The headlines screamed today of secret meetings between Sevco owner, Charles Green, and SPL chairmen, as Green attempted to convince them to change direction and vote Sevco into the SPL. Jim Spence reported exactly the same on the BBC at the weekend, crucially adding how little impact the pleas had and that the SPL vote was certain to go against Sevco.
‘News’ that three clubs were prepared to back Green is just another way of reporting that at least eight clubs will vote against. A suggestion (which came from Kilmarnock) that SPL clubs vote in secret ballot instead of an open show of hands is laughable and will be dismissed.
Tomorrow’s SPL meeting will be a lot less significant than today’s Scottish Football League meeting. More on this later.
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brimmer,
As well as helping his pals, I think he is looking at a lot of Ayrshiremen with nowhere to go on a Saturday afternoon …
Big Swee
THE BALVENIE
Signature, Aged 12 Years
A skilful marriage of three cask types creates a perfect balance of honey, spice and subtle oak.
£36.
Lovely.
For those wondering about Balitelli’s tape
Ok this meeting should take at least half an hour…no to newco….bye
Patrick27 on 3 July, 2012 at 10:36 said:
Oh by the way, I sense rugby park being a very empty stadium next season!
share on F’book or Twitter
…………………………….
2010 Never Again
Indeed
It comes as no surprise they are seeking a secret ballot on the yes/no vote on the huns….with secret being the operative word
Jack Irvine gathers Jim Traynor, Keith Jackon, Darryl King, et al., hammers and chisels in hand, to the stable. They furiously set about repairing and bolting the door closed, sweating in the mid-day prairie sun. Meanwhile, their prize horse bolts off towards the horizon, revelling in its new-found freedom.
Thanks Roy Croppie. Sounds very nice but willing to spend a bit more. Any older 18yr etc?
Traynor….
It’s one final bluff from a desperate man who has invested everything in a busted flush.
Traynor’s logic that Newco should start in the SPL or at least Division 1 is
explained by his sycophantic obligations to Oldco which he can’t seem to let go of and, more importantly, the fact that his newspaper is in grave danger of being pulled under with Rangers.
Make no mistake.
Scottish Football is not “on the brink of oblivion”
The Daily Record is…
Paul67 –
Secret ballots laughable indeed! If ANY part of this decision-making process is seen by fans to be either a fudge or indeed keep out of sight, it will simply be viewed as an attempt to gerrymander. Those involved must realise that their actions will be scrutinized to the N-th degree by a fanbase to whom they have already lost trust. Anything other than an open, transparent and fair application of the rules is simply unacceptable. I believe that if the fans do not get what they are demanding then there will be action by way of people taking to the streets. And unlike the few who turned up to howl at the moon outside The Big Hoose, there will be thousands of very angry people making their feelings known in a variety of ways. If there were concerns about public order before, it will be nothing compared to the outpuring of rage that will come from those who currently feel disenfranchised – i.e. the whole of Scottish football.
Big Swee
There’s a 15yr old about £55 I think, very nice too.
Gordon_J
Then he is being extremely short sighted if he thinks that supporters of the ex club will turn up in sufficient numbers to counter the number of supporters of the other SPL clubs who will boycott Rugby Park.
Big Swee
Dalwhinnie or Dalmore both excellent and you can get longer matured versions in your price range
Cheers mate. Sounds the business.
If all fails and newco have to start in 3rd division…lets hope the likes of ogilvie regan and doncaster will walk away…theres nothing more for them to contribute to scottish football…the fans chairmen will turn against them…they have made a right mess from day one…..go now…esp you ogilvie corrupt specimen of human race.
Last Daily Rectum I bought had “Thugs & Thieves” on front page
Last visit to DR online was the same Friday evening about 5 years ago, I stumbled into this place more by luck than design
I never left…
Silver City 1888 on 3 July, 2012 at 10:32 said:
Chris McLaughlin@BBCchrismclaug
On steps of Hampden, Raith Rovers chairman Turnbull Hutton says the game is corrupt. Says he’s been lied to, threatened and bullied. #SFL
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These are disturbing words. Another nail in the hun coffin
Stupid huns
Big Swee
Wish you well in that request – that’s like asking where’s the best place to go on holiday.
