It’s always encouraging to read positive comment on your club, so the positivity from a sports brand consultant at Brand Finance was welcome. Apparently we are something of a commercial miracle, reaching parts no one else from a small country can come close to.
It’s also delightful hearing about glamour preseason friendlies (not quite announced yet, but coming). We are a club with more than just history, we have a team the best in the world want to play. We also have a future.
We have the league championship trophy in the boardroom, Champions League qualifiers to look forward to, and the sun is shining on Glasgow!
These are great times for Celtic.
You can buy a hard copy of the new issue of CQN Magazine via Magcloud here.
The graphic below is just for a flick through, to read the magazine go here to it’s dedicated site.
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All pretty depressing really.
But we should be used to it by now. Scotland have been dire for years now. A few signs of encouragment every couple of years with herculean efforts against quality teams and then the familiar lack of organisation and basic skills against lesser teams leading to familiar outcomes like tonight.
If I were to rationalise it I would say that there’s no point in supporting Scotland as it brings little joy or even expectation of joy but it’s not a rational thing.
Ah well, what a shame, never mind
HH
SIALF
‘well who do u support then?’
‘naw i just support celtic’
‘aye but who in the premiership’?
‘naw, nobody, just celtic’
‘aye u see u don’t really support anyone then…’
‘Naw i support Celtic’
B-)
The lack of organisation for a professional team was astounding.
Not surprising though when you consider the administration that has presided over the sad demise of a sport we once excelled at.
Enough is enough there needs to be a huge restructuring of Scottish football
Arty on 27 May, 2012 at 00:39 said:
I attended primary school in Longriggend and Caldercruix where Joe was headmaster, before he moved to Plains.
He was an very interested and caring teacher. He had a great love of football and did a lot of organizing school football.
As you say his wife taught music, but since I’m very unmusical her efforts fell on stony ground, or deaf ears if you like.
I did know a few Bannons, but as they were younger than me I expect my brothers and sisters will be more familiar. There were almost as many Bannons as us. Plains was not known for small families.
.
Celtic.. Full Heart..
Scotland.. Half Heart..
Celtic.. Love..
Scotland.. Interest..
Celtic.. Family..
Scotland.. Cousins..
Celtic Goal.. Euphoria..
Scotland Goal.. Need another 2..
Celtic Support.. Faithfully Through and Through..
Scotland Support.. Kiss Swedish Police..
Summa
Scotland most recently were at their most effective under the Cardigan.
(Not their most attractive please note)
But he too was seduced by that Toxic liability known as RFCIA to breach his contract and try and salvage something for them post LeGuen.
His obligations to the His Most Corruptness trumped any pseudo nationalism.
MSM were unmoved and rather silent, then as now.
Why do any of you read these people and buy their rags?
Come on Barcabhoy and the Mark Daly.
Give us more.
HH
RalphWaldoEllison-is Neil Lennon Season 2011-12 on 27 May, 2012 at 04:10
_________________
Hear, Hear m8.
P.S. F#ck Scotland fitba team and, the majority of population.
A good article by Andrew Smith who blames Fergus (In a good way) for their current problems:
http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/spl/rangers-administration-seeds-of-club-s-destruction-sown-by-fergus-mccann-1-2320898
That’ll be Bunnets joining the banned list on FF then.
Kev Jungle said:
F#ck Scotland fitba team and, the majority of population.
An absolutely shocking and disgusting comment.
Shame on you.
Reilly 1926
An excellent article indeed. I still cringe when I think of the day the Fergus was booed at Celtic Park and make no mistake, it was at least half the stadium! Little did we know at the time what utter wrong doings were going on across the city. I’ve no doubt that FM was a difficult man to deal with, having listened to various people over the years and none more so than the great late Tommy Burns but I firmly believe he had the best interests of Celtic at heart. I don’t believe for one minute that the man was a crook like SDM et al. If Fergus has helped even just a wee bit to have helped bring them down then good for him. The one thing I feel so strongly about is if there is any titles or trophy stripping to be done at Ibrox then Tommy should posthumoulsy get that title. What a fantastic team that was. So pleasing on the eye. Undone by a corrupt organisation. If there is justice then it will happen.
Pablo
That interested in Scotland I don’t even know the score but I’ll be happy if they lost.
Read back some of the nightshift and see Catholic schools getting it again,I personally dont care about this ‘Celtic is open to all,a broad church where I have my own opinion’ attitude,that to me is an abuse of the openness of Celtic and the support,I personally find it very anti Celtic for somebody to start trying to make what is dressed up as logical argument using the innocence of kids to attack Catholic schools,such education works just fine for those involved in it,you dont get many Catholic children growing up feeling the need to join secret clubs in order to help them make a living for a start,these fools who come on here spouting such rubbish about Catholic schools should be treated as such and I genuinely despair at the respect they are afforded if only because all the ones I’ve read making their pitiful arguments have never been near a Catholic school.
Pablo I was in the north stand upper when Fergus raised the flag. I heard booing but nothing like what you state. It was a small proportion of the crowd not even close to half. Many of us even back then realised that Fergus was our saviour. We should invite him back this year to raise the flag. A recognition that we all now realise he was right all along.
