“Crash and burn”. That was the outcome I expected to await Murray International Holding’s (MIH) debt-fuelled expansion in the early part of the last decade. This wasn’t entrepreneurship. Borrowing money to invest in a market which was on a long-term growth spurt, without consideration that your asset values could fall, was corporate vandalism. It was a safe enough bet as long as the commercial property market continued its incessant upwards trend, but the bubble had to burst eventually.
There were other voices out there saying the same thing. In the pre-blog era I remember printed copies of the Dogs Bollox passed around like the potentially-subversive underground insights they were. It was financial madness, writ large, all you needed to do was step back a little to see what was happening.
Celtic Quick News started because the underlying story of the biggest issue in Scottish football – the ability of the two largest clubs to pay their bills – was not being told. Without Murray’s debt splurge, this blog would never have happened.
I gave running commentaries of what to expect of Rangers and MIH accounts when they were released in 2005, the evidence will be there, I told you. I didn’t expect a convenient, and remarkable, property revaluation. It was smoke and mirrors, though Murray inspired such confidence, even among Celtic fans, I remember “Why can’t we just revalue Celtic Park and borrow more?”
Millions were taken in executive pay and bonuses each year, despite borrowings galloping away, while the Bank of Scotland continued to open the vault. MIH wasn’t the only bad bet Bank of Scotland made, but it was the worst.
Rangers were the ultimate vanity project. Tens of thousands of people literally fawned before Murray, he wallowed in decades of deference, controlling oceans of the media. The best parts of history are never written, and what happened at Rangers, and with the Bank of Scotland is no different. While Murray is alive you’re only going to read the parts of this story with documented evidence.
The illegal EBT scandal was typical of how the business operated. Through this, and the also-illegal Discounted Options Scheme, Murray drove a horse and cart through the SFA rulebook. Lord Nimmo Smith found as much. In Craig Whyte, Rangers appointed a person who was not fit and proper to run a football club. Whyte was sine died from the game and Rangers were disciplined, but it was Murray who sold the business to Whyte, despite his personal history. For all the rule breaking, and subsequent havoc he inflicted on his club, Murray has not been brought to account by the SFA, his allies still hold the balance of power, but not for ever.
The knighthood for services to Scottish business will sound hollow to those who invested in MIH pensions, and who were recently told their funds are in trouble. Yesterday’s news that Murray is putting a squad of his businesses into liquidation, or from BBC’s Douglas Fraser that Murray’s family are buying “fire-sale assets” from MIH, which, he explains, “received what’s called “an unsolicited approach from the Murray family”, tells you what you need to know about the man.
If only there was the political will to ask for an inquiry into hundreds of millions of pounds of public money lost to the exchequer, as publicly-owned Lloyds, now owners of the Bank of Scotland, slowly come to terms with how deep the Charlotte Square money pit is. Murray’s acolytes, those who partied hard with him during the good times, remain scattered through Scotland, from Holyrood, to Hampden. It will take years before they slowly lose grip on their own fiefdoms.
Strip him of his title, discipline him for the rule-breaking in Scottish football, and have an inquiry into how his coalescence with the financial, political and media sectors rendered him immune from responsibility.
More later on Gary Mackay-Steven.
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dessybhoy
16:29 on
14 January, 2015
Surely this decision by the SFA is bad news
=====================================
History suggests that you could have just stopped there !
Hamiltontim,
Just been called up on Grandad duty for Saturday so I can no longer go to Accies game if a ticket became available. Sorry.
EC67
PlayiwithewainprobablymorefunanywayCSC
dessybhoy
16:29 on 14 January, 2015
No, they need to pay football debts, and agreed to pay this
dessybhoy
I agree.
It is all part of playing up to the same club myth.
SFTB 3.34
Good post. We argued a bit during the referendum. It’s settled for now IMO.
I’m getting over it.
HH
I heard that Celtic are playing a closed doors match against Livi tonight.
Anyone know anything?
HH
This Alfie Noakes character must be a parody account surely? It’s too hard to someone seriously when their posting such inane drivel.
Alfie -> Labour are finished in Scotland pal. They’ve shown their true colours, and those colours are Tory blue. If all Jim Murphy has is ‘We’re no the Tories’ then their in a worse position than I thought they were.
Anyway… back to the fitba
aye it wis green …when I wis a wee braw I got sent to the shops when visiting ma grandad in Cydebank…he wrote me a note for the shop as he wasn,t sure they would understand ma east coast accent ……
I was glad he wrote a note thogh cos I never understood a word he said in his Cushendall brogue … :) hoopy days
braw
If only Alf Garnet had stood against Enoch Powell
Closed door game is for zengh zi fitness
Minty is insulating himself from the shit storm that CW is about to initiate in a legal self preservation manoeuvre to avoid jail. No one else see a timing coincidence?
All in time for the rebirth of the OLD Firm.
Deid Club???
GTF
Retract earlier statement ticket offer letters in today’s post…
setting free the bears for Res. 12 & Oscar Knox
16:42 on
14 January, 2015
If only Alf Garnet had stood against Enoch Powell
You must be a young one. They were on the same side.
“I cannot be alone on here in feeling…..”
