Neil Lennon was in no mood to pull his punches on the subject or Rangers alleged tax evasion for a period stretching over a decade at his press conference yesterday. Asked if winning this season’s SPL by less than Rangers 10 point penalty would devalue the achievement he said, “If we do win it and people want to throw that at me, I will have plenty to say about devalued titles over the years”.
Peter Lawwell strongly rebuffed suggestions that Celtic were in a mood to show solidarity with Rangers should they lose their tax tribunal early this week and Celtic marked the card of Rangers’ political schemer, Alex Salmond, who tried to tell the world how Celtic fans felt about the issue.
While Neil Lennon was keen to focus on tomorrow’s important SPL game against Hibernian, he dealt with questions on Rangers without flintching. Asked about “financial doping” he said, “doping is a sporting term for cheating”
Adding, “In athletics, if you are caught doping you are banned. Alberto Contador got stripped of his Tour de France win in 2010, so there are precedents.
“It’s all hearsay and hot air at the minute. I don’t want to comment on it until all the results and all the findings are out. But if it has had a direct effect on me in my playing days, I will come out and say something at that time. As it is now, it hasn’t been proved.
“They are in administration for a reason and I am sure you guys will get to the bottom of it. It’s not my business, not our club’s business, but it will be my business if it has affected me as a player, or previous managers, and has denied us titles and trophies in the past.”
Conspiracy theorists who have tried to convince the world that Celtic and Rangers have been involved in some mutual preservation pact in recent years will be forced to reflect on the accuracy and consequences of their confounded allegations. As always, our club will only prosper with unity. Persistent attempts to rip it apart will only cause further damage.
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If duff and duffer got their way and Cousins was signed for 7,500 pw
How many backroom workers would have to be given the sack to make one players wages up
7500/£300 =25
adminastrators my erse .
hail hail
If indeed we ever do see another Celtic v rangers game at Celtic park, I would love to hear this little ditty playing over the Celtic tannoy.
I will survive
http://www.celticquicknews.co.uk/?p=7899&cpage=11#comments
Sorry,bigPhil,end of this one.
fergie slayed the blues
agree Lenny should be shtum for now, they will be looking for victims and the meeja have him public enemy No.1, the Celtic PR dept should be a lot more savvy than they are showing, very dangerous game indeed.
fergus…..
there is a suggestion that Cousin was paid upfront …….
probably paid his wages with DU or Pars money
Good mhan yourself, Neil Lennon. Please watch yourself. They will hate you for your putting the truth to them.
How many titles wd we get if the SFA take thems off thems that thems won fraudulently?
ty
Rubicon says:
18 February, 2012 at 11:25
Boavista – now that was unreal – great memories
And many more
You feeling any better ??
I need you fully fit in a few weeks
67ECW
Ceaser67 says:
18 February, 2012 at 13:35
Should be them all, if it wasn’t the accountants cheating it was the brotherhood of referees.
fergus/canamalar
i agree re Lenny
however it`s damned disgrace and an embarrassment on the Scottish media that they proceed to place him in the firing line again …..loathsome reptiles
i`m sure Lenny will enjoy his summer in the sun with the rest of us this year
while the rotten mob stumble from on eprospective no use potential purchaser to the next
i hope their administartion long tortuous and extremely painful …ultimately ending in insolvency
with insufficient time for them to cobble any team together for next season
It will be an absolute bigot-fest at Mordor today,,,,would not like to be on the streets after today’s game,,,these mono-browed eejits will be looking for there pound of flesh!!!
Hail hail
An eye for an aye, and a £1 for a pound!
Who’s the mib today?
ibleedgreenandwhite1
Long odds on the Billy Boys and the famine song being belted out within minutes of kick off.
The crisis engulfing Rangers is a lifetime away from when the club seemed to represent unchallengeable authority, on and off the field
Archie Macpherson
At almost any time in Rangers’ history it would have seemed no more bizarre to find prelates from Rome sitting inside Ibrox determining their future, than administrators.
inShare.0
Custom byline text: Archie Macpherson
Their traditions and finances were timelessly impregnable. That notion has now been terminated, whatever the outcome of the crisis.
