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.
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James79 on 17 April, 2012 at 22:01 said:
Is timbhoy2 for real????
———————————
Naw Bayern i think! ;-))
He has been posting for a while and it’s all “ah wiz it the game and we were pish” , “Lennon’s formation was all wrong” etc..etc..etc…
2 things he always does/says – 1. he was at the game 2. criticises team/manager.
Don’t care if he is for real or not. He’s a fud!
HH
Art of War on 17 April, 2012 at 21:59 said:
I would be considered a happy clapper on here, I think, but I was very critical of the board for putting a man with Mowbray’s nature in charge at Celtic.
He was an easy target who didn’t have the temperament to deal with the fall out from poor results.
Art of War
Defo could not agree more.
macjay1 for Neil Lennon on 17 April, 2012 at 21:55 said:
Absolutely SPOT ON….!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have been waiting all my life for Celtic to REALLY take them on…… Then, when we decide, ‘enough is enough’, aided by Paul, PHIL, RTC, CQN POSTERS etc, you get a minority who don’t know their history, and meekly accept the way their team is treated / hated in this Country ….. No longer will they ‘walk all over us’?…!!!!!!!!!
T4
Cheers for the Paul Buchanan (genius) shout…
If Chico and his fellow clowns want to go down the importance of economics route then CFC as the biggest taxpayers, money earners and contributors to Scottish football should demand the right to win all league titles and cups from now on – or we will take our money elsewhere
Oh and get to choose the refs for all our games – just to er.. make sure any honest mistakes go our way!
HH
Timbhoy 2 = bhun or Fud
Mowbray was never the right candidate for the job.The board reacted to the end of the Strachan era and the fans demands for a more aesthetic brand of football.I became alarmed when he spent 4 million on a front man and then said something along the lines of him not being a goal scorer.
67Heaven … I am Neil Lennon..!!..Truth and Justice will always prevail on 17 April, 2012 at 21:57 said:
Yeah, they still don’t get it. Never over estimate the intelligence of the average hun.
One of the boys at work told me one came over to gloat on Monday morning. He told him he should be spending his time worrying about the chances of his own team being able to fulfill their fixtures next season and he skulked off mumbling. :)
Eric
Well, well, well.
They get BBC4 in Las Vegas.
Who’d have thunk it.
aldersyde avenue on 17 April, 2012 at 22:00 said:
As Iv’e said above it isn’t in his nature to get riled and angry. He reminded me of a managerial version of Brattback. I recall Harold getting lambasted for not chasing back and making challenges but it just wasn’t part of his make up and you were never going to change that.
Mowbray shouldn’t have been in the position to deal with the 2 events which you highlighted.
Hamilton Tim,
Hope you are well
Agree with you on Mowbray – hopelessly out of his depth.
I don’t believe our board have ever really been held to account for appointing someone with a totally wrong temperament.
And that’s without mentioning his last act as West Brom manager.
hamiltontim -You happy clapper you! :-))
I was not on this wonderful site at that time but i do remember everyone in my sphere of friends saying that Mogga would play football the Celtic way – just as long as he keeps it tight at the back. We all know what happened and the board – rightly in my opinion – got it large. I did feel sorry for him but not half as sorry for myself!!!!
HH
i sure know how to wind up the lenny brigade on here, im in stitches ya fuds nite nite xx
Re Mowbray if the club had done their homework at the time they would have realised that all his best results were away from home.
Even now for Middlesbro their away form is very good but their home record is shocking.
A good Celtic teams makes Celtic Park a fortress. Mowbray was never going to make it at Celtic and it was our good old friends in black that speeded up his departure.
But I suppose good come out of it in the form of Lennon, Mjallby & Thompson and we all lived happily ever after.
Enrico Dandolo nicked my Crusade on 17 April, 2012 at 22:10 said:
LOL …….They really don’t get it, and neither do the LL
When considering Tony Mowbray’s tenure as Celtic manager it’s worth remembering that Neil Lennon was told to stick around when he talked of leaving.
