Resolutions to be voted on at the 30 April meeting are proposals from the Scottish Premier League executive (Neil Doncaster). They have nothing to do with the Gang of 10 nor are they a Duff and Phelps/Rangers conspiracy. The resolutions are not set in tablets of stone and have no authority in their own right. The League has form in voting down executive resolutions, in particular overthrowing plans for a 10 team league last year, so, in theory, the votes could go for or against.
Neil Doncaster, being as thorough as he is, has almost certainly shared his plan with the man along the corridor at Hamden, SFA chief exec, Stewart Regan. He is also likely to have taken guidance from the Uefa executive, specifically CEO David Taylor, formerly of this parish. It would be unnecessarily lax to leave legislative loose ends before embarking on such a radical plan, so forget about any intervention by the SFA (cough) or Uefa.
Putting preconceived notions aside (if I can), the resolutions are flawed.
Asking for 8 clubs to vote for a Newco to be allowed into the league, but requiring 11 to vote for a financial penalty to be imposed for an Insolvency Transfer, is beyond ridiculous. The former provision – the gift of continuity to a defaulter – is easy to achieve. The latter – the punishment for defaulting – is unnecessarily difficult. Duff and Phelps will need the support of only one club – let’s say Dunfermline, who are brogue-to-brogue with them anyway and due to relegation will not be affected by the financial penalty, will vote with them. Why would Doncaster put such a high bar on setting financial penalties?
Arbitrary voting thresholds smack of gerrymandering. Can anyone explain this in any other way?
There will now be a period of debate between clubs; Celtic will oppose any provision for a Newco to enter the league. Duff and Phelps will be in the opposite corner. You can expect to hear wailing and gnashing from Rangers (IA) along the same ridiculous lines they have used ahead of the SFA hearings into the behaviour of the club in advance of, and after, Craig Whyte’s purchase of the club. On that occasion, Duff and Phelps argued that the actions of Rangers’ new owner, or the failure of the old board to conduct their business correctly, should not lead to a penalty on the club.
It doesn’t matter how lax or severe the proposed penalties, Duff and Phelps will oppose them. Anything lessening of the penalty is worth money to the proposed new buyers of Rangers, so let’s view everything Duff and Phelps say in pound notes.
Rangers have unpaid bills potentially running up to £134mm that’s medicine, operations, road repairs and Help for Heroes. Allowing them to ditch their history and start afresh, where owners profit by securing a floating charge over the stadium, where fans can continue to be provided with a team in the league, creates an unprecedented moral hazard. It rewards irresponsibility and would create a queue of clubs ready to do the same.
And on the point of ditching their history… I openly mock anyone who uses phrases like Hybrid Liquidation. You don’t get Hybrid Liquidation, Partial Liquidation or Liquidation Lite. You cannot buy or sell history, as Duff and Phelps tried (and failed, I think) to convince Rangers fans. Liquidation would mean Rangers Football Club, established in 1873 (or 1872 as they now claim), incorporated in 1899, is finished.
Just pay your bills and do us all a favour.
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Serge on 12 April, 2012 at 09:04 said:
WONDERFUL …..!!!!!!!
Sorry should be Rangers Relegation Event.
The only thing we can do is threaten to walk, I dont care where we go but there must be something we can do.
They could potentially owe £134 million and not pay back a dime, amd what do they get for cheating clubs for years ? Rewarded.
That club have no dignity and no shame, how any decent Rangers fan is happy with this is beyond me.
They have spent money they didn’t have and they have cheated teams for years.
David Murray underwrote £59 million plus they could owe that other amount, it’s a scandal and anyone who shouts they need Rangers because of the Sky deal well they have no shame either.
Do you know what hurts the most, I’ve got to walk away from a club I love because of these corrupt morons.
SFA/SPL the media and Alex Salmond hang your heads in shame the lot of you, scumbags of the highest order.
Serge on 12 April, 2012 at 09:04 said:
Thai Tims Celebrate Hooper goal
If this doesn’t cheer you up nothing will.
——————————————————-
excellent!!
Here boys we need something to smile about.
@fritzagrandold: Vanguard Bears to boycott Bovril? http://t.co/r0k0glJy
Talk about moods swings!!! After Saturday. ecstacy. Now? Anger and depression. What if these proposals are not accepted? What if Rangers are liquidated and Newco is NOT admitted into the SPL?
We have aired our views on these proposals and, hopefully, let those who matter know those views. We are entitled to some more celebration. Look at Serge`s link at 9.04. It really can help to lift the current red mist (albeit understandable).
