Spanish football, like its economy in general, in mired in difficult financial times, which, apart from one or two well-funded clubs, has restricted the budgetary scope of a large number of teams. I had hoped all summer to hear we were on the case but it wasn’t until the final day of the window that solid opportunities materialised.
Marseille-born Tunisian international Lassad Nouioui is a complete unknown to all of us but his profile, earned at Deportivo La Coruna, fits the bill. He scored a handful of goals as Deportivo finished 18th and dropped out of La Liga in season 2010-11 but hit the heights last season as they secured promotion. It would be practically impossible for Celtic to sign a striker with the equivalent profile in English football, despite the apparent gap in standards between La Liga and the English Premier. I’m also delighted to hear Levante, who finished 6th in La Liga last season, were so keen to capture him.
There is also something I like about the port-town mentality the people of Marseille have. It’s very Glaswegian. Lassad should flourish here.
I’m not sure what Phil Mac Giolla Bhain’s reaction was when The Sun called asking for an interview about his new book, which details the mainstream media’s failure to report the demise of Rangers. “Are you joking?” may have been appropriate. I had no prior notice they were running an interview yesterday and couldn’t believe the promotion they gave to a book detailing the failure of their industry.
This was not without consequences, of course, and The Sun got themselves into an incredible mess, today trying their best to backpedal, which is pretty much what the theme of the book predicts (irony #1). Meanwhile there is a book publisher in Glasgow who cannot believe his luck. Thousands of unwitting critics and a leading newspaper have ensured Mac Giolla Bhain, who would struggle for a platform without the anger of others, has a bestseller on his hands (irony #2).
845 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- ...
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- »
eldiegobhoy
21:37 on
3 September, 2012
magnificent7 do they pay to get in?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It will be the first time they’ve fully paid for ANYTHING In 20 years …….. Hope someone’s checking that they’re paying the tax due these days ……LOL…..!!!!
Inver @ 22.35
Fascism is different from Nazism.
Facism’s roots extend to well before WW1.
Musso just worked the angle better than anyone else, the Italian state was young, shallow rooted and weak plus the sense of disapointment with the gains they managed to accrue was huge throughout society.
Snake plissken.
Hope you are right.
I take heart from what you say about their financial situation.
Still I think they will ride the storm and be back debt free.
They are the club with no shame.
Hopefully someday we will be free from their poison.hh
Off topic but see Gideon got booed at the Paralympics, fantastic stuff.
Linky for those who need a good laugh:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqM0Ube0oLs
ThomtheTim / All
Our destiny / future in Scottish Football is very much in our own hands.
Personally, I think we are reasonably well run club, but I believe we lack vision at the top.
Over the next 4 / 5 years we have the chance to use our wealth and income gap to our advantage. In this current fiscal, our turnover should be back nudging £50m, whilst our wage bill is around 50/60% of the £43m (?)peak, and realistically our competitors will have £5/6m wage bills.
This vast excess can either be frittered away, or used to :
– Build a sustainable team , ideally with 5/ 6 who have come through the ranks , plus 2/3 from other Scottish clubs, and 2/3 buy ins
– Build a team that is pacey and tactically aware, combined with inherent Scottish passion
– Use some of the champs league revenue to build our fan base both domestically ( via digital media) and internationally.
– Potentially we can go abroad for midweek exhibition games , knowing that we have enough in reserve to cope with the game on the Saturday.
– Develop strong partnerships with worldwide brands to position ourselves as a big team …it amazes me we never linked up with a Samsung or Kia when we had Ki, with a bit of clever marketing we could have signed them up for a low return, but , made the money (and some) elsewhere
– Invest in the stadium, with different types of catering facilities as per Wembley
These are just a few of the possibilities floating around my head, I am sure better brains than mine will be more imaginative.
Alternatively, we can spend the next 5 years talking ourselves down, moaning about the wealth of the premiership,living out conspiracy theories, and looking forward to the re-incarnation :-)
Aye ok, i get the message.
TET
Totally agree. They will have the masonic hand to play but they always have had and historically they always have not had success with this.
The 60’s
The 70’s
The early 80’s
They were bit parts or nowhere despite Masonic refereeing and their nonsense. They got their time in the 90’s and the EBts but now this has been exposed. We have a group of internet bampots who will watch them like hawks and the industrial scale of cheating will not be allowed to escalate as it once was.
They will still cheat and be helped but those days are now gone.
Italian … @ 22.40
Sniffy is not toast.
He is a useless upper middle class, privately educated, dog boiler who has no clue about economics or the way that a modern industrial economy works.
If you want to understand his economic policy watch the film “Ace in the hole”.
It was written 50 years ago but it hits the nail on the head.
TExTim
You are right to be cynical. Clearly, Scotland’s elite (politicians, lawyers, media) cannot accept the death of Der Hun.
The current coverage of them is astonishing, pathetic, and paints a terrible image of Scotland as a nation – Scotland looks small, corrupt, and compromised by a hideously bigoted institution, the likes of which most civilised countries had ditched long ago.
