It’s still difficult to differentiate news which sounds important with information that is important. Rangers doing a deal to retain their (underperforming) players for their remaining meaningless leagues games was news, but not important information.
Administrators amended their contracts to include release clauses. This means that although top players have taken a hit on their wage packet, they will at least earn something, whereas redundancy would have left them without pay until the summer. Their agents are also able to line up deals for them with other clubs.
In other unimportant news, Steven Davis and Neil Alexander both put their homes on the market yesterday.
The important information came from Ticketus, who own what will be the vast majority of season tickets for the next three seasons, and have partnered with Paul Murray and various supporters’ organisations to bid for Rangers. Ticketus will not be top of Murray’s list of partner organisations but he will realise the club is in their control.
The consortium’s stated aim is to emerge from administration via a CVA, which I still regard as absolute fantasy. As Phil Mac Giolla Bhain reminded me with his article from January, HMRC already rejected an offer of £10m to settle from Craig Whyte, notions that they would be prepared to accept less now is hilarious.
Rangers will liquidate. Duff and Phelps plan to sell their league membership share to a new company leaves Ticketus ownership of the tickets in place. Plans to sell the league membership to a consortium headed by the company that enabled Craig Whyte to work his magic, and a director from the old improper-contracts regime are, literally, incredible.
We must remain resolute and do everything in our power to escape from this sorry messy of a league.
CQN Magazine issue 6 has sold out, many thanks for all your support.
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Justice for Ally and Robert !
Apologies if this has been mentioned as it’s been extremely difficult to keep up with CQN this past few weeks.
Should Rangers (IA) be found guilty of fielding ineligible players and have all their titles stripped from them since the start of the decade, we should start a campaign to acknowledge the phenomenal achievement of Ally McCoist and Robert Duvall who will have then led the plucky underdogs of Kinlockie to a retrospective Scottish Cup victory over the mighty Glasgow Rangers in the film Shot at Glory.
Could someone in the CQN community get a message to Mr Duvall (a good, good pal of Jinky) for a comment ? He’s a big fan of ‘soccer’ and it would be good to get his take on things as it must have been one of the major disappointments in his life. Also, we need to take this to a wider audience – SCANDAL OF HOLLWOOD STAR CHEATED OUT OF AWARD. Could we get an ‘ I love the smell of jelly and ice cream in the morning’ quote ?
Or even a comment from Ally ?
Could pressure be put on the film’s distributors to amend the closing credits to something along the lines of “In 2012, Glasgow Rangers were found to have fielded ineligible players in the cup final and the record books now show that Kinlockie were Scottish Cup winners in 2001. ‘Up the Knockies’”.
As well as Ally, Owen Coyle, Andy Smith and Peter Hetherston were also all cheated out of medals.
Incidentally, some of John Rowbotham’s decisions in the final…dearie me !
“Justice for the Knockies”
TVBB
toomuchtimeonmyhandstoday.csc
leftclicktic:
cheers for that one too, I’ve just spent the last thiry or so minutes watching the battle scenes from 300.
Afternoons folks, it’s all been a bit crazy past few days but thankfully sense and reasoning is returning. On a funnier note my Hun mate (who is completely deluded) told my two pals and myself the other night in the pub that all our smirking would soon be wiped off our faces as rangers had a massive pile of money hidden from the taxman and an investor from the bahama’s is going to come on the scene any day now.
Hhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. The two mates don’t even follow Scottish football and they couldn’t help laughing at his statement. Needless to say he shut up pretty soon after that statement.
The Van Beuren Bhoy
No bull but I watched that movie for the first time a couple of weeks ago.
Robert Duvall playing a hun… how will he square that with his maker?
The important statement form Ticketus was a couple of days ago when they said they were confident that their deal with Craig Whyte was binding and they would defend it.
Paul Murray knows this is a ruinous deal but also that he doesn’t have the time or money to fight it. So he has surrendered and said he will honour this £40m millstone.
