to protest Charles Green’s contract with the club, stating it should pay legal expenses, now crystallising ahead of his forthcoming criminal trial.
In opposing Green, James Wolffe QC raised various objections, but as is often the case when people speak on behalf of Newco, included an arbitrary insistence that Newco operated the same club as the now liquidated Rangers.
Green’s QC, Jonathan Brown, put his pit boots on before stating his client’s case, but tantalisingly, before lunch informed the court that he would return to the same club/new club debate later. And didn’t he. Brown explained that Sevco Scotland purchased the assets of Rangers, not the club itself, with poetic prose adding:
“The team are paid by Sevco, plat at a ground owned by Secvo, are trained by a manager who is employed by Sevco and fans buy tickets from Sevco. That is the business that is being carried on.”
Adding that Rangers were “a collection of assets”, “What if the players were sold to one person and Ibrox to antoher, where is the ‘club’ then?”
I had to look away from court reporter, James Dolman’s Twitter feed at this point. It was like watching an acquaintance being humiliated. Not something you want to see.
Lord Doherty will determine if Newco should pay Green’s costs in due course, but this will be soon, as Jonathan Brown noted, “the rainy day has arrived”.
This next bit is really important:
Soon after court ended, Dave King was out with a rambling statement on the Newco website. If it was designed to play to the galleries, it hit the spot. If it was designed to influence what happens to his club, or how others will regard his input, it was surely an horrendous mistake.
It was a hard day to be chairman of Rangers International FC PLC. The court hearing only happened because the club objected to its contract with Green, so the unedifying episode could easily have been avoided. Despite this, sometimes you have to shut your mouth.
Sure, some Newco fans love a bit of grandstanding, but you know what yesterday’s statement will achieve. If the objective of the statement was to convince other Scottish clubs not to consider disciplinary action against Sir David Murray, or oldco Rangers, for their actions, it was an almighty miscalculation.
Threats seldom work. This one is unlikely to curry favour: “If the history of our Club comes under attack we will deal with it in the strongest manner possible and will hold to account those persons who have acted against their fiduciary responsibilities to their own clubs and to Scottish football.”
In short:
Don’t threaten clubs you are trying to influence.
Don’t grandstand to your own fans if you are trying to influence other clubs.
Keep a poker face. Keep your mouth shut, even if it means taking grief from your fans for the lack of public reaction.
King’s statement also addressed the sporting advantage issue from what we now know was an unlawfully operated tax scheme. While the EBT scheme saved tens of millions of pounds, and King earlier intimated this did provide a sporting advantage, yesterday he insisted the advantage was financial, that the shareholders were “committed to providing funding to the club” and would have done so, if required.
Here’s the thing, in 2012 another King statement revealed, “I have made a claim of £20m on the basis of non-disclosure by the then chairman, David Murray, of Rangers true financial position as far back as 2000.”
That commitment to further shareholder funding seems predicated on some controversial information. According to King, of course. Controversial enough to launch a £20m claim, but not to inhibit investment.
For the war-chest hunters among you, if you read this article covering King’s 2012 statement, you’ll find a strong clue.
One other quick but important point:
Some media are attempting to portray questions of sporting advantage as Rangers being punished for spending money they could afford, a travesty, as so many other clubs have done likewise.
This must surely be a deliberate attempt to misunderstand the issue and manipulate the debate.
No one suggests Rangers should be punished for spending money they could not afford. The questions are straightforward:
Did Rangers break tax law, break SFA rules and break SPL rules, when contracting football players?
Did they disclose matters openly with authorities (in other words, inadvertently make mistakes), or did they conspire to subvert the rules by hiding incriminating information?
Spending like the Borgias? Time to move on. Conspiracy to subvert the rules? We have a problem.
Don’t be distracted by potential ramifications to these questions, they are irrelevant for now. We should consider no more than did they break all of the above rules, should any the rule breaking be interpreted as an oversight, or does evidence of conspiracy to subvert the rules exist?
1,674 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- ...
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- ...