All this has been exacerbated by the ownership of the club having ended up with a character whom Damon Runyon and Raymond Chandler, in consultation with each other, could not have made up. Craig Whyte, admittedly, does seem more Dave the Dude than Philip Marlowe but, judging by the bemused expressions on the faces of the administrators as they tried to fend off questions about where the money has gone, since a baboon could probably do the arithmetic of income and expenditure for a year, this plot could yet be more byzantine than The Big Sleep.
So while we wait to what see what horrors are about emerge from what lies below, it is well worth considering the paradox which lies at the heart of this imbroglio. For this past week has been the culmination of those circumstances which began to besiege the club over three decades ago, compelling it, against its nature, to change its ways.
Modernity certainly became visible during the 1980s when Willie Waddell masterminded the construction of one of the best stadia in the UK. But at its heart lay the assumption of the board at the time, that the world still owed it a living, that the ethos of Bill Struth welded, as it certainly was, to recurring dominance and Protestant triumphalism, was as natural and as durable as the Old Man of Hoy.
The businessmen and local politicians surrounding Struth had every good reason to crow after the war when the club seemed to represent unchallengeable authority, off the field, as well as on. Celtic were seen simply as a useful underling prop, playing into the hands of those who could see the commercial advantage of the Billy and Dan enmities. This swelled the Ibrox ranks, while polishing the rhetoric of its detractors. But the world was small then. There was no need for vision. That was for opticians. Their supply of boys to play for the jerseys was so plentiful there was little need then to ask what school they went to. People I talked to in the past, who played under Struth, spoke in awe of him, as if he ought to have been mentioned in the book of Genesis.
So it is not so surprising that succeeding boards clung on to the belief that they did not need to wrack their brains to compete in the world; as the establishment, they had the pre-Copernican belief that the sun revolved around them. If you have a Jim Baxter in your team and a Millar, Brand and Wilson, to mention just a few, then who could dispute the fact that they were immoveably at the centre of the universe.
Some directors wore bowler hats around then, as if they were civil servants ready to rubberstamp the next triumph. They were not clinging on to the past; they were positively rubbing their opponents’ noses in it. In the recurring disputes they were involved in, from the Struth era onwards, it seemed to be generally accepted that the juries would be stacked in their favour. The infamous Cox-Tully controversy over a kicking the Celtic player got in an Old Firm game in August 1949 was in that frame and, incidentally, gave birth to the ‘paranoia’ accusations against Celtic. The fact is that Cox admitted, long after, to the offence, although he got off scot-free at the time.
Thus, with their influence apparently spread over society in general, and with Rangers quite content for some of their directors to wear little badges on their lapels shaped as a “wee arra”, the world was spinning on its axis according to their dictates.
Then a comet struck in the late 1960s. They named it Stein. The Rangers board at that time was led by a successful businessman, John Lawrence, who seemed, nevertheless, to be the caricature of all that was myopic and anachronistic in stewardship, by sacking a manager when the club was at the top of the league.
This panic eventually led to the coming of Willie Waddell. He made the board eventually look like waxworks. This was no bad thing and was, perhaps accidentally, the first stage of understanding that the world could possibly be leaving Rangers behind, if they did not get out of their Ford T model.
Waddell simply set the scene for Sir David Murray. When the entrepreneur bought the club in 1988, it was not in the spirit of Robert Owen, to create a socialist co-operative. It was to establish a fiefdom. Waddell, more covertly, had achieved that already.
On the evening of the Ibrox disaster of 1970, Superintendent Joe Beattie, of Glasgow Police, in charge of the preliminary investigation, described the Ibrox directors as “running around like headless chickens” not knowing what to do next, until Waddell marched in and took over. It is here we are seeing events dictating matters to men who were not up to that task.
The Rangers board, traditionally representing a slice of Scottish bourgeoisie, were in the process of being made redundant. In fairness, it was David Holmes, prior to Murray, who smoothed the way for him by rubbing the lamp and letting the financial genie out of the bottle in acquiring Graeme Souness. Suddenly you felt that good intentions were to be backed up by dynamic action.
