The champions stretched some of the limbs from their squad against St Johnstone tonight as a first half Anthony Stokes goal secured the points. It was one of those rare, balmy, Celtic Park occasions when three or four layers of clothing were sufficient, not the customary seven or eight.
Highlight for the evening was the standing ovation for captain-for-the-night, Mark Wilson. A 22-year-old Wilson joined Celtic over six years ago and provided us with some great memories, most notably his Scottish Cup-tie winning goal against Rangers last season, but his career has been blighted by injury since late 2006, robbing him of hundreds of appearances for the team he has supported all his life.
Moh Bangura had a rare 90 minutes and was unfortunate not to open his Celtic scoring account. Anthony Stokes played a drear cross-field pass to Bangura, who was some 40 yards away. The striker from Sierra Leone had options but made space for a shot which rebounded back off the post.
Bangura has a hand in Stokes earlier goal. He got a touch on a 28th minute corner pushing the ball to Stokes who finished clinically.
Thereafter the outcome was never in doubt, although Celtic were seldom clinical. 21-year-old Nigerian Rabiu Ibrahim made his Celtic on 74 minutes when he replaced Kris Commons and looked comfortable on the ball.
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TET
just looked at the clip and saw it was not what I had intended to put across.
Run anyway or keep stum.
hoopeddreams
My impressions of lawyers are like that of most who are not lawyers, they are a shower of………insert what ever your want :>)
Ernie is a smart man, no doubt about that.
I have also just read his reply to MWD, I would be one of the posters he is having a pop at, not a problem with that, I can handle myself.
I disagree with him though, he thinks his way, I think mine.
I would relish talking to our suits face to face, I could tell if I was being lied to, sort of comes from years of being lied to, through business and the like,you get a feel for it.
A statement from the club is just that, a statement, a question face to face is a world apart from a statement.
Just my take on things, tis hard being a project btw :>)
There’s summit a bit stinkin about all the shunnanigans and obfuscation over the river. Not so much a fresh minty smell as a stale minty smell.
Miller is clearly just another stooge. Still expecting a minty plan to ride in and save the day once all the legalities are cleared up and there is minty clear immunity from prosecution or blame.
Or am I talking more mince than mint? :))
PS Give Mo a chance. Never saw tonight’s match but like someone mentioned earlier, Big John didn’t get past his goal jinx for numerous games until Henke handed the ball to him in front of an open goal. Up until then, the guy was labelled a waste of space due to his “weight issues”.. Now Mo is gettin pelters for his hairdo. Jeezo.
hoopeddreams – I am as sure as I can be that ernie is a lawyer.
Ernie wouldn’t sully his horny-handed-son-of-toil reputation by indulging in such a quintessentially middle class pursuit as lawyering.
Besides, the money sucks. (thumbsup)
Some very very nasty SNP tactics afoot today in the election in coatbridge.
Police investigation into offences under Representation of the People act so I hear. Fights between SNP supporters at polling stations and smear leaflets going through doors.
I really fear life in an independent Scotland.
Gordybhoy64,
The Dolphin changed hands about 2 year ago, yer missis would be surprised, then again Wilmington are still expected to shite outside on the pavement :0D
dixiebhoy69
Yea gods, no! Never Butcher mate! Just quoting current league positions like!
gordybhoy64
TBL – Haha shut it or I’ll run you down in ma army built wheelchair! ;-)
(ps. all those offended by the use of the word wheelchair, roll on!)
HH
Highlight of the night was that paper aeroplane that came t f the Celtic end, with 10 minutes to go. It flew to the 18 yard line before the pointy bit stuck in the turf.
wdh
Life is a box of chocolates, or in my case, a crate of wine :>)
hoopeddreams
I leave the law and anything articulite to others
philvisreturns_2 on 3 May, 2012 at 23:44 said:
I’ll have you know that I voted Tory today.
Fair enough it was the last on the list, but it was still a vote.
Captured, 23:38
He’s been on it for 2 months. If he was on ITV it would have been a week and then headlines thereafter
ernie lynch – Good for you Ernest.
You’ll get served in Waitrose yet. ;) (thumbsup)
philvisreturns_2 – have you ever made love in Earnest? ;-)
been watching game on bbc alba – can only make out every 5th word – still better than Burley on ESPN…dont understand a word Craig says..as for Charlie Nick…don’t get me started…!
Shoot – Ernest!
philvisreturns_2 on 3 May, 2012 at 23:48 said:
It’s curious that a company owned and run by its employees is regarded as being some kind of middle class icon.
AoW,could be worse you might be drinking in one
of the many bowling clubs in the area
Philvis
How do you know about ernie’s horny hands? Do tell.
Oh, and by Ghod you’re right about the money!
TET
in cambuslang this evening it is hotel chocolat and stella.
it’s a start
enjoy I’m off to sleep.