Lennon n Mc….Mjallby on 27 May, 2012 at 07:29 said:
”That interested in Scotland I don’t even know the score but I’ll be happy if they lost.”
Neither happy nor unhappy, just uninterested.
If Levein is sacked who would replace him?
Both McLeish and Smith are available. Maybe Sally will be too.
What a dilemma for the SFA.
Whither Andy “BoxHeid” Roxburgh?
Ernie
Whilst Ogilvie is still in position without major outcry Scotland doesn’t deserve support.
I didn’t even know Scotland were playing until I looked in on CQN an hour ago.
Good morning CQN from sunny Fife
Another nice day by the looks of things
Dung-caster has said Rangers could be stripped of their tainted titles
But they will not be pushed into rushing the inquiry
I think they just want someone else to do their work for them
Keep the Faith
Hail Hail
Scotland is not “scoddland”.
The Bowling Club Blazers and funny hanandshake men shame the enlightened in our country………….
All anyone can do is question them forensically, keep raising questions and keep the light on them.
Thanks to places like this it’s now easy to spot the stoatirs and deal with them.
We didn’t have this facility or opportunity until relatively recently.
God Bless this Dear Green Place.
HH
I said this week Fergus should be invited back to unfurl the flag, he is 71 and opportunities will few and far between to honour the man. I was in the stand and have to say I was a booer if thats the right word. I was alot younger then however if my memory serves me right the reason was to protest at the typical celtic like implosion you know what i mean, in terms of our most successful manager and his assistant of the decade leaving the club. We had waited 10 years to win the league and had suffered massive hurt as the “cheats” nearly won 10 in a row and everything else. We had got it right and like bullseye a “heres what you could have won” was snatched away, we had a good team and we all remember the euphoria of winning against St Johnstone fans on the pitch running with large flags, oasis on the tannoy belting “roll with it”.We were back after a decade and a week later Wim resigned and our bubble was burst. Remember it was another 3 years before Martin O Neil came in and the club wakened up to what it took to win the league. We knew we were capable of more and Fergus was a businessman so correctly he put in the checks and balances, but there is a happy medium to be found.
I’d like the chance to put that right!
By MARTIN HANNAN The Scotsman
Published on Sunday 27 May 2012 03:42
Alphabet spaghetti of CVAs and EBTs could be coming home to roost but debate rages over SPL’s sanctions
WITH administrators Duff & Phelps announcing that they are ready to issue a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) proposal which will be finalised – or not – by 13 June, the immediate future looks brighter for Rangers.
But what happens if the CVA is rejected? The most likely answer is that the Rangers’ company will be liquidated and the club will survive as a new company in the SPL, with no further sanctions against them at this time.
Rangers will have to apply to stay in the SPL as a newco. If five clubs vote against them, the 140-year-old institution will cease to play football for the foreseeable future, unless the Scottish Football League admits them on an emergency basis – an extraordinary general meeting would be needed, called by 12 member clubs, and certain rules such as those that specify grounds and colours have to be registered with the League by 1 June would need to be set aside.
League sources confirm there is no automatic right of entry into the SFL for any club, which is why the newco route into the SPL will be the way ahead for Rangers should the CVA deal fall through.
That Rangers sought a judicial review over the one-year transfer embargo is proof of how the loss of the ability to buy in the transfer market – Green has close links to agents through his previous involvement with the ProActive Sports Management company – may fatally damage his CVA plans, leaving only the newco route to survival.
Talk of sanctioning the newco as it enters the SPL is a waste of breath. Though this will anger fans of other clubs, any attempt to impose further penalties – at this time – on Rangers will fail for the simple reason that no such extra punishment is allowed for in the SPL rules.
According to the SPL rule book, the penalty for going into administration is a ten-point deduction. That’s all. The SFA has issued its fines and transfer ban and, again, the rules do not allow for further penalties. Those who argue for “sporting integrity” face this quandary – what integrity is there in making up rules and sanctions to punish a club which has already been punished to the limit under the rules?
SPL chief executive Neil Doncaster explained: “You have got some behaviour last year, which the SFA has dealt with and punished [by the £160,000 fines and transfer ban]. You can agree or disagree with the punishment if you wish, but the SFA have dealt with it. Rangers went into administration and they were punished under our rules.”
Doncaster is adamant the rule book has been followed to the letter: “All clubs are treated under the same rules in the same way. There aren’t special rules being applied.
“There’s the same set of rules in terms of newco that have been in place since 1998. They haven’t changed so there are no special rules being applied or adopted. Any perception that clubs are getting off scot free is wholly erroneous.”
Doncaster met the media last week ostensibly to talk up the new Financial Fair Play rules – “toughest in world football,” he said – which will see SPL clubs that go into administration penalised ten points or a third of their previous season’s total, whichever is the greater. The new rules also impose a transfer ban on any club failing to pay its tax liabilities, and proposes a ten-point deduction over two seasons and severe financial penalties such as withholding 75 per cent of SPL payouts to any club having to re-enter the league via a newco. The rules would change immediately but none of these changes are retrospective.