JJ
Some unpalatable truths that we are going to have to face:
1. Rangers will not pay a penny of their debts to the tax man or anyone else for that matter.
2. Rangers Newco will be parachuted in to the SPL and may or may not face a 10 point penalty for the next two seasons. a three year euro ban will be enforced and there may or may not be a financial penalty imposed by the SPL.
3. Rangers will continue to enjoy the support of the Scottish Footballing and media establishment. We appear to have lost that battle even as they die.
4. They will go virtually unpunished other than a possible 30 point deduction over three years including this one and three seasons out of Europe (which is not a punishment it is a condition of a new club gaining entry to a top league anywhere in Europe)
henr1k
Ranglers fans are not happy with these proposals.
They appear to think they being far too harshly treated!!
Maybe the SPL think they have got the balance right with both sets of supporters up in arms.
Robert Tressell …… That’s it in a nutshell ….shame on Scottish Football
Imagine this happening in the EPL. Man U go bust owing £700m to HMRC and £100m lo local businesses. They then form a newco and rejoin the EPL on minus 10 points, still playing at OT, same team, same fans, same history. No creditors get paid. Oh, and a Championship side doesn’t get promotion. All acceptable?
Soon as the full extent of their debts were made public they should have been imeadiatly kicked out of football and kept out till they paid back everything they owed.
My whole mood has changed after watching the Thai Tims. Not going to spend another minute thinking about the cheats or corrupt Scotland, will leave it to the Celtic Board & await what action they are going to take.
RT@9.27am
Add to your list :
The MSM will portray the new monster child as a continuation of RFC.
Still a few twists and turns to go. They will be liquidated. They will reappear. They will have broad support- no moral judgement made, they have merely been victims of bad financial/ legal advice. Scotland needs them. Put up or shut up Tims.
How HMRC reacts to Newco is critical.
The reality is we are about to have a new foe to face but they will be much weaker.
I will support Celtic till I die.
Ross County have achieved what in their eyes is promotion to the promised land, the SPL is put in those terms
“In the next three or four weeks we’ll be looking to try to add to the squad for next season.
“We realise it’s a different journey that we’re on now. We’ve got to the promised land, we want to stay in the promised land.
“It’s now up to us to us to stabilise and really try to be competitive; go there and make a good account of ourselves.”
The Daily Mail actually has a good report on the Cheats’ Charter today. It explained why supporters of all other clubs were against it – and ridiculed the huns for opposing something that is clearly in their interests. But it put the blame for the whole thing squarely at Sky’s door.
It did make the point that any league where the membership was decided by commerical considerations rather than football ones could not be taken seriously.
hen1rik on 12 April, 2012 at 09:22 said:
Do you know what hurts the most, I’ve got to walk away from a club I love because of these corrupt morons.
This could be a decision that every one of us could be forced to make for next season .Do we sit at the back of the bus and finance this rigged set up.
Every one of our family who supported the hoops knew it was a fix and could not prove it and now when it’s right in our faces we either put up or shut up.
After 25 + years of supporting the bhoys it will break my heart to cancel my season book and sky .But there is just no way I could watch newco in the spl after the way the Huns have behaved to cheat us.
Jam67
jungle jam67 on 12 April, 2012 at 09:46 said:
Cracking post matey.
I understand what people are saying about supporting Celtic till the end and i always will but I’m sorry this is wrong and i can’t support this.
I know it’s not Celtic’s fault but they need to come out fighting on this one.
Look at everything that’s went on in this league to help them, Dougie Dougie, McCurry, Farry, Peat, Dallas, and the Media.
For years now everything is done to help them and we were always accused of being paranoid, I’m sorry but we can’t keep funding a corrupt league, they change the rules at drop of a hat to suit tax cheats and cheats who have won trophies with buying players which they couldn’t afford.
It’s the biggest scandal ever and I’m sorry I won’t be part of it.
Jungle Jam67
I’d wait & see what response our Board gives before you give up your season ticket mate.
It’s all Kingoh’s fault I tells ya! :-)))
Anyway. The only real options open to Celtic PLC in terms of protest are
1. To refuse to recognise Newco (including refusing to play them).
2. To challenge the legality of any decision to allow a Newco entry to SPL.
3. To refuse access to SKY, BBC and all Scottish media to Celtic Park.
4. To refuse to sell tickets for all away games and request openly that our supporters do not attend the grounds of all teams who back Newco in SPL.
MWD
If Celtic resign from the SPL and create another ‘Premier Division’ along with dissenters in the SPL, who would also resign, and those in the current 1st Div willing to join us, then it would be down to the SFA (I presume) to ratify which league is the ‘Official’ premier division.