In New Mexico, prior to the World Cup of 1986, the new Rangers player-manager told me that he would not care if Celtic beat them four times in the league, so long as they won it. He went on, in what was like foreign language to our ears, that he would sign Catholics, if it so suited.
He was to ditch the first notion and keep to his word with the second. But in total this seemed like the quantum leap that was taking Rangers to a new level of awareness of a new world around them, which was not going to sit back and allow them to harbour old prejudices.
Indeed, when he was first appointed, Holmes discovered that the board members used to run a sweep, to calculate the size of the crowd on match days. The chairman at the time, John Paton, was delighted when he won it one Saturday with a guess of around 23,000. The fact that the stadium could hold 40,000 at that stage was stark evidence of complacency by men who had a cosy relationship with the board-room table and nothing much else.
Holmes, employed by the Lawrence Building Group, felt he had an advantage of being an outsider unaffected by the traditional loyalties. Murray toppled Holmes, and the stage was set for an era of transcendental success, but which in the light of recent events, seems now like one of those mediaeval bacchanalian orgies, paid for by those serving the food and drink.
There has been a large casino out there, which Rangers entered with their gold-card credentials, attracted also by the tax avoidance game, which, in fairness, some civil servants have got away with for some time now. A club that never believed it was created to be humble, has eventually been humiliated. And the paradox is that the tradition had switched from men who did not know any better, to those who really should have known better.
There may be many banners held up at Ibrox today. In recognition of their services to this downfall, one for Murray and Whyte might read,
Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive.
It would be apt. As any schoolboy would tell them, it is from a poem about the tragedy of Flodden Field.
glassford03 says:
18 February, 2012 at 13:03
A friend put a union jack bedecked WATP photo on Facebook earlier today. There has been a fair bit of fun putting suggestions on as to what it stands for. Best so far are
We Avoid Tax Payments
and
We Ate The Pies
How about…
Where Are Their Pounds
Big win for rangers today. Count on it. Adrenalin will be pumping through the players.
I for one hope they keep their full squad for the rest of the season. I also welcome the addition of Cousin.
It will be all the sweeter when we win the league by 20 plus points. When we hump them at Iborcs (if they still exist then) I want them to have their strongest team available.
Much as I enjoy their demise I, like every other Celtic supporter, likes to win the sporting way, the Celtic way.
I suppose that’s why we feel so strongly that while we were doing just that – playing fair(using the Seville money, the Champions league money etc to repay the debts we ran up in the Barnes and early MON era) they were right in the middle of their cheating. £80 odd million for Advocaat to spend? McCleish, despite what they might like to tell you spent a lot of cash too. Walter on his return reportedly spent £30 million plus! But you all know the facts.
Traynor and his cronies need constant reminding of them. Saw him on football focus greeting about how Scottish football will suffer if rangers die. Maybe he’s right. But it has suffered as a result of them living. we haven’t tried the other option yet. Let’s give it a go I say. Let the other big cities and towns in Scotland benefit from their death.
And finally, 100% to Gordon Strachan this morning. He said what he had to say about people loving the derby games but he made sure he qualified it by pointing out the 12 year period over which rangers demise had happened (and probably longer if truth be told) and saying that Celtic would actually get financially stronger without Rangers. He stated that anyone who knew about Scottish football had seen this coming for years and that clubs need to make a plan and stick by it even if they take stick for it. The Huns spent whenever their fans got restless – they played to the gallery. Mark Lawrenson too was quick to point out that blame didn’t lie with Whyte alone.
I am beginning to feel for Whytey. He saw a dying business, decided to pick it’s carcass before anyone else and now he is blamed as if he were driving the car that provided the road kill that he has feasted on.
I was also thinking that we are lucky to have a support which is inclined to question everything. I am more of a board supporter than detractor but it is healthy that there are those who are willing to look closely at what the club is doing. It will in the long run preserve us from the scenario faced by rangers.
starry plough, cheers.
