You and I have been in some dark places. While we remember winning nine-in-a-row by brilliant scouting, tactics and athletic endeavour, we also remember when that proud achievement was violated in 1997 by a considerably less wholesome achievement.
At the end of season 1995-96 Celtic finished second but lost only one game. I convinced myself that our world was about to be put right. Tommy Burns’ team would go one step further and win the league in 1997; it had to happen.
It didn’t.
Today I don’t want to talk about the reasons why we didn’t win the league in 1997, we will discuss that in the weeks ahead, but that season taught us the lesson that simply wanting something to happen doesn’t make it likely.
I thought of those dark days yesterday when I hear Ally McCoist’s rallying call:
“We’re going to march right through it
“I’m as positive today as I have been in a long time.
“This institution has been around for 140 years and I want it to be here for another 140 years.
“You’ll see what Rangers mean to so many people. We are really looking forward to the game.
“We have the best fans in the world.
McCoist loves his club the same way his good friend Tommy Burns loved his, but irrespective of the challenge he faces in the league from Neil Lennon’s awesome team, there is nothing McCoist can do to ensure his club survives until the end of the season.
When you’re on the wrong end of history there is nothing you can do about it.
Fancy writing something for CQN Magazine? Drop me an email and let me know what you would like to write about before you get started, just in case someone else has the same angle covered: celticquicknews@gmail.com.
I think we have all been blown away by the bidding on eBay action for the signed Celtic top in aid of the Vanessa Riddle Appeal. The auction ends today and currently sits at an incredible £5000. That’s three zeros, count them! I am very proud of you and your club.
Check out the events on eBay yourself by clicking here.
If you would like to read CQN Magazine online (for free), click here. You can download a pdf of the magazine using the button at the top of the page, second from the right. Click on the link below to order a hard copy of the magazine.
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Very interesting read from http://www.sportingintelligence.com
RANGERS: Whyte ‘ignored settlement advice’, chances of regaining control recede
By Nick Harris
SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year
19 February 2012
Craig Whyte, the controversial businessman at the heart of the crisis enveloping Rangers, ignored advice given to him last May about how he could settle some of the club’s disputes with HMRC, Sportingintelligence can reveal.
Rather than follow a plan which might have led to a long-term negotiated settlement between Rangers and the tax man, Whyte instead opted to compound the club’s troubles by withholding up to £9m of tax and VAT due over the past nine months.
This led to the appointment of administrators last Tuesday, and sources with inside knowledge of the work being done by Duff & Phelps at Ibrox have confirmed Whyte now has ‘important questions to answer’ about his conduct.
The advice given to Whyte in May last year about settling with the tax man was provided by David Grier, a Duff & Phelps partner.
A well-placed source insists Grier was acting not solely for Whyte at the time but as an agreed conduit between HMRC and Whyte, and put proposals to Whyte to clear up Rangers’ tax mess that were ignored.
Countering suggestions that there is a serious conflict of interest now in Duff & Phelps being Rangers’ administrators – when theoretically Grier could be perceived as part of the ‘Whyte team’ behind the current mess – a spokesman for Duff & Phelps has told Sportingintelligence that ‘it is categorically not the case’ that Grier had any involvement in:
– any plan for Rangers not to pay employees tax and VAT for nine months.
– any plan that involved a future administration to shed deliberately amassed tax liabilities.
– any plan that misled anyone about how Whyte had funded his takeover, particularly the payment of £18m to Lloyds bank.
Sportingintelligence can reveal that Duff & Phelps have already received at least six expressions of interest in the club, and a spokesman has told us: ‘We will begin the process of looking at them in greater detail in the week ahead.’
It is thought those expressions of interest come from a variety of groups in Scotland, elsewhere in Britain and from abroad, including North America.
Duff & Phelps are also trying to establish exactly how Whyte funded the £18m to Lloyds and whether, as many suspect, he used some of the £24.4m gained from Ticketus for the sale of a portion of Rangers tickets for the next four years.
The future of Rangers is unlikely to be settled without an acrimonious struggle for control, with Whyte likely to be claiming to be a major creditor, which he is believed to think puts him in control. Any such claims are likely to be challenged.
It is understood Whyte led various advisors to believe he paid Lloyds with £18m cash from his own private resources, something that still cannot be verified but seems increasingly doubtful.
Duff & Phelps’ investigation is one of up to four separate probes in the Rangers situation.
