In the range of events I never thought would possibly happen, David Murray appearing on a podcast with Graeme Souness discussing EBTs is right up there! You would expect the master architect of the scheme that destroyed Rangers and a recipient of an EBT, paid when he was Blackburn Rovers manager, would keep well away from this subject. That they did not, tells you a great deal about the personalities of both.
Murray credited himself with giving Rangers nine-in-a-row and Gascoigne, and admitted to the sins of ambition and vanity. Ambition, that football fault which is so similar to being just perfect. Always be aware of characters throwing that around as their fault (I’m not going to mention our former vain and ‘ambitious’ character).
His technical defence was that auditors for Rangers and Murray International Holdings (MIH) both signed off on his EBT scheme. True, but wholly irrelevant. A quick explainer:
An EBT is a loan. Employers loan staff money every day. Crisis loans, relocations loans and loans to cover health-related issues are common. If it is a short-term matter, or in a small company, little or no paperwork is required. At other times, the loan needs to be formally written up. These loans can also be forgiven (often happens when a crisis loan is issued). No problem with this and no employment tax is due.
Rangers EBT scheme effectively paid footballers, managers and execs with these types of loans, however, for the footballers (at least), the loans were contractual obligations, with a clause which meant they never had to be repaid. In 2017, the UK Supreme Court ruled that these contracts were disguised renumeration and that employment taxes were due on them.
The contract invalidated the EBT structure. MIH possibly did not have the same contractual arrangements, so EY, their auditor, would be untroubled by the scheme. The point David Murray did not address, was whether Rangers auditor – Grant Thornton – were informed about the contractual nature of the club’s EBTs.
Grant Thornton are unlikely to defend themselves against this contagion, but no one pursued the firm for poor advice in relation to the signing of Rangers accounts. It is not credible to suggest that Grant Thornton knew of these contracts and no one has claimed they were told.
In adopting an ‘innovative tax strategy’, Rangers knew a challenge from HMRC was possible. They would have got away with it, were they not raided by City of London Police in relation to the Jean-Alain Boumsong sale to Newcastle (then managed by Souness). This transaction was subject to investigation by the Stevens Inquiry. That issue is worth an hour of your time reviewing the characters involved in the UK game at the time.
When this was going on, other things were crumbling around Murray. The Bank of Scotland went bust and was sold, with new oversight and a different appetite for his largesse. Rangers won three successive leagues in the run-up to administration, they were solvent and could have chosen to set money aside from Champions League qualification to offset a potential HMRC settlement. Instead, they returned to the roulette table year after year.
If I had my way, I would build a statue to David Murray outside Celtic Park. He has done more for our success than anyone not directly connected to Celtic. Without his navigation, Rangers would never have been liquidated, and Celtic would not have removed that “World’s most successful….” writing from the walls of what he vaingloriously called Murray Park. Celebrate the man, he is a gift to generations of Celtic fans.
Also, when he dies, I’m open to offers on writing a book.
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Sounds better when you read it twice😅
Cosy Corner Bhoy on 3rd October 2026 4:13 am
Sounds better when you read it twice😅
~
Surely you can’t be short of a few weeds that need a good weeding on Sentinelcelts.com?
👍
AULDHEID on 3RD OCTOBER 2026 1:48 AM
Excellent points. Bring it on!
I’ll support whatever can embarrass or further diminish the hun of the 90s and 00s.
Imagine a prospective new owner of Celtic Plc who included as part of their broader pitch to the fans, the idea that they would seek some form of “justice”. It would quite the rallying call!
Happy clappy, virtue signaling, weak willed, sorts are going to see their behaviors, getting a lot of innocent people with bad experiences, being visited upon them, with the injured or worse affected looking for revenge and vengeance on the perpetrators and facilitators.
https://x.com/CapatanEl4662/status/2105678472949510613
Its just going to get worser and worser and worser and worser.
Cancel culture tin eared idiots like the virtue signaling Green Brigade have sleep walked a lot of innocent people into this shambles.
53,000 mirrors required pronto.
Though it looks like its too late already.
You simply need to be careful out there!
👍
International breaks really are garbage and far too long .
However, we get a wee bit of Cetic today and tomorrow with the Tennents 6s.