Nonetheless, the fawning over them does not change the fact that they are dead, in a legal sense (or will be very soon, officially).
The media understand this. The politicians understand this. And deep down their fans know this too.
So sit back, and enjoy Celtic coining it in in the CL, winning league titles and cups, possibly utterly humiliating Sevco in the odd cup tie, and burnishing our record at home and abroad.
Best case for them, their team is gerrymadered back into the SPL in 2 years time, by which time we should have earned milllions in Europe and started a footballing dynasty under one of Britain’s brightest young managers.
Worst case – administration, again. Liquidation, again. Criminal charges, arrests, police raids, titles stripped from the old corpse, massive lawsuits. A stadium slowly becoming unfit and unsafe, crippling any meagre recovery. The total and utter demolishing of what little value remains in their brand and standing among fans in Scotland and abroad.
They are finished. As Frank Pentangeli so memorably said of the Rosado brothers…
Morti…
The Associated Press
@AP
BREAKING: “Green Mile” actor Michael Clarke Duncan dead at 54, his fiancée says.
RIP big man
SffS
Invercelt
22:35 on 3 September, 2012
I wasn’t trying to suggest that Zionism was responsible for Nazism mate.That was the conclusion that i drew from Weeshaun’s take on the matter…where he stated that Wall Street bankers were to blame for starting both the ideologies in question.
It does seem strange as to why men like Jacob Schiff would see fit to bankroll to Bolshevik revolution,as Communism surely went against everything that financial power-brokers like himself represented.As for being responsible for Nazism? – Never in a million years would i believe that notion.
I honestly do not know enough about the subject to make such claims in support of those theories,or claims to the contrary.
Always good to read and learn from your contributions all the same.
ticketbus
Get the toys back in the pram :-) If you read earlier, you’ll see that AweNaw wanted to keep his story quiet. It’s a small tidbit which in and of itself means little but may be the start of a developing story. Honestly mate, it’s nothing major at this stage.
Snake
They are receiving as much MIB assistance now as they did previously
The MSM are backing them to the hilt …the financial cheating is no more ..nothing else has changed
Thankfully I believe there is more to come by way of difficulties for them ..hopefully they will be insurmountable ..
However the will of the establishment is for them to survive
sipsini
We’ll only get away from their poison when we get out of Scotland which might never happen.
They are bluster and nothing more.
They have 3 years of suffering and struggling minus league reconstruction. The novelty is high right now and they have waffle waffle waffle and nothing more.
3 years minimum minus European football – huge financial restraints and lets not forget minus the last 3 years of Euro cash they’d have died in 2009. The 20M spend in 2008 kept them going for 3 years but it was like a plastic bag full of water with a hole in the bottom and that hole kept on getting bigger. They kept on filling the bag with more water but that is a losing battle.
They will return to the pre-Souness days provided we keep them in the lowewr leagues allowing the other SPl teams to build up their teams.
Why did 80,000 boo Osborne? Because that’s the maximum capacity of the Olympic Stadium.
Just ordered Phils book
So Phil Mac Giolla Bhain has really hit the bone with this book good on him I say and Im looking forward to the sequel
He was only the only journo who asked the questions and predicted the outcomes if those questions remained unanswered.
He has also exposed the grip oldco/newco have on the media here and this latest Sun capitulation can only do Phils story (shining a light into the darkness) of oldcos demise the world of good
Seems newco is following oldco in its methods and have taken the same approach as oldco albeit this time with the added violent threats from their fans.
Regan mentioned “social unrest” in relation to oldcos future and from what we have seen so far he was not far off the mark
Something as simple as a book enrages them
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/41/01622.gif/
MadMitch
gordybhoy64
….PFayr
It will be interesting to see how things pan out.
Antifa – Give my head peace you.
Pf Ayr
Bottom line:
They have 10M quid.
that covers a year of wages.
It all starts again soon especially if the crowds disappear.
Ok cheers bloke109.
Ghordyboy
Until such time as the FTT make a ruling with reasons why and until The Independent panel rule on dual registrations Celtic can say nothing.
Officially Rangers have not been found guilty of anything that has impacted negatively on Celtic. Until that stops being so there is nothing to say.
However if it comes out Rangers are guilty shareholders have the means of forcing the issue. It may fall into next year but the means of doing so exists if sufficient shareholders have the will.
Patience.
Snake
I have always said that they could never master us, on or off the field even with their cheating and dodgy dealing.
I agree that they will be watched like never before, but even a couple of days ago, they were still cheating.
They hadn’t signed Templeton by the end of the transfer window, so as if by magic, the sfa computer crashed at 5 to 11, and there was not a feckin thing that anybody could do, it’s still in our face.
And if the problems with the referees are not addressed, same old is just around the corner.
There is an oportunity to fix the game for the benefit of all of football in scotland, if the desire to have scotland competing again at the major tourneys, footballers must be allowed to play.
I hark back to the huns and their dominence in scotland during their 9iar, and them getting papped out of europe reguarly, the excuse was there was not competition in scotland hence them getting humped every year……they were humped out every year because there was fair referees in europe….and that is a FACT!!!!!
