Celtic are used to putting in the miles but this month they play an incredible six home games, surely a record (?), with away trips only to Edinburgh to face Hibs and Hearts, and Dundee. If you are keeping an eye on historical records, eight of our 12 games until February are at home, with a trip across town to Firhill the only other away game on the schedule during the period. Deal with Hibs on Sunday, and we will take on an even more formidable look.
8 games in 29 days is as packed a schedule as anyone in Europe will have this month, but the lack of travel will help players prepare for each subsequent game.
The unbeaten domestic run is set-aside tomorrow as we conclude the Champions League group stage against a resurgent Anderlecht. We will talk more about this game tomorrow, but get through this one, and the adrenaline will flow sufficiently to see us through to the winter break.
*JIM CRAIG – RIGHT BACK TO 67, THE LISBON LION DIARY is published this week by CQN Books. You still have time to get a SIGNED copy by ordering at www.cqnbookstore.co.uk and if you would like a personal dedication added to your book by Jim then simply email your massage to david@cqnpublishing.co.uk after ordering and we’ll do the rest!
The book arrives on Wednesday and it is sensational! And if you haven’t done so already, listen to Jim Craig on the CQN Podcast below. You will love it!
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Good evening all.
Just 24 more hours…………………….till the halftime whistle blows ;-)
Evening folks. Young sanna can’t make the game tomorrow so ticket available in 405 if anyone is interested. Face value £47 . Only problem is you have to sit next to me . If Iinterested, pop a comment here . First come, first served .
Sanna
Art Of War.
Well done on surviving the trip!!!
Also thanks for your kind comments the other day.
I will mail Gerry tomorrow and tell him to get back on, not that he will listen to me.
Hail Hail
celticbynumberscom.ipage.com/paris-mismatch/
As we prepare for Anderlecht, a review of the Paris (Mis)Match. If Europa football is delivered that is demonstrable progress. But against Europe’s elite, was this better than the battering in Barcelona?
TURKEYBHOY
Thanks for the info about Big Hoose.
Died in the wool hun who wouldn’t get the time of day in civilised company.
Or
Completely passionate fitba fan who was desperate for his team to carry on.
We’ve all met Rangers fans like him. Usually great guys who hate our club as much as we hate theirs. And get on great together.
I’ll raise a glass for him tomorrow,and think of those he left behind.
HH.
http://celticbynumberscom.ipage.com/paris-mismatch/
Cowiebhoy
The current position is that everyone is waiting on the review of the UEFA Licence situation (application, review of application, award of licence, submission to UEFA, compliance and review of licence conditions and subsequent review of information supporting compliance and the handling of that info by The SFA and so on) by Mr McGlennan the compliance officer.
In the past couple of weeks, the compliance officer has been contacted to ensure that, when deliberating over this issue, he has full access not only to the information provided by the SFA from within their files, which should include all correspondence from RFC PLC (In Liquidation), Duff & Phelps and of course Celtic PLC, but also to the correspondence between the Res 12 solicitors and the SFA Corporate Compliance officer and the same solicitor and UEFA.
As we understand it, no proper review is possible without looking at all of this information and correspondence. Further, upon reviewing the information in detail, it is very hard to conclude that the Cjief Executive of the SFA has given several different explanations as to when, how, and why the liceence was granted and why the Rangers of the time remained compliant with UEFA regulations at different dates.
Mr Regan has, on various occasions, explained that:
1. The Licence was granted as at 31st March 2011 on the basis that the wee tax bill was only a provisional debt as at that date.
2. The licence was granted as at 31st March 2011 on the basis that there was a potential tax bill but ot was not yet “due” in terms of the Inland Revenue regulations.
3. The Licence was granted as at 31st March 2011 on the basis that there was a tax bill due as at that date but that it was not overdue in terms of the UEFA regulations.
4. The licence was granted as at 31st March 2011 on the basis that there was a tax bill due as at that date but that RFC PLC (In Liquidation) had secured an agreement with HMRC that payment of the debt would be postponed and paid over an agreed period of time. It is essential in terms of UEFA legislation that any such agreement is in writing.
5. That the licence was granted as at 31st March 2011 on the basis that there was a Tax bill due as at that date but the tax bill concerned was the subject of an appeal to the first tier tribunal by RFC PLC (In liquidation) which appeal renders the bill as not technically due as at the date of granting.
Over an above the different explanations given above, there have been numerous mixtures and conflations of all of the above points of view.
Dealing with the key date of 31st March 2011 it should be noted that in fact the licence was not granted until 19th April 2011 (I think as I am working from Memory) and existence of the grant of a licence was not transmitted to or intimated to UEFA until 27th May (again that may not be the exact date but it is around then).