Aiden McGeady, for me, was a great Celt and only Lubo n Naka keep him out of my best ever X1.
Looking forward to seeing hom in the hoops for the 1st time in 16 years.
36 goals and 48 assists in a Celtic jersey.
Looking forward to watching him today.
NAY is Kev. Best ignored.
Good Morning CQN
If you want read the whole article get over to the Celtic Underground
Harry below explains the futility of believing anything can be achieved at the Celtic FC PLC AGM
As Harry states you can’t beat the arithmetic
No doubt the advocates with the enormous ego will be on later to tell us IF you just ask that magical brilliant question………Ho Hum
Getting Dermot Out? You Can’t Argue With Arithmetic
Harry’s Saturday morning long read
THE CELTIC UNDERGROUND
OCT 3
As I said at the start, this isn’t an article proposing that Celtic are getting everything right and these fan groups are wrong. There are legitimate questions about recruitment, executive performance, communication, European ambition and whether Celtic are making sufficiently productive use of their considerable financial resources. This article was motivated by the recent “nonsense” (from the horses mouth) rumour that Brendan is heading up a Saudi led consortium to buy out Dermot. I then got involved in various twitter chats that illustrated how little many appreciate the huge numbers of votes, legislative barriers and financial hurdles that make shouting at Dermot and expecting his departure akin to pissing in the wind.
If the objective is specifically “Get Dermot Out”, people need to stop dealing in slogans and start dealing in arithmetic.
Sum No1? Let’s start with 107,763,023 votes
A review of the Celtic website, LSE and Comptershare docs tells me that Celtic currently has 95,139,731 Ordinary shares and 12,623,292 CPO shares carrying voting rights. That’s a total voting capital of: 107,763,023 votes
(The other share classes don’t alter that figure: Celtic confirms that the CCPs and deferred shares carry no voting rights.)
So if that’s the baseline number, now we need to look at what actually happened when shareholders were given the opportunity to vote on Dermot Desmond.
At the aborted 2025 AGM the figures for his reappointment were:
Dermot Desmond – 2025 AGM Votes
Total votes cast – 82,317,400
For Desmond – 81,650,773
Against Desmond – 666,627
Support amongst votes cast – 99.19%
“Ahh but” you say, “Dermot Desmond controls 40,772,073 of these votes through his Ordinary and CPO holdings”. Ok, take his votes out.
Sum No2? All votes cast less Dermot’s share
81,650,773 votes less 40,772,073 votes = 40,878,700 votes.
And that’s the significant number – 40,878,700 votes belonging to people other than Dermot Desmond were cast in favour of Dermot Desmond. Indeed, other shareholders cast slightly more votes for Desmond than Desmond controlled himself.
Now, I would suggest that this is a rather large obstacle to the theory that Celtic’s shareholder register contains an overwhelming anti-Desmond majority waiting to be mobilised. “But thousands of shareholders don’t vote” many will say and you’re absolutely right so let’s look at the numbers and see if the argument gets more interesting.
Sum No3 – Count the missing votes?
Using today’s voting capital as a simple benchmark against the 2025 AGM turnout,* approximately 25.45 million votes weren’t cast in the Desmond resolution. Now let’s make the most generous assumption imaginable for a “Get Dermot Out” campaign.
Let us assume that every single one of those missing votes could be found. Let us assume that every dormant shareholder responds to the letter. Every address is current. Every estate involving a deceased shareholder gets sorted out. Everyone fills in the paperwork. Nobody ignores the campaign. And then let’s make an even more extraordinary assumption, that every single one votes against Dermot Desmond. Look what happens:
Hypothetical anti-Desmond bloc – Votes
Actually voted against Desmond – 666,627
Every currently “missing” vote – 25,445,623
Hypothetical total opposition – 26,112,250
Total Celtic voting capital – 107,763,023
Opposition – 24.2%
Even in that almost absurdly favourable scenario, you’ve only reached 24.2%. Not even quite one quarter of the total votes. And, of course, the assumption itself ignores human nature. Why would 100% of non-voters oppose Desmond?
