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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Bobby T:
Point 1: Rangers with -10pts will finish 2nd this season, as they will do next season and the season after. The 10pts leaves them 2nd, less the uncertainty of this season. Even RFC(IA) have beaten us twice this season, currently 7-5 in goals.
Granted, they will have to clear the decks and restructure the playing squad, but their young fellas would beat the majority of the SPL – in fact, they ARE beating the majority of the SPL now.
I can’t understand Motherwell or Hearts voting in a punitive measure that leaves a cheating club still able to compete for 2nd place, thereby denying them the prize money associated with such a finish.
If they vote a NewCo back in, they should never, ever again complain about not having the finances to compete with the ‘Old Firm’. By voting in the NewCo they are choosing not to have better financial prospects.
Actually, there’s a point: Would shareholders in other teams not be a bit peeved if their club voted in proposals that potentially curtailed their earning abilities?!?!
the whole thinks stinks and is rotten to the core.
spl/sfa delaying tactics over all investigations
is an obvious ploy.
the rushed out rule changes and proposals that
have “no relevance” to rangers plight…yeah sure.
HMRC must know why duff and duffer and the SPL are
delaying all their actions…cos i certainly do.
are they happy with this???? are they in on it too?
celtic plc must refuse to play all away fixtures.
play away friendlies when these fixtures fall due and
put them on celtic tv.
Lennon n Mc….Mjallby
We are already on 12 in a row … so I dont see your point
Hail Hail
Moonbeams WD. Kano \o/ Neil Celtic FC. We are the Champions. Ignore the WARTS. on 12 April, 2012 at 09:59 said:
”Anyway. The only real options open to Celtic PLC in terms of protest are”
None of those options is going to happen.
What will happen is this.
Nothing.
There will be a lot of talk, but that’s all.
Next season the debt free newco Old Firm Huns will be playing in the SPL against their old rivals Old Firm Celtic.
We all know it. I don’t know why we are even talking about it.
BCW
3
RobertTressell on 12 April, 2012 at 10:13:
Robert: don’ be daft: come on out from behind the couch …
However much one might disagree with what you say, you should be applauded for the way in which you said it.
If nothing else, it should calm the fears of some of us who wonder what might happen, should the SPL vote as we think they will.
FF
BCW
Infact i’ll wait and see what the Boards reaction is 1st.
There was 3 possible scenarios to thems thievery.
1. The paid back all debts. ( nae chance)
2. CVA. They pay a fraction of debts, stay in spl and keep their tainted history.
3. Liquidation. They stay in spl with help from spl and sfa. BUT they lose all history, titles, stars etc.
This new spl proposition however revolting just ensures that option 3 will happen sooner.
Jelly and ice cream is still to be enjoyed.
BIG-CUP-WINNERS on 12 April, 2012 at 10:20 said:
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
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Planned boycott from Celtic fans & other clubs fans.
1 massive banner at Celtic park displaying Scottish Football is corrupt to show to the world how bad it is in this country.
Cancel Skysports and ESPN, speak to Celtic to televise our own games and fans can pay the club the cash.
RobertTressell on 12 April, 2012 at 10:13 said:
Great post Robert
The rANGERs will still be helped by the mib’s and will have to start in div 3 if justice is see to be done.
Jam67
The only way we will leave the Scottish game is when some form of European league is formed. There is no exit route that makes both footballing and economic sense.
A good post from a guy on RTC
I won’t add my outrage to the sentiments we have seen on the blog here already except to say this. It is unfortunate that it is so difficult to find a concensus among the fans of the non RFC clubs – and even harder to co-ordinate a campaign that includes them all.
My suggestion is that YOUR club should be made aware of your feelings. Only an idiot would be fooled into thinking that this was not a fix. The contemptuous way in which it is being enacted is no surprise to us, but it may give some otherwise apathetic fans the incentive to make themselves heard.
As a Celtic supporter, my feeling is simple. If this goes ahead there is little point in me continuing to support Celtic. Some might say that I am allowing the cheats to win by imposing a sanction on my own club, but I can answer that with two points;
1) This move will confirm for me that there is no true competition in Scottish football. It is therefore inconsequential to me who wins what, or when they win it, and by how much.
