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?
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A sunny 20 degrees Sunday morning -way down south .
Tele interview with the Italian guy who survived Heysel and the Bataclan ———-
” If there is a God – maybe he is trying to tell me to avoid Juventus and Heavy Metal “
The rules where rules, you played under your own rules, we played under the Fifa, UEFA, spl rules, result? You cheated in every single game of that period, …..penalty? An Asterisk in every game you played in for that period. Larsson? You lost me on that one, oh! And your all time spl top scorer? He no longer exists either, now can we move on?
Richard Gough has taken the Rangers (IL) tax cheating scandal to a new low by writing an entire column on the notion that Henrik Larsson had been paid by an EBT during the 1997/98 season!
The Swedish born defender quit Ibrox in 1997 but returned after a strangely short spell with Kansas City Wizard in the Major Soccer League.
The lure of a return to Ibrox proved too much to resist as he donned that cherished blue jersey once again in October 97 and famously celebrated a goal against Celtic with pressing ten fingers into the air as Walter Smith’s side looked nailed on to win a tenth title.
By the end of the season- despite the spending spree that brought Marco Negri, Lorenzo Amoruso, Jonas Thern, Joakim Bjokland, Sergio Porrini, Rino Gattuso, Stale Stensaas in to join Paul Gascoigne and Brian Laudrup- Gough had to settle for being runners-up to a Celtic side that started the season with defeats to Hibs and Dunfermline.
That spending spree was funded by the Bank of Scotland thanks to Dave Murray’s close links with Gavin Masterton. In 2008 Lloyds TSB were saved by a Government bail out with the Murray Group accounting for £900m of their £27bn debt.
Rather than discuss the disastrous EBT policy embarked on by Dave Murray after losing the league Gough took the argument in a whole new direction.
Writing in the Scottish Sun he wondered: “Here’s a scenario for you. Can you imagine if it emerged in later years that Henrik Larsson had an EBT during that season?
“If it turned out the Swede — Celtic’s key player in that title triumph — was paid via a scheme that’s now infamous in Scottish football.
“Following the logic of the real-life never-ending EBT row, I’d be due a league winner’s medal.
“For me and all the rest of my Rangers team-mates, ten-in-a-row would suddenly be a reality.
“You’d think I’d be delighted to see my name written into the history books, right?
“Wrong. I would have no interest in that medal. I would have no interest in seeing Celtic stripped of that historic title.
“That is the honest truth. It would mean nothing to me.
“It wouldn’t matter if Wim Jansen’s entire Celtic squad had EBTs, they won it fair and square on the pitch.
“And that’s the reason I can’t get my head around the continued clamour to rip titles away from Rangers”.
The clamour to take the titles from Rangers(IL) is because they played by different rules to the other clubs.
While Hibs, Aberdeen, Berwick Rangers, Queen of the South, Falkirk and Celtic put Her Majesty before winning football matches the regime at Ibrox recruited players with the incentive that their tax liability would be negligible with money paid into offshore trusts NETTO.
Dado Prso, Stefan Klos, Michael Mols, Christian Nerlinger and locals such as Barry Ferguson, Neil McCann, Alex Rae, Billy Dodds and Steven Thompson all eagerly signed up to the scheme to deny Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs their fair share. As did managers Dick Advocaat, Alex McLeish and Paul le Guen while administrators like Campbell Ogilvie and Andrew Dickson did the same.
In January 2003 Dodds went to Dundee United with Thompson moving to Ibrox. Dodds got was given a £190,000 EBT sweetener to take away the pain of a salary drop while Tommo enjoyed a £485,000 EBT jackpot for his time at the club, over £20,000 for each goal scored.
What does Gough think attracted Tore Andre Flo and Ronald de Boer from Chelsea and Barcelona?
With HMRC winning the Big Tax Case there is a demand from supporters of most clubs that players incorrectly registered at Ibrox are treated the same way as Spartans and East Stirling were.
If the registration wasn’t completed properly, if the SFA and SPL weren’t informed of all payments then results are overturned regardless of the ‘they won it on the pitch’ argument. Ben Johnston won the 1988 Olympic 100 metres on the track and Lance Armstrong won several Tour De France titles on the roads.
Stripping titles and removing medals is a red herring, the real issue is dealing with all clubs in the same manner.
Tax exile Gough was at the forefront of the 2014 campaign to persuade Sevco fans not to buy season tickets, in January of this year the club took a £5m loan from Mike Ashley to see out the season.
Earlier this season Gough was appointed global ambassador in a bid to encourage ex-pat supporters to invest in a club that was booted off the Alternative Investment Market following Dave King’s takeover.
Sevco’s 2014/15 accounts revealed a loss of £7.5m and came with a going concern warning that they won’t see out the current season without outside investment.
