Paul Simon wrote about ‘a loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires’ but if you want to raise money to rescue a company you need more than a loose affiliation. ‘The rebels’ at Celtic managed this in 1994 (somehow), but Paul Murray’s Blue Knights affiliation unravelled over a few days.
While Duff and Phelps were casting aspersions on the SPL for spiking their plans to announce a preferred bidder last week, the Blue Knights were already struggling to pull £0.5m together as a covenant to secure a period of exclusive rights to buy the club.
18 years ago a Celtic supporter walked into a branch of Bank of Scotland and paid £1m into Celtic’s bank account to bring it back under agreed limits and prevent the club going into administration – without any security or negotiating rights. A discrete but hugely important act by a man still on our board. No one from the Rangers consortium was prepared to gamble half as much last week, they even asked Ticketus, finance provider for Craig Whyte’s doomed venture, to stump up the non-refundable cash! The ticket agency declined.
The Celtic consortium soon fell apart with a modest degree of acrimony but personal issues were put to the side until the job of securing the club was complete. Paul Murray’s group was less fortunate. As a chartered accountant Murray would have been fully aware of the Employee Benefit Trusts which brought the club to its knees. What he knew and whether he benefited are likely to be some of the questions other consortium members were asking. He was not best placed to lead the recovery.
Murray also tried to keep a broad church together, from wealthy but detached Rangers fans to various elements of the support. This sounded ambitious from the off.
The most important comment from the Blue Knights yesterday was “The consortium believes that the whole deal process has become incredibly complex and it is critical that a preferred bidder is appointed this week.”
If it’s possible for the words “incredibly complex” and “critical” to be an understatement this is the occasion. The Scottish Premier League and Scottish Football League announce their fixtures in the middle of June. If Rangers are to phoenix before then they better hurry up and die. The liquidation process will take weeks (if it goes smoothly) and can be open to legal challenge. Stadium ownership has also to be secured and the claims of Ticketus and Andrew Ellis have to be satisfied.
Add to the mix creditors, the big tax case, punishments from the SFA for their on-going inquiry into the last takeover, potential punishments from the SPL inquiry into improperly registered players, increasingly widespread opposition from within the SPL and the rest of Scottish football to a place being created for a phoenix and you get the picture.
The last few years reads like a lesson in how to destroy a huge football club. Chances of SPL football at Ibrox next season? No more than 50%.
Bids for the original canvass painting of Neil Lennon by US based artist, Joseph Gormley, have hit an incredible £500. Keep an eye on the auction, which ends on Thursday, here.
Buy a hard copy of CQN Magazine, issue 7, by clicking on the button below. You can read online here.
1,002 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- ...
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- ...
- 27
- »
The huns are a bit like one of those Neanderthals that buried their axe heids alang side them in their graves…as though their history will magically join up with them “on the otherside of the end time”.
It is important that their history stays with them……when they are buried.
I’ve heard everything now
Getting a lecture from a h*n caller on Clyde about class and dignity and how well behaved they always are
Manchester ya plum … Nuff said
Clyde is yet again showing its true colors ..
Absolute Lenny and Celtic bashing festival !
2 huns paid £400 in total….
what a stadium in Munich…
C’mon Bayern, I hate Ronaldo
They want to speed things up so start another court case?
Paul Clark, joint administrator, said: “We
would like to inform all Rangers supporters
that today discussions have been held
between members of the administration
team and the two remaining bidders in the
sale process.
“A number of issues have been examined
and we have made it clear to all those
involved in the bidding that it is of
paramount interest to the football club that
a satisfactory deal be concluded without any
further delay.
“It is our intention to announce a preferred
bidder this week and we can assure all
supporters of the club that we are doing
everything in our power to make that
happen.
“We can also confirm that we have
instigated legal proceedings against Collyer
Bristow, the former lawyers of the club, and
The Rangers FC Group Limited in the High
Court in London for substantial damages
suffered by Rangers Football Club.”
Last month, a High Court judge instructed
that £3.6million once held in the account of
Collyer Bristow be transferred into the
safekeeping of the administrators’ lawyers,
Taylor Wessing, with several parties claiming
the money is theirs.
Parties with claims against Collyer Bristow
were informed they should bring their
claims by April 16.
Clark said at the time that Duff and Phelps
had “substantially larger claims against
Collyer Bristow”, which they wished to bring
as soon as possible.
sonofdan
Does the admin have any idea what they’re doing?
That Billy Ng will need some powerful magic!
I wonder if a psycologist would have a field day examining some of the Celtic supporters (if they are in fact Celtic supporters) who phone radio clyde to slaughter our manager.