The most obvious reason you wouldn’t get 100% against Dermot is the conservative nature of many “better the devil you know.” But beyond that, some won’t vote because they’re satisfied. Some don’t care about corporate governance. Some will dislike aspects of the Board but still prefer Desmond to an unknown purchaser. Some will think Celtic should spend more but regard the club’s financial security as a strength. Some may actively support him. And plenty will continue doing what they’ve been doing for years – NOT VOTE!
So, whilst “we’ll organise the missing shareholders” will help return an element of democracy to the wider ownership of the club, it isn’t an answer for those wanting to bring about change. It is simply the beginning of another enormous organisational problem.
(*The issued share capital has moved slightly since the 2025 AGM because of scrip issues, so this is deliberately an illustrative comparison using the current denominator rather than pretending the current total was precisely the AGM record-date total.)
Sum No4 – Buying Dermot out? The Rule 9 solution?
Suppose none of that matters because Dermot decides tomorrow:
“Fine, I’ve had enough of you ungrateful punters. Find me a buyer!”
Now we’ve got a completely different problem. Desmond’s voting block is roughly 34%. A purchaser acquiring that position crosses the 30% threshold at which Rule 9 of the Takeover Code normally requires an offer to the remaining shareholders. And the Takeover Panel is particularly explicit about purchases from major shareholders: a purchaser of such a holding “must expect to be obliged to extend an offer under Rule 9 to all other shareholders.” There isn’t an obvious work- around.
Sum No5 – Are the numbers Big?
No! They’re HUGE!
The current share price of Celtic is £1.75 but I’m sure a selling Dermot would look at the price high of the past 12 months (£2.56) and then want a sellers premium on top. Taking all of that into consideration, a realistic (but probably low) £3 per Ordinary-equivalent valuation might be the price to get a sale:
Purchase economics – Approximate value
Desmond’s interests – £163.6m
Entire Celtic equity – £410.6m
Because (as stated above) a bid to buy Dermot REQUIRES a bid to buy everyone at Dermot’s price then you need to be in a position to buy it all, and this is where everything escalates as this (at the conservative £3 a share) is over £400m!
Now, it’s highly unlikely you would need to buy all and, with around 28,000 small shareholders most would no doubt hold on to their shares but the Take Over Panel requires you to make that offer so you need to demonstrate that you have access to that money. Yes, it could potentially be financed through an LBO (Leveraged Buy-Out) and that means the purchasers don’t personally require £410m cash. But somebody still supplies the equity, somebody supplies the acquisition debt and Celtic’s future cash generation ultimately has to support whatever debt structure is created.
Sum No6 – How many votes to get a Rule 9 waiver?
It is possible to get a waiver from the Rule 9 requirement to offer for all shares. It’s possible to get the other shareholders to agree that the new buyer can just swap places with Dermot with no need to offer for everyone else. Unfortunately, this is where the arithmetic becomes particularly brutal. The Takeover Panel says it will consider waiving Rule 9 where holders carrying 50% or more of the voting rights state in writing that they would not accept the offer.
Fifty per cent of Celtic’s current voting capital is 53,881,512 votes
Think about what that means – remember our fantasy scenario in which every single non-voter suddenly appears and every one of them opposes Desmond? That only produced 26,112,250 votes. You’d still therefore be 27,769,262 votes short of 50%.
Where do those votes come from? Necessarily, from substantial numbers of shareholders who actually participated in the AGM electorate in which 40,878,700 non-Desmond votes were cast in favour of Desmond?
But Dermot’s wanting out and so the people who voted with him might vote with him again to allow him to leave, but even getting them all onside, finding all these missing shareholders and reaching 50% doesn’t mean you’ve discovered an automatic legal loophole. The Code says the Panel “will consider” a waiver where the 50% written non-acceptance condition is met. More importantly for this particular scenario, its guidance says approval for the transfer of existing shares from one shareholder to another may be considered in “exceptional circumstances.”
So we’re now several hypothetical steps removed from “Get Dermot Out”.
You need Dermot to agree to sell.
You need somebody capable of buying him.
You need a financeable transaction.
You then either deal with the consequences of Rule 9 or pursue an exceptional waiver.
