There is a degree of relief (in some quarters) mixed with surprise that Hearts creditors have agreed to a CVA, allowing the club to exit administration. Although administration seems to be a natural state for many in Scottish football, remarkably few have subsequently gone to the wall in the last 100 years.
Third Lanark perished in 1967, an exception during many decades of solvent behaviour. Airdrieoneans (not to be confused with the current club by that name, which is the renamed and relocated Clydebank FC) were liquidated in 2002, with the chastising words of creditor Sir David Murray ringing in their ears. Oh how well irony played its hand.
Murray’s own club, Rangers (not to be confused with the current club by that name), were next to be liquidation after creditor, HMRC, stuck by their published rules and rejected a proposed CVA.
Apart from this, a remarkable series of campaigns, such as ‘Well worth saving’ and ‘Save the Jags’ has seen supporters step forward and find the money to save their club from that ominous fate.
There appears to couple of rules if you want to escape liquidation. Try to ensure 75% of your creditor value is owed to shareholder-creditors or the bank. Many clubs survive on directors’ loan accounts, which are ultimately forgiven in administration. Banks too have been reluctant to kill the local totem, with good commercial reason.
The major thing to avoid appears to be breaking tax law. HMRC are prevented by its own terms of business from forgiving tax debt which has been run up through illegal tax evasion. This was the case at (original) Rangers, who conceded some of their tax dealings were not legal during 2012’s Lower Tier Tribunal. The balance of cases are disputed and currently subject to an Upper Tier Tribunal.
Hearts success makes for an interesting SPFL Championship race this season. With three games to go Dundee hold a two point advantage over Hamilton. The winner will go up, second place will face a play-off, but neither club will fancy fighting Hearts for promotion next season. I can imagine the despair elsewhere to the news that Hearts will be a Championship club next season. Poor Ally will need to get his game together.
Remember, John Hughes will be on CQN tomorrow morning. Tune in with your questions for him.
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bobbyrussell
21:41 on 16 April, 2014
WOOFT…!!
The ole Williams sisters have a secret agreement that which ever of the two have a male child, he’ll be called Tennisee.
jackie mac @ 21:36
embramike. every now and then could ya post that again, just to remind me what’s what.
JM – every so often someone puts into words exactly what I’m thinking – saves me blowing a gasket trying to do it myself ! Here’s the link ..
http://kerrydalestreet.co.uk/single/?p=12893969&t=9070302
tom molach
19:47 on 16 April, 2014
hamiltontim is praying for oscar
19:00 on 16 April, 2014
Sorry, but there is no PLC block vote. Every ordinary share gets a vote. Every ordinary share is owned by someone/ group other than the PLC.
———
Apologies but I’ve been out and just back online.
When I was talking about a block vote I meant the collective of all of those on the board who were opposing the resolution
bournesouprecipe
There is more chance of the Edinburgh Panda having a bhoy than the Williams sisters
LOVE
Has football lost its soul? Undoubtedly. As it says at the end of this article, the beautiful game has grown ugly.
————————————————————————————————————————–
Recently The Independent published a global league table of football clubs according to the average salaries they pay their players.
It comes as little surprise to learn that sitting at the top of the table is Manchester City, which now pays on average over £100,000 a week to its first team players. Just behind them sits Real Madrid at just over £90,000 per week, then Barcelona, and so on.
Focusing in on the English Premiership, the gap between the top paying club, Man City, and the second, Chelsea, is quite considerable at £100,764 per week against £78,053 per week respectively. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the Premiership league table for salaries, is Norwich City, paying its players a comparatively modest £19,434 per week on average.
If anybody was still in any doubt that the relationship between the real world and top flight football was at best now a tenuous one, a cursory glance at these figures should end them. Football has become an increasingly corrupt global business that reflects the very worst excesses of a free market gone haywire in its corrosive impact on wider society. Ostentation and obscenity sits at the apex of football, just as it does in every private multinational business, with no time for anything approaching restraint or decency. It is particularly telling that it is in Spain and the UK where the highest salaries in top flight football are paid, considering that it is in these countries where ordinary people are paying the highest price economically and socially under the weight of the worst global economic crisis since the 1930s. In fact, more than telling it’s an insult.
But it’s not only in the relationship between top flight football and wider society that we come up against such outrageous and unjustifiable contradictions. They exist within football itself.
