The Gang of 10 SPL club who will meet next week will decide whether or not we have a morally sound and ethically administered league. The meeting wasn’t announced three hours before overtures were being made on terms a Rangers Newco would be prepared to agree to in order to win their backing.
Effectively, the other 10 will asked to hold their noses, put all moral judgement aside and tell Rangers Newco the terms they need to agree to in order to get back into the SPL, retain their history and limit consequences of the alleged improper registration of players. Some of those hoping to front a Rangers Newco are prepared to do whatever is necessary to get back on a level playing field with those who have spent the last 20 years playing honest football and paying their taxes.
The question to be considered is not just what is ethically right in sport; it’s more personal than that. This is about what is going to happen to your money, the football club that defines who you are, and your relationship with the game for the rest of your life.
The schemers and cheats are not beaten and they are not going to give up. There is no honour, no ‘dignity’, no moral compass that understands there are consequences for decades of rampant abuse. All there is, is a sense of entitlement that I struggle to comprehend.
That sense of entitlement is about to promise bucket loads of your cash to someone else in order to restore the old certainties. This time, they are not even going to use the tax man’s money, they are going to use YOUR money. The money you put into the game will be distributed and used to flush the smaller clubs, who will in turn restore Rangers to their position of ascendency.
This is not sport, it’s a disgusting abuse of Celtic fans. You are not even being asked, you are being expected to open your wallets and pay whatever price it takes to put Rangers back on top.
I have never called for a boycott of a newspaper, never mind a football game, but this is not football anymore. We cannot be party to this. It is not a passing-issue either. Rules are being made with consequences that could last 100 years.
You have suffered from decades of malpractice and have earned the right to go to Ibrox in two weeks to enjoy the reflection of honest endeavour. After this, our next away game will be at Kilmarnock. If the Gang of 10 attempt an insurrection using your money, join me in a picket outside Celtic Park when these tickets are available for sale, and outside the away gates at Rugby Park on game day, to explain to Celtic fans the consequences of supporting the clubs who would use your money to establish a new Rangers.
Unite and bring the full power of Celtic against those who would rather do a deal with the devil than establish an honest, even, playing field.
If the Gang of 10 give Rangers Newco their way, using your money, we cannot go back to an away game, not this season, not ever. We must demand this discipline from each other and insist the club refuse all away tickets.
Having paid our taxes, registered footballers in an honest manner and brought international acclaim to Scottish football, the Celtic Movement is being corrupted by the lowest common denominator.
Our magnificent sporting institution is being destroyed. For the love of all that is decent and meritocratic in the game, we need help from England, Europe or wherever to move out of Scottish football.
I am just about finished with the entire, corrupt, shambles that masquerades as a sport.
Issue six of CQN Magazine….. has sold out! None left, sorry.
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Thoughts from the Ross County website on if they get promotion and Rangers’ situation….I liked these….
“I don’t think many of us will lose much sleep if we never get to go to Ibrox due to Rangers going bust.”
“Maybe we can get some of the seats from Ibrox to go in the new away stand?”
Hamiltontim,
The playing record “may” be expunged but the number of relegation places “shall” be reduced.
im not sure if the bbc are misinterpreting h5. the word ‘may’ could be open to interpretation as the spl being allowed to take this action or it coul be interpreted that may means the spl have the option to. if the word shall replaced may i think we would be more certain
Starry plough@ 8.44. And you can add to your list a very poor football manager/coach. Check out his record.
Lennybhoy@8.50am.
I completely agree with you. All this PR optimism emanating from Media House is pure spin. Again bald statements about wealthy acquirers is taken as gospel by our compliant media ( come to think of it that statement might be an oxymoron ). They are trying to marginalise Whyte but he is the pivotal person in all of this He has played a blinder, has accepted a huge amount of personal risk – but that’s his game- and he will swan off as per Plan A either with pockets full of cash or an ensured future income stream.