Over his seven years at Celtic Her Majesty received millions of pounds from the earnings of 242 goal Larsson, perhaps captain of industry Murray signed the wrong Swede?
Read more at http://videocelts.com/2015/11/blogs/latest-news/gough-explains-his-henrik-larsson-ebt-fantasy#Gy3QUIIV9gEy1C6c.99
How long should it take Lord Doherty to reach a decision on the Green case?
JJ
Well done to Burgas Hoops for some spectacular Bookie skelping (always a good thing that); have Sevco approached you for a soft loan yet?
And well done Turkeybhoy at the arrows, brilliant. HH
TONYDONNELLY
That’s some amazing stuff from Gough. He conjures up a parallel universe to justify his own reality.
He’d best hope there are no libel laws in that parallel universe.
Strip the titles yes absolutely but the fact remains. Rangers were nothing before David Murray and BoS’s voodoo economics and they will remain nothing after the wrongs have been proven.
The Rangers I grew up watching winning everything in site was a myth. They’re not coming back, unless of course they find another way of cheating. They’re nowhere near the size of club we are. The Old Firm is a relic of the past with mods and rockers.
That’s how I see it. Get it right up the corn on the cobs.
Morning all.
Very proper end to the Andrew Marr show. French opera singer rending their National Anthem. French Ambassador near to tears, as I am.
Celtic underground podcast 265. A great listen.
Bmcuw
That’s exactly my XI and the subs too!
“fair and square on the pitch” …by ILLEGALLY registered players
to paraphrase the Dutch fans
“Richard is a Dick”
MARRAKESH EXPRESS
Great minds,mate…
ParkheadcumSalford, it was very moving, beautiful rendition of La Marseillaise.
Good Morning Timland.
TD……it’s now reached “made up whataboutery” before
the end of the day the hunternet will be full of Larsson
had a ebt and we won 10 in a row,way way beyond farce.
67Heaven .. CHALLENGING THE LIE ..I am wee Oscar…… Ipox belongs to the creditors – See more at: http://www.celticquicknews.co.uk/spending-like-the-borgias-time-to-move-on-conspiracy-to-subvert-the-rules-we-have-a-problem/comment-page-29/#comment-2719110
I listened to that pod cast, it was very good and some great stuff, then! Around the 80 minute mark it went all Celtic Trusty, anti board you know the stuff we hear every other day from Jeanette and her comrades, so I binned it, but yes up until the agenda for the left of centre mob, I’d say it was good.
WEET WEET WEET(GBWO) on 15TH NOVEMBER 2015 8:15 AM
Morning all
Once again for old gits ;)
http://youtu.be/HeEWtNaW6KE
———————————————————————————————————————
I am firmly in the old git camp as is most of the music on my phone. My son suggested I listen to an “indie” artist called Grimes and it is definitely not “old git”.
Here’s a couple of her tracks. Old Gits – be prepared to ditch your music collection.
https://youtu.be/JtH68PJIQLE
https://youtu.be/Tv9YoYCKNoE
Enjoy or be ever an old git.
Nye Bevans’ rebel soldier
Oh I totally agree, I’v yet to see one red top report one fact of the court case that went against thems, not one, but not surprised either.
We’re much further left than that actually.
If Gough thinks it’s unfair on players to be stripped titles doesn’t he think it’s unfair for them to be cheated out of them in the first place?
Tax exile Gough…quintessentially British don’t you know…
theydon’tdoironyCSC
HERBO on 15TH NOVEMBER 2015 10:17 AM
We’re much further left than that actually.
– See more at: http://www.celticquicknews.co.uk/spending-like-the-borgias-time-to-move-on-conspiracy-to-subvert-the-rules-we-have-a-problem/comment-page-29/#comment-2719123
I’m happy for you, but just keep it to yourself, please!
No
Bizarre stuff from Gough. Get caught with an ace up your sleeve and then argue that you wouldn’t have complained had your opponents been the ones who cheated. So that’s alight then.
That lot are so used to doing anything they want, to having rules bent out of shape and special exemptions applied, that they believe anything they’ve ever done can be justified.
Dignity?
Hail Hail .What can I say ,just got back home after a wee day with a great bunch of Celtic fans who have raised money for the kids at Christmas. All the news from Paris leaves me in absolute dismay.However my memory of being in France a couple of years back will remain with me forever.I found where my dads brothers grave was.He was killed in a place called Rawnville . What a beautiful wee village.I never had the chance to meet my uncle John but he according to my dad was tough as fk. Married to a woman from Oatlands. Anyway I’m in a sentimental mood . Tony Donnelly from the gorbals U R the Man so far.Mick will kill me for being a dob. Cheers Tony I’ll get that pint off ye son.