Palestinian footballer Mahmoud Sarsak, who spent three years in an Israeli prison without being charged of any crime, is currently on a speaking tour of the UK. During the Edinburgh leg of the tour he was joined on the platform by Tony Higgins, Scottish representative of the international footballers’ union FIFPro.
Addressing the meeting, Higgins, himself a former professional player, explained how the inordinate attention paid to the small minority of players and clubs at the apex of the sport has distorted our understanding of the game on a global level. Around 90 percent of professional footballers around the world struggle to make ends meet on low salaries, he revealed. In many instances these salaries aren’t paid on time if at all by unscrupulous club owners. He also revealed that in parts of the world players are routinely threatened, intimidated, and on occasion murdered by criminal gangs engaged in match fixing.
It is fitting that Tony Higgins was on the platform alongside Mahmoud. Higgins played a central role in organising a petition calling for Sarsak’s release from Israeli detention that was signed by over 2000 current and ex-professional footballers around the world, most notably Eric Cantona. The petition was presented to UEFA President Michel Platini, who along with FIFA President Sepp Blater joined the international campaign calling for Sarsak to be released.
After spending over three months on hunger strike, he was finally released in June 2012. I wrote a couple of articles on the plight of Mahmoud Sarsak and the other 2000 Palestinians engaged in a mass hunger strike over their detention for the Huffington Post. They can be found here and here.
Speaking through an interpreter, the Palestinian described the harsh conditions of his detention. He suffered torture, extended periods of isolation, and humiliation at the hands of his captors – treatment compounded by the fact he was never charged with any crime or allowed to see any evidence against him. He was held under a category known as administrative detention, which Amnesty International has urged the Israeli government to end. Sarsak, it should be recalled, was detained at an Israeli checkpoint on his way to Nablus from Gaza to join up with the rest of his team for training. His description of his detention was made more poignant by the fact that, in the same week in which he was embarked on his speaking tour, Israel was hosting the UEFA Under-21 International Football Championships.
Indeed, it is sobering to think that while the cream of Europe’s young footballers have been on display on front of adoring fans and the world’s media in Israel these past few weeks, 5000 Palestinian political prisoners are being held in its prisons.
The extreme disparity that exists between the rarefied world inhabited by those at the top of football and those struggling at the bottom is proof positive that the sport long credited with bringing the world together in a spirit of egalitarianism and joy has lost its soul.
If anything, The Beautiful Game has grown ugly.
Steve sininson and his sons twiier troboules Simonson and his sons twitter troubles
DEARY DEARY ME cant even blame a fancy phone:(((
Tom Molach
21:30 on
16 April, 2014
Drugs?
I often wondered why the Williams sisters took a year out with injury just as the ATP decided to get tough on drugs. Funny how Nadal had a year of injury and is nowhere near the superhuman beast he was previously.
_______________________________________________________________________
Sums up my jaundiced view of international sport of every description.
Financial doping and dope doping.
Neverton crash and burn for another season.
Cold in the shadow.
Crystal Palace are Puncheon above their weight under ole Pulis.
Had a pint in my local tonight in Manchester.
Usually there about. 20 City fans waiting for their bus.
Only ten in.!
Thought they would win easy.
Sums them up.
….pfayr supports weeoscar
21:38 on 16 April, 2014
You’re the lawyer, no me.
The pfa (Scotland) scuppered Charlie’s original plan which was to walk away with £20m quid and leave a debt free, strong club.
Instead he had to walk away with £20m quid and a debt free (until the recent £1.5m payday loan) basket case.
The Sevco situation is fascinating. King may be a glib and shameless liar, but he isn’t, surely, a moron? He must know that starving the Zombies of ST money will lead, inevitably, to administration, and very possibly liquidation.
What then?
Can he be sure that administration will drop in his favour, that he will be able to wangle control? Pick up the pieces for a song? I just don’t see a clear route to control for him, unless he is going all Rambo about this and deliberately burn down the whole shebang…
Then there’s his “trust”. This, frankly, is an insane idea. Indeed, is it actually workable at all in a practical sense? It seems to me he is asking for security of Sevco’s assets for the price of maybe a few thousand season tickets… assets which represent virtually the entirety of the value of the business to its shareholders, and which are listed at a combined £60million in the accounts..
What board in the world would judge such an act to be in its shareholders’ interest?
And how does it work from the fans’ POV? They hand over their money, lose their seat, and then… what? Will they ever get their seat back? Does King keep a record of who sat where? Who pays for this Trust, it’s administration and legal set up?
