It has been another busy news day but for now we’ll concentrate on the two most important matters.
10 SPL clubs, excluding Celtic and Rangers, have arranged to meet next week. This is the most significant news since Craig Whyte bought Rangers in May last year. One SPL chairman told the BBC:
“With the Old Firm having talked in the past about leaving Scottish football, we have had to think about a future without them.
“Part of that situation could be about to come true, so we have had time to think about how we would get on without them.”
The smaller 10 SPL clubs have a once-only opportunity to redraw the power and financial map in Scottish football. They want more of your money and this is their chance to get it. They also want to be able to vote crazy ideas into the league that benefit teams without many fans or good players.
This is perfectly understandable and expected. The distribution of TV income currently favours successful clubs, who are invariably featured most often. Smaller clubs want to change this into a more equitable distribution model. You and I will still buy the overwhelming majority of subscriptions, but our club will receive less cash from the TV deal.
“Part of that situation” refers to an SPL without Rangers. This meeting is likely to end Newco Rangers hopes of getting straight back into the SPL in their tracks. Without knowing the numbers in favour of a change, this looks like the killer blow, delivered before any proposition from Craig Whyte reaches the agenda.
We have discussed the need for Whyte to present a fait-accompli in order to get his wish. Having been unable to do that, others had the opportunity to organise and make alternative plans.
The other important occurrence today was the attendance at the Rolls Building courts in London today by HMRC lawyers, keen to secure any monies seized from Collyer Bristows’ client account last week. HMRC have made it perfectly clear they are all over Duff and Phelps and will seek court intervention to secure their rights.
This is significant.
You can make what you like about a more even distribution of SPL TV money, or the possibility of being held to ransom in future by bad teams who want to vote themselves out of relegation, but the only thing we know for sure is that this has been a profoundly bad day for Craig Whyte and anyone else hoping to phoenix a Newco Rangers.
In light of today‘s developments, Mr Whyte and the administrators have some thinking to do before announcing any plans tomorrow.
Issue six of CQN Magazine, the Fit and Proper edition, is set to become a landmark collectors item. You can browse the magazine online here but you can buy your own hard copy by clicking on the link below. Read with 20-20 vision…..
You can support the online edition by making a discretionary donation here.
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All Hail (Hail) PAUL67
Rangers players Stephen Whittaker and Steven Naismith agree 75% wage cuts to help club avoid substantial redundancies
BBC TICKER
A meeting of The Ten obviously did not happen spontaneously.
I am quite intrigued as to which club,or clubs, felt the necessity to discuss all things post liquidation, & why they felt the need to exclude Celtic from whatever brave new world order they intend to create in the new era.
I wonder just where & how this networking would have taken place.
.
Good Article on Do The Bouncy..On Stuart Reagan..
Title..
Not Fit and Proper..
Ha..Wonder Why..Worth a Read..
Summa
Very busy night trying to juggle between CQN,RTC and watching my 21 month grandaughter. Also had an eye on the ManU and Bilbao game, score could have been 11-3 in favour of Bilbao.
Like everyone else, very unsure whats happening to thems via the administrators, but enjoying the slow death all the same.
I was listening to The Jeremy Vine show today regarding the loss of I believe 1700 jobs up and down the length of Britain by Remploy ( Who employ mainly disabled workers). Apparantly they have lost a lot of government funding. I Have carried out a few Electrical jobs in many of these factories and found the staff to be really friendly and work concious.
Many people in life get made redundant at one time or another and have to move on, thats what we do, but these workers may never get the chance again and this will seriously disrupt their lives.
I do not know how many job losses Remploy will have to endure in Scotland but in my guess probably more than the ‘Institution’ across the city.
I hope Salmond will give a reponse to this at least on a par to which he defended the possible job losses at Dignity FC.
No to Newco, Let them cease to exist
HH
I think I know the real reason for the meeting of the ten. They watched the ‘Future of Scottish Football’ documentary and the debate the other night, then watched the documentary on Lionel Messi last night on ITV4.
Like me, they were utterly embarrassed watching the grace and beauty of Messi from the age of 12 while thinking of that fat tub of succulent lard sitting at the end of a couch in a BBC studio, and thought, “Why are we accepting being served up a load of masonic ridden, lowest common denominator, self-serving, selfish, moronic crap and calling it “the future of Scottish Football?!!”