2) I ask myself this. Would Bob Kelly have stood for this, or would he have gone to the lengths of resigning from the SPL? My answer is no and yes respectively.
Therefore, I will absolutely and without fail refuse to pay for, watch on TV or read about Celtic playing in that corrupt competition. Regerettably there will be no more peaks of joy nor troughs of despair; as long as Celtic participate with cheats and people of dishonour who have conspired to evade the lawful payment of taxes and fair competition.
The Celtic I was brought up supporting would not stand for this. If things are different now to the extent that we can collude with it, then I consider myself fortunate that I have not changed in the same way. I can retire with my memories and my conscience intact, but I won’t be a supporter of the Celtic that participates in a sham competition.
The whole reason for the proposals from SPL is for one reason and one reason only. Its the same reason that Scottish football is currently regulated and run as it is. Its all about getting the biggest TV deal possible. It has nothing to do with sporting integrity, it has nothing to do with financial fair play, it has nothing to do with what is best for the game, it has nothing to do with developing and improving the game and it most certainly has nothing to do with what the fans/customers want.
The best TV deal must include the 4 times a season freak show that Sky TV crave and can fill endless dull hours on their sports news channel with. As long as the game is run to the demands of a TV contract that 4 games must happen our league and football association will remain a joke, and rightly so.
Ditch Sky, recov
The whole reason for the proposals from SPL is for one reason and one reason only. Its the same reason that Scottish football is currently regulated and run as it is. Its all about getting the biggest TV deal possible. It has nothing to do with sporting integrity, it has nothing to do with financial fair play, it has nothing to do with what is best for the game, it has nothing to do with developing and improving the game and it most certainly has nothing to do with what the fans/customers want.
The best TV deal must include the 4 times a season freak show that Sky TV crave and can fill endless dull hours on their sports news channel with. As long as the game is run to the demands of a TV contract that 4 games must happen our league and football association will remain a joke, and rightly so.
Ditch Sky, recover sporting integrity and begin developing and improving our game by embracing what the customers want.
ERNIE 10.24
We all know it. I don’t know why we are even talking about it.
It’s what the internet was invented for.
Just to harp on about what I was saying yesterday.
The club is not going to kill itself as a protest should these rules get voted in. So for the time being it will remain in the SPL and it’s going to need our support to giru the rest of them.
The SPL gets it’s money from Sky/ESPN and sponsorship – so the way to affect them is by boycotting their products.
Same goes for SFA except it’s sponsorship and tickets. Boycott them.
Any teams that vote these in – don’t take their tickets.
Now let’s say you have an annual football budget of ST+Sky+away/cup tickets(+transport) – put as much of that newly released budget into Celtic as you possibly can, but match tickets for friends, merchandise – whatever. Just make sure as much of your football budget as possible is hitting Celtic directly. If they’re going to make the playing field this uneven then we’re going to have to flatten it with a financial steamroller (a legitimate one).
I do not work for the board.
jock steins celtic on 12 April, 2012 at 10:33 said:
ERNIE 10.24
”It’s what the internet was invented for.”
Not according to a story I read yesterday in The Daily Mail (online edition).
Red cards to tax evasion and double contracts – not green lights!
RobertTressel – I’ve been thinking along similar lines for a while too, mostly just to scope out the scenarios.
You forgot one point, whoever buys rangers assets will offer a fixed sum to pay off the creditors, say for example 30m. The new owners will immediately place that 30m debt directly on the new rangers football company, possibly as a high interest loan from another group company, just as the Glazers did with the 700m they paid for Man Utd.
The newco will probably start life with a high level of debt.
Top of the morning to you all from a mild and miserable day in Fife.
Whatever else happened yesterday didn’t change the fact that Celtic are champions.
The club will no doubt make their views known on the stitch-up that is proposed but at the end of the day it will be down to the support to sort this out, just as it was the support that saved us from oblivion in 94.