This is imporatnt because on 20th May 2011 RFC PLC (In Liquidation) received a formal demand from HMRC in relation to the wee tax bill concerned that made it plain that HMRC were of the opinion that the tax bill was not only due but overdue in terms of HMRC’s own regulation 80 procedure.
Not only that, but the letter goes on to state that HMRC are of the opinion that RFC had fraudulently and deleiberately underdeclared their monthly PAYE and NIC returns each month since 1999/200 and that these acts (plural) were fraudulent and deliberate and as such HMRC demanded both penal interest and penalties.
RFC PLC (In Liquidation) were under a duty to report the existence of any such demand letter to the SFA as soon as possible in terms of the UEFA licensing regulations.
It also follows that this letter should have been in the hands of the SFA BEFORE they were able to intimate any licence grant to UEFA on May 27th.
Not only that, but when corresponding with Celtic PLC in writing (in response to a letter sent November 2011 by Peter Lawwell), and on other occasions, Mr Regan of the SFA stated that once the licence was granted as at 31st March 2011 (Notwithstanding that no licence was granted by that date at all) the SFA had no further role to play in the UEFA licensing process as all monitoring and compliance checks post 31st March were carried out by UEFA.
There are two aspects to this particular position:
The first is that it means that no one is checking compliance issues between the dates of the granting of the licence and the intimation of a licence grant to UEFA. If the licence was meant to be granted as at 31st March then this means that no one was checking things between that date and 27th May which period, in this case, was crucial.
Secondly, and most interesting, is the fact that the people at UEFA stated in a later letter that not only were the SFA in charge of monitoring UEFA compliance throughout 2011 (after the grant of the licence on whatever date) but that at the same time they were monitoring UEFA eligibility for the following season 2012/2013.
Not only does this contradict what Regan said to Lawwell in 2011, it would appear that either Regan didn’t understand the function of the SFA in the process or he deliberately failed to inform Peter Lawwell of the full functions of the SFA and that they had decided at some point in season 2011/2012 that RFC PLC (In Liquidation) were no longer compliant with the UEFA regulations and should not be granted a licence for season 2012/2013 in any event.
When the SFA reached this conclusion has not been made clear but according to UEFA it was an SFA decision.
There are many many further aspects to this but key is this ….. at what date did RFC PLC (In Liquidation) accept that they were due to pay that tax bill.
There is clear evidence that this occurred prior to March 31st 2011 and it has been suggested that the “new” evidence led at the Craig Whyte trial shows that the SFA were misled as at 31st March 2011.
The evidence concerned was, in fact, not new at all and was pointed out to the SFA years before but they advised that they could not act on the same for a variety of reasons one of which was that their duties for each individual season actually ends at the end of that season – so if they only find out something after the end of a particular season then they cannot act on it.
This is such a perverse and idiotic legal position that the rules either will have to be changed or have been changed since.
There are any number of other matters to be considered including the submissions made by RFC PLC (In Liquidation) throughout the UEFA licensing process in order to remain compliant and how the SFA dealt with them.
No doubt Mr McGlennan is making fresh enquiries of friend Dickson and others (although this should have been done years ago but wasn’t) especially about the letter of 20th May and whether that letter ever found its way into the SFA files and when?
What we, and Celtic, want to make sure is that when looking at all of this he has all the available info and not simply the info fed to him by the SFA themselves.
They chose to leak some correspondence after the trial, but forgot that we too have correspondence that does not sit on all fours with what they have said thus far.
So, we wait on Mr McGlennan and his review before going further.
Of course there should be a full review of all Licensing complaince between 1999 and 2012, especially where HMRC cites deliberately false PAYE returns for over a decade, just as Celtic and the SPFL requested but a dying man rarely prepares his own rope or sets about convicting himself!
Sorry for the typos but I am rushing out for a pint!!
Old Tim Sauvignon Blanc will go down nicely!!
HH
BRTH
Bmcuwp
Love that Guardian article
Good old Fintan
BMCUW
Brexit stopped being news in my part of Europa a long time ago.Any coverage tends to relate to – Go Please but before you do – Please meet your obligations /reach Agreement re citizens rights and sort out the mess in Ireland .-but -been a flurry tonight –tone is there was an agreement re the Irish / 6 counties issue but Maybot changed her mind having received a Phone call from the DUP. One pundit opined that -Maybe she has to give them another bribe.That was followed by a frothing Farage demanding that traitor May goes now.
BROGANROGANTREVINO&HOGAN
Perhaps Mr Regan should have been honest and stuck to the truth.
“The licence was granted 31 March 2011 because. Just because. Because that’s the way it is,that’s the way it always has been.”