- 45
- »
Macjay…,
you bring shame to the club and its roots
Canamalar , no he doesn’t. Who decided what opinions others should have. I know plenty of Celtic supporters who would agree with and disagree with Macjay on any given subject. Keep telling it how you see it Macjay. The inconvenient truth should also get an airing along with modern revisions. Vive la France.
Tauranga
Cheers.
“Allons enfants de la Patrie”
Taurangabhoy,
Macjay is a British Imperialsist, remind us all when the Fenian Irish committed genocide ? which is what he claimed.
Tauranga
Best not to engage.
imho
Macjay happy to engage with both your good self and the bold Canamalar. You both have worthwhile things to say and will sit on opposite sides of the fence occasionally. So play the ball and sure try and score against each other no worries just don’t take out the player. Sporting integrity is the Celtic way. Hail hail.
As he says best not engage he has been running for quite a few months now, makes comments he cannot back up when challenged.
yesterday for example,
how many jihadi attacks were made on Europe prior to the British partition of Palestine on behalf of the Zionists ?
Claimed the west/UK had nothing to do with why the atrocity was committed on Paris yesterday, only an imperialist could think like that, spreading poison seems to be his forte.
Morning all
Once again for old gits ;)
http://youtu.be/HeEWtNaW6KE
HH
CANAMALAR
You should know better than to rise to MACJAY. He is teasing you,he put that up for a reaction.
You don’t reason with intellectuals. You shoot them.
Canamalar the British and French partitioned the whole area not just that part you would call Palestine. Prior to this it was part of another empire the Ottoman Empire. Before that a whole lot of other empires decided they owned the real estate that was the land of the Jews , that was after they had kicked out the Edomites or whatever group was there before. So you are saying the British Empire should not have returned the land to the Arabs and Jews living throughout that area but instead should have given it 1. Back to the Ottoman Empire 2. To the Arabs only. Of course 2. Would have been the choice of the national socialist empire if they had won the war. I am interested in what your alternative history would have looked like because all I see is pain and suffering of innocents while people sitting safely sitting behind their sofas take a high ground on what others have done wrong without offering any actions on what to do right. Isis should be dealt to by the Middle East region. That is not happening. Should another area of the planet get involved and let he’ll play out and take the odd bullet themselves or what. Where is your answers Canamalar. The Brits left all of the strategic military area in the hands of the Arab Legion of transJordan. They lost this when they joined up with other Arab nations to annihilate the Jews. Israel needs only lose once. No second chances for their citizens. Try their shoes for a bit.
BMCUWP,
Sorry pal but as far as I’m concerned his arguments do nothing more than betray a fascist/imperialist, he has never strayed form this line. Shameful.
Intellectuals can argue their corner, Macjay does not, makes his opinions/beliefs known then when challenged disappears, more like a troll than an intellectual.
Honestly, I said yesterday, to try and let us less political nothing’s get our heads around this tragic happening in Paris/France , there will be mothers, fathers, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins , best friends, sitting around hospital beds in tears and in prayer for the critically injured, your political bent has no answer or help to these poor people who where just going about there every day thing…….Pray for Paris……leave the politics out, PLEASE.
CANAMALAR
He has little intention in arguing his point;he’s teasing you. Btw,the intellectuals bit is a quote by Napoleon. I thought MACJAY would have got it,bearing in mind his post at 734.
TONYDONNELLY
Indeed. Yet while each has their own personal grief,the politics behind Friday can’t be ignored.
Politics brought the world to where it is now,but while there is a collective will to settle,there is no collective agreement on how to do so.
There will be more nights like Friday,I’m afraid.
Goooood morning CQN
Big day today, as we get the best 14 players in a Celtic shirt since 1965
Where is that Melbourne Mick and Paddymacoz now :-)
Still time to slip a team plus 3 subs whilst their ooot partying, to win one of their special wee club shirts
Mass then another team to be entered
Hail Hail
Canamalar
I’ve asked Paul67 to forward my details as there’s something I want to pass on that you may be interested in.
HH
ps morning CQN
COWIEBHOY
Am I right in saying that every team has included Danny McGrain,Bobby Murdoch,Jimmy Johnstone and Henrik Larsson?