There are no wealthy acquirers. They are and will be a much reduced organisation for years. They owe money to everyone. There are concurrent investigations both by police and football authorities and UEFA are watching them. They will be liquidated and their broken up assets used to reform. It is the end for The Rangers. I don’t have enough time left in my life to write how much I despise all that they have been,are and aspire to be again ( the very fabric of Scottish society ). But let’s be clear. The idea that they will disappear and that their fans will be distributed across all other clubs is fanciful. They will re- emerge. They will not be chastened but they will be a shadow of themselves for many years.
Our focus is to support Celtic and our Board. This battle for plain justice will be fought in Boardrooms, courtrooms and in the stands.
As many of us sang in the 60/70s…. WE SHALL OVERCOME. Celtic united will never be defeated.
You bhoys who owe the Blue Knights £1690 and £30k are lucky. I’m in for £60k and I know others that are in for £100k and £250k.
Hope I gave the wrong email address!!!
Mort
Can I point out that in drafting any act or rule– there is a deliberate difference between the use of the words may and shall. It may seem obvious but “May” means to have a discretion– you can do this or that but it is up to you.
“Shall” means you have no discretion and so this or that happens automatically whether you chose it to or not!
So– if it says “may” then you can do this– but you may do something else.
Charlie Mulgrew on Soccer A M
Charlie Mulgrew on shortly on Soccer AM.
Brogan
I have great admired your insightful and informative contributions to this blog and the RTC one.
I would endorse many of the things that you have siad this morning however I would find it difficult to agree with on using Jim Reid as a great example to follow
His exploits at the time of UCS might be paiseworthy but like all of us he had many failings and was no great friend to people like the lady whose funeral you were attending yesterday IMHO
HH
garcia lorca on 10 March, 2012 at 10:45 said:
We Shall Overcome in my heart I firmly believe We Shall Overcome…
Big Nev…………………………………….
passed his best………………………………
FFS………………………………………
BigJoegoingOn a diet
Can someone explain to me why NL wasted £3m on Efren Juarez? They aren’t the only ones guilty of wasting money, we have done it ourselves, not to the degree of that cheating shower though.
I would love to be witnessing the training sessions right now to see Izzy & Juarez playing against each other to get their form back. That makes me wonder if Izzy, being POTY last year was a reason for Juarez not being selected.
is h5 only in relation to results this season. has anyone come up with an alterative should rangers get liquidated. the alternative would skew the current league positions. have hibs or dunfermline taken any points from rangers.
this just in from duffers
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17323222
If Celtic have any serious interest in a membership scheme I think they need to advertise its enquiries better,you get alsorts of emails from the club and I must admit to not reading them all,perhaps a bit of advertising through sites like this would help,its a no brainer fans would want to sign up and pay a wee bit to help out especially if we can’t buy sponsorless merchandise in the meantime.
On company names for phoenix companies:
Section 216 of The Insolvency Act 1986 addresses the reuse of company name aspect of phoenix companies and states (word for word):
(1) This section applies to a person where a company (“the liquidated company”) has gone into insolvent liquidation on or after the appointed day and he was a director or shadow director of the company at any time in the period of 12 months ending with the day before it went into liquidation.
(2) For the purposes of this section, a name is a prohibited name in relation to such a person if:-
(a) it is a name by which the liquidating company was known at any time in the period of 12 months, or
(b) it is a name which is so similar to a name falling within paragraph (a) as to suggest an association with that company.
But there are exceptions under Rules 4.226 to 4.230 of The Insolvency Rules 1986.
In short, it appears that you would have to apply to a court for permission, and that is highly unlikely to be granted if any of the same directors are involved.
There seems to be a lot of case law on this point. Perhaps someone with more legal knowledge than I have could make a stab at how a Newco in this case might be viewed by the courts?
A financial assessment of the latest moves in the train wreck.
Orc’s cheered up, at week’s end, by their on-park heroes taking pay cuts of up to 75%. So what do we make of the breakneck speed of developments in recent days?
1. Of course, there was nothing breakneck about the speed at which players decided to take that pay cut. But, as administrators Duff and Phelps spelled out on their behalf, it was a tricky decision. Taking a pay cut for a few months is all very well, but if your contract were being re-negotiated down the barrel of an administrator’s gun, wouldn’t you want to have a break clause written in for the summer transfer season? The starting point for pay may seem ludicrous, but the market says (and their agents remind them) there are other clubs willing to pay it.