So, if the CVA fails, Rangers look most likely to survive as a newco in the SPL with history if not pride intact, as Doncaster conceded: “There are all manner of clubs who have come out through a CVA or a newco but no-one has ever insisted that their history stops.”
Rangers fans will definitely not be out of the worry zone if the club survives. The EBT dual contracts inquiry may take some time, as Doncaster agreed. “This is an enormously complicated area,” he said. “You have to ask how long it took for the HMRC case to come to fruition. These are complex areas, there is a lot to trawl through and the lawyers are working on it.”
But it could devastate the club all over again next season if the inquiry finds Rangers did operate dual contracts.
Doncaster said: “There is an ongoing investigation into payments outside of contracts. Every single action I would argue is being dealt with, or has been dealt with, appropriately. Where a club does something wrong it is penalised under the rules in every instance.
“You would expect the EBT investigation would continue to bind the football club.”
The clear implication of Doncaster’s remarks is that the rules don’t allow further sanctions on Rangers at this time, but should the club be found guilty of having operated a dual contract system, then Rangers will be heavily punished next season.
Being stripped of titles, as happened to Marseille and Juventus, might see those five gold stars on Rangers’ jerseys for winning 50 titles reduced to four, and the punishment could be even worse – anything from a fine to a further transfer ban, points deductions or even expulsion from the SPL.
Doncaster said: “There will be no special cases made for individual clubs, the rules will be applied fairly and evenly to all 12 member clubs as they always have been and as they always will be.
“There may be vested interests but vested interests are part of football. What’s important is that the rules are adhered to and applied.”
Doncaster admitted there were lots of “twists and turns” to come, and though the administration period could go on for months – Rangers would start the season ten points down in that case – the most likely outcome of a CVA failure is that the SPL clubs would decide the future of Rangers as a newco.
Eight chairmen would need to approve that newco. If five vote against, then Rangers would need the Scottish Football League to come to their rescue. If they don’t, Rangers FC will cease to exist
By Tom English The Scotsman
Published on Sunday 27 May 2012 02:35
Time waits for no man, least of all the football authorities in Scotland and the business of the investigation into the alleged double contracts at Rangers, a process that began in March and which is now seeing the Scottish Premier League coming under heavy pressure to put on its black cap and start doling out some justice.
“The biggest scandal in the history of Scottish football” is how this story is billed and that might well prove to be true but, if this is the biggest scandal ever, then surely it warrants the biggest inquiry ever.
We are now about 12 weeks into the fact-finding exercise – an eternity to some – and Neil Doncaster and the SPL are getting bombarded with demands for a verdict. “Patience, the beggar’s virtue, shall find no harbour here,” wrote the poet, Philip Massinger. The quote could be a mantra for those who think 12 weeks is a reasonable time-frame to get to the root of this affair.
Or maybe they don’t think that.
Maybe the impatience is born out of suspicion that, unless they keep creating noise, this thing could be put on the long finger and then stay there until it’s flicked away for good at some point in the distant future.
Cynicism about the workings and thought-processes of the SPL is no bad thing. David Murray has already admitted to making discretionary payments to players but these payments were not declared to the footballing authorities when they needed to be. When there’s little reaction to Murray’s comments from Hampden then, understandably, it breeds distrust. This is a sickness eating away at the domestic game.
When the SPL issued their statement on Wednesday suggesting a lack of co-operation from Duff & Phelps in their pursuit of key EBT documents, they did so in the knowledge that Mark Daly’s investigation on BBC Scotland was a matter of hours away. And they will have known by then that Daly had managed to get documents that maybe they hadn’t got. Embarrassing for them? You could see it that way, for sure. You wouldn’t blame anybody for asking: “Why haven’t you got them? What have you been doing? You’re supposed to be investigating!”
Was it a firefighting exercise that made the SPL issue a statement pointing to a lack of co-operation from Ibrox? Maybe. And maybe it was the truth, too.
The SPL seemed to be saying: “Hey, we’re working hard trying to get this stuff but Duff & Phelps are holding out on us. This is what we’re up against!”
Some might have sympathy, most won’t.
The SPL investigation has its sceptics and it’s hard to blame them given some of the signals that have been coming out of the SPL.
There have also been the statements from Doncaster, below, that could easily be interpreted as the chief executive preparing a case for a newco Rangers to sail on merrily in the SPL no matter what they are currently guilty of and what they may be found to be guilty of in the future in relation to undeclared payments to players. As the saying goes: “I might be paranoid, but that doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me.”
It’s right that pressure is put on the SPL to focus clearly on their inquiry but it’s too early to wring the hands and accuse them of a go-slow.
Let’s be clear. This is a mammoth undertaking, an investigation which is so vast that it’s without parallel in the history of the game in Scotland. Even if the SPL found cast-iron evidence that a Rangers player or a Rangers official was bang to rights on rule-busting side payments, it still needs to explore all the others if it is to be seen to be doing a thorough examination of what exactly has gone on here.
If Rangers broke the rules, then we should know the scale of the breach. If they didn’t, then the club needs to be exonerated.
