In the most significant development towards the regionalisation of European leagues yet, Russian Premier League chief executive, Sergei Pryadkin, has announced plans to merge the Russian and Ukrainian leagues. The plan has been driven by CSKA Moscow, Zenit St. Petersburg and Anzhi Makhachkala, who have formed a foundation committee.
Russian clubs already deal with the rigours of playing across a vast geographical area, so adding a huge nation like Ukraine would present further challenges, but top sides from Russian and Ukraine know that if they are to become genuine top tier clubs they will need to play in as strong a league as possible. The plan is likely to involve feeder national leagues working below the confederated league.
Uefa president Michel Platini has already given the green light to the regionalisation of leagues. The most important question for Scottish football fans, is whether SPL clubs would like to feed into a confederated British league.
The hoary old claim that SPL clubs need Celtic and Rangers has been shown to be a complete falsehood this year. SPL clubs didn’t need Rangers and they don’t need Celtic either – if only those running our game had the balls to ask fans their views on this matter they might reinvigorate our game, instead of managing inevitable decline.
We are not wanted or needed by fans of Motherwell, Hibs, Kilmarnock, Inverness, Aberdeen or Dundee United. These clubs are competing in the best SPL ever with only one problem, a bloated club from Parkhead.
If Scottish football wants a way forward which will see a well-attended and competitive top league, ask the fans, do they need or want Celtic? Do they want an opportunity to feed into a regional league? Any reorganisation which fails to take the views of the paying customer into account will be a disgraceful failure.
Ordered the CQN Annual yet? It is a product of literary brilliance. Get it here in time for Christmas!
784 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- ...
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- »
DeniaBhoy 07:39 on 17 December, 2012
Troublemaking I fear…
Good morning CQNers,
To be accused of being of being ”Devious and Manipulative” so early in ones refereeing career doesn’t augur well.
In some quarters Andrew Dallas’s reputation is already tarnished by association with his father, but to be accused of the sins of your father would suggest a family trait and qualify the suspicions.
It’ll be interesting to see how this issue is handled by the Scottish footballing establishment.
Good morning from as billynowel would put it “the laughing Tim”
Looks likely the hun share issue is collapsing.
Where did all those pledges come from?
Sally wants to no your names bhoys.:-))))
sipsini – what info is there on the share issue?
Deniabhoy.
Keith Jackson writes how the huns have only taken up just over 2million in shares and unless there is a massive surge green will be left with egg on his “faces”.hh
sipsini – cheers. I’m laughing again.
..but Chuckie has all these institutional investors lined up in a row, hasn’t he……..well he says he has.
Morning all. Dark and overcast here in North Ayrshire.
Has there been any scandal, as was suggested yesterday?
parkheadcumsalford
Guy that spouted it on twitter says the story has been blocked but one of his followers will reveal all today
Our ped must’ve managed to block it haha
Unseen Fenian Hand CSC
I am confident there is no ” scandal”.
JJ
Incidentally,on Saturday for the few minutes he was on Paddy McCourt showed, once again, that he has a wonderful eye for a pass. What we should do with him is beyond me but, if we are soon in a virtually unassailable position in the SPL, I would like to see him given a run of games where he is NOT expected to go on a mazy run ending in a fantastic goal. I would, instead, like to see him simply as the creative link between defence and attack in our team. The smooth, continuity link who spots the telling pass when the front players run and makes it with precision and imagination. I believe Paddy can do that.
JJ
Keech Jackson is only touting for business, as all good working employees of any company would do !
So Jingle Jangle says 2m shares taken up so far. For me that suggests 1 of 2 things:
1. Ol’ Chucky and Jackson haven’t hit it off, and he’s happy on occasion to stick the boot in; or
2. It’s even worse than that and they’ve tried to put as positive a spin on it as possible to try and drum up interest ie it’s not hopeless, we just need one last push to get over the line.
By the way, who in their right mind launches a share issue in December? Unless they’re utterly desperate, or not that bothered whether they’re taken up by the public.
Surely we are witnessing the world record for the most embarrassing “major success story”
look, it’s plain & simple, Celtic in the SPL & Champions League last 16 are worth £35m, if their issue goes to plan they will be worth £50m on day one, on day two they will be worth less than us……someone has a plan.