And for the 50% waiver route, you’re looking for written commitments representing 53.9 million votes. This isn’t collecting 5,000 signatures outside Celtic Park. It’s shareholder voting capital.
https://x.com/CeltUrban/status/2105945335965134959?s=20
Urban Celt@CeltUrban
I never thought Drumcree would end up being such a boost for the local tourism industry😅
What a fantastic line up for the Garvaghy Fleadh this weekend
Come for the craic
Stay for the stand-off
Cap doffed
Lionsroar so what’s the pragmatic next step. These articles would be better if they could point out the option. From my interpretation we need to encourage a very wealthy buyer , including what’s in it for them. An alternative is to make peace with Desmond. Both very difficult scenarios.
TAURANGABHOY on 3RD OCTOBER 2026 8:20 AM
we need to encourage a very wealthy buyer
Whose “we” can you define ?
As Harry points out the”wealthy buyer” comes with a lot whole lot of risk, frying pan into the fire
An alternative is to make peace with Desmond.
As the the articles arithmetic points out “The owner” has won and is in an impregnable castle with his control over voting shares, “The owner” rarely goes to matches, AGMs or board meetings difficult to make peace as you call it with an billionaire absentee landowner good luck with that approach
Desmond sees nothing wrong in how the club is being run by his appointees so until that changes nothing will, Football in a European context is secondary, will be interesting if he re evaluates things if we lose domestic titles and cups regularly, nothing will change until he does, I doubt he cares what most of the grass root support think or want it’s all about the bottom line although a near 11m drop in money in the bank may catch his attention, I doubt it though.
He will be focused on Adare Manor and next year’s Ryder Cup .
LIONROARS67 I don’t know who we is. Maybe it should be you as you put the article up, or some others, it’s hard to tell who is supposed to be doing something to get Celtic from just being a decade long successful domestic club to being a successful champions league team, if that’s what you want. ,
Closing off options simply says you have a closed mind. It seems to me that you want regime change but you haven’t a foggiest what that means,
DESSYBHOY Pure speculation. How do you or I , I’ll not use we, know what Desmond wants. He hasn’t taken a dividend but his capital investment has grown. He owns one third of Celtic as many point out, he can’t talk for the rest. Maybe the collective need to sit disn and have a Guinness and a chat. B4 we ask a capitalist venture group to buy him out,
Lionsroar the other shareholders agree with Desmond, is on them. If that’s makes it difficult for any season ticket holder surely the right thing for them to do is give up their ticket and find enjoyment somewhere else. If the collective know this, they know they have no bargaining power but when has that been an issue at Celtic. Celtic is a community, fans, players, management, club, corporate. What’s wrong with sit down and try for solutions. Got to be better than tennis balls and oranges.
If we don’t change our playing style and formation, we will have learned nothing…..
All about opinions same as yours don’t want to read it scroll on by
Bada
And get much fitter because we clearly aren’t and don’t press in the midfield or defending. All my opinion of course based on what I see.
Mika and Colby & Duran so far have been our best player’s and performers let’s the hope the others including the coaching staff have the ability to improve the team we will soon find out soo enough as the fixtures come thick and fast added bonus of Jota slowly coming back hopefully will help us and return of Yang from his month away will hopefully benefit the team as he was missed after his fine start to the season.
Dessybhoy if you only want comments from people who agree with you , just say.
I happen to agree with you on the pressing Dessybhoy. It might be fitness but it also might be physical strength in middfield. Defense feels fine but they don’t get enough protection in the middle. I wasn’t a huge fan of Engels but maybe he did that role better than I thought.
saying it forever.
only another owner changing sides and voting against desmond makes a difference.
same as itwas in 94.
lets see what keane or trainer do next.
This article on Celtic Underground that points out the difficulties in figures and rules to removing DD is a must read but requires settung aside the judgements of motivation that divides us.
https://thecelticunderground.substack.com/p/getting-dermot-out-you-cant-argue?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2631292&post_id=218222239&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=4532ki&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
It makes arguments I’ve made against the CSL objective and will be as welcome to David Low as a fart in a space suit.
It also covers my point about the self harm in the not a penny campaign and suggests the kind of questions to put to The Board to address supporters concerns.
It is an opportunity to reconsider how the support can have a united independent say, which my Membership Service proposal that DD thought was well thought out, would provide if the support want to pay for that independence.