Daly’s programme revealed that 63 players and 24 other employees of Rangers had EBTs, the total worth of these schemes coming in at £47m. The documentation for every one of these arrangements needs to be pored over if a proper investigation is to be carried out resulting in unarguable conclusions.
Everybody from Barry Ferguson, who trousered £2.5m, right down to Steven Smith, who took away £7,500, needs to be looked at. If these dodges broke SFA and SPL rules, then we’re talking about a story of mind-altering significance where the demand for the ultimate punishment of the revoking Rangers’ SPL licence will reach a crescendo among ordinary football people. If the opposite is true, then it’s vital we’re told precisely why that’s the case so that the business is cleared up once and for all and a stain is removed.
Here’s the thing, though. The SPL’s search for documentation has, it seems, been stalled somewhat by Duff & Phelps. The SPL’s lawyers need to crash through quickly and get the paperwork they require. Once they have it, the SPL have a number of ways to proceed. The SPL board will look at the documents and decide on their next move.
They could: (a) decide that there’s no case to answer; (b) decide that there might be a case to answer and convene a sub-committee to look at it further; (c) call an independent tribunal chaired by somebody of the magnitude of Lord Nimmo Smith and let the wholly independent commission take it from there.
Three choices but really only one that satisfies and that is (c).
The stakes in all of this could not be higher so the SPL deserve some latitude on the deadline so long as they’re moving forward with their investigation at pace rather than standing still.
This isn’t going to be decided today or tomorrow, but it must be done as soon as is possible and with all the rigour that it demands.
Good morning. Decent article in the Scotsman.
By ANDREW SMITH
THE cast list took on the proportions of a Cecil B DeMille production. Yet BBC Scotland’s investigation into Rangers’ monetary meltdown, The Men Who Sold The Jerseys, made no reference to the man who can be held, at least indirectly, responsible.
Football law-breaking and the collapse of the club’s financial stability seem to be the consequences of Rangers using Employee Benefit Trusts (EBTs). And David Murray’s decision to turn to these risky schemes can be traced to the rebirth of Celtic. Which makes a key player in Rangers’ downfall none other than Fergus McCann.
Simply by getting so much right, McCann caused Murray to send Rangers down a path which has proved patently so wrong. McCann was the antithesis of Murray. The Scots-Canadian detested what he called football’s “jam tomorrow” philosophy of Murray. And, as Rangers rampaged to nine consecutive titles between 1989 and 1997, for all his brilliance in rebuilding Celtic, McCann lost the on-field battle.
By the summer of 1997 – year four of McCann’s five-year plan – Celtic were still stuck in the shadow of Rangers. Murray made sure of that. For much of the 1990s, Rangers had run at a profit. With no challenge from across the city, they needed only the occasional luxury such as Brian Laudrup and Paul Gascoigne, which they could just about afford. However, in order to rack up a historic tenth straight title, Murray decided greater investment was required. A Scottish record close-season spend of almost £15million was sanctioned.
A posse of players, headed up by Italians Lorenzo Amoruso, Marco Negri and Sergio Porrini, each of whom cost around £4m, was added to a proven squad. In contrast, under new head coach Wim Jansen, Celtic reconstructed their entire team with what they brought in from the sale of prized assets Pierre van Hooijdonk, Paolo Di Canio and Jorge Cadete. The modest £650,000 acquisition of Henrik Larsson was mocked for being much trumpeted by general manager Jock Brown.Celtic’s efforts were considered futile. The Daily Record set out three Rangers teams capable of winning the league.
In the end, Walter Smith’s final season brought no silverware to Ibrox as McCann’s mission was accomplished, Celtic winning the title and League Cup. Everything changed. Almost, it seemed, as an act of vengeance, the bullish Murray escalated the arms race and put his club on a path to self-destruction. With cash injections from new investors Dave King and investment firm ENIC totalling £60m, he recruited Dutch manager Dick Advocaat and allowed him to lavish a British record summer spree of £24.5m on players. But, even though Murray’s credit tap from the Bank of Scotland was flowing freely throughout his business empire, he saw the need to make efficiency savings… of the tax variety. For it was in 1998 that discussions began with Paul Baxendale-Walker over such schemes.
Moreover, in that summer, the legacy that McCann would leave Celtic when selling up his stakeholding the following year was cast in bricks in mortar as stadium rebuild was completed. With a 60,000 capacity, it ensured a revenue advantage over Rangers, whose Ibrox home housed 50,000. Only borrowing or fresh investment could allow Rangers to keep pace.
EBTs were a means by which Murray could even up the figures. Ultimately, the £47m paid into them between 2001 and 2010 can be implicated in all sort of ways in the predicament Rangers now find themselves – and the possibility that they could be stripped of 13 trophies won during that period.
EBTs allowed them to retain a spending level to compete with Celtic when the club’s bankers halted the easy access to credit while debts across Murray Group spiralled out of control. It is no coincidence that the zenith of EBT use came in 2007, when Celtic won the title, reached the last 16 of the Champions League and posted a £16m profit. However, these trusts were administered in such a fashion that, a year later, HMRC hit Rangers with a demand for unpaid back taxes of £24m. That is the basis for the Rangers appeal, subject to a first-tier tribunal that has yet to deliver a judgment. It is expected to pass down a harsh one that could land the club with a £50m bill.