Thanks Raemon how much you achieved a lesson to us all.
Paul67,
I’ll be in Glasgow next week then London the following week.
Looking forward to you making the arrangements.
Paul67,
I think donegaldanny should be dragged out of retiresomement to face Pistol Pete.
Also, we’re long overdue a happyclapper vs mineshafter debate.
Just sayin
Anyone goat a link to Alex Thomsons news bulletin?
MWD
The marketing of essential Waitrose centres around the tagline “quality you’d expect at prices you wouldn’t”.
————————–
Sounds like they have double contracts as well. HMRC……..
O.G Rafferty,
Quite correct sir and fair play to him. And your good self for keeping us abreast of his findings. Guess I just wish at times it would get further a field and more proper journalists with bigger audiences would be as thorough.
Home from match.
Bangura showed up better than expected but jury still out,good to see Mark Wilson get
the ovation he deserves,McGeouch has a lovely touch although more game time
required to gain experiance at this level. Thomas Rogne is growing in stature but why
is he injured so often ? Good 3 points and the Thia Tims were inspiring.
Traveled by train tonight so unable to listen to the propaganda on the radio.
The spin on the latest news from the hun dome was breathtaking.
Stupid media,stupid huns,however I find myself getting more anxious that they will
emerge from this farce stronger than anticipated.No faith in the powers that be in
this country to administer due punishment. HH
MWD
alex thompson
My dear,dear,dear,friend..Captured..
Nevah knock yersel pal..Na..Not… Evah.. Nevah!
Thur ur Plenty o’ Knockers oan here.. who are very willin’ tae
dae That!
Jist ask.. Kojo!
An am an excellent judge.. and Ah kin tell ya. that
You ,Pal..
Are are Person o’ Distinction and Comportment… or..
mebbe.. even Deportment ,as weel.. but, afore Ah kin call ye that…
Ah gotta see Ye Dance,First!!
Nice chatting.
Kojo
Yer pal…who likes ye aloater.
Still, Laughin’
gordybhoy64 @ 23:37
Every time I’ve been in the Dolphin there are burds there, eg about 3 weekends ago. They always sit at the same table though.
Art of War – have you ever made love in Earnest?
How did you hear of my time in that Turkish prison? (thumbsup)
ernie lynch – It’s curious that a company owned and run by its employees is regarded as being some kind of middle class icon.
Yup. That would indeed be both curious and apply to law firms if they weren’t owned by the partners, with everybody else being hired help. Also, all companies are run by their employees, are they not? (thumbsup)
hoopeddreams – How do you know about ernie’s horny hands? Do tell.
A man can’t drive the fastest milk cart in Cuba without gaining a reputation.
Oh, and by Ghod you’re right about the money!
Yup. It’s amazing how the myth of lawyers = rich persists in our society. The average plumber probably does better than the average lawyer these days. Less competition. (thumbsup)
Evening all.
I spent a chunk of today typing a marathon post for RTC, which is currently stuck in moderation limbo. Having invested ages in it, I thought I should submit it here too, as it’s on a subject which is likely to become quite topical if (big if, I know) Miller makes any progress with his ‘incubator’ plan, and if I’m going to annoy one bunch of people (some of what I say may be seen as a bit controversial by a lot of folks – quite possibly including Paul67) I might as well double up!
_____________________________________
Warning: marathon post. Casual readers – scroll on down!
There is something approaching unanimity amongst RTC posters regarding the proposition that a liquidation of Rangers Football Club plc necessarily and unquestionably coincides with the death of Rangers football club. It is categorized as a ‘break in the timeline’, marking the irretrievable loss of Rangers’ identity and history.
As an example of this view, in corsica’s post of 10:54 this morning, he wrote:
”If a newco is formed…. [f]or the avoidance of doubt, RFC 1873 would be dead, dead, dead and no longer existing. Newco may lay claim to the history and mantle of RFC 1873, however, it is not the same company or club. End of.”
Slimshady made related points at 5:19 pm today – as have many others.
Despite corsica’s emphatic closing comment I take issue with this claim, and with this general line of argument. I don’t say definitively that it’s wrong, but at the very least I see room for other viewpoints, and while I might not have a great deal of sympathy for some of them, I think they have some force and deserve to be aired properly.
I’d therefore like to set out a line of reasoning which I think bears closer examination than it has received to date. I’m conscious that the viewpoints I’m putting across are – to say the least – not likely to find favour with many contributors, but hope that everyone will take it in the spirit of enquiry in which I put it forward. I fully expect to see some strongly-expressed disagreement to what I have set out below. I only ask that people consider it with an open mind, because if I am right, then it has important consequences for how the fight for the integrity of Scottish football should be waged. I’ll come back to that point at the end of my post.