It’s a mess, even by the mind-boggling standards of the Rangers-Sevco franchise.
Reckon there’s more chance of one of the Williams brothers fathering a boy.
The Spirit of Arthur Lee
I know, it’ll never happen.
Love30 CSC
Robbie
BRTH
I was dying to use that ” happy as a pig in shit” line .
just read back, couple of points
I will renew my season ticket as will bro and nephew, thinking younger nephew will be joining us for the coming season.
celtic have been getting screwed since I was a kid, why people so surprised at the smsm, spl, sfa agenda etc… just amazes me!!!!!!!!!!!
it is the governing body that requires to state the obvious facts about servco
the caveat to that being that it only has to explain for the deluded and/ or stupid, the rest of the thinking world knows that a club formed in 2012 cannot possibly have done anything pre 2012.
giruy sevco’s from zombie nation the tic won the battles over and any bastard that is born from the ashes of you beloved monster that perished will follow in its footsteps
denial is futile
hh
B R
Whats the story abt the drugs?
from bbc live feed….Through the barrier – Everton 2-3 Crystal Palace
A nice touch from the announcer at Goodison Park, wishing the Palace fans a safe journey home before saying ‘we’ll definitely see you next year.’
Crystal Palace have hit 40 points and are surely safe.
Tom Molach
Greengo’s plan was stupid and had no regard for TUPE law ……just bluster from the Yorkshire spiv
Re Wishart ….I can only comment on his media performances
Not really worth discussing much more
Citeh drop 2 pts at home to Sunderland. Reckon if Liverpool can beat London Huns at home then they should win the EPL.
After watching the documentary about ‘YNWA’ with the Celtic connections and the 96, it would be fitting I think and a slap in the face of the really big spending teams who are just ego trips fort their owners.
Say what you like, I think Gerard has been a model professional, stayed with his club despite the offers and epitomises the ‘old school’ player. Hope they win it for him too.
SOAL
Palace will be safe on 40 points
Excellent job by Pulis …
Barca have never been the same since we gubbed them at Celtic park
Italiabhoy…….
No chance of a liquidation at Newclub mate.
Controlled administration is a certainty.
Embramike
With you 100% on that Fhriend.
Hope you’re in grand form
HH jamesgang
Peach barca
Auldheid
As someone who backed res 12 when will we be happy as pigs in shit?
Barca score
Barca score
Just thinking why do Barca bother with corners? Then…
Hugely against the run of play Barca equalise.
RM should have been out of sight.
charles kickham ..
Teams know how to play Barca now. This is the third game (Champions League, League, Cup Final) where they have gone behind early and been unable to score ….
wait – hold the presses! Bartra who IS over 5’8″ has scored from a corner – watch this space …
charles kickham
Timing is everything
Love
Charles Kickham
It may just be coincidental but I think that is correct.
Embramike …..
A draw at home against London Huns should be enough for the mighty Pool.
Justice for the 96
YNWA
bobby murdoch’s curled-up winklepickers ………praying for our wee hero!
14:04 on 16 April, 2014
STEINREIGNEDSUPREME
I know,mate.
What is annoying people on here is the perception that they are getting away with it.
And,frankly,so far they are.
They’ve kept the titles,the ground,the five stars,the same numnut fans,the same fawning media.
They’ve even kept the name,the colours,the bloody history according to the authorities!
That is why so many on here and elsewhere are agitated,frustrated,annoyed and bloody raging.
The cover-up that put them in their ascendancy is still in place with the same goal.
Fair enough,it sure didnae work the first time-apart from humiliating us regularly-and you know what?
Our silence from our own ascendancy humiliates us still further.
I know you don’t like it anymore than I do,bud. But that silence is being construed by many as acquiescence.
And that will ultimately harm us greatly if it continues.
——–
Great post.
imagine historic Celtic leaders like Sir Robert Kelly ( for all his obvious faults) going along with the blatant and ongoing sham?
HH
Starry Plough
A while back I had written a whole sketch surrounding a conversation at Ibrox where McCoist was solely concentrating on the merits or otherwise of various well known SCottish Bakeries.
Maybe I should dig it out.
At one point I posted daft things like that on Paul McConville’s blog or sent them on to him to post or bin.
Tom English, the Irishman writing for the Scotsman was always a good character to introduce into such lunacy as was Alastair Johnstone who was kept in a broom cupboard.
Current characters to send up would include Ian Black with his red Bentley and Elbows McCulloch who works part time on the Higgs-Boson.