The SFA are looking at whether Whyte misled them over being a ‘fit and proper person’ and are conducting an independent review of the whole matter.
The police and Crown Office are considering their next moves with the possibility that a criminal investigation could follow.
Whyte’s spokesman insists he will co-operate with all investigations and is confident he will be cleared of any wrong-doing, but the prospect of Whyte regaining control at Rangers, post-administration, ‘is not a scenario currently looking like a favourite’ according to one source.
Rangers were docked 10 points for entering administration and then their week got worse on Saturday when they lost 1-0 at home to Kilmarnock.
bonbhoy says:
19 February, 2012 at 11:32
Good shout mate!
(btw listening to Neil McCann talking about the implications going into administration was painful, it was like asking a 6 year old to explain quantitative easing!)
Well said John Hartson.
SS1
Haaaaavvvvvvveeee yooooooouuuuuuu heard about the big strong man who lived in a Caravan
John Hartson – “I failed 4 medicals, the one at Rankers was the best one i failed”.
twists n turns says:
19 February, 2012 at 11:11
Swansea Bhoy
dare I say that piece from Andy Kerr is a fine piece of work?
share
Couldn’t agree more, good to know there is some decent human beings still out there.
philvis @ 11 30.
Whyte wants liquidation —– He makes some money and leaves the stage.
whereas –
Years of penury in consequence of having to constantly give money to HMRC whilst Octopus tighten the tentacles –
What’s not to like ?
PHILVISRETURNS 1130
That’s my take on it too.
I believe HMRC levy interest currently at around 6%
Or £5m pa on £80m.
They would NEVER be able to cope with this on and off the park,it would be death by a thousand cuts.
Their death would be long and slow,but inevitable nevertheless.
philvisreturns says:
19 February, 2012 at 11:18
ernie lynch – Fortunately HMRC is a UK organisation.
They won’t be influenced by the huns position in Scottish society.
Yes, can you imagine what sort of cozy backroom deals would be happening right now if Scotland wasn’t part of the United Kingdom?
———————————————————————————————————-
I cannot imagine a small country making any cosy backroom deals with any organisation that owed £50 – 70 Million in unpaid taxes. The best they would be offering is a chance to stay alive and an extended repayment schedule – something I personally would not be averse to. They should be made to pay every penny back.
By the way, if Rangers do go under then is there a chance that HMRC can go after the individuals who benefited from the EBT’s? Or is that entirely the responsibility of Rangers to make sure employees PAYE etc was paid?
To be honest, my favoured outcome is liquidation, of which i’m tired of hearing “that it could never happen” .These are the same folk who stated administration “would never be allowed to happen”.
Liquidation and have to start again in division 3 under a new name, with a record of zero games played won or drawn..That is my dream scenario, (can you overdose on ice cream and jelly?)
If they are to be kept going then they should have a payment plan to pay ALL DEBT! tax bill, penalties and interest, debt to hearts, dunfermline and dundee utd, then also be stripped of all honours won during the years they were proved to be cheating…THIS IS NOT HARSH! OUR CLUB HAS BEEN ROBBED OF MILLIONS OF POUNDS AND TITLES AND TROPHYS!! as I said before, I expect our club to give them what for on this matter soon! If they are proven to be guilty.
If HMRC dont follow Rangers to deaths door they will leave the door open for the bigger fish to wriggle free in the EPL .
Rangers are the sacrificial lamb , not the succulent type they used to be .
Whilst the complicit and lazy Scottish media have now eventually woken up to the situation at the Death Star and started (partly) telling the truth, going by comments over the last few days they are reverting to type in trying to put any positive spin on the possible outcome.
All talk and specualtion of HMRC doing deals or Blue Knight rescue packages are wrapped in the same populist propaganda that told the huns that ‘everythings gonna be okay, its a timmy conspiracy etc’ for the last few years. There is nothing grounded in fact or any common sense that suggests;
i) The huns are any further from liquidation than they were last Wednesday.
ii) There is anyone waiting in the wings with a rescue package.
iii) HMRC are any less likely to throw the book at them.
FACT.
Eye on the ball Celtic, winning football matches is all we think of, the south side will look after itself.
Best line I read in todays papers from Ewan Cameron of the Observer:
when talking of rangers inability to create any chances yesterday:
‘this rangers team are not particularly good’
stating the obvious but hey, it made me smile……
TNT
quite correct
Hear, hear is an expression used as a short repeated form of hear ye and hear him. It represents a listener’s agreement with the point being made by a speaker.
