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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Pick a couple of teams, say Hibs and Dundee Utd, get every Celtic fan with a computer to email them and let them know in no uncertain terms that if rules are changed or even bent to accommodate a NewCo we will boycott everyone of their games for the years to come.
Remember: they need us more than we need them.
headtheball- We should gather at Celtic Park when away games are on watch a beamback or watch U19s.The club could make money at the same time from catering etc.Charge a fiver and distribute to various charities.
fritzsong on 9 March, 2012 at 15:35 said:
That´s fair comment but I think it is worse now that it ever was and that in 2012 is really saying something.
We have much to thank them for.
Hail Hail
I have no problem with Ten meeting to discuss where we all go from here.
I have no problem with discussions and negotiations about finance and other related matters.
I do have a problem with these being part of a Ragers2012 rescue.
I think the Ten should be reminded of that phrase which came to the fore recently …….’ Utmost good faith.’
SFFS
Cheers
Mort
BREAKING NEWS
InvernessCT have something to say about the planned meeting of the non Old Firm clubs in the SPL…
Bhoycott is a great idea and if our club make a powerful statement to the world that we will not tolerate cheating then that should embarrass our governing body and this corrupt country.
ASonOfDan
Hope its as riveting a read as St Mirren’s most recent statement.
Mort
For those advocating a ‘stay at home’ protest..shame on you. A significant part of protesting is about engaging others, giving sense of purpose and shared support and giving a strong outward signal that soemthing isn’t right.
Any protest must be active, visible, significant and ‘uncomfortable’ for someone else.
HH
Thomthetim
I was one of the early boycott advocates, qualified by the fact that I am a non attender.
—————-
That is a qualification. Very honest. But it renders you kind of ineligible to vote.
The SPL 10 could start by trying to sell the 1.2m vacant seats in their grounds every season. If there is confidence in the integrity of the competition they have a better chance of getting an audience, including a tv audience. A parachuted newco doesn’t exactly give anyone confidence that it’s a fair competition.
WITH such an important three weeks on the horizon, the fans are already preparing themselves for some of the biggest games of the season.
But thoughts of a cup final and Glasgow derby are far from Anthony Stokes´ mind, and as much as he knows the importance of this month´s fixtures, he is only thinking about Sunday.
The Hoops travel to Tannadice to take on Dundee United in the quarter-final of the Scottish Cup and with Saturday´s disappointing draw with Aberdeen behind them, he hopes to get back on the winning trail and edge one step closer to cup glory.
Speaking to the official website, Stokes said: “It´s silverware and at the end of the day and that´s why we´re at a club like this – to win medals and trophies, so we´ll be doing everything we can to win the game.
“We want to win every trophy we are involved in so it´s very important to us. It was good to win it last year because we had a disappointing end to the league campaign. We´re still in three competitions just now and this is one of the priorities of the season. We´ll give 100 per cent of our focus and concentrate on getting a good result.
“The Aberdeen game is gone, the next game is always the most important and that´s a quarter-final so it´s a massive game for us. It would be a big step for us in what we want to do for the rest of the season.”
Dundee United, however, haven´t lost a match since the last time they faced Celtic in January. And while Celtic are domestically unbeaten since the start of October, Stokes is aware the home side will be flying high on their recent run of results.
“It´s always a difficult game against them,” he continued, “They´re quite a physical team who have been doing well of late so it will be a very tough game. I think they´ve been scoring a lot of goals lately and been keeping a lot of clean sheets so we´re going to have to be on top form.
“We don’t really focus on them, though, we just worry about ourselves. We´ve done really well in the last few months, winning plenty of games, so we´re just looking at ourselves and trying to do more of the same.”
Celtic have already enjoyed glory at Tannadice this season, beating Peter Houston´s men 1-0 in December thanks to Gary Hooper´s first-half strike. But games are typically tight and tense affairs on Tayside and Stokes believes the fans have something to do with that.
“I think it´s the atmosphere,” he said. “The crowd are quite close to the pitch and it´s a good stadium. We´re looking forward to it, the fans always provide for us so hopefully we can deliver on the pitch.”
Scottish football would rather have them than us so they wont mind a bhoycott or resignation. Scotland is the hun!
Inverness chairman Kenny Cameron says they will have no set agenda when it is represented at the forthcoming meeting of the 10 non SPL clubs in response to Rangers’ uncertain future.