Ticketus- for their part- aren’t going to “invest” anything they are just going to cross their fingers and hope RFC is not liquidated and they can squeeze the life out of a diminished RFC.
Incredibly they have got together to spin this loveless marriage as “good news” for RFC.
Kitalba
RD was the Kinlockie manager. Brian Cox was the Rangers manager Martin Smith (catchy name ?).
“Justice for the Knockies”
TVBB
Paul “Ticketus will not be top of Murray’s list of partner organisations but he will realise the club is in their control.”
Correct me if I’m wrong but am I right in saying that the initial investment made by Ticketus came from an as yet unknown number of investors?
If this is true then I would respectfully suggest Ticketus may well have been at the very top of the list of Paul Murray’s partners. I just wonder, who exactly funded the initial 24 million through the vehicle Known as Ticketus? David Murray or Dave King anyone?
Now that the 3 year circle of deceit that has been Murrays Rangers rescue plan has now been concluded via contracted signature does the Serious Fraud Office have to wait before arresting; David Murray, Alistair Johnstone, Craig Whyte, Duff & Phelps, Campbell Ogilvie, Martn Bain, Donald Mc Intyre, John Mc lelland or do they have to wait for the FTT verdict ?
I dont think they do have to wait as it is an appeal of a verdict that has already been reached and was a chosen strategy of the perpetrator.
Is everyone not well and truly ensconced in the net of trying to defraud the taxman.
I expect some arrests soon.
Who is still in the country ? i.e the UK ?
HH
Beattie to ref “a don’t play for Celtic noo ffs”.
Gordon J
Ticketus millstone and financial cheating.
Hope Celtic are as on the ball tomorrow as you ate today.
Spot on both times.
Ticketus is not a company it is an investment vehicle. It is not going to invest in Rangers. Neither is anyone else. Only those with no money are saying they will.
For admirers of Atletico Bilbao’s performance on Thurs night, an interesting article on their current manager, Marcelo Bielsa, here
Hotly tipped to be the next Barca manager, Marcelo Bielsa was the coach of the adventurous Chile side at WC 2010. Pep Guardiola sought advice from him when training as a coach, and the two talked football, watching DVDs of games, for 11 hours at Bielsa’s home.
Any chance Lenny could have a chat with him over the summer?
Paul67 et al
One factor you seem have missed is the creation of the “fighting “fund” by various Rangers supporter groups and fronted by Wattie and Ally, and on a paypal account near you. Separate from the likes of Paul Murray, from Duff and Phelps and from Ticketus, it will be interesting to see how much money is actually raised, as opposed to merely pledged on saverangers.com a couple of weeks back. While I doubt if it will ever come close to the amounts needed to clear all current and future liabilities its existence makes it more difficult for the Administrators to avoid paying them. They are not campaigning on 10 pence in the £, so let us see where this development takes us. Radio 5 seems to have become Rangers’ cheerleader of late, so with that free publicity it is a question not so much of how deep is their love, but how deep are their pockets!
Can someone explain to me how D & P can say that the big tax bill wont slow down or effect a takeover. Surely its like buying a new telly but being told that in a few weeks you might have to pay 10 or 20 times what you have already paid. What respected businessman would do that?
up over goal,
I read the excellent article below on Bielsa by Sid Lowe before Man Utd – Bilbao.
I was so taken by the way they played, thought they were absolutely exceptional.
I think I’ve found my second team !!
TJ
The exchange was eloquent, a treatise on image and reality, the two faces of Marcelo Bielsa. It was played out at Estadio el Madrigal where Villarreal had just drawn 2-2 with Athletic Bilbao. Athletic’s coach was addressing the media in his normal way – voice low, gaze lower – when he was asked about his odd touchline behaviour. Was it coincidence that after every Villarreal attack, he got up from his haunches and paced to the other side of his technical area, taking exactly 13 steps?
Bielsa did not look at his questioner. He never does. Staring down, he spoke in his usual slow monotone. “What is coincidence,” he replied, “is that when there’s such a nice game going on, someone spends time counting my paces.”