Not quite as simple as that, I know, given contracts with SPL etc, but would teams want to be in a corrupt, defunct SPL or in a growing, clean and legitimately competitive NewPrem?
I’d pick the latter, but then, I’m not a corrupt hun.
Moonbeams WD. Kano \o/ Neil Celtic FC. We are the Champions. Ignore the WARTS. on 12 April, 2012 at 09:59 said:
4. To refuse to sell tickets for all away games and request openly that our supporters do not attend the grounds of all teams who back Newco in SPL.
If Celtic openly encouraged damage to other clubs home gate income by encouraging an promoting an away game boycott, IMO Celtic would be correctly sued for the loss of income that other clubs suffered by Celtic requesting supporters not to go, its an option which could cost us financially
Supporters by themselves have to man up and make their own decisions who they support
Is there no other league that Celtic could join ? I know it’s been opined that UEFA would veto such a move, but would they ?
Could Celtic join a lower English league or the Irish league ?
Morning, All.
A night of broken sleep, wrestling with thoughts of these vexing proposals from Doncaster.
This is a seminal moment in the history Scottish football: club directors who vote for Doncaster’s proposals will be gambling ‘all in’ that their clubs’ fans will meekly accept the re-admittance of any Newco, while sending an unequivocal message to all and sundry that their clubs are mere parasites on the backs of cheats.
At the same time, the board at Celtic (our Celtic, where Dermott Desmond may ‘own’ the assets, but is really only the present day custodian of our club), it must be hoped, are already considering the various permutations of what may happen and what the club must do in each of those scenarios.
Of course, it could all be a shrewd piece of manoeuvring by Doncaster and his advisers. They may be figuring that the current voting structure will prevent the adoption of the proposals as tabled.
Don’t forget, too, that we are still to hear from the FTT and the equally huge matter of wrongful player registrations.
Should either of these go against RFC(IA) it will effectively be a fresh hole below their waterline, with further litigation being a distinct possibility.
Meanwhile, by a number of already well discussed methods we, ourselves – the supporters of Celtic FC – can ‘encourage’ our board to do the right thing.
We can also make other clubs (and their fans) know that a vote in favour of cheating will have immediate consequences for them.
I no longer go to many away games, but if ever there was a cause worthy of a boycott of away games, this is surely it.
FF
Serge on 12 April, 2012 at 09:56 said:
Will only give up my book and cancel sky if the newco is straight back in the spl.
Just would not be the same pull if our board assisted in allowing the newco to carry on where they left off.Just imagine if the rANGERs had won this season and cheated Neil Lennon and the players out of the league title and the chance to compete in the champions league.
My father and uncles had to watch the corrupt set up of the sfa etc and I have told them on many occasion now that the Celtic support are more organised and better educated and will not sit back and take the sames sh@te that they had to endure.
Jam67
But I don’t like to start my day concentrating on the purely negative so is there anything in this to lift the mood? I am going to propose that a newco in the top flight may not be the worst thing for Celtic. Going to get my flak jacket and tin hat but please follow the logic of what I am about to post:
1. Newco Rangers will either have to spend well beyond it’s means again (oh dear) to compete for a top three place for the next three Euro cashless seasons the first two of which will see them having to play and win 3 games and get a draw just to get to 0 points.
2. I cannot see the legals being sorted out any time soon even to allow for a Newco to be formed in time for the new season. As Auldheid said last night self interest is a key player. There are people with no real rangers connections with big sticky fingers in the rangers pie who will want a big slice of said pie before they walk away. Not least Craig ‘Floating Charge’ Whyte – and I don’t accept yet that ticketus are quite so compliant as some would have us believe. In short – Rangers could well be in a state of limbo as the 2012/13 season starts. We could be looking at 2013/14 before we know exactly what kind of newco we are facing.
3. It may, in the period of rangers weakness, dawn on Aberdeen, Hibs, Motherwell etc that finishing higher up the table and having a better chance of winning cups is a good thing. That penny does not seem to have dropped yet. The prospect of regular european football might also mean that some of these clubs and more enlightened sections of scottish football see that a weak rangers is not a bad thing for scottish football. They may apply pressure to the SFA accordingly.
4. Other supporters of other clubs may just decide that this ‘punishment’ is not enough for almost two decades of watching their team being pumped by a financially doped rangers. (No holding of breath on that one)
Basically whatever the outcome, whatever the spin Newco Rangers will be nowhere near the level of team they have now unless of course they start the finance encourage others to follow suit but I don’t think it will allow those who have been through it to do it all again.
