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Football, law breaking, organised crime and plain old bias

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By on CQN BLOG & Comments

They were an icon against fascism, a club representative of a people, more than any national identity could ever be.  We saw commonalities between Barcelona and our own heritage.  While we did what we could to earn a seat at the top table, they packed out the biggest club stadium in Europe and were invariably second, third, or sometimes first in the football money league.

Catalan prosecutors have revealed that over a 17 year period, Barcelona paid €8.4m to the former vice-president of the Spanish refereeing committee, Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, and his company.  The payments are not disputed, the former referee VP, claims the club employed him to ensure fairness.

He said, “I saw [Barcelona presidents] at most six times a year so they were calm that there were no decisions against FC Barcelona in the arbitration committee, that everything was neutral.”  The club claim they paid the money for Negreira to compile video reports to compliment information required by coaching staff.

Former Barcelona presidents, Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, face corruption charges, the former recently spent two years in prison on separate charges before being acquitted on appeal.  The club’s current president, Joan Laporta, has not been indicted, although the story has a long way to run.

Compared to what happened in Scotland – disguised renumeration and undisclosed contracts to dodge taxes and gain a sporting advantage, paying millions to a referee chief – even if you accept either parties’ version of events, is on a different level.  Perhaps only Juventus can compete with what for so many of us was an iconic bastion of goodness in the game.

Although corruption exists in football, it is rare to see payments directly between parties who should never have such commercial dealings.  More commonly, this type of payment would go through a third party.  The industry is a heady environment for ambitious lawyers, who make up a sizeable portion of the players’ agent industry.  They commonly invoice significant fees to club and can easily pay equally significant fees out for other professional services.

You may know it goes on, but even if you had all the paperwork, proving what happened was something sinister can be impossible.  Which is why this is so shoddy, lazy, even.  It is time for us to stop pretending modern sport is some bastion of 19th century ethical endeavours and accept that law breaking, organised crime and plain old bias cannot reach our fields.  To believe otherwise does our athletes and the paying customer a disservice.

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  1. setting free the bears for Res. 12 & Oscar Knox on

    I am not too fussed about results in Friendlies and Legends matches or if there’s a bit of agreed bad play to let the Testimonial Recipient score a goal. It’s all just a bit of fluff and showbiz but……..

     

     

    Yesterday at Anfield, it was the linesman and ref who were controlling who scored and who didn’t. Paul Lambert, the Legends manager, was not a party to agreeing to that farce.

     

     

    https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/celtic-liverpool-legends-michael-jordan-26561349

  4. Hot Smoked on

    BRRB :

     

    ” No wonder Melbourne Mick went oot tae dubbin his heid.”

     

     

    Life does not offer many opportunities to make such a comment.

  7. Saint Stivs on

    ‘GG on 26TH MARCH 2023 4:26 AM

     

    We used to get our nail in studs from Sneddons in Airdrie, the shop that had everything.

     

     

     

     

    Brake blocks for your bike. Blinds for the windows. Spades for the garden. Pokers for the fire. Laces for your boots. Dubbin for a Saturday morning application.

     

     

     

     

    For a reminder what these shops looked like, have a wee look at the Two Ronnies sketch. Four Candles.

     

     

     

    ———————–

     

     

    do you mean the andles for forks sketch ?

  9. Hot Smoked on

    BIGRAILROADBLUES on 26TH MARCH 2023 1:25 PM

     

    I couldn’t resist.

     

     

     

    Nor should you have. A rare opportunity should never be scorned.

     

     

    Could it catch on as an alternative for ” Off you go.” ”

     

     

    `Away an` dubbin` yer heid, ya mug.` ?

  11. Drambowiecelt on

    @Gerry…..and Big J regarding the Jota song…It was on Tik Tok he showed me.

     

    A portuguese ghirl sittin Marc Bolan style ….and a voice like an angel

     

    Givin it the whole Jota song..Ellie Dixon her name

     

    Mabye some fine Celt knows how to upload it?????

  16. Canamalar it looks like OCD obsession on

    There have been a few updates to the song with other people joining in including some rap, drums and piano, its a work in progress from what I’ve seen.

  25. Canamalar it looks like OCD obsession on

    AOW,

     

    cheers for that, nice to see people coming together for a change.

  26. ‘GG on

    Another bleak week in prospect. Deniabhoy’s post on future finances is a ray of brightness in an otherwise dark fortnight.

  27. Back to Basics - Glass Half Full on

    Just listened to AJ’s quick fire Q&A on Celtic’s YouTube channel.

     

     

    Bright lad and clearly full of energy and enthusiasm for everything.

     

     

    His perfect day off (which included athletic activity) made me smile.

     

     

    Glad we have him in our squad.