If so,that kinda narrows things down!
Mick
Last pick
Boric
McGrain McNeil Connelly and Gemmel
Murdoch mcstay and Lennon
Johnstone Larson and Dalgliesh
Subs
Lubo. Auld and hay
Boruc
McGrain
McNeill
Elliott
Gemmell
Johnstone
Murdoch
McStay
Lennox
Dalglish
Larsson
Subs:- Nicholas, Clark, McClair
BMCuWP
I believe so
BT, replace Lennon with Lennox, or was that a typo :-)
And I think you’ll be very very close
Not too sure on your subs either.
Where is that Aussie pair :-)
Bobby
I directed no comment to Canamalar .
Nor do I have any interest in any response he might make to me.
For the record,what I was getting at was double standards.
Good morning friends from a drizzly, grey EK.
Congratulations Turkeybhoy. A four game victory over Fenerbache sounds like a good omen to me.
cv
And after much deliberation I will submit the following 14 –
Celtic 14
Goalkeeper – Fraser Forster
Defenders – Danny McGrain, Paul Elliot, Roy Aitken and Davie Hay
Midfielders – Paul McStay, Bobby Murdoch (we’d only need 2 ;-) )
Attackers – Jimmy Johnstone, Henrik Larsson, Jorge Cadette and Bobby Lennox (so a wee bit of pace up front then)
Substitutes – Kenny Dalglish, Lubo Moravcik and finally Fergus McCann!
BT that is quite a team
Cowiebhoy
It was another typo. :-))
Well done to Turkeybhoy for winning the darts and to Mrs Turkeybhoy for nabbing the prize
Simpson
McGrain Gemmell
Murdoch McNeil Clark
Johnstone McStay Larsson. Dalgliesh Lennox
Subs: Lubo,VVD, McBride, Auld, Burns.
WDH
Spent a week in bed pondering it -))
Turkeybhoy
Great stuff with darts hope it’s a sign and after we beat Ajax we then turn over Fenerbache to reach the knockout stages
Melbourne Mick
Next time rule out 1965-1980 and give us youngsters a sporting chance
Off to mass to get Miss GFTB’s doggers card marked
Auldheid
If you’re about would like to say you’re consistent pertinent posts don’t go unnoticed and was thinking about a wee,easily enough done campaign that could perhaps bring everybody (or try to) together on the main issues that the media are working hard to avoid.
Somebody like yourself write out a post which is not to long with a number of bullet points so that it attracts attention,is easy on the eye and not too long to be readable,I think you may have done it before yesterday,then get every poster who posts on here and elsewhere to continually post it for say 24 hours with nothing else posted and mods to delete anything other.
Yes it might be a daft idea but any media looking in would see the strength of feeling and know that everybody knows the facts that are being ignored and what needs to be addressed,perhaps other fans might join in elsewhere on their sites?
I’m probably getting alcohol withdrawals since I didn’t bother last night ;)
HH
BT
a good manager playing to his strengths
So from the blog since yesterday it seems that we no longer just have a suspicion of SFA /Rangers collusion in minimizing the damage from getting caught cheating the tax man, we now have the name of an employee of both. This guy was heavily conflicted (it wasn’t just CO) in the EBT use for Rangers, and then was incredibly involved in guiding the SFA on how to deal with the scandal, while providing g false information about his past. Is this legal?
……………………………….BORUC……………………..
MCGRAIN…MCNEILL…CONNELLY…GEMMELL
………………….MURDOCH…AULD……………………
JOHNSTONE…DALGLISH…LARSSON…LENNOX
SUBS-HAY,MCSTAY,MCBRIDE
This is grossly unfair on some tremendous players. I won’t mention them since it would be unfair on those I didn’t!
A few typos there,wee mhan!
Henrik1 …… Thank you, sir…..
Fholks, you MUST listen to this
http://www.spreaker.com/user/harrybradycu/celtic-underground-no265-17-years-of-org
Our best ever XI. Simpson Criag Gemmell McNeill Clark Murdoch Auld Johnstone Chalmers Wallace Lennox. Unbeatable