Lets picture the scenario for a newco in the summer. liquidation went well, ibrox secured in some way, bellahouston park for training or maybe a lease on Murray park, whatever. season books sold on the back of a wave of relief for the fans that they still have a team to follow follow (and ticketus let them keep at least some of the money!) So where are they in terms of players? Davis, McGregor, Whittaker, Naismith, Edu, Bocanegra, Goian – did they get their back pay or are they looking to recoup it with a big signing on fee for newco or a move elsewhere to a club not hampered with a 10 point deduction as the season starts?
Lets say some stay and some go. Signing on fees needed. Transfer fees in needed before transfer fees out can be negotiated with other clubs. But who will own the players in the case of a newco? do newco have to honour agreements reached with oldco? Do Newco insist on them being their players or does such insistence alert Hector that Newco is like Oldco and may be liable?
So player transfers get complicated. The new dawn is slightly murky and not the straight forward dash for glory that a totally clean slate will bring.
Lets say being generous that Newco has to buy half a team as a minimum – 6 players say. what sort of ‘war chest’ would ally need to get these players? (and remember it could be a whole lot more than 6 new players that are needed) would £10 Million do it? £12 Mill? £15 Million? Plus wages? We all know from debates on here that a £2 million transfer fee might mean a total cost of double that over the term of a contract so perhaps, conservatively we can double whatever they have to spend on players initially as a total cost of refurbishing the team.
Rangers current set up without euro money makes a loss. we know that for a fact. even this so called financially stricken rangers are paying well above what they can afford in a poor european season. so newco, to avoid the problems of oldco has to budget for 3 years of non euro football minimum. three years of paying for a squad which will not be paid as much as the current one which it turned out before the insolvency event were struggling to keep up with celtic.
So big set up fees to get a half decent team out there, no euro money to look forward to. So do they gamble in year one and spend a big lump sum? who will want to spend three years of their career at a so called big club that doesn’t play in europe? And what happens if they spend big but they spend badly? £4 Million might buy you a Jelavic every now and then but it also buys you a Lafferty or a Fortune. And you just never quite know until they arrive. It is a massive gamble that it will work out and it is a gamble I don’t think any new owner, one eye over his shoulder looking at rangers recent history, will want to take in year one or two.
Or do they assemble a squad to avoid relegation and maybe compete in a cup now and then until year three when they can build for euro qualification? Year one will see big crowds back to phoenix team as a sense of relief and getting behind ‘our lads’ kicks in. But after watching a mediocre but affordable squad for a year struggling to stay in the top 6 perhaps, what are the likely revenue streams from ticket sales going in to year 2 and 3? How do you kick on from there? Do they gamble again?
Even in our worst case scenario rangers will be suffering for the forseeable future.
In fact if they are sent to Division 3 it seems easier for them to cut the cloth accordingly and build a secure base, increasing costs year on year until they return to the big time with probably reasonable backing, perhaps a timely share issue just as they return to the SPL and a fighting chance of winning a title in year four of recovery.
As I type this I begin to believe that Newco rangers in Div 3 might actually be better for them. Rangers penalised in the SPL, hamstrung with a team not fit for purpose and an up front VAT and PAYE bill from Her Majesty might actually be the better option for those who wish rangers only harm. Like me.
That said, natural justice demands that the only rule change the SPL needs right now is to make an insolvency event at a football club punishable by immediate expulsion from the SPL with no re-entry until fully audited debt free accounts are produced and promotion is won from lower leagues on merit. Call it a probation period. Once things are on an even keel at the financially stricken club they get back in, no further punishment but warnings about future conduct. But as with the years of cover up, lies and obfuscation about the real state of rangers perhaps once again our enemy are making a mistake. I am not sure we should interrupt them.
(I am now hiding behind the sofa awaiting the incoming!!)
the only way forward is to win the SPL season after season after season.
Anybody that wants to punish Celtic is off their head,the ultimate humiliation which can visit the huns or the zombies isn’t playing from a lower league,to me its Celtic winning 10iar,to my mind the div3 scenario helps contribute to that,Celtic,if we fail to stop this gerrymandering madness or don’t carry out a ‘nuclear’ plan must absolutely resolve to going for 10iar,if you consider how the huns have needed to cheat to keep up over the last ten,twelve years that we know about,how are they going to keep up on a level footing in 4 years time?