Anyway, a SPECIAL whisky (in MY opinion) would be any of the older Macallan’s. A finer whisky money cannot buy (in MY opinion)!
GORDON J 1047
I think you are wrong on that one,there are always pubs open in Ayrshire and ready for a wee sing-song.
The point is,the peepil who supported Rangers at the end of last season,will by and large ALWAYS support Rangers.
If he thinks the Ayrshire huns will turn out to support his club,he will be wrong,with the exception of the occasional game………
And remember,if Celtic had gone bust in 1994,never to be seen again,most of us on here would still be Celtic supporters.
They will still be Rangers men,it will take a generation or two for that mindset to die.
The bold Neganon taking a right kicking today all because he has fears and opinions and the conviction and courage to voice them.
Celtic, and the clubs support, has been skinned for a large fortune by the antics of Rangers over the past decade. I hope Celtic is prepping their legal team to at least try and recoup some of those losses. Not to do so would speak volumes. I’m sure Rangers had professional indemnity insurance; whether they paid the premiums is anybody’s guess.
However when it comes to, sorry, rather when it came to cultivation and promotion of Old Firm Inc. People might pause to remember that the Celtic board were more than willing to partner the hun in more than one commercial venture only for the hun, not Celtic, to feel aggrieved and cancel the projects. And I’m not talking about joint sponsorship either.
NegAnon has an opinion and the guts to state it, respectfully, as he sees it, he also has a memory of previous times Celtic has not fulfilled its most public of promises . The actions of the Celtic board over the next few weeks or so will either lend credence to his viewpoint and reservations or it will embarrass them.
If he was looking for just attention he could have started a songs debate.
Thank God other clubs took the pressure off Celtic.
Big Swee walks on with Neil Lennon on 3 July, 2012 at 10:45 said:
Talisker
Or
Laphroaig
If you spend up to 60 quid on either you will make someone very happy
HH
The best picture of a woman being stalked by an Ice Cream van you will see today.
Mon the Hoops
Gordon J
I always remember my ole Granda on my dad’ side saying ‘never underestimate the reach of the old wash hand basins’. When he died the turn out at his funeral was phenomenal. Turns out the old boy had been one all along. Had I been more wiser i should have guessed as he was always a good (ahem) Clyde supporter.
But I never really knew just how much these lunatics really do stick together until these past few months. I truely don’t know what to make of this.
Maybe it’s because I ain’t one that I just don’t get it.
Katie Holmes should be thankful that that madman Cruise is only into Scientology.
brimmer
I have become exceptionally well-disposed towards Raith Rovers recently.
Big Swee walks on with Neil Lennon on 3 July, 2012 at 10:45 said: ””””””””’
I’m sure your friend would be very happy with FIVE bottles of Grant’s or Whyte & MacKay at £12 a throw from your local supermarket.
That would be my way of spending £60.
:¬))))
2010 Never Again
Repost with the greatest of respect to The Battered Bunnet
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The Battered Bunnet on 30 June, 2012 at 17:34 said:
“Senior Hampden source tells #c4news cannot see how RFC were allowed to play last season at all. Doesn’t believe they met finance criteria…”
Alex Thomson’s tweets yesterday re ‘senior Hampden source’ casting doubt on Rangers’ eligibility to obtain a Club Licence last year were rather intriguing.
We have by now a clearer picture of the failure of governance at Rangers through the David Murray/ John McClelland/ Alastair Johnston/ Craig Whyte years, albeit we await further definitive details from the judgement of the Tax Tribunal. Essentially, over a period spanning 2 decades, the means that Rangers used to sustain its football operation utterly disregarded the requirements of both corporate governance and football regulation. While the scandal related solely to payments and procedures within Rangers, we could hope that it was contained internally.
