I hear the SFA had asked for clarification on Craig Whyte’s alleged disqualification as a director, without getting confirmation one way or another, since the issue was initially brought to their attention by the landmark BBC documentary, Rangers: The Inside Story. Rangers disclosure to the Plus Exchange (where the club’s shares are traded) on Wednesday that this specific BBC allegation was correct, was the information the SFA needed before they were in a position to act and apply a Fit and Proper Person (FPP) test to Whyte.
Dramatic though it sounds, failing a FPP test, in itself, is only likely to cause superficial damage to a club or its owner. An owner would need to resign as a director but he could allow the other directors to continue running the business, or he could appoint a proxy to take control of the business, which is often the way controllers run football clubs anyway.
What is of more interest, however, are matters likely to be disclosed as part of the SFA investigation. The Association would require Mr Whyte to explain what he did to be barred from holding a directorship for seven years, something the BBC lawyers would be able to question Whyte on in the witness box, should he actually sue, instead of repeatedly threatening to do so.
Of most interest to the SFA will be Rangers financial submission for their Uefa licence, which enabled the club to be nominated as Scotland’s participants in this season’s Champions League. A condition of participation in Uefa competitions is that no debts to tax authorities due on 31 December the preceding year remains unpaid on 31 March.
In September HM Revenue and Customs gained permission from the court to freeze £2.3m of Rangers money in connection with an unpaid tax bill. The principle element of this bill has not been disputed by Rangers. The SFA will now be keen to establish if any part of this bill was in connection to taxes due in prior to 31 December 2010. If it was, Celtic were entitled to be Scotland’s Champions League representatives, when overcoming the likes of Malmo stood between them and a £15m pay-day.
This is a legal minefield for the SFA chief exec, Stewart Regan, who has my sympathy. Things are about to become interesting.
While we are on the subject of that £2.3m tax bill, HM Revenue and Customs are due to get their hands on the cash after Friday next week, the last day Rangers are able to dispute the debt. If Rangers enter administration prior to that date, the cash would revert to the administrator and the club’s secured creditors would be entitled to it.
1,470 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- ...
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- ...
- 36
- »
setting free the bears says:
2 December, 2011 at 20:4
To this day, I still find it puzzling that so many had a prejudice against him. Prejudice, in the sense that they predicted he would fail and be bad for us and, that prejudice held even against the weight of evidence he produced over the next 4 years. He never won the majority of the crowd round and it remains puzzling to this day why that prejudgement was so harsh.
You show it yourself in the line:-
“I thought that he wasted a considerable financial advantage that we had over Rangers.”
He won 3 out of 4 titles and failed 4iar by the length of midge’s tadger’s smallest hair. He got us twice further in CL than we had managed under the contrastingly loved MON. That’s some failure!! I’ll take that failure rate and 75% of SPL titles contested all the way to my grave
..
By the end, the “dislikers” were able to justify the “sack Strachan” by arguing that the football was not pleasing to the eye. They were right about that but wrong about so much else.
————————–
Excellent post.
JF
Where was WGS managing when Levien got the Scotland job? Can’t even remember him being in contention for the post.
The press would have murdered him if he got that job.
I like watching him on tv now. He seems happy with his life, something that probably hasn’t always been the case.
For what it’s worth, my take on GS is this. When he played against us he antagonised our support because, apart from being a great
player who could damage us he was a passionate, driven winner. A typical in-yer-face fiery redhead (remind you of anyone?)
As a manager he says that when he arrived he wasn’t a Celtic fan but he he certainly left as one. The way he sticks up for us in the TV studio tells me
that he really means it.
I disliked him as an opposing player, grew to respect him as a manager and now love the wee man as a fellow tim.
There is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner and all that………..
Since taking over ragers CW has not
1. paid the small tax bill
2. been to confession
3. front loaded his war chest
4. Patched up his differences with his tailor.
5. sued the BBC
6. Blinked
7 .Took his joke eyes off(the springy one`s)
8. had a board meeting
9. tied his tie straight in the morning
whitedoghunch says:
2 December, 2011 at 20:50
So I see.
Must check it out.
Paddy Gallagher says:
2 December, 2011 at 20:30
I think you are spot on, I have always thought that Craig Whyte is a patsy.
Gordon Strachan Celtic Legend, I love the wee Ghuy.
JD
Whitedoghunch.
My daughter says try the Filling Station,on the High Street,she has went there with her children.Slan
Setting Free The Bears
You opened interesting discussion. One month ago I asked the question : what would be the reaction of the support if it was Gordon Strachan the coach now, not Neil Lennon. I remember few answers but one particularly was very strange. It was kind of: whatever happens , only Neil Lennon, nobody else, NOBODY. He is the only man to who Celtic supporters can trust. Very strange in my opinion. Maybe it’s history thing, maybe some other thingsb but see that some Celtic supporters need less emotions in creating opinions.
Neil the only one to who you can trust? No! You can trust to almost every good coach who makes your club big.