There’s a long term dominance strategy that must still be adhered to whatever happens,the zombies will have none of the old practises like being bankrolled on tic (now there’s a pun if ever I seen one),ebt’s or having dodgy contracts,unless somebody with crazy money is willing to spunk it away on the corrupt backwater that is Scotland then that is their only chance.
Keep spending your green money,back Celtic and hurt them the best way we can.
They will re appear with a swagger and tell all “we are still the peepull wae oor history” playing in blue at ibrox singing the same old songs…”oh really” says hector well heres your bill again…
Moonbeams WD. Kano \o/ Neil Celtic FC. We are the Champions. Ignore the WARTS. on 12 April, 2012 at 09:59 said:
It’s all Kingoh’s fault I tells ya! :-)))
Anyway. The only real options open to Celtic PLC in terms of protest are
1. To refuse to recognise Newco (including refusing to play them).
2. To challenge the legality of any decision to allow a Newco entry to SPL.
3. To refuse access to SKY, BBC and all Scottish media to Celtic Park.
4. To refuse to sell tickets for all away games and request openly that our supporters do not attend the grounds of all teams who back Newco in SPL.
MWD
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MWD
I think the above list would place celtic in breach of a whole raft of spl rules and contractual obligations, more trouble for us i suspect.
I refuse to allow the red mist to descend on my joy of being champions, i think our board will have a strategy in mind to spike these plans and we will see that unfold in good time, we may not stop it all but we will see them punnished.
HH
Mike
If they have their history then its there to be stripped.
johann murdoch on 12 April, 2012 at 10:17 said:
”They will re appear with a swagger and tell all “we are still the peepull wae oor history” playing in blue at ibrox singing the same old songs…”oh really” says hector well heres your bill again… ”
Won’t happen.
Jungle Jam67
Your right, Together with the Board we can make a stand. Only together though.
I’m interested to know what other fans at Aberdeen, Hibs & Dundee United make of this. HH
I’m sure our great referees will see to the Ranger finishing 2nd.
Gordon_J backing Neil Lennon on 12 April, 2012 at 09:46 said:
The Daily Mail actually has a good report on the Cheats’ Charter today. It explained why supporters of all other clubs were against it – and ridiculed the huns for opposing something that is clearly in their interests. But it put the blame for the whole thing squarely at Sky’s door.
It did make the point that any league where the membership was decided by commerical considerations rather than football ones could not be taken seriously.
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Did they include the EPL in that?
By the way folks – let me remind you of a time when Real Madrid were struggling financially. Some land they owned happened to be worth the value of their debt to the Spanish authorities.
The whole game of football stinks and I for one see no point in looking to UEFA or FIFA for much help other than, as suggested last night, to help them further their own agenda. They sure as hell won’t be doing it to ensure natural justice or to help well run clubs like Celtic.
Football is as corrupt a sport as exists. TV is largely to blame for introducing silly money to the equation. Perhaps if UEFA were serious it might ban TV contracts from football and encourage FA’s and clubs to use the Internet to sell their live games, national, local, european and to arrange their own advertising deals. Like it’s going to happen!
Can I ask everyone what you are prepared to do should the “wee jobby” plan come to pass:
1) Continue supporting the SPL.
2) Withdraw support totally.
3) Action to penalise other SPL members.
4) Moan about it but accept it
Paul67
Am I missing something? Do these rule changes not need to be voted through on the current voting system of 11-1.? Therefore any of the offending proposals should be beaten by Celtic acting on their own if need be.
@Hullbhoy: Sky/ESPN TV deal: EPL £4.3m per game. SPL £266k per game. EPL shown across UK so constrains SPL product. £20m comp is drop in ocean for EPL.
If Romanov had a brain (I know, I know) he would get Hearts through the Admin/Liquidation process asap, before these new rules can be applied to any other than the club they are designed to help. By going now/soon, Hearts can sell off a genuinely valuable stadium/site (unlike the Murray-inspired nonsense value at PoundLand), pay off creditors (is his bank not the main creditor anyway), phoenix as a NewCo (the SPL just couldn’t do anything other than treat them like TFOD or Romanov would have them in the European courts), start off debt-free (just like you-know-who) and take the hit of the points deduction in place at the moment. Hearts have already indicated that they’ll be playing next season with fewer top eartners and more youth players so there is no extra disadvantage, just the knowledge that they’ll get the chance to work up the good-ole SPL where punishments for financial mismangement are a thing for the FUTURE and wont impact on them any more than their cousins on the soutgh side of Glasgow. But, if they wait until they are forced to go into Admin, well woe betide them then. Any Hearts lurkers who haven’t thought of this themselves feel free to contact your club about it.