The “people” gough is trying to reach with this Woodward and Bernstein piece are the type who you wouldn’t trust with a pack of crayons
How long I wonder before they actually believe the great man had an ebt
Good morning CQN.
Well done to Burga Hoops, fantastic example of bookie bashing !
Reading back a few pages ,I noticed there have been some team selections posted,this video should cover most of them …… HH
http://youtu.be/C2ZKQfp7D6U
****Last Man Standing 5 update****
Last Man Standing 5 started 7 weeks ago with 78 entrants and we are now down to the last 9 bhoys ( yes all the ghirls have gone!) standing, who are targeting a fantastic prize of £645 for the winner.
The last 9
TheCelt45 Sweden
Danny Mac Ukraine
stpatricksbhoy Ukraine
The Token Tim Ukraine
jamabhoy Ukraine
leftclicktic Ukraine
bognorbhoy Ukraine
GG Ukraine
Setting Free The Bears Ukraine
In the meantime, this fantastic competition has raised an incredible £740 to Help Shay Along The Way.
https://www.facebook.com/Help-Shay-Along-The-Way-814451225255695/?fref=ts
Big thanks to all the CQNers, family and friends who continue to support this cause, and a special thanks to Jobo Baldie for coordinating this competition and picking very difficult fixtures most weeks:-)
LMS 6 will start in a few weeks, as soon as this competition finishes, so if you fancy a wee flutter ( costs £10 to enter) while helping a great cause, why not join us at cqnlastmanstanding@gmail.com
Oh and commiserations to those that fell at week 7
AndyF Norway
deccyrollercoaster Germany
Celticrollercoaster Norway
Greenpinata Norway
The Lurker Norway
HH
CRC
Taurangabhoy, Sorry for the delayed response sometime work ruins a good blab.
Good stuff, first off, there is a tiny part of Palestine called Judea that was Jewish land from biblical times and yes they did take it by force.
And yes I agree empire upon empire created havoc, however the last consolidated empire the British empire.
What I’m saying is that the British empire did not return the land to the Arabs and Jews, the British empire forcefully cleared Arab populations to make way for the Jews they refused to accept as refugees.
Since then Zionists have and are making the new state of Israel far far larger than anything that had previously existed and claiming it is has always been theirs.
However, my point was that western interference in the middle east since then is the cause of the current problems, destabilising regimes because they refuse to conform to the west’s ideology, there is not a single terrorist group in the middle east the west has not funded and supported at some stage to carry out a proxy war of terror, not a single one and I include the Israeli army in then group.
Now, lets see what can I offer on what to do right, not that I expect or believe its a fair question as those you blame for criticism are neither responsible for any part of it.
But, I’ll have a go.
Make Banks who loan money for arms deals and arms manufacturers and dealers responsible for the damage their products cause.
who broke it then?
Canamalar…
Your last paragraph would solve the selling of arms, it won’t ever happen though as greed is the root of the cause….PS.. Petec has not hijacked my monicker:)
barrack…,
stick yahoo.com or hotmail.com at the end of my name and there you have it.
FOGHORN LEGHORN 12;51
Zionists?
Our top team based only on their highest level of performance whilst with us. Not on what they did elsewhere
Big Fraser
Danny McG, the one King Billy, Paul Elliot, big Tam G
Jinky, Bobby M, Wee Bertie
King Kenny
The King of kings, tongue tied Charlie Nic
Subs, the Buzz Bomb, The Maestro, Davie Hay.
Sipsini,
I understand that but you need to consider that a lot of the troubles where down to them stirring up the conflicts in the first place to create their market.
And I agree n the root cause but many never thought Res 12 would make a difference, so you cant say never :)
or goose stepping Poles ?
A shaft of light in the darkness down south, AT apart, of course?
Under heading, “Moral lead of the week”
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/nov/15/said-and-done-english-football-league-rebrand
From the Guardian today:
Moral lead of the week
Rangers: shutting down talk that the club should be stripped of five titles after a court ruled the oldco broke tax rules from 2001 to 2010: “It is time for everyone to move on and work together for the greater good of the game. Scottish football has suffered enough.”
• Leading the debate for both sides: Rangers chairman Dave King – speaking last week: “The football team had no advantage from any tax savings”; and speaking in 2012, then as a former club director. “We owe the Scottish footballing public an apology. I follow the logic of the argument that if we lose the tax case then we probably gained some competitive advantage. We should apologise for that.”
Spooky!
My fav Chinese anaw!
Just seen you beat me by 10 secs Beatbhoy – may as well listen to your favourite food in song…………
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCUr4_bWK80
Canamalar @1:03 PM
just emailed your hotmail account
HH