2. The bind in which administrators found themselves was that their instinct to slash costs clashed with their requirement to maximise asset value. By sacking players, they would have been getting rid of a key asset, without which the sell-on value of the club would be diminished.
The sudden shift of tone on Wednesday looked like an attempt to put pressure either on potential buyers to come forward, or on players to accept the pay cuts. In retrospect, it looks more like the latter.
With the pay deal done, that tone quickly returned to reassurance that liquidation can be avoided. The £1m per month savings have been found. Rangers can complete the season. It’s bought some vital time.
3. And now, we have bidders coming forward. While other ex-directors fall out, ex-director Paul Murray is leading a “blue knights” consortium, backed by Rangers supporter organisations and also including Ticketus.
That’s the football finance company that provides short-term funding to even out finances, in exchange for a right to season ticket sales. Craig Whyte’s deal with Ticketus was unusual, to say the least, not only in being longer-term, but in being the means by which he bought the club’s debt.
Ticketus must be alarmed at their exposure to loss of more than £20m of advanced cash. They say it wasn’t a loan, and they don’t claim to be secured creditors. Instead, they say they own future season tickets.
we are told lawyers have looked closely at the firm’s position, and it’s claimed that it is legally secure, even in the event of Rangers assets being taken on by a new company. It is hard to believe that a new owner would recognise such a contract, particularly when the ticket revenue stream is of such significance to the club’s recovery. It’s just one of the areas open to legal dispute, which could leave Rangers taking even longer to get out from under the large cloud now looming over Ibrox.
4. The other big area where the courts beckon is the creditor status of Craig Whyte, the majority shareholder. Duff and Phelps seemed to argue on Thursday that because it wasn’t his money being used to buy £18m of Lloyds Banking Group debt last May, then they don’t think he’s got a right to that bank’s secured creditor status. If he doesn’t have that, he doesn’t have first claim on the club’s assets.
Well, at least it’s looking good for the lawyers. Which is nice.
5. Ticketus, you have to assume they’re aligned with the Blue Knights consortium as a means to protect their funding and their reputation. After all, the financial firm has its own investors’ interests to protect, and this episode doesn’t make it look all that clever.
According to Craig Whyte, he signed personal and corporate guarantees totalling £27.5m for that Ticketus money, none of it against Rangers assets. But given the way his other business interests are going (in Bournemouth, Pritchard Stockbrokers, of which he was company secretary and a leading shareholder, collapsed very messily in the past few days), Ticketus is probably looking closely at those guarantees.
Ticketus can offer the so-called Blue Knights a deal on that revenue stream over three seasons that it claims it owns, in exchange for an absence of legal tussling. That means it wouldn’t necessarily want or need to take an equity stake in Rangers’ ownership.
6. The puzzling question is why anyone would buy Rangers when that debt cloud hangs over it. Paul Murray was the one asking why Craig Whyte would want to take over Rangers under these circumstances last year, yet he’s up for doing so now, when the debt cloud remains.
I offer two possible explanations. The obvious one, which you can read in the Blue Knight’s statement, is that any purchase would only follow a company voluntary agreement (CVA). That is, the creditors would agree to take what they can salvage, as a percentage of what they’re owed. That sum depends on what administrators think they can raise for the value of the assets, what’s offered, and how much competition there is.
They need to agree on the sum being offered, before they can take that to creditors – including HM Revenue and Customs. The creditors then have to decide if they’ll voluntarily accept that (and by implication, if they think it’s better than the alternative value they might extract from liquidation). You can presume the offer would be conditional on a limited amount of indebtedness remaining. However the administrators do not ‘own’ the company so technically cannot sell it. Who does own it brings back to 4 above and a messy legal wrangle and wealthier lawyers.
7. The other complication is that the £49m in dispute in a tax tribunal is still unresolved. If you’re facing legal disputes on several fronts, and unhappy creditors, how do you get a CVA on the basis of the two outcomes to that tribunal? No one seems to know, but the administrators seem confident enough that it won’t necessarily be a blockage. Presumably on he basis that the verdict follows newco.
