Tomorrow’s SPL meeting is something of a formality, albeit as dramatic as a formality can be. The main scheduled action of the week is underway at Hampden right now. We hear that after issuing threats to exclude 20 SFL clubs from future access to the top two divisions in Scottish football, SPL and SFA chief executives, Neil Doncaster and Stewart Regan, will face irate SFL chairmen.
In mitigation of the criticism coming his way, Mr Doncaster is offering your money, in perpetuity, to buy votes to allow Sevco to gain direct access to the First Division. If passed, they would probably enter the SPL next season, close to debt free, while Celtic carry peak debt of around £35m after playing by the rules and not qualifying for Champions League football during the last three seasons.
In short, if Mr Doncaster manages to persuade the SFL chairmen to back his plan, Sevco will become by far the strongest team in the SPL a year from now.
The plan has been rejected as wholly unacceptable by an impressive list of clubs with no association whatsoever with Celtic, many of whom exist hand-to-mouth and whose vote against will cost them considerable income.
Doncaster’s part in creating this shambles cannot be underestimated. He perpetuated the myth that “Rangers” should and would be in next season’s SPL, allowing people to invest in an undeliverable strategy, including Charles Green.
Mr Doncaster is an employee of the company Celtic are an equal-twelfth shareholder in. His actions are wholly incompatible with sporting meritocracy. As Celtic shareholders we call for his resignation and, if this is not forthcoming, demand he faces a confidence vote.
“Without fear or favour” was the promise from Stewart Regan when he told us he would apply the rules evenly as the Rangers saga unfolded. In advocating rules are torn up and replaced his words are laughable.
His assertion that the actions of Campbell Ogilvie over Rangers EBTs had been investigated and that Ogilvie was found to be without blame was misleading. It is our assertion that the actions of Mr Ogilvie were not investigated at all and that Mr Regan spoke to protect his ally, who remains in position despite being “heavily conflicted” according to Mr Regan, and the SFA being in desperate need of a strong and active president.
Mr Regan is now wholly compromised and must resign or also face a vote of confidence. Two years ago he joined a dysfunctional organisation. He had a great opportunity to make a name for himself as a successful troubleshooter. Instead he’s made matters worse!
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I don’t see how they could possibly let a new club enter in the first division without changing the SPL rules. And that requires a 66% vote of clubs.
bourne
My understanding of it was the same as yours.
http://blogs.channel4.com/alex-thomsons-view/potential-conflicts-interest-heart-scottish-football/2137
canamalar-a draw? think we both giving points against Bosman but past issues were 1 sided.
… and traditionalist88 did a cut’n’paste job at 16:12 …
AT blog again highlights everything that is wrong with Scottish football. Rules don’t really count as long as you tell your other cronies that are on the boards. Governance? You need to laugh…or cry!!!
Back to Celtic plc tactics – I think they have been spot on so far. Thier first public statement should be focussed on ramming the point home that there is no longer an “Old Firm”, that dies with thier liquidation. We need to ensure our brand and reputation is not tainted by any association with a toxic brand – if that means breaking contracts and re-negotiating sponsorships etc then so be it. We need to correct every utterance of old firm or rangers by the media whenever we are asked. Ram it home until they stop tiier nonsense about them still existing. They died – our condolences to all affected. No to newco. HH
Folly Folly
Yes, I should have specified it was the new blog from AT but never mind, cheers!
HH
bada..,
:o)
Sagan Slovakia wins his 2nd stage in 3 days nice wee celebration although some may call it aggressive ;-)
watch this boy go..2 year old they are calling him the new Eddie Mercx wow!
Cancellara stays in yellow
Monaghan1900 on 3 July, 2012 at 12:54 said:
….and it will get much worse………. I hope traynor and keevins are keeping abreast of FF, and will be highlighting all this in their publications, instead of their scaremongering / agenda-based / career-protecting nonsense….
Do we really want / need these peepul in Scottish Football / Society…??
Thank goodness everyone seems to be in agreement now, that the Celtic Board are absolutely correct in their strategy here (as usual) ……. It is absolutely vital that the focus is kept on RIL…….even though the LL are doing their best to blame anyone other than RIL…..pathetic little toads…
Awe_Naw_No_Annoni_Oan_Anaw_Noo on 3 July, 2012 at 12:02 said:
Absolutely SPOT ON….
Folly Folly
Cheers mate!