Baxendale-Walker says that EBTs were only a “problem [for Rangers] because of how they implemented the structure”. Rangers’ botch is that in order to fulfil the discretionary and loan elements of legal EBTs, they could not lodge payments made to these trusts in the playing contracts forwarded to the SPL and SFA. However, few agents would accept payments to their players that were simply verbal understandings. Hence the fact that, of the 63 Rangers players who are thought to have had EBTs, the BBC claims 53 had side letters detailing payments that were made for contractual fundamentals such as appearances and bonuses. SPL and SFA rules state that all payments made in respect of a player’s playing activities must be included in the contracts lodged with these authorities. Essentially, in seeking to serve, however dubiously, the tax laws, Rangers were not able to serve footballing law.
It is difficult to see how Rangers can now avoid being found to have improperly registered almost half their players between 2001 and 2010. In the past, clubs who have been guilty of this offence have had their results voided. In Rangers’ case, this would mean their title successes of 2003, 2005, 2009 and 2010 would have been won unlawfully, and likewise the Scottish Cup victories of 2002, 2003, 2008 and 2009, and the League Cup triumphs of 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2010.
That would be a bitter blow. But no more bitter than the fact that, were it not for the EBT case hanging over Rangers, Murray would have found a buyer other than a shyster such as Craig Whyte, and the club would have avoided the descent into administration and possible oblivion. That man McCann has an awful lot to answer for.
Summa
I take it you`re back in Oz
Welcome hame.
Scotland Goal.. Need another 2..
Black humour,with which I can identify.
Many a time and oft.
From the Mail
Rangers fans must be shocked at EBT millions spent on duds
By Gordon Waddell on May 27, 12 07:21 AM in
Here’s something for Rangers fans to consider.
Take away the legality or illegality of the way the EBTs were used as a potential tax dodge. Take away the question of whether the dough was paid on the side, outside of football rules.
Take it back down to its base level.
And just consider the sheer nauseating obscenity of the fact that you were shelling out 500 quid a year for the dubious privilege of seeing your club – under David Murray’s stewardship – p*** that money and so much more into a pot paying some of the biggest duds Scottish football has ever seen some of the most ludicrous, ahem, loans any business anywhere has ever seen.
How does that make you feel? My jaw was on the deck looking at the list on the Beeb website on Wednesday night.
I mean, hard enough to imagine that the likes of Bob Malcolm, Dan Eggen and Jerome Bonnissel ever properly earned their basic at Ibrox, far less an entitlement to these extras.
But Julian Rodriguez – 638 grand? Marvin Andrews £316,000? Soti Kyrgiakos £532,000? Kevin Muscat – a million for 26 lousy starts?
And Nuno Capucho. Nuno bloody Capucho? Thirty grand short of a million quid he got, over and above his wages?
That’s about 300 hundred grand for every minute he stayed on his feet in a light blue shirt.
Or what about Michael Ball? I remember the saga like it was yesterday, all the sympathy and hand-wringing going on for Alex McLeish because he’d had his power to pick the player withdrawn over the fact one more appearance would kick in another payment they just couldn’t afford in these times of austerity and belt-tightening.
And the bleeding heart tale from the player himself about him having to pay £4000 to Everton every time he kicked a ball once he did get past the threshold. That’s how much, apparently he loved playing for the teddy berzzz.
But let’s face it, who wouldn’t have that kind of love for a club who were allegedly letting you take out loans to the tune of £1.4m without paying any tax on it? Four grand a game is a BARGAIN.
At least Nacho Novo, one of 13 players who made it into seven figures on £1.2m, gave the club some value for their profligacy with some giant, meaningful, title-winning, European-final-reaching goals, which …
Oh, right… that’s kind of the point, though, isn’t it?
Listen, the fact that much money was swishing around outside the back door of Scottish football is enough to make your head hurt. Even the most diehard bluenose must cringe at the list.
Yet again, though, you have to keep detaching yourself from the gut-level emotional reaction – because that’s what the men charged with actually deciding their fate have to do.
They have to see hard evidence of wrongdoing under THEIR rules. Of guilt under the law. Of corporate culpability.
No doubt, the noose is tightening.
The trouble is, it’s hard to know who’s clawing at the rope to get a breath more. Rangers, or the other 11 chairmen wondering how to deal with them?
It’s a big week. Wednesday sees them get together to decide on a few things.
Elsewhere in these pages, you’ll find an analysis of the Financial Fair Play regulations which leaves you doubtful that more than a couple of the clauses will pass the vote.
But the one thing they will shoo through is the resolution putting the decision on Rangers into the hands of all the clubs, rather than the board. Share the responsibility? Or just deflect 11/12 of the blame? These clubs are in trouble, either way. In the past week alone, Aberdeen’s most influential fans group have made a public threat of a boycott.