More power to your good self,AULDHEID,CANAMALAR,MORISSEY23. A century and a quarter of letting it go “because that’s the way it’s always been.”
Nice one,lads.
Phil Foden is very highly rated. There no chance Citeh will loan him to us.
Since VFR was late today, I missed my prompt to post the Uxbridge letter of the day after his Word of the day.
It should have been letter C today:-
Canopy: Tin of urine.
Capitulate: The mistake BP made in the Gulf of Mexico.
Car Park: How Noah saved the fishes from the great flood.
Castanet: To go fishing.
EuroChamps67
Very sleepy had his operation still talking and trying to crack the gags
Good News csc
BSR
Thanks for the update on EC67!
Prayers said for his speedy recovery.
Bmcuwp AND SOT
Listening to BBC RADIO 2 today (us West Brits like to keep up to date with events on the Mainland) and one caller wanted to know “why we cant just leave?, why do we have to pay money,brexit means brexit etc”
It was explained that one of the reasons for financial settlements (among many) was Pension payments that EU would be making for decades to come to British citizens…like former MEP Nigel Farage who will be receiving a significant sum every year from the EU for the rest of his life
WHATISTHESTARS
No messing about there,bud. Jugular.
May is probably the worst PM in my living memory,totally unprepared and incapable of crisis management. Her best service to the country and her party would be to resign and explain why. That might have the benefit of taking out those who are killing her by degrees and allow some sense of erm sense to prevail in this shitstorm. Though,tbh,I don’t think anyone can get us out of this without a complete U-turn.
If we get the politicians we deserve,I must have been a rankbajun in my previous life.
SOUTHOFTUNIS
There are good neighbours and bad neighbours. If my neighbour was a pain in the arse I wouldn’t cry when he put his house up for sale.
WHATISTHESTARS
Is that the lucrative pension that he has paid into his offshore tax haven?
Singapore-UK. It’s the way forward.
mod 2 – do you get paid ?
BMCUW
Indeed !
Centre left pundit here has taken to referring to “the country formerly known as Great Britain “
Sanna @ 8:34 .
Is that ticket still going mate ?
WITS,
Farage was on tv this morning,
i am sure they said his EU pension would be £73,000 a year
Thanks BSR. Hail Hail Eurochamps, the entire Blog is rooting for you.
CHANNELISLANDCELT
sent sannabhoy a text
BT . Thanks mate , let me know if your hear from him . HH
Gordybhoy
A not insignificant sum….paid for by our taxes
Watching the Wolves game.Unbelievable.Apart from being dire,the Wolves defender hacks his opponent,the injured guy gets the ball back again,and he hacks him again.The guy shouts,I think,WTF,andand the defender sticks the head on him.He then proceeds to gub another player who has appeared on the scene.Yellow card !!!!!!!!
Gene 6.35
Much appreciated – have sent a message to them via their facebook link.
Thanks again, had the 3 match package so would normally have been there (and not missed many Euro games at home over the years.
Q
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS on 4TH DECEMBER 2017 8:38 PM
TURKEYBHOY
Thanks for the info about Big Hoose.
He came across as a bit of “Just not right”.Very politely spoken,so “The Big Hoose”seemed a bit incongruous.
Very funny nevertheless.
TURKEYBHOY-did you not see the tackle on the wolves player in first half in front of the dugouts?
THETIMREAPER on 4TH DECEMBER 2017 8:51 PM
Phil Foden is very highly rated. There no chance Citeh will loan him to us.
Yes,you are right.Gary 67 informed me today,he is not a defender ,as stated ,but a midfielder.Just the twats who now follow Citeh giving it the Billy Big Baws.
EuroChamps67, in our thoughts tonight.
HailHail Mo Chara.
BRTH
Just read your earlier post about your friend Stephen Farrell.
I think I knew him.
Is his wife Jenny and English teacher?
Sorry, fat fingers. An English teacher.
FAIRHILL BHOY on 4TH DECEMBER 2017 9:28 PM
TURKEYBHOY-did you not see the tackle on the wolves player in first half in front of the dugouts?
I did ,yes.The refereeing is pyoor,SFA.Just sent someone off now for the same offence.If Wolves are the best team in this league,how do you think we would do?.Its like watching Kilmarnock v Thistle.Not any better.
TURKEYBHOY-I think wolves are better than this showing but maybe getting dragged down to Birmingham’s level,and there a poor but cynical team.I think a good footballing team like ours would get kicked all over the place
ChannelIislandcelt. Yes it is. AS first responder its yours if you want it. Drop me a line to sannabhoy@gmail.com. Bt thanks for the heads up
Sanna
TURKEYBHOY – in that league I mean,till we found our feet