Watching the way things can be done – as Barca have done with Messi, and others, – led them to a ‘road to Damascus’ type metanoia and they are all going to get round the table to put self interest aside and do what is best for our kids and the future of football in this country.
Summa of Sammi…. on 9 March, 2012 at 00:12 said:
That sounds as if HMRC have done a deal. I’m sceptical.
As much as this is enjoyable , i hope our clever guys arent taking their eye off the ball . Be what he is .whyte is one shrewed cookie. and i wouldn,t be surprised if the sting in the tail is yet to appear . Add to the mix the elusive minty btw I cant believe he hasn,t got a finger in the pie , and then of course we have the defender of the gers , The main man . . jabba . Tell you what if all was bad for them he would have did a minty and hopped it . the fact that he is still doing his masters work suggests to me . something is afoot here .. I am not being a gloomist . i am being wary as far as this poke of rats are concerned. .
jimtim.
EXCLUSIVE: Hope for Rangers with administrator set to seize Whyte’s sharesBy John Mcgarry
PUBLISHED: 00:11, 9 March 2012 | UPDATED: 00:11, 9 March 2012
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Rangers stepped back from the abyss after a series of developments cleared the path for any new prospective owner to dramatically take control of the club.
Just 24 hours after director Dave King said he believed liquidation was ‘inevitable’, the club’s administrators claimed they were putting the final touches to a players’ wage-reduction package which will ensure the £4million of cuts required for the club to fulfil its remaining fixtures this season.
With the medium-term future of the club all but secured, discredited owner Craig Whyte’s hold over Rangers also appears to be loosening.
Hope at last: There is renewed optimism at Rangers with liquidation set to be staved off after administrator moved to seize key shares
Whyte, who was yesterday judged not to be a ‘Fit and Proper Person’ to hold a position at a football club by the SFA, spent the day at the office of administrator Duff & Phelps’ London-based lawyer Taylor Wessing.
The Motherwell-born businessman was grilled on his financial transactions since buying the club from Sir David Murray last May and was left in no doubt that there are now major question marks over the validity of his majority shareholding.
Sportsmail understands that an investigation has revealed that, far from being a creditor of the club, Whyte’s takeover company Wavetower, which has since been renamed the Rangers Football Club Group Limited, actually owes money to the football club.
Not fit and proper: Craig Whyte
As a result, it is understood that although Whyte’s shares cannot be forcibly taken from him, there are legal mechanisms by which the administrator would effectively control them. It is likely those measures will be stepped up in the coming days.
Similarly, Whyte’s claim to being a secured creditor of the club to the tune of £18m also appeared to be unravelling on Thursday night.
Whyte bought the club for just £1 from Murray but part of the condition of sale was that he paid off the £18m owed to Lloyd’s Bank. Despite initially denying it, Whyte paid Lloyd’s off with £24.4m he received by selling three years of future season tickets to London-based Ticketus.
Although the bank was effectively paid off with fans’ money, Whyte immediately laid claim to £18m in the event of an insolvency action. It is understood he has now been left in no doubt that he has no claim to this sum.
Ticketus’ claim on the majority of seats at Rangers’ games for the next three years is also set to go before the courts in the next week.
Lawyers for Duff & Phelps believe they can demonstrate that the ownership of the tickets should be declared null and void, thus freeing up huge income streams for prospective new owners, like Paul Murray.
If such obstacles are removed from the path as anticipated, the likelihood of Murray concluding a takeover deal will increase dramatically. Any new owner will still have to deal with the £15m owed to HMRC in unpaid PAYE and the possibility of a further £49m from the so-called ‘big tax case’.
However, sources close to the negotiations say that HMRC are prepared to talk about the possibility of a CVA – the creditors’ arrangement required for the club to exit administration – as long is there is ‘regime change’.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/foo…#ixzz1oZhol9TO
On gate money being sacrosanct etc.
The Scottish Cup rules say:
A levy of 5% of the monies received from all admission charges to the match shall be paid to the Association within three days of the date on which the match is played.
(2) The host club shall be entitled to make a deduction of 20% from the gross receipts.