Sftb,
Nope. Certainly not.
Misquoting and taking out of context are two things that drive me menthol.
I expect it of other posters on other sites. Not here :)
Collective noun
PTFC Zoologist pal liked to use-
A bloat of Huns
YogiHughes
16:48 on
14 January, 2015
setting free the bears for Res. 12 & Oscar Knox
16:42 on
14 January, 2015
If only Alf Garnet had stood against Enoch Powell
You must be a young one. They were on the same side
You should have clicked the link first :-)
Saint Stivs
earlier……
A Necropolis of huns…??
………………..and if your flight has gone Tech, you may be in for a long wait…………….
HH
Margaret McGill
He’s trying to insulate himself. I think the Murray Group pensioners will put up a fight. And those decent folk who will be outraged at his behaviour. The info is all out there.
The masonic cabal can only suppress so much.
KTF
Weefra
Sadly wee Shaun went to Leicester. For about £1m for 5 months left on his contract.
Bonkers!
Imagine what we’d get for you if we put you up for sale???
Watch out for that by the way. You look so much like Sammi that cowiebhoy might try and sell ya!
Hope you built a Lanarkshire ark in time for this weather!
Laters
HH jamesgang
Moonbeams
Letter from ticket office for 1 ticket for forthcoming semi @ Hampden.
Looking for ticket for grandson….his desire.
Know very little chance, but if any available, let me know.
Magnificentseven.
Just signed on. Maybe you could point me to the link, please?
margaret mcgill
16:45 on 14 January, 2015
Hello, where have you been ……. I have missed your unique style …. and, oh, by the way, they’re deed…..it’s all about money …… And, if Whyte DOES own ipox, the judge will sell ipox to give Tocketus their money back
” a perfect storm is brewing”………….hang on to your coconuts this is no ordinary blow job!
braw
The problem was not the colour of the papers…..the demise of the Citizen was a foretaste of the newspaper industry’s subsequent belief in presentation rather than content…..The Citizen sadly was out of kilter with the public mood to prefer a tabloid rag that was more conducive to bring stuffed in your back pocket.
The Citizen persevered to its grave as a broadsheet.
Mind you The Times also had Bob Crampsey. :)
The same happened all over the islands with Saturday football specials.
Their headlines could be unforgettable.
.The Manchester equivalent once said about a game “united lose out on seven goal thriller’!!
They had actually lost 6-1.
Hail hail
Estadio
Yogi
The link is the post @ 16.42
It is a link and it should be in green
ger57
16:50 on 14 January, 2015
Margaret McGill
He’s trying to insulate himself. I think the Murray Group pensioners will put up a fight. And those decent folk who will be outraged at his behaviour. The info is all out there.
The masonic cabal can only suppress so much.
KTF
………………………………
Agree with this. Murray has got away with murder up to now but when senior and middle management get ripped off or see others getting their pension fund trashed there will be a chance that he gets shopped.
His and Walter’s statements today/yesterday show there is a big shitstorm heading their way.
This could go any way when Craig decides to reveal what he knows about terms Sevco 5088 transfer to Sevco Scotland.
Litigation for the forseeable future.
Jim Spence
Dundee Utd will not let Gary Mackay Steven leave in the transfer window for any less than two hundred and fifty thousand pounds I’m told
LB
rm has been ‘down’ all day for “maintenance” ……. have they no paid their bills either. …. :)
setting free the bears for Res. 12 & Oscar Knox
16:58 on
14 January, 2015
Yogi
The link is the post @ 16.42
It is a link and it should be in green.
Thanks. Got it now. Point taken. Apologies.
ger57
16:50 on 14 January, 2015
The masonic cabal can only suppress so much.
KTF
…………………………………….
Spot on. When thieves fall out applies to the brethren in fact more so than the profane.
Yogi
No problem
Livibhoy-maybe we should pay £206k for GMS,and reimburse DU for Telfer? The most expensive youth player in Scottish Football history
Why would you spend £250,000 on GMS when we get him for nothing in Summer?
skyisalandfill
16:39 on
14 January, 2015
I heard that Celtic are playing a closed doors match against Livi tonight.
Anyone know anything?
HH
Guessing it’s a trial game for the Derry Bhoy and some wee Spanish trialist, Massi or Messi or sumfin?
Estadio …..200,000 copies on a saturday ! 1st half scores then full time …place must have been buzzing …….just been reading about the Citizen….even the name sounds quaint now…
anyway Grandad got his paper …and his pan loaf …..I prefered the plain wan but would never have mentioned that ….best toast in the wirld! awfy braw
‘Nous Sommes Les billy Boys’
Jesus wept.
The Huns coming over all French and libertarian.
Aren’t these the SAME slavering goons who were outraged at a CARTOON of a zombie getting shot on a GB banner?
Their vicarious victimhood knows no boundaries. Motherfranchisin’ imbeciles.
iki
sorry
67 heaven
this is a cause of these probelms, if you go bust which they did and are now in liquidation how can you be liable for any debt created by the company in liquidation , to agree to this is a nonsense,they are a new club their defence should be so, however if this is the cost of buying their history cheap at the price dont you think for them.