“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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Hahahahaha
Fred Colon – seems to me most of the malcontents come from the Clydebank Free State – an area with a greater proportion of those with ‘nothing to lose’
How do I know? – I campaigned there with Jackie Baillie during our Neverendum victory.
I’m not sure if Berra’s agent has approached Celtic. He wants back to Scotland for family reasons. Haven’t heard yet how interested in him Celtic are. Just thought I’d let you know. News came from a reliable source.
BT
I watched first half of Ipswich v Southampton last night. He didn’t impress me either.
I agree with the guys who say 250K for GMS, it’s not a gamble at that kinda money.
Celtic will pay £250,000. It’s probably now down to personal terms with the player por cierto
Theoriginalsadiesbhoy
Berra is not very good at all. Incredibly slow, fond of donkey punts up the park to no one in particular, as he again demonstrated last night.
Hasn’t been in a Scotland squad for over a year; can’t get close to displacing those defensive greats Grant Hanley and Russell Martin.
He was available on a free last summer and training with the zombies with a view to signing for them so if our interest is concrete I don’t know why we didn’t do anything then when we could have got him for nothing.
I don’t rate him at all. Seriously if he is the level that we are now at, I would much rather see youngsters such as O’Connell get a game.
Our scouts and staff responsible for incoming transfers seriously need to up their game.
Dundee Utd are no mugs. And I admire them for that and other aspects of their business.
Something around £200k for GMS hardly represents a wild reckless splurge when set alongside the fees paid for the Derks and Amidos of recent years.
HH jamesgang
Celtic enter the race with Ajax and Twente Enschede to sign AZ Alkmaar defender Wesley Hoedt, after Lazio had a £1m bid rejected, with the Dutch club thought to be looking for £1.7m for the 20-year-old. (Various)
LB
And while I empathise with anyone wanting to move home, Berra is a deffo no thanks for me.
He’d be a big step back. Quite a leaden footed one at that.
HH jamesgang
Good morning CQN
Alfie Noakes thanks for showing the blog why the Labour Party is losing its core support in its ole heartlands, those dreadful people in working class areas with nothing to lose eh
alfie noakes,
Maybe I’ve missed something but did we not have the meanest defence in Scotland last season, mass clean sheets, a goalkeeper who broke Bobby Clark’s long standing clean sheet record?
This season we have changed only the goalkeeper, arguably for the better, and the manager. The only other change has been tactics.
You would have to say that something has gone wrong in that department.
AR
The ole transfer thingy from agents players in MSM up and running again
Waitstilltheyhavesignedacontract.csc
Just on and seen the Metro post
off oooooot to get the bus :)))))))))))
Truth hurts Matt
https://twitter.com/MattLindsayHT/status/555635745139228673/photo/1
I’m kinda lost here, can someone explain who/what the Metro is?
beenawaytoolongCSC
antipodean red
It’s a fair point. The main change in our first team for the last couple of months is that the prodigal son Charlie Mulgrew has not been able to feature much.
Also Fisher played quite a few games during our shut out run.
Hopefully we can get some of these Bhoys in the first team and shut that back door.
I have never been too alarmed at Celtic conceding. I prefer a 5-4 to a 1-0 BUT we are not freely scoring goals either. I hope that this training break will have refreshed the squad and that with a couple of smart additions we will be ready for the 2nd part of the season.
GMS is a no brainer at the money. We have no wingers and he is able and will do a job. Is he top class? Don;t think so. Will he become better playing with better players? I would expect so.
We need a CB preferably experienced. I would prefer us to get a seasoned campaigner from the English Championship with leadership qualities. NOT Berra. Someone in the Mick McCarthy/John Hughes mould. Not the greatest player in the world but a leader on and off the pitch and a no nonsense defender who can first and foremost defend the penalty area. Teams are not afraid of Celtic anymore because we have a lovely wee fitba team with no grit in it.
The best player I have seen us come against this season was the playmaker from Legia Warsaw. He would be my top target in the summer. Miroslav Radovic is 30 years old but has the craft, guile and dig to be a top player for Celtic and give us a real European threat with his ability.
We need another goalkeeper and if we really want to get under the skin of our rivals we could make a cheeky bid for Scott Brown of Aberdeen. Good back up as Zaluska for me has never convinced and I believe his contract is out in the summer. The alternative is Mark Reynolds. If Celtic are looking at Berra then they would be better signing Reynolds. A- Upsets Aberdeen’s defence and B- Better and cheaper in both transfer fee and wages than Berra.
The problem with signing players from Scottish clubs in this window is that they may be cup tied and with us still in the domestic cups I reckon that may be a factor in this window in us possibly signing only GMS as he is very cheap and we are desperate for width.
I suspect we will see at least one more loan to buy come in. It makes sense in the January window but I hope that they are more Guidetti/Denayer than Wakaso/Berget.
LB
Antip red,
We did indeed do all those things last season but last season we had no league cup football after September, no European football after December and no Scottish cup after February.