RANGERS TV ANNOUNCER DOESN’T EXPECT TO RETURN THIS YEAR!
http://www.newsday.com/sports/media/rangers-tv-announcer-doesn-t-expect-to-return-this-year-1.3818643
Water off a ducks back!
Tuesday 3 July 2012 4:10 pm
Alex Thomson
It all makes the clearest possible sense. Running one football club whilst having a financial interest in another is about the clearest potential conflict of interest possible in the business of sport.
Yet Channel 4 News can now reveal such possible potential conflicts are a commonplace within the game, involving key individuals, and it is allowed within the rules of the governing bodies as presently written.
Not only that. In one case this perceived conflict involves none other than the current president of the Scottish Football Association, Campbell Ogilvie, already described as “heavily conflicted” by his own chief executive and currently offering to stand aside if his presence in the job is a problem.
Offering – but not doing so.
Channel 4 News has a Companies House list of Rangers shareholders for 2008 and 2010. They prove, for instance, that the current Airdrie chairman and president of the Scottish Football League, James William Ballantyne, had 568 Rangers shares in 2008 when chairman of Airdrie.
Now, nobody is pretending these shares are worth very much money at all in the vast sea of Rangers shares. People will be interested in the principle of all this, though, not the money.
Let us consider some other high-profile figures – like Mr Ogilvie. He remains president of the Scottish FA, despite that “heavily conflicted” comment from his chief exec. In 2008 a Companies House report showed Mr Ogilvie held 3,505 Rangers shares whilst in senior management at Hearts. That year he became chief executive at Hearts and suddenly transferred his 3,505 Rangers shares to his wife Karolina, who already held 400 – thus giving her 3,905 shares.
And so to the one-time sectarian crooner Donald Findlay. Infamous for leading sectarian singing at an Ibrox function in 1999, he may have been forced out of Rangers over that unfortunate musical issue but he has not left Rangers in so many other ways. By 2010 Companies House records will tell you he held 9,900 Rangers shares whilst Chairman of Cowdenbeath FC.
No doubt there are other examples.
And so to the rulebook. Well, the Scottish Football Association rules state that:
“Except with the prior written consent of the Board, no Member, Associate Member or Official, may at one time either directly or indirectly:-
21.1.1 hold or seek to acquire beneficial ownership of or deal in the shares or securities of another club; or
21.1.2 be a member or shareholder of, or lender in any capacity to, more than one club…”
Along the corridor at Hampden Park, the Scottish Football Association handbook says pretty much the same things. And in the rules there is the rider that owning less than a 3 per cent total share value is OK.
We are talking about way less than 1 – let alone 3 – per cent in these cases.
The rules also state that having family members owning shares means they are treated as associates. That is, you’re all one in the eyes of the SFA and the SFL rulebook. Transferring shares from, say, Campbell Ogilvie to his wife would make no difference at all in law. Presumably Mr Ogilvie knew all this – he’s widely seen as an expert in football regulation.
So it’s a curious tale. What binds these people to their shares, since it cannot be the financial value? Emotion? It is far from clear. And what makes them hang on to them year after year, when doing so clearly suggests a potential conflict of interest to many, regardless of whether or not any rules have been broken?
Jim Ballantyne said everything had been declared to the boards, and in any case the share numbers are absolutely miniscule. He said:
“I see no problem here at all” and “I cleared everything with the boards” and “You are talking about the tiny fragment of one percent of ownership and this involves absolutely no influence whatsoever”.
We say that may well be true, but would it not be sensible to divest all shares in any other club when running a different one, let alone the SFL itself, just in order to avoid any perceived conflict of interest?
“No – not at all. It’s never been raised at any board meeting,” said Mr Ballantyne.
“Well, I’m raising it now’ I said.
“Well, you’re not in football,” he replied. I cannot seriously think that the president of the Scottish Football League believes only football directors can take a view on this – not the fans, not the public and not journalists. But that is what he told Channel 4 News.
And so to Donald Findlay. His case is perhaps the most curious of the lot. There is the perceived conflict of interest in running Cowdenbeath whilst owning almost 10,000 Rangers shares.
We asked Mr Findlay about the shares issue. We received the message back that he is not interested in answering, and a Cowdenbeath messenger said Mr Findlay says: “You can do what you want.” So the world must wait to know whether or not Mr Findlay regards his Rangers as a conflict of interest. If he does, he certainly does not want to talk to us about it.
At the end of the day, what you have here is another spotlight into the cosy, cronyish old world of Scottish Football, which has predictably lumbered into the 21st century only to come close to real collapse through lack of proper oversight and governance.
