Trending
Celtic News Now
Celtic Quick News on News Now
Celtic Quick News
You are at:»»Football, law breaking, organised crime and plain old bias

Football, law breaking, organised crime and plain old bias

438
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.

Click Here for Comments >
Share.

About Author

438 Comments
  1. Pages:
  3. 1
  4. 2
  5. 3
  6. 4
  7. 5
  8. 6
  9. 7
  10. 8
  11. 9
  12. 10
  13. 11
  14. 12

  1. Tontine Tim on

    SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX on 25TH MARCH 2023 4:49 PM

     

     

    Blatant hand ball in penalty area by Liverpool ignored by ref Ends 2:0

     

     

    *so we should have won 3-2, hmmm robbed at hunfield wance again

  2. Big Jimmy on

    FAO BRRB…

     

    Wee BILLY the FLAT Jockey had FOUR Horses Today at LINGFIELD.

     

    I backed all four in a LUCKY 15 Bet.

     

     

    He had THREE WINNERS, and I had the EARLY Higher Prices of 11/8, 13/2 and 7/1.

     

    His other Horse could only finish 4th.

     

     

    I also had SCOTLAND to win 3 – 0 the CORRECT SCORE at 6/1.

     

     

    A day with a Profit from the Bookies is always Good !

     

    LOL

     

    HH.

  3. Burnley78 on

    Embarrassing to calm the women’s rugby a sport.

     

     

    Engerland has been professional along with about 2 other teams for about 10 years. It has over 50 million population

     

     

    Scotland has only just began paying anything and has about 250 women players to pick from.

     

     

    It’s a total miss match. Yet there is a crowd paying good money and a national broadcaster tv company covering it.

     

     

    A boxing match like this would be abandoned after 2 minutes.

  5. Back to Basics - Glass Half Full on

    Out this afternoon.

     

     

    Came back in to catch tail end of ITV news.

     

     

    “Man who stood next to a dead Queen’s pony gets award”

     

     

    World has gone mad.

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

    Burnley 78

     

     

    Got to agree. I am all in favour of equal access for boys and girls to amateur sport and professional sport should commit to equal marketing and opportunity for the male and female game.

     

     

    However, professional football depends on income and, if 95% + of the funds raised come from spectators at matches between male teams, then they will be subsidising the women’s game. U2 don’t subsidise Bananarama; you live or die by the revenues you raise to fund your own development as a club or team.

     

     

    There is no argument to be made for 50% of the money donated by Celtic fans at their home match to go into the coffers of the opposition club who provide100 supporters to the crowd, and there is no argument to be made that the Women’s game is, yet, attracting a crowd size and gate income to justify equality of treatment (or, continued equality of marketing money, if the situation doesn’t grow or change). Neither is it yet a high bar to make it in the Women’s game to elite level. It must be a harder by a double figure factor to reach the top of the men’s game.

     

     

    So, equality for amateur sport and facilities but, in professional sport, earn your own market share!

  12. David66 on

    By the way wen did Ramon Vega (18 appearances) become a Legend? Or Ross Wallace? Or Simon Ferry ffs🙉

     

     

    Get a grip

     

     

    Are these guys making money out of this I sincerely hope not.

     

     

    D :)

  13. call me Gerry on

    BACK TO BASICS – GLASS HALF FULL on 25TH MARCH 2023 12:09 PM

     

     

    Big Jimmy – your betting posts never fail to raise a smile.

     

    ——————————————————————

     

    I must confess, I have a wee chuckle when I read these posts. If I had a pound for every time I heard about winning bets AFTER the event…..lol

     

     

    HH

  14. Celtic Mac on

    Both the FA and the SFA banned women’s football after WW1. For fifty years!

     

    Earn your own market share?

     

    They weren’t allowed to kick a ball

     

    Never mind get paid for it.

  16. Stephbhoy67 on

    HOT SMOKED on 25TH MARCH 2023 3:42 PM

     

     

    Seriously, gerrard was not hit by missiles. Celtic supporters went to Liverpool in their thousands to watch a kick about and help raise money for charity. who gives a fuck if an empty plastic bottle was thrown by a clown towards a clown. Gerrard may be the golden boy of Liverpool but a golden boy he is not. Don’t think he will be losing any sleep tonight.

  18. Turkeybhoy on

    Well,seems it’s like loonies day on here today.Covid deniers,Takes some kind of thicko to believe that.The WHO have pared it down to 3 million deaths worldwide,solely to Covid.All the Doctors,Nurses,must have been kidding us all on,with the wards full of people dying ,gasping their last with a tube stuck down their throat.We all witnessed it.