I see The CU article is already linked to but its time the support got real about the nature of Celtic today and dropped the idea from 1994 thst the same approach from then will work today.
With regard to DD selling up he told me in response to my Membership Service proposal last Sept that he could easily sell up but has no intention to do so.
Events from then may have changed his mind but the title to my covering letter was A House Divided Cannot Stand which is why Celtic are falling apart.
As Yeats wrote in 1919
Turning and turning in the widening gyre /
The falcon cannot hear the falconer; /
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; /
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”.
desmond has had 7 million in dividends over the years
lionroars67 on 3rd October 2026 8:40 am
Make peace with DD
Get him to listen to the views of supporters?
How could that be done?
Being less confrontational and being more cooperative might help change his mind.
Saint Stivs on 3rd October 2026 11:21 am
desmond has had 7 million in dividends over the years
====
Peanuts to him and we have to consider what return on their investment a hedge buyer would seek.
There be dragons out there.
Just re-watching the Ferencvaros game and got to end of first half.
Painful watch of our strangely shapeless team. Guys playing all over the shop; and not effectively.
in cold light of day, several notable under-par showings.
KT easy roasted by the right winger.
Duran, a study in huffiness. Arzani more effective than the peripheral Hassan.
Sorensen; all perspiration, no inspiration.
It’s like being 2/3 men down against a very pedestrian Euro side.
Sean Dyche apparently saying he would be interested in Celtic job if it becomes available.
In other news, New Hibs head coach Marink Reedijk admits he has put his players through a “pre-season on steroids” and praised the Easter Road squad for the way they have taken to his methods. A training camp in Spain with double sessions to get fitness up and get new tactics across.
Sounds like a good idea . . .
Roy Keane was mentioned also so would he possibly be good appointment to help the coaching team and his high demands and aura would add a bit of bite to our squad perhaps the this time in the past we habe added Harry Kewel & Damien Duff we are good selling good assets but replacements haven’t simply been good enough.
Auldheid on 3rd October 2026 11:06 am
This article on Celtic Underground that points out the difficulties in figures and rules to removing DD is a must read but requires settung aside the judgements of motivation that divides us
https://thecelticunderground.substack.com/p/getting-dermot-out-you-cant-argue?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2631292&post_id=218222239&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=4532ki&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
_____
👍Will have a long read of that. Celtic underground, easily one of the best podcasts out there.
Good day yesterday, 45 minutes for Jota and young Clearie scoring a double. Been a very long time since we’ve produced a good goal scorer 🤞
David Low interview with Tino
https://youtu.be/8wdFg4nrpAo?is=YH0ZsqiPX1DwO3vS
You decide I’m not bothered what you do,remember it’s all just opinions
Maestro – A couple of weeks ago, a lot of us hoped we would see some serious changes made during the 3-week break. It hasn’t happened. We limp on. Getting Keane in as an assistant to MoN for the remainder of the season is probably a pipe dream as it would mean moving Maloney aside. Personally I would be delighted to see it happen as he provides a presence that Sean clearly lacks. Keane is an extrovert who will stand for no shit, the other an introvert who is better suited to a desk job.
Sevco bossed us as well twice, and theyre average,team is grossly unfit, being fit is the least of any professional footballers requirements standards have dropped bigtime.
ACSOM is live
https://www.youtube.com/live/rWk8EHwnwYI?is=j2z4qXSAtSgJ3P0q
@Denia 💯 amigo 🙏 and hope we add some quality to the coaching department pronto & get a clear script and style and play to suit our players 😉
Finished the full 90; it’s good to see it when you’re feeling more calm.
Tho my nerves are shredded going thru it again.
In retrospect, the ref was pish; let Ferenc foul our bhoys and only showed yellows as the tie was closing.
Many Celtic players patently looked exasperated they had no-one moving into space to pass to.
Overwhelming lack of clarity over which runs and passes to make; so they defaulted to the dreaded passback.
Scalesy – who has admirable qualities to his game – was especially poor.
This tactical torpor is a defo a mentality thing. Good players unsure on what they’re doing.
Tin hat on: If we have to reset to the end of the year, I’d take Lenny over Dyche or either Keane.
1.2 m per gig I am told Celtic will earn next May.