Motherwell have issued a statement saying they’ll consult – but stopped short of saying their decision could or would be swayed by the consensus.
St Johnstone chairman Steve Brown was bullish, saying he won’t allow Gers to transfer a share without sanctions.
What he DIDN’T say was what he would do if the option to hammer them wasn’t available. Would he simply vote no?
All of this is still hypothetical, obviously. Charles Green could achieve a CVA, they could come out of administration and they could all live happily ever after.
Then again…
Ultimately, it will need five of them to vote “no” to stop Rangers getting back in if doomsday arrives. And as I said a few weeks ago, it’s not going to happen, whether the average fan in us likes it or not.
It SHOULD be about morality or integrity but for how many of us is life ever that one-dimensional?
The reaction to the lose/lose scenario was interesting. Plenty wrote and said, “Why would clubs go bust without Rangers? Plenty get relegated and survive without the crowds and without the TV money”.
True. But when they go down, they get a parachute of £250,000 then £125,000. They get to introduce solace clauses into players’ contracts reducing wages for a lower league.
They also generally take a giant hatchet to their staff behind the scenes. Two of those three ain’t options.
People also seem to think the TV deal argument is an idle threat, that there’s no evidence Sky and ESPN would bail.
But have a look at Neil Doncaster’s non-answer to a very straight question about whether the contract is predicated on Rangers’ presence and draw me another conclusion.
What’s the old saying? Hope for the best, prepare for the worst…
U have nothing but respect for Fergus McCann but some comment recently would suggest he was a saint.
The booing he received on flag day was wrong, but I can understand the frustrations about why it was done.
Fergus appointed Jock Brown who was a total idiot. Terry Cassidy with a law degree.
Brown’s abrasive and evasive approach with the management and playing staff was one reason for internal problems. Behind the scenes it was the Jock Brown show, I think Fergus gave him to much power.
I personally was very frustrated at our transfer dealings under Fergus. Haggling over fees saved money but could also cost points if we had to play games without the player in question.
Fergus did far more good for the club than bad. It’s a fact we are still Celtic 1888 because Fergus saved us. We should also remember the Huns are where they are because of Murray.
Rangers can be stripped of tainted titles, says SPL boss Neil Doncaster
May 27 2012 By Gordon Waddell The Mail
SPL chief executive Neil Doncaster has revealed Rangers COULD be stripped of any tainted titles under league rules.
The top flight’s lawyers are continuing to investigate the stricken club’s use of EBTs and if players were paid outside of the contracts lodged with the authorities.
Doncaster insists they won’t be pushed into rushing the inquiry. But he has admitted that, if the case goes against Rangers, the SPL has an option among their 18 available sanctions to withdraw any previous titles awarded.
Doncaster said: “In any disciplinary investigation we must go through a chain of events. The lawyers investigate and bring a report back to the Board.
“If they think there’s a case to answer, the Board must decide how to progress. They can hear it themselves, through a sub-committee or appoint an independent commission.
“If there’s a case which is prosecuted, there could be sanctions if proven. These are unlimited according to the rules.
“There are 18 different sanctions that can be applied by the SPL.”
Asked to clarify if one of those 18 options was ‘withdrawal or withholding of an award or title’, he confirmed: “That’s one of the rules.
“The nub of the issue is our rules say all payments to players must be made within an SPL contract.”
The league’s clubs – including newly- promoted Ross County– meet on Wednesday to vote on three resolutions that could determine Rangers’ fate.
However with several of the issues unlikely to be voted through, many still see a scenario where a newco Rangers could yet re-enter the SPL unpunished.
Doncaster said: “All sorts of different twists and turns could arise – I won’t predict what might happen.”
MailSport reported three weeks ago that the SPL has received strong legal advice warning that unless the Financial Fair Play resolutions are all passed, they cannot apply conditions if Rangers’ SPL share is handed to a newco.
Doncaster refused to deny that but said: “Clubs have a decision to make at that point. I’m not going to go in to what might happen.
“The clubs will decide on Wednesday how they’ll deal with any application for a newco should one come forward.”
If the resolution to take the decision away from the Board and put it in the hands of the 12 clubs goes through, it would require five of the 12 to say ‘No’ to deny Rangers their transfer of share.
However, Rangers administrator Paul Clark last night confirmed they would be issuing their CVA tomorrow in a bid to take Rangers out of administration, which would avoid the newco route.
Duff and Phelps will send their proposals to creditors, who will meet on June 13 to deliver their verdict.
And the Ibrox beancounter remained bullish about the club’s prospects of a revival.
Clark said: “We’re on track. Relative to other football admins, there’s been a good amount of swift progress.
“It’s very rare these things are resolved in three or four months. Getting the CVA proposal is a major milestone and that will happen on Monday.”
But he did pull the club back from prospective owner Charles Green’s assertion on Friday that a deal had already been agreed with HMRC over the CVA.
Clark said: “There has been an ongoing dialogue with HMRC and we wouldn’t have got to such an advanced stage if we didn’t feel there was more than a strong possibility of a CVA being approved.
“But there is no deal and that can’t happen until there is a meeting of the creditors.”