H.H.
optimistic little soldier on 12 April, 2012 at 10:22 said:
Bobby T:
Point 1: Rangers with -10pts will finish 2nd this season, as they will do next season and the season after. The 10pts leaves them 2nd, less the uncertainty of this season. Even RFC(IA) have beaten us twice this season, currently 7-5 in goals.
Granted, they will have to clear the decks and restructure the playing squad, but their young fellas would beat the majority of the SPL – in fact, they ARE beating the majority of the SPL now.
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I have to disagree. The basis of the current team (which without the 10 point deduction has lost 8 points more than Celtic despite beating us twice) is still far more costly than the every other SPL club and their starting 11 is probably not far away from being as expensive as ours.
From next season on that will not happen. Their young players are not being played en masse as it were. They are coming in to a settled and experienced squad. Davis, Edu, Elbows, Whittaker, Papac, Lafferty et al all have a lot of experience as much as it pains me to say.
The point is that they cannot sustain a squad of even such limited talents (one that would have lost the league even without the administration and lost it by a distance) let alone overhaul it.
If things work out as suggested by Doncaster I will put my neck on the block here and state with confidence that NewRangers will finish third or lower next season.
Rangers will not be able to afford anything better than mediocre in the next two to three years. They will not be able to attract decent players because they play in Scotland AND they have no European football AND they face being handicapped in the league.
We need to start reading the signs of the times. There are signs that the establishment which allowed rangers to get themselves in to this mess are about to let them get in to another one.
I realise I may be a lone voice in thinking this way but looking ahead I can see no light at the end of the tunnel for rangers for the next 4-5 years and even then when they do compete it will have to be on the same terms as other well run teams – they don’t have a good history of being able to do that.
It ain’t all bad fholks. They are goosed whatever way they turn.
Our attentions in my opinion should be on dealing with the improper registration of their players. HMRC and other creditors are getting stiffed. There is nothing we can do about that. But the legacy issue of their cheating ways, the satisfaction of trophies returned to rightful owners and records changed – that is where the equally big moral scandal lies and the spotlight should be on it at all times.
If this all goes ahead, we better prepare ourselves for cries of ‘tainted title’ in 2013 and 2014, unless we win it by more than 10 points.
In reality, it will be a tainted league and deserving of nothing but derision by fans and the greater footballing world.
@OHenleyAlex: Charlie Richmond believes more Scottish referees will walk away in the coming weeks. #refgate
SonsOfErin on 12 April, 2012 at 10:37 said:
RobertTressel – I’ve been thinking along similar lines for a while too, mostly just to scope out the scenarios.
You forgot one point, whoever buys rangers assets will offer a fixed sum to pay off the creditors, say for example 30m. The new owners will immediately place that 30m debt directly on the new rangers football company, possibly as a high interest loan from another group company, just as the Glazers did with the 700m they paid for Man Utd.
The newco will probably start life with a high level of debt.
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I did miss that! As I say, there is no good way for them to turn right now. Some may be preferable but there are no easy roads.
Let them suffer!
hen1rik on 12 April, 2012 at 10:40 said:
@OHenleyAlex: Charlie Richmond believes more Scottish referees will walk away in the coming weeks. #refgate
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must be the non-rangers supporting ones because the bluenoses don’t do walking away!!!!
Willie Collum has refused to referee in Div3 just to give Re-arangers penalties.
Robert T –
you are correct to an extent (coming up from the 3rd would probably be a better option for them) and as far as I know if a club liquidates the player registrations default to the league.
But the point here for me (don’t laugh now) is the principle.
You don’t go to a roulette wheel you know is rigged to favour the house and you don’t play cards in the full knowledge that it’s a marked deck favouring another player.
That’s what we have here. This is, I imagine, the biggest tax fraud ever carried out by a Scottish business and possibly the biggest sporting fraud carried out by a Scottish sporting organisation but here we have it being rubber stamped as acceptable by the Scottish govt and the national football association.
I agree that we shouldn’t punish Celtic for this but in the greater scheme of things I just can’t see myself giving money to the club knowing that part of it will be financing something which I consider to be morally bankrupt.
Tough decisions ahead.