One part of what Corsica says is simply factual: if a Newco is formed and Oldco liquidated, RFC 1873 will indeed be “dead, dead, dead”. Also, Newco will self-evidently not be the same company, whether or not it “lay[s] claim to the history and mantle of RFC 1873″.
My doubts centre round the proposition that Newco is “not the same…. club.” To form a view on whether this is so, we have to understand in the first instance what is meant a ‘club’ in this context.
The definition of ‘club’ in the SPL Articles is as follows: “Club means the undertaking of an association football club which is, for the time being, entitled, in accordance with the Rules, to participate in the League”.
The drafting is dreadful, as is par for the course in SPL documentation; the use of “club” in the definition of “club” is particularly unhelpful. However, the wording makes a clear attempt to distinguish between the entity that owns the undertaking, and the undertaking itself.
Clause 6 makes that distinction clearer still: “A Share may only be issued, allotted, transferred to or held by a person who is the owner and operator of a Club and if a Member shall cease to be the owner and operator of a Club then such Member shall cease to be entitled to hold a Share.”
Clause 6 speaks about the person (in the case of Rangers, RFC plc (IA)) that “is the owner and operator of the Club”. Clearly, the club is not that person. The clause also makes it clear that it is the “owner and operator” that holds the share, not the club itself.
Clearly, then, the ‘club’ is not the company. This is I think fairly well accepted; corsica’s own post distinguishes between the two concepts, and historically both Celtic and Rangers (and no doubt many other clubs) existed before they were incorporated.
Logically, if the ‘person’ (the company) and the ‘undertaking’ (the club) are distinct, it may be possible for one to continue in existence without the other.
That is simple enough to see in the situation where a company continues to exist, and perhaps trade in another business, but no longer operates a football club. Changes of this sort in a company’s principal activity are common. I haven’t looked for examples, but it’s quite possible that (for example) the limited company that used to own Third Lanark is still in existence, doing something entirely unconnected with football.
Is it possible, though, for the club to continue to exist independently of the company? The consensus here seems to be that it cannot; but I suggest that it can.
The SPL’s definition (see above) identifies a club as an ‘undertaking’, the definition of which can vary depending on the context. In EU competition law ‘undertaking’ is very widely defined, being any entity engaged in an economic activity. One might alternatively think of an undertaking as a business or any separately identifiable part of a business that is or can be seen as an independent entity.
It is a commonplace in competition and commercial law that an ‘undertaking’ can be transferred from one entity to another. Companies are forever selling brands, groups of assets, whole businesses to each other; and moving these entities between different corporate structures. In almost any other context but the one we are discussing here, continuity of a business’s identity is not a controversial issue; no-one suggests that the identity of (say) Heinz baked beans is somehow lost if the brand, recipe and other key elements of that business (usually but not necessarily including the relevant factories and staff) are moved between group subsidiaries or sold outright to a competitor. I see no unique aspect of a football club that would dictate otherwise from a normal commercial perspective.
So the many recent attempts by non-Rangers supporters to identify a football club rigidly with a particular legal person seem to me to be misguided, or at least redolent of special pleading.
A second argument that has been advanced is that the licence granted by football authorities is the key; the general view is that for as long as that licence endures, the club is the same, but if the licence changes, the club is no more.
That proposition also seems to me to be less than compelling, and I’ll give two examples that undermine it; one from outside the world of football, the other from within it.
Many businesses are required to maintain a licence from some authority or other in order to trade – pubs and restaurants, to name but two. If a restaurant loses its licence (perhaps for health & safety violations) but seeks and obtains a new licence a few weeks or months later and re-opens – even under new ownership – who would argue that its identity has been lost if there is reasonable continuity in terms of location, staff, brand, ambience or cuisine?
The football-related example is MK Dons. This club operates (I believe) via the same limited company and FA licence that previously served from Wimbledon FC. It was actually a few years after the club moved to Milton Keynes that its owners decided to create a new club with a new history – and so they did.
Showing you can have two clubs (consecutively) under one licence is not the same as proving you can have one club (consecutively) under two licences. However, I do think the two examples I have given show the view that there is an unbreakable equivalence between a licence and the identity of a club rests on rather shaky foundations.
A third parallel argument relates to the non-transferability of Rangers’ history; on the one hand the pride, the trophies won, the fine and not-so-fine players who have represented the club; on the other, the bigotry, the riots. What happens to that on the creation of a Newco? Does it transfer, stay with Oldco, or what?
Paul67 has argued on CQN that history is not an asset to be sold; Roger Federer cannot sell his Grand Slam titles to someone else, no matter how much money they pay, nor can Rangers sell their league titles.