B7 Exclusive: Alastair Johnston outlines Rangers downfall
By Scott McCulloch and Craig McDonald
May 23 2012
Johnston claims Sir David Murray allowed his ego to run riot at Rangers and made a “panicked” decision to sell the club as it teetered on the brink of ruin
Sir David Murray allowed his ego to run riot at Rangers, then made a “panicked” decision to sell the club as it teetered on the brink of ruin.
That’s the explosive verdict of former Ibrox chairman Alastair Johnston on Murray’s Ibrox “dictatorship” given in an exclusive interview with Business7.
In an unprecedented and extraordinarily detailed attack on Murray’s stewardship of the club, Johnston claims the tycoon was warned extensively about the dangers of selling to Craig Whyte.
He says Murray carried on with the deal because of “significant pressure” from the club’s bankers.
And he says a senior boss at the bank told him that Lloyds, who were owed £700million by the rest of Murray’s empire, had “incentivised” Murray to hand Rangers to Whyte.
Johnston, 63, once a close ally of Murray, now no longer speaks to him.
Johnston said: “Chairmen and chief executives are often the subject of fans’ ire for selling players, or allowing guys to leave because of unaffordable wage demands and so on. On the the other hand, you take Sir David Murray.
“He got too immersed in the fans’ perception of himself – as well as his own ego and invincibility, probably.
“In the last few years he lost his business discipline, then panicked when he saw Armageddon coming.”
Murray, who famously boasted in 2000 that Rangers would spend £10 for every £5 spent by Celtic, sold Rangers to Whyte a year ago for £1.
Our sister publication, the Daily Record has told how, before the sale, a private investigator’s report on Whyte’s business record was passed to the Ibrox board.
And Johnston, who was ousted by Whyte soon after his takeover, spoke at length about how closely Murray and his Murray Group of businesses were made aware of what the detective had discovered.
His allegations are highly significant, given Murray’s later insistence that he had been “duped” by Whyte.
The SFA disciplinary panel who slapped a transfer embargo on Rangers criticised Johnston, and other men on the Ibrox board, for not doing enough to stop the sale.
But Johnston said he and his colleagues expressed their concerns about Whyte “very vocally”. And he insisted there was only one man with the power to keep him out – Murray.
Johnston said of the detective’s report: “It was made available to us and I did see it, like I saw a lot of other information and data that was presented to us or leaked.
“But all that information was shared with the Murray Group, because there wasn’t much we could do about it other than jump up and down and scream and shout, which is what we did.
“In terms of something to do about it – that is, not consummate the transaction for these reasons – then David Murray really looks like the only person who could actually have done something.”
Johnston added: “There were a lot of inconsistencies in Whyte’s personal profile – where he lived, who he was registered with, anonymous addresses and so on.
“Liberty Capital, the ultimate guarantor of his so-called arrangement with Rangers, was formed out of a warehouse in industrial Miami where nobody had ever heard of him or the company.
“So we had a lot of due diligence and checked up on him, but that information was fed to the Murray group.”
Johnston, a Glasgow-born expert in sports accountancy, joined the Ibrox board in 2004 and became chairman in 2009.
By then, the credit crunch had hit and the fallout was still having a massive effect.
And he says Murray was under “significant pressure” from the bank, who wanted a more independent board, to get out of his day-to-day running of the club.
He said: “The bank, rightly or wrongly, thought David’s presence was so omnipotent. They thought there was really just one man, and the ruling by dictatorship had not worked.”
By this time, Rangers’ bankers were Lloyds, who took over the club’s previous bank, Bank of Scotland, at the height of the financial crisis.
Johnston said Murray had enjoyed a “very good relationship” with Bank of Scotland.
But he added that it was “probably too good”, and the bank had loaned miillions to Rangers “too easily” without proper checks and balances.
He went on: “When Lloyds came, I think they knew to some extent there was a lot of toxic debt. But I don’t think they quite realised the extent of it.
“They realised the governance and operations needed tidying up.”
When Johnston took over as chairman, he was “shocked” to find that all discussions involving the bank were dealt with personally by Murray and the Edinburgh team who helped run the rest of his empire.
He said: “Nobody at Rangers Football Club knew the bank. The bank didn’t deal with Rangers.
“It was totally incongruous in my experience that a bank that loaned a company £40million had no history in dealing with the chief executive or finance director of that company.”
In 2009, two new men were appointed to the Rangers board.
One was Murray’s right-hand man, Mike McGill. The other, financial strategist Donald Muir, was the eyes and ears of Lloyds.
Muir’s arrival was seen as a sign that Murray’s hold over the club was weakening.
Johnston said it was a condition of the bank’s renewal of the club’s credit facility.
He added: “Within two years of my chairmanship with an independent board, we reduced the debt from about £35million to £18million.
“The bank, believe it or not, at that time were very happy with us. Our arguments with them were more about reducing the debt by another £2 million to £16 million, in order for them to be totally satisfied it was a sustainable working debt.”
Then, early last year, the bank’s position appeared to change – for reasons yet to become clear.