He told BBC Scotland they didn’t want to capitalise on Rangers’ problems and they see the meeting as an opportunity to move Scottish football forward.
There has been speculation that some of the smaller clubs want to extract a better deal from the SPL in the new climate.
He also confirmed that the Rangers administrators have now paid £25,000 of the £40,000 owed for tickets for the Ibrox club’s visit last month and that he expected the full balance to follow soon.
Disagree that a boycott is premature. I think the clubs need to know that this will happen and is not hot air.
I would also welcome Celtic refusing ticket allocations for away games. This would be a more powerful statement, in my opinion, as it would demonstrate the club’s ability to act against all its enemies.
Mort- Re ticket prices,pretty sure all leagues in Scotland have an agreed minimum price,but no maximum price.
rt rev – good idea. or play for 0-0 draws. refuse to attack. don’t pick any attacking players. kick the ball out the park at every opportunity. make every game an absolute horror.
We at Inverness Caley Thistle FC have stated that a statement will be particularly stated when a statement is in the proper state to be stated honest to god. Speaking honestly we will not state any statement without first and foremost stating the statement about the state of play and that is very very disappointing.
Yours honestly
Cardihun & Sally ICT new press officers
I would also point out that £80,000 was enough to disrupt Dunfermline’s cashflow enough to put them perilously close to facing SFA action by not paying their wages. The clubs with the weakest finances should be made acutely aware that there can be no financial advantage from the newco gerrymandering.
Oh dear – Dunfermline fans forum – their take on what will happen.
Topic Originator: ParsPryde
Date: Fri 09 Mar 14:52
Thought I read somewhere that if a club went into liquidation, all points won by other clubs would become void and removed from their total. (A point being made by English media on the possibility of Portmouth going out of business)
Also, the “liquidated” club would then be assigned “0” points. If this is true then Rangers would be bottom with “0” points and would be relegated!
Or have I totally got the wrong end of the stick?
Proud to be a PAR
Ask Me about joining the Pars Supporters Trust – parstrust@yahoo.co.uk
It is better to remain silent & be thought a fool than to speak out & remove all doubt – Abraham Lincoln
————————————————
I just sent him an e-mail saying that he should have stayed silent.
I’ll let you know if he responds!
HH
Take tickets for away games,dont sell them,have them delivered back 5 minutes before kick off.
The SPL10 were always going to vote a new Rangers back into the league.
The big issue is on what terms, especially the issue of revenue sharing.
IMHO Celtic should and will be able to resist this.
BTW I cannot imagine Paul Murray or whoever is their future owner being enthusiastic about revenue sharing either.
Articles on this blog appear to going from one extreme to another over the last couple of days (that is not intended as a criticism).
with so many of the aspects to this debacle still either up in the air or not yet explored…could we all just stop jumping the gun quite so much…their is a long way to go and our Board are not daft wee laddies!
bbg
AWE NAW 1544
Yer wasted in IT,you know.
PR skills like that could see you go far.
Not that I’m saying Germany isnae far enough…….
aldersyde avenue
What revenue ?
The cloned huns will have ABSOLUTELY no revenue to give to anyone
HAil Hail
YivWhit on 9 March, 2012 at 15:43 said:
Disagree that a boycott is premature. I think the clubs need to know that this will happen and is not hot air.
_________________
Spot on. The alternative is do nothing and get bitter.
Can you imagine what these grounds will look like on TV with no Celtic support?
Even now the home stands are an embarrassment. Talk about the tannoy announcing the fans to the team.
BMCUWP
You want to remove me even further from the family ???
Yer a bad man Bobby ;-)
Hail Hail
Re; the Cup Final next week. I don’t know if this is widely known and I’ve just dropped lucky but I’ve just bought three tickets for the final. We didn’t get any offers through the post so I just called on the offchance. One per season ticket.
We got three in a row so there must be quite a few left.
Good luck.
Rangers players must make right D-Day choice
By Mark Hateley on Mar 9, 12 06:39 AM in
BARCELONA, 1972. Nine in a row. Manchester, 2008, London Crown Court
These were all historic moments in the history of Rangers and the players involved will be forever lauded by people around every corner of the globe.
But today, if a group of around 30 men, and they are just men – we should always remember that – at Murray Park make the kind of sacrifice that ensures the club’s survival just until the end of the season, they should be held in the same high regard. The next 8 weeks is more important than our entire 140 year continuous history.