Headtheball on 12 April, 2012 at 10:40 said:
If this all goes ahead, we better prepare ourselves for cries of ‘tainted title’ in 2013 and 2014, unless we win it by more than 10 points.
In reality, it will be a tainted league and deserving of nothing but derision by fans and the greater footballing world.
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That’s the least of their worries matey, think of the tainted titles that has to be wiped from their history books once they’re guilty.
Think of the embarrassment that’ll cause them and it’ll show to the world they’re cheats.
StreetGames Football Festival at Lennoxtown
By: Newsroom Staff on 12 Apr, 2012 10:12
THE Celtic Foundation, in association with StreetGames, the sports charity which brings sport to the doorstep of young people in communities throughout the UK, is offering a free day of activity – a ‘StreetGames Festival’ – at Lennoxtown on Saturday, April 21, 2012.
Not only is participation free of charge but everyone will be be transported between Celtic Park and Lennoxtown at no cost. This event is being offered to young people between the ages of 13 and 19.
It is not for individuals, but for youth groups and organisations, and group leaders must accompany the youngsters on the day.
There are a limited number of places available for the event whose activities will include dance, football and Boxercise.
Group leaders interested should contact Brian Delaney: bdelaney@celticfc.co.uk or 0141 551 4266
RobertTressell on 12 April, 2012 at 10:42 said:
hen1rik on 12 April, 2012 at 10:40 said:
@OHenleyAlex: Charlie Richmond believes more Scottish referees will walk away in the coming weeks. #refgate
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must be the non-rangers supporting ones because the bluenoses don’t do walking away!!!!
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Especially not at a grand a pop lol.
RobertTressell on 12 April, 2012 at 10:42 said:
hen1rik on 12 April, 2012 at 10:40 said:
@OHenleyAlex: Charlie Richmond believes more Scottish referees will walk away in the coming weeks to the sound of flutes
Folly Folly on 12 April, 2012 at 10:25 said:
RobertTressell on 12 April, 2012 at 10:13:
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Cheers. I was kind of thinking as I typed. If I was a Rangers fan (shudder) I would be looking for positives right now. three seasons of no european money, two more with 10 point deductions, a likely trimming of squad and associated costs, unknown new owners with unknown intentions, the history of the club at stake, the possibility of titles being stripped, likely cut in sponsorship and advertising revenues, wondering where exactly my season book money will be going if I decide to renew – the club a laughing stock and with no prospect of catching Celtic for the next three to four years…………………….
I am pretty sure it isn’t nice being in their shoes (heaven forbid)
Let’s boil it down to the bare bones. If any newly constituted club gain immediate entry into any Premier League, that league is a Mickey Mouse League. That is an indisputable fact.
It is then entirely up to the individual customer to decide if he/she can disengage his/her mind from reality sufficiently enough to believe that they are ‘supporting’ their club in a ‘competitive’ league.
@anththetank: “@edwardrice1: A very good post on RTC blog by a Dundee Utd fan http://t.co/iTc5IlXE” Great idea, simple & effective. Unite in action.
hen1rik
Given that the dark forces are gathering to save their sorry asses from financial meltdown and oblivion, do you really think, in all honesty, that titles will ever be stripped from them?
I don’t believe it for a minute.
@peterbyrne4: undefined: http://t.co/25uIMvc2 @CelticHub @edwardrice1 @jamesdoleman @sensimeliajah @ShaunGibson1888 @tommyinglasgow must read!
Headtheball on 12 April, 2012 at 10:56 said:
hen1rik
Given that the dark forces are gathering to save their sorry asses from financial meltdown and oblivion, do you really think, in all honesty, that titles will ever be stripped from them?
I don’t believe it for a minute.
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They have no option the proof is there.
Any word on the complaints against the huns made by the German FA, Porto (and others?) to UEFA? How many other clubs will also submit concerns at current events in Scottish football? This isn’t just going to be swept under the carpet so easily imo.
The scottish establishment still has its work cut out to rescue the most insidious football club in the world. There’s a lot more to do this than just resurrection.
As for the SFA….they have a lot of explaining to do as well, and that’s the bit I’m looking forward to most. Give them enough rope….
Stupid huns.