If Craig Whyte is any guide, he said ahead of administration that HMRC would respond to a judgement in Rangers’ favour by appealing and appealing again, and so it might be as well to assume that the £49m “big tax bill” is either going to stand or to fester, and it’s not clear which is worse for the Ibrox club.
8. There is the speculation that HMRC has its own agenda on this, pursuing Rangers as an example to other football clubs, and those in other tax-avoiding sectors. But it’s just speculation for now.
8. The other explanation of the Blue Knights’ strategy is that they are simply putting themselves into the best position to be ready to pick up the assets from liquidation. If they have Ticketus and the supporters organisations on side, they have already put other potential bidders at a disadvantage.
But then, it’s in the interests of the creditors and administrators to get some competition for future ownership of Rangers.
So the club only needs to get debt under control do the same with its cost base and get all those mugs..sorry rangers fans willing to buy tickets, replica strips and pies ought to make for a sound commercial proposition.
However how that is going to happen is anyone’s guess but getting there if ever is still going to be more eventful, surprising and painful.
“Joint administrator Paul Clark says the pending outcome of Rangers’ tax dispute will not hold up the sale of the club.”
I know he is trying to make the club look attractive but come on. Who would conceivably buy any business where you were given a set of financial projections with a wee note that says, “A further £50M+ liability may be involved”?
Is there another Craig Whyte out there with a pound coin going spare?
“The big tax is something that is out of our hands,” said Clark.
“Even if the big tax case decision has not actually been delivered, we still think that we could conduct a transaction with a new buyer.”
And he added: “Just because we don’t have the final extent of the amount that’s outstanding, it needn’t hold that process up, so it doesn’t concern me.
“To some extent it’s about what that would mean in terms of the deal that was offered to settle the big tax case.”
so back to last year then…. no one except whyte would buy rangers. now folk want to buy a club with a 49 million pound noose and half season ticket income, no european football……gies peace
Tell you what……
‘Big ( Meeja) Hoose’ has woken upto the fact that it’s favourite team is ooot the cup and is attempting, with some success, especially via Shortbread, the amazing and incredible ‘ dead cat bounce’ manoeuvre…………..
” Say it ain’t so Naisy, say it ain’t so……..”
Shameful.
Henriks Sombrero on 10 March, 2012 at 10:20 said:
Is that a general sale or season book holders only ?
HH
I just read Chic Hun’s take on Ragers ‘plight’…..”the torturing of Rangers goes on…”.
Can you believe it? No examination of their decades of outright dishonesty and cunning plans. No reflection on his,and others, complicity in the elevation of this ‘rotten borough’. Only the repetitious mantra of how we all need Them.
No talk of more shady characters wanting to keep this Orange Ordure flowing.
No talk of how they’ve brought the game into disrepute.
No talk of FIFA or UEFA getting involved when The SFA/SPL bounce them back into the top flight with a wee tellin’ off.
Aye,there’s an orange glow in the sky over The Midden.
You know when you’ve been Tango’d.
Is it possible that D&P, far from being CW’s or Rangers’ stooges, just underestimated the strength of feeling and wrath that would be unleashed by the admin process?
Maybe they realised the position that making massive cuts would have placed them in, and don’t want to be seen to deal the killer blow. I certainly wouldn’t want to be in their position. maybe now they feel they have to keep the patient alive as long as possible in the hope of a miracle cure and meanwhile keep uttering piffle to keep the relatives from kicking off?
Could somebody explain why it’s not a criminal offence to withold payments of PAYE and NI as Rangers have done? Otherwise, everybody would do it.
kitalba on 10 March, 2012 at 09:30 said:
……….
Kitalba et al thanks for the Info, I never got any questionnaire from CFC, if it was sent as an email it may be in the junk folder. The info from the questionnaire is important data, maybe they should have publicised it better.
V
Charlie Mulgrew on Soccer AM shortly.
MWD
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17301939
Well well well…what is going on now?
PeteThe Beat @11.10
I know it is hard to believe but it is not an offence in the same way that if you do not pay your Gas Bill is not an offence.