They call the Argentinian El Loco and maybe they look too hard for madness. The way Athletic are playing, watching him not his team is absurd, yet it is hard not to be drawn to him. Bielsa is unusual, there is something addictive about his actions. Besides, person and professional are inseparable. The question is: is he really as mad as he is portrayed? “No,” says the forward Iker Muniaín. “He is madder.”
Bielsa arrived last summer and Athletic’s players still have not completely worked him out. They have never seen anything like him and do not think they ever will. He is disconcerting, praising awful performances and bemoaning brilliant ones. Above all, he is intense. Compulsive. Obsessive. Mad. “He lives for football,” the striker Fernando Llorente says. There are days, adds teh midfielder Javi Martínez, when he does not leave the Lezama training ground until the small hours. It is, he says, “insane”.
When he arrived, Bielsa had watched their 38 league games last season, writing all the details on colour-coded spreadsheets. And that really is all the details – he says: “There are 36 different forms of communicating through a pass.” He watches thousands of games, building a footballing taxonomy, like some kind of botanist. If a player does something new, he labels and stores it, learning from it. Teaching from it, too. Few are so didactic: he once drew on his shoes to show players exactly which part of their foot to use, wearing them for days after. Video sessions can last five hours and players joke that they do not dare make a mistake lest the green laser rest upon them and Bielsa demand a convincing explanation.
Training is intense, even when Bielsa takes children from the crowd and gets them to deliver instructions for him. Stopwatch in hand, he preaches high pressure, constantly interrupting and demonstrating. Gangs of players sprint from pole to pole, hunting as a coordinated pack, their errors revealed to them on a laptop. There is an almost childish wonder about Pep Guardiola’s description of Athletic: “They all run up … and they all run down again. Up, down, up, down, up, down. They’re fascinating.”
All endeavour, no aesthetics? No. Bielsa, a former Argentina and Chile manager, has altered Athletic’s historic identity as the most “English” of teams, teaching them in the words of one insider “not to be afraid of the ball any more”. They have scored almost twice as many headers as any other team in Spain but where the ball used to be thumped into the area at the first opportunity, it is now being worked up the pitch. Only Madrid and Barcelona have completed more passes or scored more goals. “The style is totally different,” says the defender Andoni Iraola; Llorente does the “opposite” of what he did before.
Synchronisation is fundamental, attacks automatic, movement mechanised, the pitch partitioned with tape, moves constructed and deconstructed piece by piece, passes made instantly. The circulation is constant. One exercise involves eight squares: two players cannot occupy the same space; if a team-mate enters your square, you vacate it. Crossing and shooting exercises, following specific, interchanging “passageways”, do not end with the shot but with players sprinting back into their starting positions. Defence and attack are not separate.
“A man with new ideas is mad until he succeeds,” Bielsa notes. Athletic did not win in their first five games as they struggled to assimilate new ideas; since then, they have lost only three of 21 and are one point from the Champions League places, their best finish for 13 years on the cards.
They are in the Copa del Rey final, seeking a first trophy in 28 years, and supporters are enjoying their football like never before. The sparkle in the eye of players, the sheer number of fans travelling to England – Old Trafford’s highest ever away contingent – reveals what facing Manchester United means.
A few weeks ago, Bielsa was stopped by a group of kids who asked him to sign their sticker album. He said no, he had a better idea. He took the album off them and told them to meet him the following day, same place, same time. When he turned up 24 hours later, the entire team had signed the album. Not just any team: El Loco’s team, the most exciting Athletic have had in three decades.
Just go and get all your groceries out of Aldi’s, and pretend you’re on holiday in Europe.
Re Athletico Bilbao, there was a great article on their history in Not the View a couple of months back– really good and interesting, and shows a club with a set of rules which they stick to and why.
After the Man Utd v Ajax game, when it became clear that Utd faced Bilbao next I said I fancied the Spaniards to put Manchester out and I still think they will.