I wonder if these callers get a little thrill in their loins, a kind of feeling of sexual humiliation as they are patted on the heads by Celtic’s enemies, people who are campaigning nightly for the normalisaiton of a newco into the SPL.
Pathetic people, worse than huns.
Is it really sensible for the most villified man in Scotland to Twitter at 15:39 hours on the day after securing the league at Kilmarnock that he was off for a Cure
I think that most of the Glasgow footballing public are well aware of his establishments of choice and I dare say his security were delighted with his twitterings
C,mon Madrid
Just so that Barca can hump you in the final
blantyretim on 17 April, 2012 at 19:14 said:
We all know that we have clowns who follow Celtic..
I had the misfortune to be landed beside one on Sunday…
total clown of a bhoy. I am sure the two lads with him must have been embarressed by him…He actually nearly caused a fight coming out of the park just because he was a total numpty… he threw the gate back and a young fan nearly got hurt…
total and utter clown… oh anf BTW I’m not a hun…
my seat was in block D passage 29 row mm seat 94….
—————————————————————————
Isn’t that the rangers end?? :-))
Has Sally has his ‘fruitful’ ‘rewarding’ 2 hour ‘conference call’ with Mr Ng yet – because as the press of this country are so quick to tell us – there ain’t much happening deal wise that Sally ain’t all over like a bad suit.
Ah Sally. Hmmmmm.
U
I see rangers have been promoted tonight from Channel4 to Channel3. Story must be hotting up or they smell death.
Richie agree , many Celtic fans follow the media like sheep aided and abetted by messes McNeil, hay and walker for 20 pieces of silver.
The campaign against fergus by the media was relentless ( Andy walker even complained about fergus charging him for a strip ). The outcome was that the man who risked his personal fortune of £9m to save the club was booed at the championship flag ceremony. It’s amazing the campaign now in place to target Lenny. When he walks away will the Celtic fans wake up and smell the coffee, don’t think so.
Lenny will learn to control his behaviour even when the most outrageous decisiions go against him. He is probably the youngest manager in celtics history and probably the youngest in the spl. He will learn. The so called Celtic fans attacking him are not giving him a break. Let this season go and there will be a big improvement next year.
Ps. I would invite fergus back to raise the flag next season……I just hope the fans do not boo him again!!
Ally hasn’t heard from billy ng yet, in fact he was heard singing the old Abba classic…
Ng, Ng, why don’t you give me a call?
Richie on 17 April, 2012 at 19:41 said:
BIG-CUP-WINNERS on 17 April, 2012 at 19:37 said:
Aye, but the point is it’s Celtic fans.
Yip, some of them are. They’ll all be Sun or Record readers as well as avid Clyde listeners.
My point is aimed at posters on here who listen to them, read their papers et al. Just stop buying their manipulation.
That’s what they do in the media, influence our club through us.
I’ll give you an example, the insinuation that Celtic are bottlers, it was echoed on here after Sunday. Fact is Celtic have the best cup record over the last couple of years.
The manic reaction to any new centre-half we sign is another.
Simply stop buying their hemlock, watch the team and form your own opinion.
Isn’t a bit ironic the that the Huns are totally reliant on two Bills for their very existence.
If only they had paid their bills in the first place.
See what i did there?
HT
must have been coz you where next block…. o))
Your all Irish – even Der Hun –
” Sykes says it best when he states. “Overall, the genetic structure of the [British] Isles is stubbornly Celtic, if we by that mean descent from people who were here before the Romans and who spoke the Celtic language. We are an ancient people genetically rooted in the Celtic past. The Irish, the Welsh, and the Scots know this, but the English sometimesthink otherwise.” Dal Riada Celts – When considered in a narrow genetic sense, the Gaels of Ireland, as identified by the DNA signature of OGAP8, are as close as any group to being considered the root line and forbearers of Celts of today. When present in Scotland, it is suggested that OGAP8 represents the signature of the Dal Riada Celts.
Picts – It is asserted that OGAP4 best represents the Pictish ancestry of Scotland. While there is no fundamental genetic difference between the Picts and the Celts, i.e., both being R1b, they are both from the same mixture of Iberian and European Mesolithic ancestry that forms the Pictish/Celtic substructure of the Isles. But on the contrary, it is extremely difficult,from which we can confidently conclude that the Picts and the Celts have the same underlying genetic origins.”