It might sound crazy to mention the likes of Dorin Goian, Maurice Edu and Sone Aluko in the same breath as Colin Stein, Richard Gough or Davie Weir, but with the club facing extinction it is difficult to remain composed.
But if the current Rangers squad agree to the EBT cut deal put in front of them by the administrators, they will never be forgotten by the fans this season or next..
Today is D-Day for the players. Duff and Phelps have already said if an agreement isn’t in place by close of play there will be redundancies throughout the club.
And for me, it’s all about solidarity. Each Rangers player is an individual but on the pitch they’re a team. They have to show that togetherness now.
This squad was successful under Walter Smith and it has been built on unity.
It is now down to those same players to dictate what happens to the club.
They have dug in for the past four years to win trophies.
They’ve won three SPL titles and reached a UEFA Cup Final by sticking together.
Now they have a decision to make and I would urge them to display that same togetherness one last time in order to keep the club afloat.
In the fans’ eyes, what they’ve done has been remarkable. But if they reach an agreement today it could be their legacy. It’s what they will be remembered for – keeping Rangers going for another few weeks.
As a player, it’s great to be remembered by the supporters for the titles and cups you’ve won no matter how they may be perceived but it would be even more special to be known as one of the 20 men who saved Rangers.
In 140 years there have been some great moments but this sacrifice to help the club would match any of them.
If the players accept massive EBT cuts, it will be set in stone forever. They will be up there with the players who won the Cup-Winners’ Cup in ’72 or the guys who played their part in nine in a row.
The club is more important than any individual. It’s a club of the people, for the people and when I played in that nine in a row team, that’s what it was all about for us. We serve the people never forget it.
I’m absolutely certain that if we had been in the same predicament the current squad find themselves in, we would have done whatever it took to keep the club going.
I know I would have done it and I’m sure others would have as well – even if it meant taking a huge EBT cut until the end of the season.
When I signed for Rangers from Monaco I forfeited a big chunk of my salary in France as I knew I could keep it topped up. I came to Rangers because they have a great history and that could be in these players’ hands now. If an agreement isn’t reached with administrators today I dread to think what the outcome might be.
Lee McCulloch has been a leading light. He is the epitomy of what the club is all about. A quiet reflective individual who is more at home with a book and his slippers on than he is on the field of play.
He has been there, seen it and done it and appreciates all he has had, everything he has won and is willing to give something back.
It’s a fantastic gesture from him to publicly admit he’d be willing to lose around £250,000 in wages between now and the end of the season to ensure the club survives. Lee knows when you leave Rangers, in whatever circumstances, it leaves a big hole in you life, especially if you intend to stay in Glasgow afterwards. He’s a shining example to his team-mates and he knows what this means for everyone connected with the club.
People talk about players inspiring others on the pitch and being a role model. Lee is doing that now, on and off the pitch by smashing players and then genuinely apologising after the final whistle. That´s just the kind of guy he is – a true legend.
He’s in the final chapter of his career and has spent a long time at Ibrox. He realises there are people who work at the stadium and Murray Park who have had four generations of family associated with Rangers.
To keep that going, in terms of achievement for a player, would be on a par with winning any trophy or reaching any final in the fans’ eyes.
Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t criticise a player if he didn’t accept the EBT cuts, especially when I would not do so myself .. wages yes but EBT´s no way. I know everyone has their own personal circumstances.
It’s unfair to condemn someone when you don’t know the reasons. But I reiterate to them – this is a massive club. We’ve had everyone from the Prime Minister, David Cameron, talking about how important they are to Scottish football and the supporters.
Now it’s down to everyone on the playing staff to do their bit. They must help in this hour of need.
We’ve had momentous days at Rangers, players and fans alike, but today a meeting of administrators and a group of players could mark one of the most important days in the club’s history.
The day that Rangers died.
In my opinion a FULL boycott wil never happen.
Celtic FC will never advocate, nor should they, supporters non attendance at away fixtures. Consequently I can never see a day when CFC refuse to take tickets for away games.
Without that, there will always be groups, clubs and individuals who will chose to go.
Ticketus says it will win Gers funds case
Ticketus is confident of winning any case relating to money advanced to Rangers in exchange for future season ticket sales.
The firm has taken legal advice after Rangers’ administrator Duff & Phelps pursued the release £3.6m from an account belonging to owner Craig Whyte.