Stringer Belll:
It is great seeing him as happy as he is right now. I am equally glad to see Big Tony doing well again. The job just overwhelmed him, but Gordon thrived in it. The notion he was the one who blew a financial advantage … ha! My views on that are well known and much lamented on here.
My ETims aricle on him “Thank You Gordon Strachan: I was Wrong” was the one which gave me the most pleasure of every one I wrote for them. I do believe he should have left at the end of that season, because I could see the direction his team was evolving and it wasn’t going forward, but I never believed that was his responsibility, but that of those who never backed him properly.
I still enjoy listening to him and watching him. He is a big loss to management … which today has benefited from the return of Martin O’Neill. Those were the two men who brought me my best years as a supporter, and I will never forget them for it.
Hibs beating cousins of william lanarkshire union..
ooops
game abandoned….
Zbyszek
As a human being and as a Celtic support, I and we bring our irrationality, in at least equal measure, as we do our rational thought processes to our feelings for Celtic.
Who knows what adolescent pain in the late 70’s/early 80’s left Tiny Tim and Kev Jungle so traumatised that they could not accept the man 30+ years later?
But we all have our limits. I would struggle to accept Walter Smith as our manager even though I think he is a good coach. I would find Graeme Souness unacceptable. Winning Gemmell would not thank you for a decision by Alex Ferguson to swap Old Trafford for Celtic Park.
Are there no ex-Wisla or Polonia coaches or players that you would have difficulty in accepting?
Has the weather caused the quiz to be abandoned ?
SFTB
Smith a good coach?
I beg to differ, he is a thug… and his players are thugs…
He coached(joke) he at largs 26 years ago…
Regarding the debate about Gordon Strachan.I did not want him within a hundred miles of Celtic Park,and I was glad when he left,but to be fair to him,when I have heard him speaking in the media he has always been very complimentary of Celtic and our support.
I think this is testament to our overall acceptance to our fellow man,our club is more than just a football team,something I will try and remember in the future.Slan
Anyway,I blame Tiny Tim for the loss of the last three titles…
If his Band of Screaming Jezebels had not made Gordon Strachan feel unwanted,he would have declared that he was staying on with Celtic,and we would have triumphed, even despite the Willo Window.
Footballers rarely perform well for extended periods,when there is such uncertainty about…a declaration that Gordon was staying on during that season would have galvanised our squad and driven them to glory..
Just recall the situation at Southampton,when midway through the season,Gordon let it be known that he would be leaving in the summer.From lying in fourth place in the top division,they plummeted down to the relegation zone.Perhaps Gordon is sometimes just a bit too honest for his own good.
Anyway,he had a genuine pressing need to take time out..he had a much-needed hip replacement that summer,which requires an extended period for recovery in a fit active man of his age.
So,Tiny Tim,where can I send you the bill for the three lost Champions League revenues ?
(And by the way,were you thrilled when Tony Mowbray was appointed ?).
Yer pal,who likes tae pull yer chain..
TSD.
BT
Compared to Souness, Wattie knows football.
A particularly dour and aggressive form of the game but he knows more than Souness.
James Forrest:
Re: GWS I am 100% agreement. I would have attended most Aberdeen games at Celtic Park as well as being dragged up to Aberdeen by a friend of Celtic, staying in a priest’s house in Inverurie, not that I protested too much. Strachan was an impish, full of mischief, but not a bigoted bone in his body then. I may be biased, but I always as a young bhoy admired all the Protestant players, management that played for Celtic.
They all had great loyalty to the Celtic family, that’s going back to Bertie Peacock, Bobby Evans, the greatest Celt of all was Wee Bertie, never sold their soul to the media.
Strachan as Celtic manager had a moral standard that I admired and respected, like us all had his faults, but as a pundit there are few former Celts that speaks so positely about our club. So thank you for taking the time to represent all us Celtic fans that hold Gordon Strachan dear to our hearts. There is a certain comparison with our much maligned saviour Fergus McCann. A lot of the younger Celtic fans believe all that the media print.
KEEP THE FAITH
AAh the Shamrock tinted hatred of WGS emerges yet again. Proddie dog factor I think.
3 titles, 3 cups and 2 last 16 in Champions league.
Better record than O’Neill in the Champions league.
Why does this keep cropping up?
Are prayers being offered to expunge his Celtic record or something?
SFTB
so he stiffles a game of football, does that make him a good coach ?
I thought football was about entertainment, no?
SOUNESS=ANIMAL,WATTIE=ANIMAL,SALLY=WEEBLUE TIT.
Right so…
What’s happening?
fergus slayed the blues@1958;
things CW has not done since taking over tHE RAGERS.
TOLD THE F*&$*@G TRUTH.
fanadpatriot says:
2 December, 2011 at 21:23
Regarding the debate about Gordon Strachan.I did not want him within a hundred miles of Celtic Park,and I was glad when he left,but to be fair to him,when I have heard him speaking in the media he has always been very complimentary of Celtic and our support.
I think this is testament to our overall acceptance to our fellow man,our club is more than just a football team,something I will try and remember in the future.Slan
—————-
Irony overload :O)
Whitedog…,
I think that the account that was closed was for the previous licensee.