On the ubiquitous presence of the Haplotype OGAP4 across Scotland Sykes writes… “There is no surviving mythology around the Picts…. Grampian and Tayside – is Pictland … The reason I cannot be more certain is itself very relevant to the myth of the Picts. It is precisely because they are genetically close to the Gaelic Irish that these estimates are so difficult. If they had been a relic people, a genetic isolate, then it would have been easy to distinguish them from Irish Gaels.
On page 217 Sykes (Blood of the Isles) continues, “There has certainly been a substantial settlement at some time from Ireland in the recent past and the Irish infiltration into the west of Scotland is almost certainly the signal of the relocation of the Dal Riada from Ulster to Argyll in the first millennium. “Whether called the Irish Modal Haplotype or the “Ui Neill haplotype” as in the Trinity College paper, the North-West Irish Haplotype by David Wilson et al, or R1bSTR19 Irish as defined by McEwan (2007), it corresponds to OGAP8 in the Oxford data. A strong migration of OGAP8 to the Argyll area may be explained by the Dal Riada migration or as Sykes notes “Ar-gael was coined by the kings of Dal Riada for their three colonies – Mull, Islay, and Kintyre peninsula.”
GeneticpurityCSC
Had the KKK had a radio station, it would not have been possible for it to be more vitriolic than Radio Clyde has been tonight toward Celtic.
How Jimmy Gordon would have been shamed by his creation.
I can scarcely believe that guys like Hugh Keevins are people who came from the Irish diaspora which has brought great credit & values to Scotland.
What a pitiable human being you are, Hughie.
Kilbowie Kelt
Totally agree!
Good evening friends.
All Bayern fans tonight I take it?
Jobo
Jobo
Would support any1 who plays against Ronaldo
Rieperman
Your entitled to your opinion but your guilty again of not looking deeper at posters motivation for posting. If you take each individual posting as a single entity then sure you will come to the obvious infantile conclusion and cry about it. I pref
er a much larger statistical sample to analyse myself and normally make my decisions based on that.
I hope this helps
HH
The ghood will prevail @ 19:46
Is that same sexual thrill as experienced by bloggers who get a wee semi when addressing Celtic supporters as Huns when they have the temerity to have an opinion on bloggerdomes new found saint
I haven’t listened to Clyde tonight but I suspect that persons phoning in are only expressing an opinion as that voiced and shared by many a Celtic supporter leaving Hampden on Sunday and I didn’t see many of them being approached by supporters who disagreed with their point of view and being called a Hun
Ribbery 1-0
Woo-hoo!!! Goal Bayern. Yes!
Ribery(sp)
Jobo
Dig it out!!!!!!!!!
googybhoy –
I think you’ll find that mmy spelling was correct ;-)
Bojo
Saint Neil….I like it.
A great man but I feel he should go…….onto the pitch more often. :-)
mickbhoy1888 on 17 April, 2012 at 20:01 said: ””””””””””
Mick,..I have NEVER called any poster on this blessed site a HUN.
ONLY, & exclusively, for that reason, I will not make such a judgement on YOU.
I think we should supply Neil with a megaphone.
HH
KK
Noo thats funny ;-) ;-)
HH
@DannyHilferty: @SPLFanSurveys @NoToNewco SFA rules re licenses will prevent a newco unless the SFA and SPL fold and create a new body http://t.co/OpssOjSz
Stringer Bell on 17 April, 2012 at 19:27 said:
I agree with every word you have said in that post, well said.
Evening all.
Didn’t have a chance to listen to the radio at all tonight – that must explain my somewhat relaxed mood.
It’s good to get away from all that deflection. All that, look away! nothing to see here at the big hoose! Look at what that badboy Lennon done now. Economy in crisis – blame the Lennon! Hospitals are skint – blame the Lennon! Millions on the dole – blame the Lennon! No doubt the Lennon was involved when poor Mr Murray got duped.
Ach, give it a rest. He’s a young manager in a football team. He’s passionate about what he does. Thank goodness he’s here to inject a bit of life into what is essentially a diversion – a form of entertainment – to be enjoyed.
Missed the radio but managed to read a bit of the Sun cos it was lying on a table in the pub. The opinion of Hugh Dallas printed as the truth. Dallas himself described as ‘top whistler’ and ‘ex-FIFA’. No mentions of why he’s now ex-SFA. An article whose agenda was so blatantly set it was laughable – except it was far from funny. Even less funny is the baiting of an ill-feeling that led to death-threats, devices in the post, bullets in the mail and on-pitch attacks last season.
Ah well, there goes that relaxed mood.
S
Jobo Baldie on 17 April, 2012 at 20:04 said:
googybhoy –
I think you’ll find that mmy spelling was correct ;-)
…………….
My spelling makes more money in the shop.
PeterLawell CFC