Many would simply say any sport which allows anyone a financial stake at all in one club whilst running another is a sport badly in need of urgent overhaul.
From these men today, no consideration or comment on the fans, the public, how this might look. Just the usual insouciance when faced with the concept that whether rules are actually broken or not, this hardly conveys a healthy impression of Scottish football.
Follow @alextomo on Twitter
I am getting sick and tired listening to this “carnage on the streets” argument as an excuse for not doing anything. It is pure scare tactics, like those the Scottish press frequently releases … and if there was a core of truth in it, even the slightest fraction of truth in fact, I would be MORE concerned than ever by silence hiding behind that as an excuse.
If the argument is that we are being silent because speaking out would incite people to violence then SHAME ON US. Shame on all of Scotland, but shame on us in particular for being willing to pander to it in that way.
The kind of mindset which would have to exist for this is a mindset that would be in dire need of rooting out, of scourging from our society. It is not something I would want us to hide from but to CONFRONT.
Shame on us for doing anything else. The Raith Rovers chairman spoke out today, bravely, after a Rangers forum threatened to torch his stadium.
What was he doing? Daring them?
No, he was calling their bluff. He knows these are gutless specimens. He knows the majority of them, those who were too idle, too lazy, too self absorbed to even SAVE THEIR OWN CLUB are not the kind of people to cause “carnage on the streets.” When I look at the bigot brigade of the Rangers support right now, do you know what I see? Clearly?
Spineless, weak-willed jellyfish. Lacking in every department. They don’t have the stomach to fight to save their own club.
David Murray brought devastation to Rangers. Yet still he lives out there in full public view, his life and health perfectly intact. Craig Whyte swans around Scotland without fear; I could walk to his front door right now … everyone knows where it is … and knock on it. He somehow stays alive despite DESTROYING Rangers utterly. Charles Green has been accused of lying to them, stealing their money, hiving off assets, planning to strip the corpse …. and he gets by.
And yet a statement from Celtic will cause carnage?
Believe it or not, the vast majority of even their worthless moronic hate filled bigots aren’t psychopaths. Hard as this is for some to believe.
And those who are? We should certainly not be pandering to them or cowering in fear of what they might do. If we’re allowing this small minority of nutters to influence events then we are at a sorry, sorry pass.
auldheid,
so it appears there is such a thing as an EGM at the sfa, still cant find anything about it in the sfa documentation, or the requirements to call for and EGM.
I stil think this is the best way to go, independant judicial panel investigation into the corruption within the sfa which led to the current problems.
Any more news on the SFL meeting, please?
Sfl clubs will meet again next Thursday to decide if Rangers newco will be allowed into SFL. 50% vote required. More soon @bbcsportsound @BBCBMcLauchlin 2 minutes ago
rule change then
next it will be 25%
SSN “Great celebration” by winner of today’s stage of the Tour de France. Sort of makes up for listening to 3 Huns prior.
Paul67
“Celtic must call for resignation of Regan and Doncaster”
That’s exactly what THEY want Celtic to do ………. This situation is progressing towards total Armageddon for sevco, and towards resignation all over the place within SFA / SPL …….Celtic’s strategy of letting them expose themselves for what they are, is commendable, and spot on…..
from RTC.
corsica says:
03/07/2012 at 4:13 pm
19 0 Rate This
Please bear with me here…
I reposted the following late last night in response to another post (I had originally posted it a week ago):
“Sky doesn’t disclose subscriber numbers but a wee friend of mine tells me the average monthly subscription is £53.15 and they have about 625,000 subscribers in Scotland. Just in case you can’t do the maths, that is a football contract worth £18m per annum against an income stream of c.£398,625,000 per annum from Scottish subscriptions alone (and let’s face it, is anyone really watching Sky for anything other than football?). When you put it like that then Doncaster should be sacked for negotiating such a terrible deal let alone anything else.”
I also added the following:
“The source was a senior News International employee. I have since had some clarification…the figure which I gave as average monthly subscription figure has been revised up to £53.50. Sky has 10.3m UK customers generating revenues of £6.6bn and an operating profit of over £1bn. Less than 5% of Sky customers do not have sports packages.
In light of the information from Norway, I stand by the last sentence in my previous post.”
My Sky source has further clarified (having read my post on here!). The figure of £53.50 is the average income per subscription and includes advertising revenue (apparently, I am a deaf numpty) although removing advertising revenue doesn’t actually make a huge amount of difference because it is only £450m.