That couldn’t have been a good working environment.
Maybe we are wrong about timbhoy2
Maybe he’s just a wee imature school boy who posts before his bedtime!!!
Anybody remember the gobdaw academic on radio clyde/shortbread discussing lennie relater issues saying sectarianism doesn’t exist in Scotland (anymore) but the perception of sectarianism is still there.
timbhoy2 is not a hun, IMO
He does swallow tabloid drivel easily though.
Sometimes there are Celts who do not find joy easy to handle.
Here we are with a league title won after a 3 year absence and with the huns on the brink of extinction and trying every trick in the book to stop their knickers frae showing.
And we have tims who just want to moan about us.
Thank God I can multi-task cos I am shaking my head and laughing at the same time.
theglasgowcelticway on 17 April, 2012 at 22:09 said: Mowbray was never the right candidate for the job.The board reacted to the end of the Strachan era and the fans demands for a more aesthetic brand of football.I became alarmed when he spent 4 million on a front man and then said something along the lines of him not being a goal scorer.
I was more concerned when he gave Peter Grant a job .
timbhoy2 on 17 April, 2012 at 22:12 said:
Brilliant, well it made me laugh anyway!! :-)
oops – it was last year
Apart from Mowbray first league game in charge,can anyone remember a decent performance?
Clashcitybhoy on 17 April, 2012 at 22:12 said:
I’m good mate though it’s a struggle being back at work :-))
You going on Sunday?
hamiltontim on 17 April, 2012 at 22:17 said:
You actually work? :p
HH
timbhoy2–are you Declan in disguise–i,e.–without the humour? If Celtic don’t go into that bastion of honesty and decency that is the SFA without video and written evidence about what other SPL managers have got away with hten they go down in my estimation. Add to that the statistics re Gollum and penalties for Celtic/Rangers, with a few more choice morsels thrown in, and there’s a strong case to present.
theglasgowcelticway 22:16,
Beating Dynamo Moscow 2-0 away from home was impressive. But it was all downhill from there.
jackie mac on 17 April, 2012 at 22:14 said:
Are you talking about Tom Devine?
What he said was that structural sectarianism (ie in employment, housing etc) not longer exists but cultural (ie people’s beliefs and attitudes) sectarianism still exists.
The reason structural sectarianism no longer exists is largely because 1. it’s illegal and 2.the growth of employment in the state sector and the decline of Scottish as opposed to UK wide or international employers meant that civilised recruitment practices superseded the previous, Scottish ones.
Bundoran
Yes but like Shaun Maloney it’s only for about 3 weeks a year!!
hamiltontim on 17 April, 2012 at 22:22 said:
PMSL
HH
the glorious balance sheet – Was that not the game were Big Sammi scored a cracking last minute winner?
HH
HT,
I am not planning on going on Sunday, but , I will probably change my mind about 9 pm on Friday , and then frantically search for a ticket !
PS Apologies for starting a sentence in my last post with a conjunction -:)
I support Neil Lennon because he is Celtic manager and also, just because. According to dimboy2 that makes me part of a brigade.
That’ll do for me.
Howard Webb showed tonight that his yellow card for DeJong for the chest high tackle on Alonso in the World Cup final was no mistake, he’s just pish.
How Sergio Ramos gets away with his challenges time after time only getting booked late on is hunbelievable. Marcellano and Pepe are just thugs and how he only received a yellow for a) that challenge and then b) the afters was a disgrace.
Ronaldo was again failed to deliver in a big game, becoming a habit. Anyone else notice how he is now caught for pace and does not run away from defenders anymore.
Roll on Saturdays Classico, can’t wait.
I’m right here’s the highlights –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n46JiNvor_A
HH
Clashcitybhoy on 17 April, 2012 at 22:27 said:
Because of the sincerity of your apology I will forgive you :-))
ps see what I did there!!!
Raymac on 17 April, 2012 at 22:19 said:
timbhoy2–are you Declan in disguise–i,e.–without the humour?
…or the spellnig?