With real apologies to those who believe, quite rightly, that we should dismiss the MSM in Scotland I give you Keith Jackson`s article on the share issue. I do this to avoid too many hits from curious idiots like myself. Here it is:
“THERE’S a touch of the Boycotts about Charles Green. And it has nothing to do with not taking tickets for Tannadice.
For six months this eccentric, torn-faced Yorkshireman has been strutting around Scottish football, smashing almost everything and everyone for six.
His aggressive, sleeves-rolled-up batting style has been fun to watch and, at times, pretty spectacular too.
Somehow, and in almost no time at all, Green has won over the hearts and minds of a support which at first could not have been more suspicious of him had he pitched up at Ibrox wearing Craig Whyte’s old pointy shoes.
His straight-talking charm offensive has been a thing of beauty and those same fans now have no problem at all with the fact that, by tomorrow, Green will have earned himself a small fortune from their club. Maybe even as much as £3.5million. That’s his reward for riding to their rescue.
Also, it must be said, when it was announced only 10 or so days ago that he had secured £17m worth of reasonably blue chip institutional investment in his planned flotation, many a flat cap was doffed in Green’s direction. This was arguably an even more impressive success than his snake charming act on the masses.
But – and you knew there was a “but” coming – at some point in the next 24 hours Green may be forced on to the back foot for the first time. A lot less bullish than before. Maybe even a little sheepish, depending on the extent of the damage.
Those same supporters now eating out of the palm of his hand have only until 1pm tomorrow to make good on their promises to buy shares in Green’s Rangers. To put their money where their mouths were a few months ago when around £22m was pledged in the online land of lah-de-dah.
If ever there was proof of the dangers of taking the internet’s word for it, then this is surely it. Because, as things stood over the weekend, the total stumped up by these supporters was closer to £2m than £22m. Maybe not even that much.
A total of £10m worth of shares was ring-fenced by Green for fans. But the word from those who know inside Ibrox yesterday was that the uptake has been slow.
The exact numbers are blurry, not least because sales have picked up slightly over the last 72 hours but, even so, the best Green can hope for now is to shift half of the £10m he set aside.
In fact, the truth is Rangers will be delighted to break through the £4m barrier in the final few hours of trading. So, unless there is a late stampede to hand over bundles of £500s – a week before Christmas – Green will be left with quite a significant hole in his plans. And someone, somewhere will have badly miscalculated.
It’s too easy to blame the fans for failing to follow through with their cash pledges, which came in the form of registered interest. The suspicion is many pledges may have been made by cunning rival fans as a wind-up. You know the kind of thing.
“Yes, the name’s Lennon.”
“First name?”
“Eh, Niall. And I’m good for 20 grand ma man.”
“Yaldi!”
Others may well have been genuine and full of good intentions at the time but baulked when it came to coughing up the cash. Or when it was time to tell the missus to buy a smaller turkey this year. Or a pack of chicken dippers.
Yes, with hindsight, Green may well be wishing now that he had not chosen to launch this issue in December, in the middle of a recession. He may also be thinking he was asking for too much when he set the minimum asking price at a monkey. Now I’m no Lord Sugar but wasn’t that all rather bleeding obvious?
These same supporters, remember, have already been paying hand over fist to keep their club alive since all its troubles began to crystallise at the start of a year that will go down in history as Rangers’ annus horribilis. That’s Latin for Craig Whyte.
Also, Green may have blundered on TV last week by apparently stressing there was very little need for the club’s fans to dig deep. He said unsold shares would be quickly gobbled up by his institutional investors, who wanted to plough around £25m into the club but were scaled back to £17m to satisfy demand from fans. “If there’s any left over I’ll even buy ’em myself,” was how Green put it.
But this may have backfired on him because, if anything, it allowed fans to feel as if their larger-than-life chief executive had it all covered.
When 10,000 Celtic supporters raised £9m between them in 1995, they were doing it to save their club. That was the message from Fergus McCann and the response was quite staggering.
If Rangers supporters fall way short of that kind of sum, they can expect to be told about it by their neighbours. Over and over.
And no, Green won’t be there with his cheque book to make up the difference. He’s not here to spend his own money. He prefer others to spend for him.