However, the revelation that Rangers paid former manager Souness via EBT while he was manager at Blackburn Rovers confirmed for the first time that the scandal had become external. I understand that RangersTaxCase and Alex Thomson have further information on the extent of payments to Souness and also to Walter Smith, and look forward to the details being revealed, but it is now clear that the Rangers ‘toxin’ had leached out of the club by 2001.
The compelling question now is: How far did the toxin spread?
Was it contained within the ‘outer circle’ of former Rangers employees, however inexplicable such payments may appear? Or did it extend beyond that outer circle, and contaminate senior figures in the Game in Scotland. The contamination does not relate solely to payments from Rangers’ offshore trust, but more subtly perhaps, the behaviour of individuals in positions of influence.
We know that Rangers’ Executive Chairman John McClelland was an SPL Board member during the startling ramp up of EBT use from 2003 to 2005, and was himself a beneficiary of the scheme.
We know that Rangers’ Chief Executive Martin Bain was an SPL Board member 2008 to 2011, coinciding with the receipt by Rangers of the HMRC assessments on the EBT scheme, of which he was himself a beneficiary.
We know that current SFA President Campbell Ogilvie was simultaneously an SFA Director and Executive Director and Company Secretary of Rangers, and was a beneficiary of the scheme.
These parallel functions of course present a profound conflict of interest for each man, at once implementing a scam on the Game to disguise a fraud on the Revenue, while owing specific legal duties of care to the Game being scammed.
So far, so shabby.
Thomson’s tweets yesterday indicate a doubt on the part of a ‘senior Hampden source’ that Rangers were eligible to hold a Club Licence last season, thus disqualifying them from participating in European competition, and perhaps Scottish Football too. Is this doubt grounded in a retrospective review of the licence qualifying criteria given what has emerged recently? Or was there a ‘blind eye’ turned by the SFA’s Licensing Committee to information in the public domain at the time of the Licence application? In this respect the ‘Wee Tax Case’ represented a fundamental failure against at least one Licence criterion.
The proposals to the SFL clubs this week make it plain that should the SFA conclude the outstanding Disciplinary issues against Rangers with either suspension or expulsion of Rangers from the SFA (perhaps the only sanctions remaining available to the SFA following Lord Glennie’s Judicial Review) that the Game will face ‘financial meltdown’.
Concurrently, the SPL has adjudged Rangers to have a prima facie case to answer in respect of SPL rule breaches on player registration, the outcome of which will confirm that the club fielded ineligible players in upwards of 400 SPL matches. The only possible disciplinary outcome given such a sustained breach of SPL rules, corrupting the completion as it did from its inception in 1999 to 2011, is expulsion from the SPL.
As a consequence, the SFA, as the authority responsible for implementing FIFA’s Rules on the Registration of Players, will be required to act on these breaches of FIFA rules. Again, expulsion for what amounts to Championship fixing is inevitable.
Curiously, the SFL, this week asking its members to vote to admit the Sevco Rangers club into their top tier, has the same issue given that its League Cup competition featured dozens of ineligible Rangers players through the years, and further claims by Hugh Adam that its ‘Premier Division’ competition during the 1990s was similarly bent through the use of ‘off the books’ payments to players by Rangers.
The scale of it all is breathtaking, and were the rules of the Game to be applied, Rangers FC would be expelled from each Governing body in turn, before we even consider the extraordinary breaches of faith and duties by co-serving Directors.
But according to the SFL/SFA/SPL circular to clubs, “Rangers Terminated or Suspended’ will cause “Financial Meltdown”.
To avoid this meltdown, it is proposed by the Executives of the combined SFL/SFA/SPL that the rules of the Game are not applied to Rangers, and that the clubs effectively rewrite the rule book to permit what remains of the club to compete at the top of the SFL.
In effect, according to the Governing Bodies, the Rules of the Game CANNOT be applied to Rangers or the Game’s finances will ‘meltdown’.
The corollary question this raises is: For how long have the Governing bodies been so unable to apply the Rules of the Game to Rangers? Is this a new epiphany, or a longer standing recognition?
When Rangers submitted their allegedly ineligible application for a Club Licence in 2011, did the SFA recognise that Rangers failing to participate in Europe would cause the club to fail, as it subsequently did? Were the Rules ignored to avoid ‘financial meltdown’ then?