The SFA have confirmed that next summer’s transfer window closes on 31 August, so Sevco are barred for the duration. HOWEVER, there’s nothing to stop them signing out-of-contract players on 1 September (like we did with Lassad).
It’s a moot point anyway. As soon as Ticketus get their money back, they’ll walk off leaving a crumbling stadium, a shambles of a squad and thousands of confused chimps who have just bought worthless shares.
ticketbus
Cannot help you mate on Aw naws post, just didd’nt want you to get that David McCallum feeling, maybe someone can enlighten us.
bitofacliqueonhereattimescsc
HH
Whens Phils book out and where can i get it?
B-)
snake plissken
22:26 on
3 September, 2012
Absolutely…….. good mhan ….!!!
OG Rafferty
Guy on TSFM claims he phoned BDO London to ask when they go in and was told HMRC have not instructed them.
Given the weight/hope being placed on BDO maybe worth checking?
Somebody at the legal level is driving with their brakes on if true.
Mussolini was a socialist, who became a nationalist. He was also a supreme opportunist.
All these things are the truest elements of that strange political creed, “fascism”.
The Italian state was weak, and unpopular. The great liberal revolution that had united the peninsula (the “Risorgimento”) was admired only by a band of irrelevant Northern intellectuals.
The Church loathed the young state, alienating Catholics from feeling fully “Italian”, and most people regretted the loss of local power and prestige and had little loyalty to the succession of weak governments in Rome.
In addition, Italy had endured a disastrous WW1, inept in both its diplomacy and military prowess. It was humiliated in the settlements afterwards.
In these circumstances a powerful, charismatic leader was able to grab power easily, manipulate the monarchy and sweep away democratic institutions. Do a deal with the Church and set out on lunatic colonial adventures all in the name of “making Italians Italian”.
Economically, Mussolini’s fascism was leftist, and corporatist. Socially, he was profoundly conservative, and whilst not initially as genocidally racist as his soon-to-be-ally in Germany, his fascism was an extreme and ugly chauvinistic nationalism. Jews were little safer in Italy than in Germany by the 1930s.
He was not an intellectual by any means, and his fascism ultimately proved that Italians – whatever they were – weren’t the race of blood-soaked Wagnerian supermen Mussolini hoped them to be.
Auldheid
Since you are around.
You have mail !!!
the exiled tim
23:01 on 3 September, 2012
Absolutely SPOT ON …..
TET
Preaching to the converted.
The Cardigan was a garbage manager and still is. Minus Bobby Tait et al and th Bank of Scotland he never won anything fairly.
they will be back – like all movie monsters but they won’t be the same as the sequels are never the same as the original.
It’s reasuring that so many think they are done for.
I would be a glass half empty kinda person, I just don’t want to get my hopes up too much.
blantyretim
19:51 on
3 September, 2012
estorilbhoy
can’t find you in my list o(
—–
CRC orPaul, can you provide BT with my. Email address please?
Way off topic,just watched the latest episode of Breaking bad, the last episode until next year. Wow just wow.
Monday nights just aren’t going to be the same.
67 Heaven
We need to think long term with this.
They are done and we know how they will be minus success.
Eventually newco will be successful but these things will not be overnight.
Sir Kojo of Vegas….
I presume that you’re in complete agreement with the latest article from Our Esteemed Host….
I don’t know a great deal about the newcomers to our New Lisbon Lions….
But I expect they will enhance the Quality Quotient of the Squad….
All Big Strapping Lads as well,something of a return to the MON Era….?
And They Seem Smart,Switched-On Chaps….
Not Badge-Kissing Mercenaries…As far as I can see….
Slimmer squad than this time last year..
But we surely now have more players of
quality….worthy of pulling on the Hoops
In any competition….
The trick will be in juggling the squad,to keep the players happy with the number of their own team appearances…
Perhaps Celtic should introduce a mandatory ‘personal development’ program for their players….for the days when they are not required on the pitch
Appreciation of the Arts,Book Club,Dietetics,Outward Bound Adventure
and a First Team Glee Club..based at Bar67….?
Referees permitting….And if the Creek don’t rise….
I reckon we’ll surprise a fair few folk in the Champions League….
Possibly going even further than Gordon Strachan’s most successful campaigns..
Where with a bit more self-belief…..
We could have found ourselves in a Final?
Ain’t That The Truth….Virginia ??
Italia
Interesting stuff.
Until recently,I had never realised how young a country Italy is.
Auldheid, 23:04 on
I think they’re in next month
Italia … @ 23.04
Fascism predates Musso.
It had been kicking around for a while as an alternative to class based solidarity politics.
The whole thing was based on the individual acting with others to collectively boost the strength of the group. As always there was a strongman to lead them and change was to be slow, orderly and patronising.
The imagery and the name harked back to Roman times.
The sense of order appealed to the middle class / shopkeeper class who felt threatened by the rise of organised laboour looking to better their place in society.