So now, barring a late and intense flurry of investment from supporters today and tomorrow, he’s going to be left with a whole load of unwanted shares on his office desk and a sizeable chunk missing from his budget.
He had better hope his assembled squad of big-money backers in London are indeed prepared to pick up the slack to the tune of up to £7m or suddenly, what had been shaping up as a major success story could become a minor source of embarrassment.”
JJ
“
JJ
Did Awe_Naw proof that article?
Jungle Jim @ 8:55 said: ‘I am confident there is no ”scandal”.’
JJ: I am confident that the SFA has a large sack of scandals tenuously held together by Masonic aprons.
Hoping my suspicions would be proven or disproved soon …
FF
Huns share issue about to fail, well knock me down with a feather!
Delighted for Bradley Wiggins, who just pipped Andy Murray for my vote. Both has awesome year’s in what was an awesome year for sport. I have no doubt Andy’s time will come WHEN he wins at Wimbledon.
Muchos kudos to the Angela Haggerty blog,fast becoming my 2nd favourite read on the ole web,keep stickin’ it to the hun and telling the truth Angela.
Hail Hail
An interesting point I read about the club/company fallacy was that Wavetower or MIH never went bust (the ‘company’) it was the ole,ole,ole ‘club’ thit deedit!
*does a dick dastardly laugh*
Or a Muttley laugh,even ;)
SP
hope you enjoyed Saturday and glad you are home safe and well..
enjoy the coffee..
Morning Celts (about 4.5 hrs later than normal), Jobo it’s wet n mild on the Fylde coast.
Re the sevco 2012 share issue, when do I transfer the dosh? It’s almost as if the don’t want my money.
Stupid zombies
John Hartson tweet, he’s signing copies of his latest book in Vlasgow today…… Fill yir boots.
The times and places are asda Robroyston at 10.30am till 12..Asda toryglen 1pm till 2.30pm.. And Celtic store argyle st 4.30pm till 6pm..
V
Vlasgow is….. Ach ye know.
Son just arrived from Aus
offski———>
Przyjdź na was chłopcy w Green
So is the share issue about to fail – or is it a last minute call to arms to be followed by a triumphant story about the peepul riding in to help?
Gordon_J backing Neil Lennon – 10:12 on 17 December, 2012
First time I’d given any serious thought to the share issue, but as I said earlier launching one at this time is either the sign of total desperation or from somebody that doesn’t want or care if there’s too much public uptake.
If they need another £8m from that fans that 16000 needing to stump up £500 today (the week before Christmas), not a snowballs chance in hell.
Tweets from kevin bridges
@kevinbridges86: I wanna reach out, over the Loch….
@kevinbridges86: Franco’s allies were the powerful and wealthy, Frank Ryan’s men came from
the other side!
Fair play to the bigman.
weeminger,
Not the ideal time … but Green says he promised to do it this year and Charles Green keeps his promises!
Nice quote from the FT on Rangers IPO:
“Rangers’ IPO has the characteristics of a turkey with a short sell-by date. It may look delicious on Christmas day but will not smell so good in a few months.”
blantyretim
Saturday was great, my first time in the Kerrydale suite, a far cry from standing in the Jungle years ago!!
Brewed up the coffee this morning, lovely drop of Java BT…
Great to be back in the valley with my Girlz..
See you next time..
Morning,all.
This dive gets worse with every camera angle shown. Be warned-it is from a potential CL opponent.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/sportvideo/9737290/Today-on-YouTube-Juventus-striker-Leonardo-Bonucci-guilty-of-the-worst-dive-ever.html
There are some other good clips on the page too.
I’m very disappointed for Mr Charles,hearing that his fans,whom he has taken to his very bosom,are seemingly reluctant to dig deep to invest in-and save!-their club.
He must be absolutely bewildered,after all they have such a fine previous record of answering the call when previous owners made similar requests.
I feel heart-sorry for the poor chap (holds peeled onion to eye)
I’m very disappointed for Mr Charles,hearing that his fans,whom he has taken to his very bosom,are seemingly reluctant to dig deep to invest in-and save!-their club.
He must be absolutely bewildered,after all they have such a fine previous record of answering the call when previous owners made similar requests.
I feel heart-sorry for the poor chap (holds peeled onion to eye)