  29. GFTB on

    GG

     

     

    From during the night, All good in this part of ML5

     

     

    Back to Basics 2.46pm

     

     

    Caught the wee AJ thing from Tic TV yesterday, seems quite a driven young Bhoy … I loved both Jura & Giamakous but AJ & Oh are far younger with probably more to prove, terrific business by the boss, plus AJ & Oh are even easier to type and don’t get auto corrected :-)

  30. Saint Stivs on

    DENIABHOY on 26TH MARCH 2023 10:23 AM

     

    This will give Beale more to bump his gums about:

     

     

     

     

     

     

    “A confidential report into Celtic’s finances has revealed they are on course to announce revenue of £112million for the year ending June, 2023.

     

     

     

     

    That would represent a record annual sum posted by any Scottish football club and shares in the Hoops have subsequently increased to £1.73 – almost seven times higher than the 25p Stuart Gibson paid for each of his 4.2m Rangers shares at the end of January . The report was commissioned by the club’s stockbrokers, Canaccord Genuity Ltd, a global investment bank focused on growth companies with operations worldwide. Their report has been distributed privately to clients. The company suggests that investing in shares in the Premiership champions promises to be a bargain because it believes their price has been undervalued by the markets.

     

     

     

     

    Football finance expert David Low was Fergus McCann’s right-hand man when the US-based millionaire saved Celtic when they were just eight minutes from going to the wall 29 years ago. He studied Canaccord’s figures and, while they are clearly positive for Celtic, they won’t make good reading for their closest rivals in the Premiership title race and opponents in next month’s Scottish Cup semi-final.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The financial advantage Celtic have over Rangers is currently greater than it has ever been and Low claims that gulf is only going to become even wider in the foreseeable future. In 2022, Rangers reached the final of the Europa League (losing to Eintracht Frankfurt on penalties) then won the Scottish Cup before qualifying for the group stage of the Champions League. The Light Blues sold Nathan Patterson, Calvin Bassey and Joe Aribo for over £30m yet they still trail their city rivals commercially.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Low said: “First of all, the numbers posted by Celtic in their interim accounts were fantastic. Then the projections made by Cannacord for the remainder of the financial year are equally impressive. The turnover of £112m would be a new record, a total which has obviously been boosted by Champions League participation.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    “Should they hold on to their nine-point lead in the Premiership, that looks like being matched or more likely bettered next season because winning the title will see them automatically qualify again and there is an extra group match in the new-look competition.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    “The outlook for Celtic is compelling and gives the club the opportunity to put that money to good use in Europe. Canaccord are clearly impressed by the potential to grow that income, otherwise they wouldn’t have recommended their clients should buy shares, which they evidently believe are undervalued at today’s price. As to how that impacts the Scottish game, it means that Celtic are currently further ahead of Rangers financially than David Murray’s Rangers were ahead of the old board when Celtic almost went bust in 1994.”

     

     

     

    ————————————–

     

     

    https://www.google.com/search?q=celtic+plc+share+price&rlz=1C1GCEA_enGB775GB775&oq=celtic+plc+share+price&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i512j0i22i30l5j0i390i650l2.14398j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

     

     

    share is not trading at 1.75

  31. Tontine Tim on

    BIGRAILROADBLUES on 26TH MARCH 2023 1:09 PM

     

    Fess19 12.38

     

     

    Lon Chaney. Ffs hahahaha 😂

     

     

    *I always found it slang for something else that gave a lot of fun tae many of us

  33. Canamalar it looks like OCD obsession on

    St Syives,

     

    that’s right it says £1.73 but the ORDINARY 1P share is currently £1.15 to buy.

  35. paulsthroughball88 on

    BURNLEY78 on 25TH MARCH 2023 5:35 PM

     

     

    “Embarrassing to claim it (Women’s rugby) is a serious sport”

     

    ———————————

     

    Yeah, if only other sports could aspire to the gold standard of sporting integrity attained by Scoddish football.

     

    Maybe records could be altered to show that the United States, which won the inaugural tournament only, has actually won another 6, thus surpassing New Zealand, making it the most successful Women’s international rugby nation ever.

     

    I’m sure the the Black Ferns wouldn’t complain or anything.

  37. paulsthroughball88 on

    SCULLYBHOY

     

     

    Lovely pic. Did you get to dine in the Trindade restaurant in Lisboa? I think I mentioned it to you when you had said you were heading to the White City.

  42. scullybhoy on

    paulsthroughball88 on 26th March 2023 4:41 pm

     

     

    SCULLYBHOY

     

     

    Lovely pic. Did you get to dine in the Trindade restaurant in Lisboa? I think I mentioned it to you when you had said you were heading to the White City.

     

     

    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

     

    I wish I had taken that photo, but it is from the website. I am actually heading to Lisboa on the 12 August and I will try to get to the Trindade for a meal with my good wife.

     

     

    Thank you for the recommendation.

     

    HH

     

     

    https://images.theconversation.com/files/320818/original/file-20200316-27680-1gqrp0y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1

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