A High Court judge has ordered a trial date to decide who owns the money.
Ticketus, HMRC, Merchants Turnaround and the pension fund Gerome are contesting ownership of the funds.
Continue reading the main story
“
The scale of the cost-cutting required is very substantial – making a few players redundant along the way would not have achieved the savings
”
Administrator David Whitehouse
Rangers’ administrator emerged from the High Court in London pleased that the judge had ordered a further hearing on the club’s claim on £3.6m for 30 March.
David Whitehouse argued that the money, frozen in his firm’s lawyer’s account, belongs to Rangers and should be released to ease the club’s plight.
“Today has been a very positive step forward,” he said of the 30 March date.
“The trial reflects the judge’s understanding of the urgency of the case so it’s a very good step forward.”
The £3.6m stems from current Rangers owner Craig Whyte’s takeover of the club from Sir David Murray in May and the sale of future season ticket revenue to Ticketus in exchange for advance funds .
Lawyers for the club’s administrator told the High Court in London they had expected to find £9.5m in the account.
But they said there was only £3.6m in it and several parties are claiming ownership of the money.
They include HM Revenue and Customs, which wants £2.8m, Merchants Turnaround, which is seeking £1m, and pension fund Gerome, which is claiming £2.9m.
Mark Phillips QC told the hearing in the Companies Court that Rangers may not be able to fulfil their fixtures unless they receive a cash injection.
In a statement released after the hearing, Whitehouse said: “Following the court hearing last week, Collyer Bristow [Whyte’s lawyer] paid approximately £3.6m to our lawyers, Taylor Wessing, to be held securely by Taylor Wessing until the High Court decides whether or not it is the club’s money.
“We are very pleased with the decision by the High Court today to order a further hearing on this matter on 30 March and I am sure that all Rangers Football Club supporters will be encouraged that this issue will be dealt with as speedily as possible.
“If we are successful in retrieving these funds that will help the recovery process of the club and will be an important step towards the club emerging from administration.
“No-one should be in any doubt, however, about the overall financial situation of the club and every effort is being made to ensure its survival.
“We are continuing to meet prospective purchasers over the next few days. This does not mean that the club has to be sold within the next 24 hours – we are establishing how quickly we can get to that point.”
Also in the statement, the administrators moved to defend criticism of their handling of the Ibrox situation, notably their delay in making job cuts.
Whitehouse added: “There has been much speculation in recent days about the administration process.
“We should at this point repeat that, as administrators, our preferred strategy is that we work towards achieving a company voluntary arrangement through which the club can emerge from administration.
“There has also been comment on the decision-making process and whether so-called tough decisions should have been taken earlier in the process, such as making players redundant.
“This would not have been a tough decision – it would have been folly.
“The scale of the cost-cutting required is very substantial indeed – and making a few players redundant along the way would not have achieved the necessary savings.
“Furthermore, we are striving to strike a balance where we retain valuable assets of the business, such as players, both for their performance and their potential value and this strategy is understood by major stakeholders.
“We continue to reach agreement with the players on cost-cutting measures that will be a real benefit to the club – the players themselves want that, but they are being asked to make big sacrifices.
“These are difficult choices, but the survival of the club is of paramount importance.
“These are unquestionably difficult times for Rangers but we can assure all those involved we remain wholly committed to achieving the best outcome.”
I sense a misplaced hysteria developing on CQN…?
They are finished. Every minute is costing them. They’ve sold the carpet so nothing to sweep their dirt under.
Too many people holding too many cards for them to get back in the game.
They may have manipulated SFAX cronies but not EUFA.Not Celtic FC. not teams who are eying a new opportunity. Not teams they have ripped off. Not creditors owed £millions. Not HMRC.
Le joust sont fait.. As Ed Rooney might say…!
How will the players do at every away game without a support, fine this year we should be far enough ahead to win the title but in future years?
to = of & their = there…knew i should have stuck to the budwar at lunch…balvennie stops the mind from working properly ;-)
bbg
Jouet … Even . Oh la la!
So the planned show of support by them went well last night-40 folk turn up. “we dont do demos”. Fuds.
Hi All,
All this talk of quit the league and play friendlies. Gies a break.
Swiss
Dublinbhoy,
“I wish there was some way that the vast overseas support could lend, em, support to those that will be on the front line of the boycott.”,
I’ll send my bank details you can deposit £1000 to start with :o)