A couple of seasons ago we were separated from ‘the rest’ by the smallest amount of points for years.
I’m pretty sure most of the clubs challenging us this season are way in front of where they were last season.
Celtic certainly ain’t fantastic this season but it’s certainly not all the fault of the manager imo.
Berra – not for me no thanks.
If we’re looking at centre halfs: I was impressed by Mark Connolly (Kilmarnock) last week. Haven’t seen a lot of him but he played well against us.
burgas hoops
The Metro is a free newspaper.A big contributor to the UK’s rubbish on the streets phenomenon.
Was just taking a great view of the Arabian Sea for you all to admire….when some tosser hung his towel up in front of my camera….ach well….I suppose I can wait until it dries.
https://wordpress.com/read/post/id/12578713/1704/
Hail hail
Estadio
BURGAS HOOPS
It’s a regional free newspaper,widely distributed via transport hubs.
Part of the Daily Mail group,I think.
Practically everyone on a train or bus in the morning reads it in preference to queueing and paying for the traditional papers!
BH-The Metro is a free newspaper ,given away in railway/subway stations mainly,carries same stories as the rags
Oh,and as SOUTH OF TUNIS says,then throws it away.
Good point,bud.
I wonder if they reported the recent demand for fast-food outlets to contribute to street-cleaning costs.
“Maybe I’ve missed something but did we not have the meanest defence in Scotland last season”
Antipodean red,
And no, unfortunately.
The newest club in Scotland had last season.
Leftclick @0940
Ouch. Beauty :))
Many thanks for the update on the Metro. Will they be upgrading security at their offices anytime soon? -))))
ANTIPODEAN RED 0406
Thanks for pointing that out,mate!
Very young squad at Swindon Town,but talented.
livibhoy and geordie munro,
Good points from both of you and I’m not necessarily having a go at the manager but the change should be questioned. I was back up in the northern summer and I got to one game only and that was Legia at Murrayfield. To be honest, my hopes were not high as I had watched the first leg in the pub the week before, I think I was still shell shocked a week later.
One area that is starting to concern me is that we need to get players in and bedded before summer with the CL Qualifiers coming so fast after seasons end. If the custodians don’t back RD, then serious questions need to be asked in that department.
AR
Berra, Connolly or Reynolds!!
Only if we are signing for the development squad to give them an experienced centre half.
None of the above are anywhere near good enough for us and i am absolutely certain they won’t feature on our shortlist.
There is value in the Dutch, Belgian and Danish leagues (amongst others) but as shown re the lad at AZ, players in the 1-3 million bracket are very difficult to land.
You have Championship clubs, lower EPL, Portuguese, Italian, Germany etc all competing for their signatures.
I sometimes laugh when people say, I can’t believe our scouts aren’t identifying players like so and so, he’s only 2 million! I’m sure we know all about players in this bracket – World wide!
How do we get them tho? I’m sure time and again we pick up the phone and speak to an agent who tells us he’ll get back to us……
If we can’t throw money at them, and we have a poor domestic league and no guarantee of Champions League it must take quite a salesman to convince players to come here.
Celtic are nine points worse off this season than after the same number of games last season.
That’s why the title race is closer.
Celtic have regressed further.
No more unknown “projects” when it comes to signing players.
This policy has been such a waste. We just cant punt these duds. (and most have been duds thus far !)
GMS seems a reasonable signing , not a project,but the likes of Berra ??.
Makes Efe look like Beckenbaur !!!
A ” free ” rag from The ” Hurrah For The Black Shirts ” Rothermere family.
bmcuw,
Young Massimo Luongo scored a beaut of a header the other night. Like a young Tim Cahill!
AR
As much as I think VVD is a wonderful CH,I cant see the wisdom in keeping him this window.We missed out on the Ajax CH who went last week,now the CH from Alkmaar is on the market for under £2 million.He is an under 21 international,and has been getting great reviews.We know the Dutch keep churning out great CHs.
Surely it makes sense to punt VVD now,bring in a new CH,and get us settled for Julys qualifiers.If Denayer will stay for another season,great.Give them time to play together.If he is not staying,get Charlie back into CH along with the new signing.
I really cant for the life of me see why we are not doing this.
The guy from Alkmaar ticks all the boxes.Baffling to me.But what do I know?.
Please don’t let us sign the likes of Berra. We have a lot better on our books at the moment. He was dire last night, as he has been any time I have seen him play.
He does not get much right so lets hope he breaks his duck…
@ChrisGraham76 5m5 minutes ago
The shit is about to hit the fan. Liars, thieves and conmen.
From what SoS have just said, it’s regarding Ibrox and Auchenhowie, and Ashley.
Rankers have lodged legal papers revealing they could offer up Ibrox and Murray Park as security on another Mike Ashley loan.
He from the sun so not sure if ant better than above but heres hoping :)
Andy Devlin @AndyDev28 1m1 minute ago
Rangers have lodged legal papers revealing they could offer up Ibrox and Murray Park as security on another Mike Ashley loan.