It was originally an imperative for directing attention to speakers, and has since been used, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, as “the regular form of cheering in the House of Commons”, with many purposes depending on the intonation of its user. It is often incorrectly spelled “here here”
wiki CSC
Big John H
Superb.
i listened to my first phone in for years last night (BBC with Jabba and Chico). The idea that the hun demise will change the approach of journos in Scotland was scotched last night. The two of them were falling over each other to defend Murray.
Surely there is a new guard out there. We’ve had Chic’s love-in with the gers going on 30 years now. Jabba has been around at least 20 years. Time to ditch these brown nosers.
As for that piece from the rangers man. If Rangers pay their debts and start from the bottom tier of the SFL then that is about the only “dignified” way back for them. If they are talking about 140 years of history then 5 or 10 years recovering from this will be but a blip something that the hun fans may even, in the future, be proud to have gone through. Paracuting straight in, even with some form of punishment, will taint their recovery and we’ll never let them forget it.
Bhoys if you think of your own individual tax situation if HMRC acces your tax paid on your earnings at the end of the tax year and find you have underpaid they dont immediately through you into the jug they alter your tax code and you pay more tax until it is cleared. That is the most likely offer that Rangers will get then it becomes there choice soldier on and pay all tax and penaltie due say over a 15 year period now this course of action would seriously hamper the club.However,they could opt to go into liquidation and start with the newco orcs and try and leave there old debts behind them but some how I think HMRC will watch very closely what is happenning at Ibrokes.What everyone in the UK should be aware of is this was our money as tax payers that they stole and as has been said often on CQN could have been used for Schools, Hospitals etc so we as joe public should consistantly flag that up in order that they dont wriggle out of paying there dues.H.H.
Who is the scummy dude on with BBJ who says its ok to cheat and the HUN cannot have their titles taken away?
This guy pretends to a sportsman obviously
Bobby Murdoch –
the current rate of interest for late payment is 3%.
Jobo
Now that Motherwell are breathing down rangers’ neck for second place, I wonder whether stuart mccall will be asked if he feels the position is devalued.
No, didn’t think so.
As we home in on the SPL, this is worth another airing-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubfxnkq9pls&feature=watch_response_rev
Deal or no deal.
There is absolutely no business model that allows a business with more than 100 million pounds worth of debt to continue as a going concern when they have already had more than half the proceeds of their next four years income.
It’s starting to remind me of a weekend at bernies where the corpse of rangers is being used to generate laughs with all sorts of comedy capers.
Time for the post mortem and funeral service.
All this Jelly and Ice Cream is piling the pounds on me, is it alright to switch from Jelly to Larks Tongue in Aspic?
Fripp CSC
The role of the SFA in all of this should not be ignored.
As they are investigating (at long last), into CW’s appointment, I would expect our governing body to be asking pertinent questions in regard to their funding over the last couple of decades (Asbesox = £120m) and the fact they have been fielding ineligible players for the last 20 years!!!
Over to you Mr Regan.
Hartsons Comb @11 44 —
” the SFA are looking at whether Whyte misled them over being ” a fit and proper person ”
Had they taken their noses out of the trough and Googled – Craig Whyte —they would have been immediately aware of the type of person Craig Whyte is.
Fabulous !
HMRC will allow Ragers to pay up their evaded taxes “the big hoooooose must stay open”
SonsOfErin – HMRC have already established a repayment scheme that’s worked for decades, a scheme available to all UK companies which allows them to pay their tax in easy installments as they fall due and in accordance with their cash flow.
It’s called your quarterly tax return, and rangers have already defaulted on it.
Why would HMRC offer a second repayment scheme? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…..
You are of course correct that they should have paid their taxes.
HMRC might be willing to offer them repayment over a period of time if this is the only way they’ll get their money back. Alternately, they may seek to make an example of Rangers and leave them with no option but liquidation to escape their financial obligations.
I believe Craig Whyte wants to liquidate them and that was his plan all along. The clever positioning of himself as a secured creditor, the deliberate running up of a £9m tax bill on top of their previous liabilities, suggests a very deliberate strategy designed to make liquidation inevitable while blaming HMRC and the previous Rangers board. Craig Whyte has considerable form in this sort of thing, he’s liquidated more frequently than the food processor in an old folks’ home.
HMRC aren’t daft. They know this is Craig Whyte’s MO. They may be looking to call his bluff.