Now for the “nuclear” bit, I have pushed and pushed and got the following – “any statement about Sky’s position beyond our statement that we will not walk away in relation to Scottish football is sheer fantasy. We have not even discussed or considered renegotiation. That’s not to say it won’t happen but it has NOT been discussed. We have not even intimated to anyone within Scottish football that we will seek to renegotiate”.
Regan and Doncaster leadership in this whole fiasco has bordered on corruption – they had a marvellous opportunity to rid the game of the toxicity which has drowned our game over the past 20yrs.
Rules are rules – Rangers are no longer a viable football club – Regan and Doncaster should be foccussing on other creative methods to boost our game rather than squirming to save RIL. Government funding, Lottery , youth policies and rules changes to make our game more attractive to watch.
Instead they are foccusing on the drama and desperation created by RIL and the mainstream media.
They must resign – they must be fired!!
Nasty,arrogant old men,raggin’ the life out of corrupt wee leagues to keep their filthy wee orangeism up and running.
Rather unappealing.
Hold on …. the vote next week is to put them in the SFL ?
That DOES only require 50% of the vote. It’s a straightforward admission.
To let them play in SFL 1 would require slightly more.
That’s my take on this. It’s good news.
Taxi for Ogilive!..Taxi for Ogilvie!
James Forrest is Neil Lennon! We are ALL Neil Lennon! on 3 July, 2012 at 16:30 said:
James – what would you have Celtic say in this statement? I’m sure when the time is right, Celtic will say all they have to.
As other have already hinted at – calm down mate, you’re getting a little hot under the collar for no reason. Patience, my fellow Celt, patience…
now the ball is in Charles Green court to come up with a plan as to how to establish a football club in a few weeks.
has he paid 5.5m to Duff & Phelps ?
Ballantyne, Findlay and Ogilvie flaunt the rules. Strategically placed Rangers shareholders with votes and power in Scottish football. It is little wonder they brought the game to its present state with their desperate attempts to keep the hun on top.
It really is rotten to the core and they don’t even try to hide it.
James Forrest is Neil Lennon! We are ALL Neil Lennon! on 3 July, 2012 at 16:33 said:
Hold on …. the vote next week is to put them in the SFL ?
That DOES only require 50% of the vote. It’s a straightforward admission.
To let them play in SFL 1 would require slightly more.
That’s my take on this. It’s good news.
hope ure right james
Sheik Yerbouti:
Yeah mate, I’m certain of that. To allow a club entry to the league requires a majority vote of the membership. To let NewCo straight into Division 1 would require the 66% majority and the wholesale changing of the rules.
By the way … those rule changes also require a 8 – 4 majority vote in the SPL or they are not carried. It is a restructuring of all the leagues, remember?
So SPL clubs will have to decide all over again.
@brotherwalfrid: The President of the SFA and the President of the SFL are Rangers shareholders… Just saying like :-) Paranoid ? who ? us ? :-)
Turnbull Hutton states publicly, ” It’s corrupt. ” Nobdy bats an eyelid or misses a step or does a double take. Why? Because it’s true. It’s stark staring effing obvious. Yet….on we go. Why? Because corruption is the norm.
No wonder a man sets himself on fire in a JobCentre.
Sometimes it all makes you desperately sick of living in such a baselessly corrupt and rotten world.
Scottish football governance has become as wholly corrupt as it’s possible to be.
Yet….on we go. Why? Because the practitioners of all thus corruption are bulletproof. And they have the likes of that vile liar,Jabba to provide them with all the care and tainted love he can lavish on them.
And the gullible and gutless swallow this sewage like it was ambrosia.
Makes you sick,eh?
to be considered for entry into the sfl they need a license, we know they dont qualify for a license, whats going on here, we should no even be thinking about the entry into the sfl, we should be demanding to know how a license has been granted
Just read AT’s blog
BOOOOOoooooommmmmpssssssstttttttttttssssssqqqqqqqquuuuuuiiiiiiiibbbbbbbbbbb…
Was expecting so much more.
Not even a rule break.
MWD
Bada, wont be a problem at all :-) if you fancy a round you can contact me at owen.hutchison@btinternet.com HH
Ballantyne is President of the SFL and chairman of Airdrie and he will not vote next week. Why is he in these positions?
He should throw his lot in with Bomber.
Ogilvie when MD of Hearts held 4,000 hun shares; I’m sure he was fully committed to his job in Edinburgh. No wonder Romanov speaks of the Scottish ‘mafia’.