“Sell Out Saturday, show everyone the SPL doesn’t need the Old Firm to thrive”. Discuss.
You have to admire the Aberdeen fans, and fans of every other club in the league, even Kilmarnock fans, who are clearly infuriated by the actions of their chairman. For perhaps the first time in history they have stood up to their clubs and football administrators and effected real and genuine change in our game.
Aberdeen fans produced this Sell-out Saturday graphic, urging people to “show everyone the SPL doesn’t need the Old Firm to thrive”. By ‘Old Firm’ I am sure they don’t mean the cash-cow rivalry Celtic had with Rangers, they mean without Rangers, and without Celtic too.
For every other club in the SPL, Celtic are now their most precious visiting brand. For fans of every other club in the SPL, Celtic are a competitive irrelevance. This season our income is likely to be greater than that of every other club in the league. We pay superstar wages while, for the most part, they pay real world footballers real world compensation.
In short, the SPL doesn’t need the SPL to thrive. The clubs may (or may not) believe they need Celtic to pay bills, but recent events have demonstrated that might not be the case.
There is another problem to consider. If the SPL keeps Celtic, in a decade or so they will have Newco-Rangers, and the whole dysfunctional business will start all over again. Kick Celtic out now and Newco-Rangers will never materialise in the manner it would if Celtic remained.
SPL fan power has one more club to sort out.
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I wish I could get animated about pre-season friendlies.
But I just can’t. They are basically nothing more than fixtures to get fitness levels up.
Still, if we lose 4-0 in any competitive game that is an entirely different matter.
Gretna Bhoy 9.18
Agreed re the herald.. The paper in general has Never criticised the Murray regime and failed to report the liquidation. It’s all spin. The paper seems to have a fear of upsetting the tax dodgers..
Their reporting AND selection of photos of Lenny being attacked at Tynecastle was one of the most shocking and blatantly anti Lenny pieces you could imagine.
I stopped taking the paper every day then. Though I do buy on occasion.
Classically they declared Cousin a signing the weekend of administration.
No, the herald for me is NOT an impartial paper just as tv stations are also in the spin game..
Thank god for CQN and twitter..
HH
When you read the words that come from those with affection for Scotland’s flat-lining institution, whether they come from within that decaying institution or just paid cheerleaders, their language all seems to be schooled.
They all bleat the talk of the disenfranchised victim. McCoist’s latest utterings come across as both calculated and Kafkaesque. He is not the sharpest tool but what he says appears to be in tandem with the more educated from within his klan. His words, and theirs, could often be easily construed as inflammatory.
hearin via @CruzadosSADP that we lost 1-0 in our first u15 match at Shanghai, 6th min goal
https://twitter.com/CruzadosSADP/status/226898078039437312/photo/1
starry plough.
Yes ——–
The Confederacy of Self Serving Pocket Lining Dunces has reduced Scottish football to kick and rush / hit and hope / fight for the ball / win the battle and then win the game rubbish . Primitive guff .
The absurdities of Scottish football / the absurdities of that Old Firm thing have resulted in Celtic being reduced to also- rans in Europe .
Sad to watch the likes of Mulgrew and Brown being shown up by 18 year old 3rd team players.
Ridiculous that some of that Celtic team would have been on a higher wage than most of that Ajax team.
Ridiculous that most of the Helsinki team will take a year to earn what the Celtic Captain earns in a week.
Scottish football has been turned into a farce by self serving clowns..
FF having their usual good natured chuckle at this:
“DISGRACED Craig Whyte is back in business .. as a debt collector.
The Sunday Mail can reveal that the spiv who plunged Rangers into liquidation owing up to £140million and trashed the club’s history is behind a new firm based in the heart of Glasgow.
And, in the ultimate insult to Gers and the club’s fans, the business have been set up to chase down unpaid bills run up by rogue businesses.
A Sunday Mail investigation today reveals that the brazen liar is behind the opening in Glasgow of a firm called Credit Control Services (CCS) Ltd.
Adding insult to injury for Whyte’s outraged Rangers creditors, the company are even based at the same third-floor office as his infamous firm Liberty Capital – who he used to buy the Ibrox club from Sir David Murray for £1.”
I find it astounding that people get so worked up about pre-season games. Its nice to win but they mean absolutely nothing.
Anyway can someone explain to me why newco think they can keep the oldco history but leave all the bad stuff behind? You know like debt , debt sectarianism oh wait a minute hehee
Mtt
For those wondering why Ajax are a class above just have a look at their transfers out over the last 5 years –
Klaas-Jan Huntelaar Real Madrid 23.760.000 £
Johnny Heitinga Atlético Madrid 8.800.000 £
Thomas Vermaelen Arsenal 10.560.000 £
Luis Suárez Liverpool 23.320.000 £
Maarten Stekelenburg AS Roma 5.566.000 £
Demy de Zeeuw Spartak Moscow 5.280.000 £
Jan Vertonghen Spurs 11.000.000 £
Nearly £90 million – in addition they get £8m per year from sponsors Aegon and the Dutch TV deal is light years ahead of ours.
Some people need to get a grip. We will never compete at that level again whilst Scottish Football is run by numbskulls.
Celtic know this and are trying to sort it whilst tied up in a financial straight jacket.