How far did the toxin spread?
Did this recognition extend back to the period following the disintegration of Murray International, hitherto Rangers’ source of continuing funding? Was the season of ‘Honest Mistakes’ some absurd, dutiful reaction to the recognition that should Rangers fail, Scottish Football would melt down?
Was the ineligible status of so many of Rangers’ first team players noticed prior to the SPL’s Inquiry commencing on 5th March? Was it noticed in an Audit as part of the SFA’s Club Licensing process some years ago? Was it noticed by the recent SFA Chief Executive Gordon Smith, who as an Agent had represented players on Rangers’ books through his Directorship of Prostar Management and other Agencies?
Beyond the duplicity of Ogilvie, McClelland and Bain, were Rangers’ irregular practices known to others at the SFA and SPL, others who chose not to address the matter, thus further contaminated the Governing Bodies with the Rangers toxin?
It is heartening that the Liquidators of Rangers plc will be instructed to examine all of the circumstances surrounding the failure of Rangers as a corporate entity. Equally, perhaps the detail contained in the Tax Tribunal judgement will reveal further connections, hitherto unknown.
What is likely to remain hidden from view though, is the full extent to which key influencers at the Governing Bodies were aware of Rangers’ conduct and circumstances, and how this affected their behaviour and their decision making in applying the rules of the Game to that club.
What we can say with certainty now though is that the people holding office at the Governing Bodies are unable or unwilling to apply the Rules of the Game to Rangers, despite the breaches being fundamentally and profoundly corrupt. The SFA and SPL, despite having outstanding disciplinary cases against Rangers that will, in all other circumstances see the club expelled from the Game, are intent to delete the cases provided the SFL clubs accept the Sevco Rangers into the SFL’s top division.
The Rules of the Game cannot be applied to Rangers.
When the rules cannot be applied, the Game itself is broken, and we can say now with some certainty that the Rangers toxin has spread beyond the club, its former employees and Directors of the Governing Bodies, and contaminated the very Game itself. The Office Bearers of the SFA, whose FIFA mandate requires them to “protect and foster the Game” in Scotland, and “protect it from abuses”, have contrived to do the contrary, to the point where the Game is stricken.
It is for this reason that a thorough clear out of the Office Bearers in the Governing Bodies is now a prerequisite to the Game recovering from the poison inflicted upon it by Rangers. The dissolution of the Governing Bodies is perhaps appropriate.
Clear your desk Gentlemen, the bus to ignominy departs shortly.
See that Turnbull Hutton, can we no’ get him to replace Campbello?
I hope the Raith Rovers chairman tells us who told the lies and made the threats.
I know Hun fans threatened to burn the stadium down and boycott their sponsors.
Chris McLaughlin @BBCchrismclaug
Gordon McDougal of Livingston FC says there’s a growing feeling that #Rangers newco should go to division 3. #SFL
Stalk me and buy one?
bournesouprecipe
I hope that’s not a Mr Whippy…that would be creepy!
STV, Clyde SSB all out to fight for the dead club why am i not surprised by this.
@RadioClydeNews: Clyde 1 Super Scoreboard special from 6-7pm tomorrow. Join Gerry McCulloch, #Rangers legend Bomber Brown, Hugh Keevins and Gordon Dalziel.
That poor lassie is clearly the victim of some wicked cone-spiracy
The evidence against that van is wafer thin!
Pantaloon Duck, yes, that would be nice, indeed.
bournesouprecipe, absolutely.
saltires en sevilla, agree, little formal comment will emerge but I also agree we might hear from more clubs voting no.
NatKnow, too true.
‘Join Gerry McCulloch, #Rangers legend Bomber Brown, Hugh Keevins and Gordon Dalziel’
What were the chances of Hugh McIlvanney, Stephen Hawking and Aung yung Suu Chi all washing their hair the same night?
Will Keevins call Bomber a fundamentalist?
When I am stalked by Mr Whippy, I scream!
I’m sure there are 99 perfectly good explanations for the van’s behaviour.