Johnston said: “They originally didn’t believe in Craig Whyte. That’s the irony. They were as wary as we were about the fact he was one of the ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ types that didn’t have the money.
“The first time they were invited to meet with Whyte in London, he didn’t show up.
“It wasn’t until a couple of months before the transaction concluded that the bank actually started to believe the deal might be for real.
“David Murray and Craig Whyte got involved around October 2010. It wasn’t until around March 2011 when the bank turned on us very badly.
“They started talking much more seriously about Whyte. This was within four or five weeks of the transaction being concluded.
“They basically saw a chance to get all £18million back in one fell swoop.”
It was at this time, Johnston claims, that a senior bank executive told him Murray had been “incentivised” to seal the Whyte deal.
He said: “I pointed out to the banker that I felt David Murray may not want to sell.
“The reply, and this is a very key statement, was, ‘Alastair, David Murray is heavily incentivised to get rid of Rangers Football Club. Let me leave it at that.’
“I understood that to mean that certain things would then be triggered in his £700million relationship between Murray Group and the bank.”
Johnston said Murray first mentioned Whyte’s name to him in November 2010.
He recalled: “David Murray rang me on my mobile and said, ‘I think we’ve got someone and this is a really good one. Unlike any others before, he’s spent a lot up front.
“‘He’s hired some high-powered lawyers and spent some money on them, and he’s hired a high-powered PR team. He’s spent a lot of money on it so he must be serious.’”
But the sale turned out to be, as Murray now calls it, a “huge mistake”.
Johnston said: “One of the big giveaways about Craig Whyte was the fact he wasn’t worried about working capital. He didn’t care about it.
“He was much more concerned about the contracts.
“His modus operandi was, ‘How many of them can we get out of, how many of them can we deny paying until at least some of them will drop by the wayside.’”
In another withering criticism of Murray, Johnston added: “Whyte didn’t put a cent into the club, as we all know.
“That’s why I was jumping up and down and telling anyone who would listen. But there were only some people who would listen.”
Murray last night declined to respond to Johnston’s attacks. He said: “I will keep my counsel on this for a future date.”
Lloyds refused to explain why they were so keen to see Rangers sold, or to respond to the allegation that Murray was “incentivised” to do the deal.
They said: “The deal was a matter between Craig Whyte and Sir David Murray.
“The bank’s involvement was in relation to the debt owed by Rangers FC, which was repaid in full, in accordance with all required regulatory checks.”
Levein has fallen in to the trap
Many ( unsuccessful ) top managers Are caught by…
Instead of doing the job of coaching and managing the team they become overly focus see on ‘playing the role’…
Levein has become all ‘strong’ ( Fletcher) and a bit of an unconvincing mock sincere ‘connect with the fans’ media whore as far as I can see…
Too many ‘never heard of them’ players feature in the squad..
Time to get back to identifying best players who are actually Scottish – not a hard task as they are self evident and start to manage difficult situations and coach them in to a system that accounts for their strengths and limitations.
5-1 is s disgrace at international
Level…
Just caught up with the Scotland score.
Disappointed ,yes. Humiliated,no.
Just,somehow,can`t identify with the Scotland team because of it`s nexus with Scottish football and it`s governing bodies and their intrinsic anti Celtic bias.
And that`s for the first time in many years of supporting Bonnie Scotland.
And if any of you would like to read the Leggoland take on things:
On Green going on bended knee to Lawwell, and the previous article, on why the Green Gan is falling apart (the key man, Michael McDonald, has apparently said he is pulling out over the transfer ban)
http://leggoland2.blogspot.com.es/
CultsBhoy loves being 1st forever & ever on 27 May, 2012 at 08:53 said:
Cults
Really appreciate your contributions.
You love Celtic, without carrying any of the predictable ” baggage .”
We need more like yourself.
Hail Hail.
Don’t forget, when Regan and other SFA accounts tweet the result (if they do, they don’t seem to have done so overnight) tweet back and tell them not to worry, there’ll be plenty of time for rebuilding while the FIF ban is in place.
FIF = FIFA. Need to cut my nails.
Billy Dodds:
“It amazes me that John Yorkston has the gall to talk about Rangers not paying their bills. He’s a hypocrite, and he should start making sure that his club pay their bills instead. Jim McIntyre served a writ on Dunfermline on Thursday because he has still yet to receive his settlement after being sacked by the club last season.
The issue is with the court now, because Dunfermline said they cannot pay it in one instalment. Yet John Yorkston is in the press all the time talking about other clubs. He should be looking after the financial affairs of his own club.”
——————————–
The civil war has started, it’s going to get very nasty.
The Billy Dodds article is bizarre. Is this because he knows he said live on air that he never had an EBT? Is this his defence – to come out waving a pointy stick?
shimmies 22.29
I agree on your point about the McCourt love in.
In reality what this proves is that Aiden was a much better player and much more was expected of him.
At such a young age too.
I have seen very little of him since he went to Moscow,so i can’t comment on how or if he has improved.
He needed to raise his head and part with ball more often before he left.
If he is doing that then he will be an icon player for someone very soon.
TT