     

    Then we have the head of the loony deniers.Not content with his bullshit on Covid,he is also a fan boy of Putin.Millions made homeless,and refugees,10s of thousands,dead,at the behest of a madman,yet this Moron claims,it was all Ukraines fault.

     

    What’s next?Holocaust deniers?.Would not surprise me.Seems like any lunatic with a crazy belief can come on a football blog and spout drivel unopposed.

     

    Kev J and his many lodgers got put off the blog for saner comments.Seems like as long as you have a few punters hanging onto the arse of your trousers and agreeing with your madness,you can get away with it.

     

    Not with me.

  21. BelmontBrian on

    Evening all.

     

     

    Cracking day in the compony of two CQN legends, BRRB and TLT.

     

     

    How do I claim my Blue Peter badge for surviving a sesh with those two?

     

     

    Need to go, here comes the Matron, ‘Medication time, medication time’

     

     

    Brian

  23. David66 on

    BB – 3 ruffians on the rampage mer like.

     

     

    I know what that BRRB is like he would start a fight in an empty hoose if someone threatend him with (its his turn to go to the bar).

     

     

    D :)

  24. Timbhoy163 on

    Ukrainian people are not bad people,but they were led up the garden path with there leader ,who isn’t whiter than white to,so Zelensky just as bad for allowing his people in there thousands killed,and thousands displaced for what ,to join NATO ,

  25. GerryBhoy on

    TIMBHOY163 on 25TH MARCH 2023 9:23 PM

     

    Ukrainian people are not bad people,but they were led up the garden path with there leader ,who isn’t whiter than white to,so Zelensky just as bad for allowing his people in there thousands killed,and thousands displaced for what ,to join NATO ,

     

     

    What kind of under researched, poor drivel is that?

     

    Get a grip!

  26. BelmontBrian on

    DAVID66

     

     

    BRRB, don’t get me started.

     

     

    I’m now barred from the Brazen Head and Sharkeys.

     

     

    Thank feck I’ve got ‘ma bail money, now it’s a long weekend in the polis station.

     

     

    TURNKEY, TURNKEY!!!

     

     

    Gonnae flush ‘ma toilet.

  29. David66 on

    BB – Meanwhile that charlaton BRRB sits in his sooside mansion with his ever suffering saint of a lady.

     

     

    D :)

  32. Melbourne Mick on

    Hello again all you young rebels.

     

     

    Always nice to start my Oz morning with a bit of

     

    CQN madness 🤪

     

    Let the fun begin.

     

    Will we start with, nailed studs, black ash, toasted

     

    cheese, Covid, or my favourite, Jimmys donkeys ?

     

    H H. Mick

  37. Canamalar it looks like OCD obsession on

    BURNLEY78 on 25TH MARCH 2023 5:49 PM,

     

    Who says its not been properly tested?

     

     

    TURKEYBHOY on 25TH MARCH 2023 8:20 PM,

     

    Who denied covid? Certainly not me but don’t let the truth get in the way of a mindless rant eh.

     

    Are you playing straw man king?

     

    You decide what people say then attack them for what you say they said?

     

    I’m beginning to think there are problems there with basic reading.

  38. GFTB on

    10.10pm

     

     

    Mr McQuade (sic)

     

     

    Mate, if your life revolves around coming onto a Celtic blog just to rinse & repeat the same shoite message for around a decade …without one mention of your own fitba “team”

     

     

    F me … that’s a shoite hold of life you have, we only have one, try and enjoy it, if Celtic doesn’t do it for you let it go mate

     

     

    Am sure you have loads of other interests than different IP addresses … (surely)

  41. Canamalar it looks like OCD obsession on

    Oh and I never claimed it was Ukraine’s fault either, I claimed it was the fault of the USA for overthrowing the democratically elected government of Ukraine, putting the nazi’s in charge then ordering them to attack the civilians in the Donbass and try to ethnically cleanse the region of the Russian speaking population.

     

    But obviously the historical and documented facts are not what you want to believe so you just continue to live in your delusional fantasy and leave the thinking to the grown ups.

  42. GFTB on

    MM 10.32pm

     

     

    Hail Hail .. Michael

     

     

    Was quite happily sitting having a wee lurk … but sometimes if a “Celtic” wants to come on and spout the same shoite “over n over” … probably am the fool for responding to his “fae the brig” reference … but I guess that’s what these nomarks do … nothing to contribute so look for a response

     

     

    Never a Celtic fan whether the ticket was £8 or £52

  1. Pages:
  3. 1
  4. 2
  5. 3
  6. 4
  7. 5
  8. 6
  9. 7
  10. 8
  11. 9
  12. 10
  13. 11
  14. 12