RATM, I reckon there is a lot more to come out about Rangers. Let’s see.
I hope their bankrupt dignity is exposed to the worlds media today.
Is Mr. Salmond attending?
hope the Mib brings his own coin for the toss today…
I’ve heard reference recently to Minty and the “Gleneagles 4” who would appear to have been the inner temple of poodledom.
Anyone know the identity of the 4?
WATP:
Whyte Ate the Profits
SonsOfErin says:
18 February, 2012 at 13:31
If indeed we ever do see another Celtic v rangers game at Celtic park, I would love to hear this little ditty playing over the Celtic tannoy.
I will survive
I have been thinking the same thing.Would love the pa to play something we can all sing along to.
Im thinking the cheesier the better so my choice would be…
Atmosphere by Russ Abbot
Well said Paul67
Since 2000 we have been better run than at any other time in our history (with the exception of the Mowbray period). No right minded Celtic fan should undermine this.
They only managered to stay in the game by persistantly cheating.
quonno says:
18 February, 2012 at 13:19
Archie McPherson just about says it all in today’s Herald.
Yeh, powerful stuff
After that press conferemnce and the Danoel Cousin regsitration attempt
WATP
Whytes Adminstrators Take (the) P***
Paul67 et al –
The announcement from the SFA about an investigation was interesting. They are suggesting an independent inquiry into Rangers recent activities. The SFA statement makes specific reference to Rangers’ lawyers withholding information from them when requested as past of the “Fit & Proper” (F&P) compliance. Here’s the paragraph :
“The Scottish FA’s previous efforts in obtaining information relevant to the Fit and Proper Person requirement has been restricted by the club’s solicitors’ continued failure to share information in a timely or detailed manner.”
There is a clear implication here and in the statement generally that culpability lies with Rangers. However, let’s be clear, the responsibility for ensuring compliance with the “Fit & Proper” test lies solely with the SFA themselves. While this investigation is welcome, what is already concerning is the scope of the investigation – Ranger’s activities only. I will be interested to read the Terms of Reference for this investigation because already it appears to exclude the SFA themselves. For me there are at least two significant issues: –
1. If no information was forthcoming from Rangers’ lawyers by the date of Craig Whyte’s acquisition, then the default position was non-compliance with F&P per the articles of association. This is a failure on the part of the SFA.
2. Any test of compliance clearly needs to be applied BEFORE someone gains responsibility for managing a football club – not retrospectively and after catastrophic failure. This did not happen in this case and, again, the SFA are culpable.
My view is that the investigation should be wider than Rangers activities alone – in particular, the SFA themselves need to be part of any assessment.
Would love to hear the Celtic fans sing this to the Huns at Mordor ,,,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHcunREYzNY
Remember the Celtic fans singing this to Dundee utd at Tannadice the season they got relegated,,,,brill stuff lol lol
Hail hail
rangerstaxcase piece in the Guardian.
very good read.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/feb/17/scotland-media-rangers
Brines is the Ref at Ipox
Archie McPherson’s article reminds you of what journalism used to be like in the Scottish media.
Paul
What happened to the little green OK’s that used to come up when logging on to CQN’s?
Do you know what? I think part of a compromise deal by the powers that be (SFA, SPL) to let them live and let them in to the SPL as a newco may well be that they are stripped of titles and trophies from the period under investigation.
Ultimately this will be hollow and meaningless and they will have gotten off with a mere 10 point penalty – but I can certainly imagine this being mooted as a way for the SFA and SPL to be seen to be taking action.
To the SPL clubs I would say that such an act should be the start of the punishment. The Newco has to go to Div 3 or the game in Scotland is done.
WATP:
Williams Army Totally Perished
THIS JUST IN: Ally loses the ibrox dressing room…the bolier room, the car park, the pie stall, a pair of comfortable brougues, THAT blazer and his comb
Photo of the outside of the Louden today
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=1zx1sf8&s=5
Photo of our Hero walking away
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2lm2y3d&s=5
‘crushed nuts?’ ‘Naw, Layringitis!’ says:
18 February, 2012 at 13:56
Wit comb