(3) When, after payment of the levy and of the deduction foresaid, half of the remainder of the receipts exceeds the guarantee, the said remainder of the receipts shall be divided, equally, between the two clubs.
(4) When, after payment of the levy and of the deduction foresaid, half of the said remainder of the receipts does not exceed the guarantee, the visiting club shall only receive the guarantee.
The host club shall be responsible for payment of the match expenses.
And the world has not ended…
How can D&P possibly get rid of the Ticketus debt. It’s fair enough to say CW isn’t owed money but Ticketus?
I’m with Ernie.
UKFA.
That daily mail Article is 20% Fact and 80% speculation mixed with wishful thinking.
A true laptop Loyal piece if ever there was one.
They forget one thing – Duff and Phelps are Craig Whyte’s chosen administrators – they will not be screwing him out of any dough and if ticketus can lose this agreement then they are a bigger bunch of eejits than anyone could imagine.
Paul Murray didn’t have the cash before when Whyte came along for the tax bills (plural) and he doesn’t have it now or he’d be sitting as owner right now.
The daft fan pledges (which may be hot air) won’t cover a debt nearing 100Million and nor will Paul Murray and dodgy dave from South Africa (fit and proper person test and all that).
This is wishful thinking of the highest order.
Craig Whyte is still walking away with a tidy sum in his pocket when all is said and done and the last bit about HMRC being willing to do a deal if there is regime change is more PR fed by Murray’s people – if HMRC were willing to do a deal, they’d have done one by now. They, like everyone else, have been messed around enough.
I’d be amazed if the speculation in that article all came to pass.
The media have decided – Paul murray is their boy and just like with Whyte when he came on the scene they are bumming him up but not with such colourful language.
Morning bhoys
The press have not got a clue to what is happening at iPox.
Not 1 of them can get the facts correct, have read back on the latest updates for the msm in the morning.
The administrator will remove whyte and make the ticketus deal void.
(just like that no court case. They are living in a fantasy world,ticketus have just loaned whyte £24 million and will want repayed)
Another paper have 10 interested parties who would like to buy ra gers.
Have they told them how much the huns owe?
Ticketus £24 million + £15 million hmrc + FTT £49 million maybe.
Total =£88 million .they have 21 days to come out of administration and produce accounts to play in europe this season.plus sold off media rights,catering rights and merchandise rights.
But when Murray wanted rid only whyte came forward with a £1
Stupid stupid media.
Jam67
Paycuts agreed with Whittaker and naismith, more to follow?
Pay cuts agreed with two players who have long term injuries, one of whom is on his second long term injury and has to be in serious peril of not recovering anywhere near the ability he had before?
Wow. How big of everyone involved. It’s common currency that Whittaker was overpaid and it’s equally clear Naismith may be in the dying embers of his career. The kind of players who would take a 75% pay cut, frankly because they have no choice.
I see a lot of speculation being thrown about today. We’ll see how things go.
JF spot on
Both injured
Can just see duff & duffer conversation ” so your out for season and cannot play ,except 75% pay cut or we let you go ”
Eh……….
Jam67
Long way to go today. Why release the info about the cut at 12pm though?
On to that other gem
The 10 spl teams having a private meeting.
The ra gers are going down the plug how do we keep income up ?
Vote newco back in by breaking all the rules .
Jam67
Fudge
After jelly and ice cream the next dessert related
word plastered all over this blog will be
FUDGE
macanb who’s not always right but very rarely wrong
I loved Graham Speirs comments earlier though, about the need for Scottish society to hang onto Rangers despite their bigotry. They contribute a lot, apparently.
My family name cuts right across the western world. For all I know distant relations of mine caught travel like seeds scattered in a high wind. Some of them may have migrated westward, towards the United States.
There was a guy who fought in the US Civil War, as a confederate. He was a rich man when the war started, although of little formal education. Despite his wealth, he enlisted as a private but although lacking formal military training he became a general, and pioneered some of the greatest military tactics of all time. Some people today regard him as the single greatest cavalry general of all time, such was his genius for warfare in that sphere.
His fame is such that there are statues of him in the Tennessee State Senate and schools, streets, and even a city are named after him in the southern United States. He is regarded by many as a hero, in the same way Rangers are regarded by many as a great Scottish institution.