That seems right; but equally, there are circumstances in which history cannot be retained. Consider the situation where RFC plc sells its football club to a Newco, which then trades as Rangers. If Oldco then settles with its creditors and starts another football club in the junior leagues – perhaps even using the current SFA licence – the new club clearly has no claim to Rangers’ history other than the coincidence of mutual ownership. Equally, while Oldco can talk about its historical involvement in Rangers, its claim to a share in the glory (and ignominy) is greatly attenuated if the undertaking of Rangers continues in Newco.
In my view, the history pertains to the business, or the ‘undertaking’, and adheres to it on any transfer. By analogy with the business examples I mention above (the Heinz baked bean busines being sold; restaurants closing and opening), if the undertaking of Rangers is retained substantially intact, with continuity applying to at least some of the stadium, manager, team members, staff, brand name, team colours and badge etc., the business can make a perfectly legitimate claim to ‘its’ history.
The practice of hiving a football club down into a Newco subsidiary, or selling it into new ownership may be seen as morally objectionable, especially if (as in Rangers’ case) it is motivated by a desire to escape the economic consequences of profligacy or – it seems – outright cheating. However, by the law of the land such actions are permissible; and there seems to me to be no compelling argument that as to why Rangers or indeed any football club should be treated in a fundamentally different way from other businesses.
While it has not been spelt out, at least anywhere that I have seen, the proposals of Bill Miller and the apparent stance of Neil Doncaster and the SPL are presumably based on arguments along the lines of those I have advanced above. If (as it seems to me) these arguments have force, that needs to be acknowledged, however unpopular the conclusions might be. I would be very interested to hear the views of other posters with relevant knowledge or expertise.
I’m conscious that what I have written above is not likely to be welcomed by those who want to see Rangers suffer for its sins. However, the sporting issues are distinct from the legal and economic ones, and there are still strong arguments for unpleasant consequences to ensue for a Newco Rangers which purports to be a continuation of RFC plc (IA), whether or not it is parachuted into the SPL.
Specifically, if Newco claims continuity of identity with Oldco, it may (and probably will) escape all economic or legal sanction based on the misdeeds of Oldco, but as the same sporting entity Newco must accept the entirety of any sporting punishment meted out to Oldco, including fines, transfer bans, the retrospective loss of games for a decade or more, the stripping of titles and trophies won in that time (whether or not awarded to others), automatic relegation as a consequence of finishing bottom of the league in 11/12 with -10 points, and the enforced assumption of some or all of Oldco’s debts to other football clubs.
I said earlier in this post that the way the fight for the integrity of Scottish football should be waged depends crucially on the issues discussed above. If ‘Rangers’ can be legally transferred to a new company, and it suits the various parties involved to do so, that is what will happen. Bragging rights in Scottish pubs for decades to come may centre around whether Newco really ‘owns’ Rangers’ history, but the official record books will show that it does, and if that happens, the decision is unlikely ever to be rescinded.
In my view, the only way to ensure that justice is done, and seen to be done, is therefore to embrace Newco’s claim to ‘be’ Rangers, if that is what its owners wish to do; on the sole but non-negotiable condition that the appropriate sporting sanctions for Oldco apply in their entirety to Newco.
As a result, if the new club is truly and explicitly that from the outset, arguments that ‘the SPL needs Rangers’ will lose all their force, as everyone will be accepting that Rangers no longer exist; and if it is not, Newco Rangers will face the same punishments that Oldco would have faced had its owners and custodians not driven it to an early grave.
I’m travelling all day tomorrow and have a lot to do tonight, but I’ll try to respond to any posts that reply to this one, whenever I get a chance.
Just watchd the BBC2 Newsnight programme with the ‘expert’ financial consultant.
What a load of mince. She did not answer one question asked, but kept repeating that stage one of the BM plan was entirely feasible.
Who defines on the BBC what an ‘expert’ is. She totally out her depth or hubby is a blueboy as she totally inept.
What we are now seeing is Gas being thrown on the Barbie ( for our OZ viewers) stand back and watch the blue flame burn :)
Er, for what my opinion’s worth, re EL, he’s always been one of the main defenders of the Celtic Support on this site imo. Am sure the intelligence of his arguments aren’t lost on most of us.
jimtim
Good evening, you didnt miss much gamewise, but the Thai Tims were a delight and the GB bhoys gave it laldy.
The manky mob are still with us…….
Sad but true.
Hope you are well,
What if the newco is a Jaffa ?
Is that the plan ?
Gotta Go.
Good Night Scotland
Good Night Ireland
Good Night Wales
Good Night England
Good Night Canada
Good Night New Zealand
Good Night Australia
And
Good Night, Tanda Sherif.. Wherever ,You Are.
Kojo
Still.. Laugin’
WDH
Thanks buddy
MWD
Not much can be said about tonight’s match – apart from the 3 points.
MOTM (plural) – the Thai Tims!
God bless them!