I think liquidation is still the most likely outcome for Rangers even if a repayment deal is offered on the big tax case, unless a Rangers supporter or consortium with very deep pockets buys Craig Whyte out before that happens.
Sir David Murray was trying to sell Rangers since at least 2006 and the club – and the wider economy – is in far worse financial doo-doo now than they were then, so the prospect of a genuine white knight galloping in to rescue them seems remote.
Either way, the options available to Rangers are:
* Pay your bills, and be financially hamstrung for years to come
* Escape paying your bills, and kill the club that McBeath, Campbell, and the Moses brothers founded all the way back in 1872.
They’re both terrible options for the huns, and either way, they will pay for what they’ve done. (thumbsup)
South Of Tunis – Yup.
Alex Salmond has jumped the shark, as they say.
Unfortunately for our pesky piscine pest of a politician, sharks eat salmond. (thumbsup)
if, as now seems likely, a deal will be done with HMRC to allow repayment over a (long) number of years, then this is not a quiet the outcome that mob really want – massive annual debt and loss of main income stream for the 4 years – great result indeed.
Much better than wiping the slate clean and starting a newco …..add in, the bitter in fighting, criminal charges and continued loss of dignity for generations.
cfc1888,
I totally agree, it`s all about Celtic winning.
The Sunday Post praised the Rangers Fans for their singing yesterday.
The Rangers fans songs did not offend me yesterday (as I fully expected the full banned song list to be belted out) but the Sunday Post article today did offend me, seems to me that many sections of the mainstream media in Scotland still have their ‘heads in the sand’
Before we concentrate on the game against Hibs can anyone confirm that Cellik of Rangers and Wallace are both players who have not been fully paid for by rangers and that the cash for them is unlikely to be found?
In short, even in administration, even in defeat they are still fielding players they cannot afford? They are still cheating!
What chance that both players are sent back to the clubs from whence they came? Is this possible?
BSR
Thanks for that.
Ok – enough hunguffery for today from me. We gotta get into game mode now.
MON THE HOOPS
Don’t forget Bhoys we have Sky’s Super Sunday double bill today, Aberdeen v St Johnstone then Hibs v Celtic. A taster for things to come?
Jobo
Jobo Baldie says:
19 February, 2012 at 12:06
Don’t forget Bhoys we have Sky’s Super Sunday double bill today, Aberdeen v St Johnstone then Hibs v Celtic. A taster for things to come?
Jobo
Correct Jobo…………….a double bill and no Rankers involved……….who needs them
South Of Tunis says:
19 February, 2012 at 12:00
Hartsons Comb @11 44 –
” the SFA are looking at whether Whyte misled them over being ” a fit and proper person ”
Had they taken their noses out of the trough and Googled – Craig Whyte —they would have been immediately aware of the type of person Craig Whyte is.
Fabulous !
——————————————————
I hope another outcome of all of this is that along with the pressure Celtic as a club and prominent bloggers of a Celtic persuasion have been putting on the SFA that Rangers will no longer be treated more favourably than everyone else, that their accounts will be properly looked at, that their management structure in light of the Financial Fair Play rules will be properly looked at (there is every chance that the hamstrung Newco or the fiscally retarded Oldco Rangers may seek other ways of cheating their way out of their punishment) and that the SFA will no longer be a retirement home for Rangers men.
Scottish football has the best opportunity it has ever had for real change, reform and progression. Now is the time for the game in Scotland to look to Germany and other well run leagues for inspiration.
RobertTressell – I cannot imagine a small country making any cosy backroom deals with any organisation that owed £50 – 70 Million in unpaid taxes. The best they would be offering is a chance to stay alive and an extended repayment schedule – something I personally would not be averse to. They should be made to pay every penny back.
Really, Robert?
I can imagine this particular institution – part of “the fabric of Scottish society”, as the First Minister put it, being offered a cosy backroom deal or some sort of state aid if Salmond had it within his power.
By the way, if Rangers do go under then is there a chance that HMRC can go after the individuals who benefited from the EBT’s? Or is that entirely the responsibility of Rangers to make sure employees PAYE etc was paid?
Good question – one for the tax experts.
My understanding is that HMRC can pursue employees for unpaid income tax, albeit not for employers’ NI contributions. Whether that would be practical in this case is anybody’s guess. (thumbsup)
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS – I agree. I can’t see them avoiding liquidation now. It’s all over bar the sectarian singing. (thumbsup)
Anyone got a spare ticket for today ?