The gas company can just cut you off and take legal action to recover the amount owed. In this case HMRC went to court to get it’s £9m rankers could not pay so court appointed administrators D&F and HMRC after discussion did not object to them.
it is about Europe….they can take a hit on next season but not the next 3 methinks.
HH
Deekbhoy
Thanks for the reply.
It’s still very strange that nobody is arrested as this seems to have been part of Whyte’s plan all along.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwBrozjSvpg&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Check the Hun in the audience lovin’ the above!
don’t mind the indo bhoys, it’s a rag full of d4 west brit winkers who who hate northsiders and anybody outside the pale. It’s well known to be a crap newspaper. They are snobs whose dad was never shot by the ruc, whose son was never shot in the back on the way home form the gaa, who couldn’t get a job because of their name. They know nothing of this. They don’t know anybody who planted a bomb or who got stabbed at a game. They are not people who change things. They wouldn’t understand the vanessaappeal. Dublin has always been an anomaly and they are the worst in the city.
By the way anybody is there still only one catholic architect in Derry – anybody know ?
Jackie Mac,
Derry is much changed place since the days of jobs for the boys.Afew years ago a retiring hospital sister,were I work wrote an article in A health service magazine,regards the brain drain and jobs for the boys..She named a dozen top specialists in there field,scattered around the world that did there training in Derry but couldnt get a job in Derry or Belfast..I think that was the last I seen of that magazine.The jobs for the boys situation in the health service,council,water board,education board,etc has been well adressed..A guy I know very well,just about 4 years ago in the one day interviewed 8 lads from the one class in a catholic school and started them all..I love them all..Go on utube and watch children in crossfire 1974,its about the children in the Creggan Estate,my good has things changed.
Croppybhoy
I am aware that Jimmy Reid splits opinion, and in my own opinion on Jimmy is mixed when it comes to his later poilitics.. there are elements worthy of admiration but others I simply do not agree with.
His Glasgow University speech is undoubtedly a tour de force. Perhaps he did not live out the sentiments the way that I would have or you would have.
Neither you nor I can influence him now.
In my view, his biggest failing.. and the failing of countless others.. was there was never enough shout for Clydebank itself.
Here is a town which paid the worst of all prices during the war and was later devatstated by an Industrial war which saw the retreat of Singers, Goodyear, much of the Shipyard, and of course the mass poison of Turner’s asbestos factory.
In return, Clydebank got a shopping centre, and eventually a business park– both of which sort of ripped heart and soul out of the town geographically. Years later a feck off big B&Q arrived with the other stuff up at the old Goodyear site.
Compare and contrast with the infrastructure and services that went into the so called New Towns of East Kilbride, Glenrothes, to an extent Cumbernauld, but most of all the beast that we now call Livingstone.
Successive Governments of all hues treated Clydebank shamefully and disgracefully,, and I believe that Jimmy should have been far more vocal and active… maybe I will rephrase that– he should have been far more effective… in championing his home town in that regard.
Ragers players agree 75% wage cut but fans agree 100% bigotry
petec,bjmac,
Sorry for my abrupt vanishing act last night.
Was very “tired” so headed tae ma kip :O).
gallagher on 10 March, 2012 at 11:07 said:
Henriks Sombrero on 10 March, 2012 at 10:20 said:
Is that a general sale or season book holders only ?
—————-
still SB holders only PG.
interstingly also, Saint J’s tickets for 1st April are steadily selling, less than 4,000 left with 3 weeks to go.
Offcourse thats the day we get the 2nd trophy for the treble.
I reckon the Duff and Duffer statement is quite telling – this is all about Blue Knight huns trying to buy time to get themselves into position by keeping the patient alive pre-liquidation (from big tax case).
Not much we can do about that one – but we do need to ensure that proper penalties are applied for phoenixing and that investigations into player registrations are conducted thoroughly, appropriately and without bias.
I find the Murray bid reassuring. It seems so unlikely to succeed (at least in terms of solving their problems and making them a force to be reckoned with) that I think if that’s the best hope they’ve got, then they really are in trouble.
Also, if they are still the same club, they can still surely be punished for past sins.
cheers navanbhoy