They played some really exciting possession football at pace. They dominated the game for me and up front I think they have Europe’s most exciting striker. Fernando Llorente is the next big thing in football– he strikes me as being like Drogba in that he is a real pain in the arse for any defender– with the ball, without the ball, lay offs and goals– he is big, skillful and definitely no softy.
Real Madrid are said to be sizing him up– I hope he does not go and stays where he is because that Bilbao team are a comong force!
SoT
Liked that!!
sorry that should read Coming force
Paul The Spark on 10 March, 2012 at 13:59 said:
‘Can someone explain to me how D & P can say that the big tax bill wont slow down or effect a takeover’
What’s to explain? They’re lying.
The huns will be kept going till the big tax case result. They might even limp on to the end of the season. They’l then be liquidated and the assets purchase by Ticketus, Whyte, Murray etc. all acting in concert.
What happens then will be the interesting bit. SPL or the third division?
Brogan Rogan Trevino and Hogan supports Kano 1000 on 10 March, 2012 at 14:06 said:
‘Re Athletico Bilbao,’
Apparently it’s Athletic, not Athletico, because they were founded by a Sunderland fan, hence the red and white. So Ch 5 said anyway.
Ellboy @ 13:52,
Good point, the fact is “the whose funding Whyte?” debate abated when the Ticketus deal was reported, eventually.
Now TicketUs is just a investment vechicle, and the R@ngers deal always seemed longer term and riskier than their Business prospectus dictates.
Now didn’t the Whyte Knight suggest that there was no way he could have done the TicketUs deal without R@ngers knowledge.
Like yer thinking
VigilenceCSC
Neil Alexander’s house has been up for sale for the last year.
Do Bilbao still only play players born in the Basque region?
Any bars in Krakow to watch the match tomorrow? Grateful for any advice. I don’t have a laptop so I’m screwed, and also if any internet cafes are open to keep up with CQN live updates. Cheers. Hamiltontim, if you’re in Belfast next week say where you’re staying, or any pubs you want to visit, and I’ll sort it.
Wee Hastle bankkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
“We don’t care what the animals say…”
So far we’ve had the gorilla, the octapus, the pig in the poke (not to be confused with the flying pig, although the two do exist), big whyte horse (Lloyds), paper tiger (SFA), the bears (pure ragin’), rats (deserting the sinking ship).
There might also be the whyte elephant (big Hector’s hoose).
Silver fox (cardigan) has so far managed to stay on the sidelines.
The goats are in there somewhere (for something…).
Not forgetting the cock-and-bull stories thet continue to be spun by the MSM, while all Tims have a whale of a time.
The Van Beuren Bhoy
Yeah but didn’t he have it in for the son-in-law (the striker) the Tim?
THE IRISH MBASSY, KRACOW Irish Mbassy Sports Bar
Bsr
Huns played 3 Irish players before WWII
HH
I take it that the glee club have forgotten about the big tc the wee tc the ebt,s the two contracts . Oh i forgot , they were told not to worry that they will be taken care of no problem anything to help the cause.
jimtim
raymac
taken from Celtic Bars…
if I remebmer it is behind the square to the left behinf the carhedral..
Afternoon all.
Anyone in favour of making Sunday a proper day of rest.
i.e.
No discussions of the manky mob and there never ending problems at all on here.
our own bhoys are playing and it would be nice, just to freshen the air, to talk about all things celtic.
any thoughts
Hail Hail
Mike
Another example of hacks and their bosses reading this blog,The Sunday Mails new writer tomorrow is. ………….Craig Burley.
Awe_Naw_No_Annoni_Oan_Anaw_Noo on 10 March, 2012 at 14:14 said:
Bsr
Huns played 3 Irish players before WWII
Did they beat them?
Ernie Lynch
Thought it would be something like that. The thing that surprises me is that I can understand D & P trying to put a positive spin on things but are they not appointed by the courts and therefore the truth should be in there somewhere or am I just being niave?
Bonbhoy
Naw they got stuffed 16. 90
HH
i could see us taking gowser back in the future.
clever passer, good finisher, improving.
just saying like