I may have some distant connection to him. His name is Nathan Bedford Forrest.
He is better known as the founder of the Klu Klux Klan.
I don’t think his contribution to American society was terribly beneficial. In fact, it was an abomination, as most people realise.
Finn MacCunaill
RTC on RTC explained on his blog where all that ‘hunguffery’ you copied and pasted came from. I think it is half way down on page two.
People who don’t have a clue as to what is going on are making wild assumptions and are often crying wolf, well I suppose in the short term it may sell copy but in the long term these muppet nuggets are not exactly climbing the Pulitzer Prizes league table.
The Ticketus money, and what the administrators are being reported as claiming, now that is a joke. Isn’t it?
Right bhoys
Need to get some sleep.
Until the Hun is gone it,s going to be 18 hour days for me at work and on cqn etc.
The main player have still to play their hands hmrc with the FTT,and our board with Dermot Desmond at the helm.
Failing that court case after court case or for eufa to step in
Havingapartywhenthehunsdiex csc
If there is to be a different distribution of income from TV broadcasts, let’s agree a formula more acceptable to the likes of Yorkston,
provided we have the rights to broadcast EVERY game to Celtic TV subscribers no matter their location.
Tony D @Tony___D Close
“When Celtic faced closure in 1994. My feelings then were of disbelief and concern for my mates who were Celtic fans.” – Ally McCoist 2012
Tony D @Tony___D Close
“That’s their problem, although i cannot say i’m not enjoying what’s happening to them”. Sally McCoist 1994
Enough said
Great to see a team from Cyprus reach the last eight of the Champions league.
No Sky money. Just playing like men possessed.Imagine that.
Just like a team of young men born within a 35 mile radius of each other.
The wealthiest of the EPL beaten tonight in European competition by less wealthy more skillful Spanish teams.
Sir Robert Kelly was correct when he said TV would kill football.
The sooner this mess in Scottish football is honestly cleaned up the better.
It may take 5 years or more but slowly I think we will start to see the Scottish game reclaim its place in European football.
Back to the days when it was honest.
Before Murray,Souness et al.
HH
.
Naismith and Whittaker taking a 75% Wage Cut..Both Long term Injuries..
Shirley their wages are being Paid by the Insurance Company.. Oh don’t tell me they Haven’t paid the Insurance Company..
Summa..
PS.. Drop Sammi = Drop Points or Get Knocked Out of Cups..( Moscow)
And while the slow motion wave of bedlam continues to ripple through Scottish football..
Historically? It’s all over bar the shouting.
Currant state of play can has been accurately summarized by the administrators.
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
D. Puff Helpps. March 2012
Finn MacCunaill:
apologies, it was not your cut and paste that RTC tore up, it was 001’s from earlier.
I remember how horrible it was thinking celtic were going to disappear, – or going to limp along for years with the short-sighted OB in place. And for that reason I still feel sympathy for those few decent Rangers fans who have seen their club plagued by bigotry and now taken to the verge of destruction.
If there were a way to re-create them without all of that, I’d be right behind it, But I just don’t see it. Any new creation will be latched on to by the same nasty element as the current encarnation has suffered.
This is the chance to kick bigotry out of football. If the powers that be allow it to pass by, they will be showing their tru colours to any who care to look.
Another thing. reading overnight reports about 2 players who have agreed 75% `pay cuts.
IF this is a prepack scam, they’re going to feel cheated as well aren’t they? Whst impact will that have on a future newco? That the players have been right royally shafted, even if just for a few months?
In fact, is that WHY the players are holdng out, because they know they’re being taken for a ride and someone is going to make a huge profit out of this?
*paranoia* Could there even be secret deals promising to pay deferred wages but from another company, just like the dodgy contracts scam?
The press seem to be spinning the line that liquidation has been avoided. That is good (if true), they will then still be liable for their £90m debt which they would avoid if liquidated.
Morning Celts and happy Friday to ye all.
G’luck to the bhoys in Green on Sunday, keep yir eye on the prize….. It’s a treble me bhoys!
V
Good morning friends and a Big Happy Friday from a dry and very mild East Kilbride.
This Is The Day that The Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.
Jobo.
Here here Jobo.
Must admit been awake from 0430, like a kid at Christmas.