John has not put up his own site yet, as he is concentrating on the day to day stuff.
There are other links to it, as below.
http://www.list.co.uk/place/103202-aspen-bar-and-grill/
Margaret McGill
“AAh the Shamrock tinted hatred of WGS emerges yet again. Proddie dog factor I think.”
You can try and shoe-horn the posting facts into your favourite theory but you’ll need a lot of thumb pressure.
As far as I know cathac and myself have more connection with the shamrock than Tiny Tim or Kev Jungle have, but we are not on the side of the argument that your phrase would suggest we should be.
Lots of ridiculous posts on here today. Very sad to see a great manager being so openly dissed by Celtic supporters.
Like Jock Stein, Celtic was not WGS’s first love, but judging by the way he talks fondly of our club today, I suspect it will be his last.
Many have not forgiven Gordon for not “kissing the jersey”.
He was too big, professional and respectful to do that.
BT
Football is a balance between entertainment and winning.
Get the balance wrong one way and you are Wenger’s Arsenal or John Hughes’s Hibs or Mowbray’s celtic.
Get it wrong the other way and you are Walter’s 3iar Rangers
Nationalise our water now.
This time next year we will be millionaires.
Jf agree, one too many seasons. However, I certainly couldn’t have walked away were it me in his shoes, so am in no position to pass judgement!
I listend to the clyde phone in last night fir the first time in a long time.
What astonished and depressed me was the number of Celtic fans queuing up to lay into Lennon (sic) and the team.
They were hammering him for defending BK, and saying we played well against Athletico.
Fair enough, each to their own opinion, but do you really need to phone a radio station and bleat to the nation?
These are the same guys who who’ll complain about media bias against Celtic.
We have no need for external foes.
We have enough of our own standing outside, p*ssing into the tent.
Damn I had Hibs at 7/2.
Speaking of odds I heard the bookie guy on Snyde giving odds for Huns game tomorrow-
Rangers 1/6
Draw 5/1
Dunfermline- A MASSIVE (His Words) 9/1
On Betfair today you can get
Rangers 1/6
Draw 7/1
Dunfermline A paltry 25/1
Be careful where you put your money.
SFTB
if we had a level playing field our centre halfs would be as good as theirs…
I meantioned that today to a few bhoys, if boogy played for Celtic would he have been a world beater?…
if jinky played for them how many caps would he have had?
paranoid, me?
your dam tooting I am…
my mate is a Makem…trying to convince him about MON
I always think MON is a big budget, big ambition Manager..if he is in a club with an ambitious Board and an ambitious fan base – he can take them as far as they can go.
The minute the Board or the fans drop their ambition levels – he’s off!
setting free the bears says:
2 December, 2011 at 21:31
Not shoe horning anything.
All past Celtic managers should be honored. Even Liam Brady (who was crap).
I was 13 when WGS left Aberdeen in 1984, and was I ever glad to see the back of him. I can honestly say I DID hate him, but that was more due to my age than anything else. I hated Mark McGhee as well at that time. Now that I’m a growed-up, I have the maturity to accept that opponents who do well against Celtic are only doing their job and haven’t taken it personally for at least 25 years now.
But back to WGS, there’s no doubt he was a wind-up merchant at Aberdeen, and that riled me as well, but the moment I decided that I actually liked him was when he came to Celtic Park to play for Man Utd in a friendly match, must have been 1985, or 1986. He was a substitute and along with another Utd player trotted around behind the goal at the old Celtic end to warm up. He was greeted with a loud chorus of, “Gordon Strachan, you’re a w****r, you’re a w*****.”
He looked at the crowd and gave them a cheery wave, and you could hear thousands of Celtic fans laugh in response. To me, it was almost as if collectively we had made our peace with him, and from then on, I always quite liked him.
Apart from the occasional scintillating performance, Celtic were excruciating to watch under WGS, but as far as I’m concerned, he deserves to be remembered as a Celtic Legend for winning three in a row. Only the third Celtic manager to achieve that feat.
BT
I’ll join you in Paranoiaville
BTW What did Walter teach you at that Largs’ coaching session?
P.S. Your old man had a good game in that Di Stefano testimonial game that was shown the other day.
I am convinced that wee Gordon was ” too Scottish ” to be loved by numbers of our supporters.viz.the signings of Barry Robson,Stephen Pressley,big Caldwell.
The euphemism at the time was ” not Celtic minded.”
The club has now been corrected,both nationally and politically.
Sad.
Particularly the results on the field.
Affoot.
Cults Bhoy
Pat Murphy, the cricketing journo and a close friend of MON, was on all the stations this morning saying MON was going into the Sunderland job with his eyes open. He was accepting the job though he knew there was no money to spend, apart from that generated by player sales and that some under performing top earners would need moving on.
That view of MON’s mindset, from a man who knows him, is at odds with your take (and your definition of ambition)
Margaret McGill
The shoehorning I was referring to was the suggestion that Irish fans disliked WGS more than the Scots based fans did. That is not a perception I share and the provenance of the CQN posters on opposite sides today would reverse your equation.