As for the games yesterday – I thought that we were unlucky at Partick, if Watt had taken his chance early on or Twardzick had scored what was a sitter we could’ve gone on to make a game of it. (btw – the senior member of the CSA that was twittering slagging our young boys, many 17/18, is a disgrace!)
Last night’s game was an aberration -the 2 full backs that were playing for the 1st time in months were patently rusty and I’m afraid NL got his tactics badly wrong in the first half. As long as we learn, fine.
We will progress and we will get better, but we cannot compete against quality Dutch opposition unless we leave Scotland.
In the meantime support the bhoys, they are young, they are learning and we will improve.
Tunis your mate’s comment re our support is cretinous.
Hail! Hail!
DavieL
Let’s get back to earth and talk football
By Hugh Keevins The Sunday Mail
If the Law Society of Scotland has any decency they’ll reserve VIP seating – and lay on lavish hospitality – for the SFA and the SPL’s hierarchy the next time they have a do.
The game is putting more money into the legal profession than anywhere else while Scottish football’s gone wonkier than a Rory McIlroy drive.
We’ve got an Appellate Tribunal ready to sit in order to ratify the transfer embargo imposed on the old Rangers that is now being inherited by the newco even though Lord Glennie ruled the punishment unlawful.
We’ve got an independent commission to assess Rangers’ use of EBTs and say whether the oldco deserves to be stripped of league titles.
We’ve even got one eminent member of the profession, Lord Carloway, saying he doesn’t want to play with us any more and storming off in a huff because the Court of Session set aside his judgment that Rangers should be prevented from signing players for 12 months.
Which means the SFA are in the market for another law lord to come off the bench, so to speak, and he’ll be drawn from the dozens of names on their Judicial Panel.
Football used to be a game of two halves, swings and roundabouts and any other harmless cliché you could think of.
Now it’s all tribunals, commissions and panels.
And what’s even more disturbing is that people are starting to show a preference for discussing these things instead of the game itself, which is either a sure sign of madness or an indication we’ve got nothing left to talk about when it comes to matters on the park.
That’s why Neil Lennon was right when he said he wanted no part of celebrating a title he didn’t win as a Celtic player. It would be like wearing a dead man’s suit.
The manager will let the legal eagles decide if justice is best served by removing titles from Gers’ record because payments to players went undisclosed.
That’s their field of expertise.
But what’s done is done where previous championships are concerned. That’s a football man’s way of looking at things.
When Celtic lost the league at Fir Park on the final day of the season in 2005, for example, they were a goal up, missed a glorious chance to double their lead and then suffered a belated collapse of the central nervous system.
Scott McDonald took advantage of Celtic’s temporary paralysis and scored twice in the last five minutes to deliver the title into Rangers’ hands.
They say Martin O’Neill still can’t bring himself to discuss the events of that day, his last in charge of Celtic in a league game, because the memory of it affects him so deeply.
If that title is excised from Rangers’ record in disgrace because of financial wrongdoing, that’s one thing.
It’s another thing entirely to hire a hall and book a band to hold a championship party for the runner-up.
But Lennon, through no fault of his own, might be running the risk of having his name associated with tainted titles of another sort as part of the seemingly never-ending trail of destruction in Rangers’ wake.
And that would be unfortunate.
Ally McCoist’s side have gone into the first wilderness ever to be argued over by competing TV companies who want to broadcast a lower-league freak show.
Now Lennon will be denied full credit unless he wins the title by an obscene margin in their absence. Having spent two weeks in his company in Germany there’s evidence of a different person evolving.
The skinhead with the fiery temperament who inherited the job from Tony Mowbray has given way to a more restrained individual.
Lennon can, to use another phrase from the days when football was played outside of the Court of Session, only beat what’s in front of him.
Any titles he wins can’t be diluted because Rangers aren’t there any more. That’s as dubious a practice as trying to make a moral victory out of a demoralising defeat to Motherwell.
Celtic’s rivals have been sent away because they were found guilty of breaking the game’s rules and not because Rangers were removed from Lennon’s path to give him an unfair advantage.
The manager will now be judged on merit, starting with the test of seeing if a team from Helsinki can block Celtic’s entry to the play-off that leads to the Champions League proper.
No tribunal, commission or panel will be able to get him off if he falls at the first hurdle. The verdict will be damning and unanimous. That’s the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
South of Tunis
The Huns started the demise of the game in Scotland with their reckless spending and cheating. Of course at the time it was reported positively as the journalists became gossip mongers.
We now have a chance to develop a long term plan with the young players without the pressure of the Huns breathing down our neck.
I know a few folk who have coaching badges and they feel it’s almost a numbers game as the coaches aren’t good enough. A very regimented system that suits the SFA.
Summa of Sammi…. on 22 July, 2012 at 05:58 said:
.
Adam Scott..4 Shots clear and No Free to Air Coverage in Australia..
Well done Channel Nine..
Summa
—————–
If you have an iphone, ipad, or android phone, download a free app called Filmon TV. With this you can get terrestial UK tv channels and the golf is on the BBC.
Our priest this morning reminded us that we should show compassion for others and in order to do that we really have to put ourselves in their shoes.
I have a wee problem there.
If I were in huns shoes (I guess I wouldn’t use that term – but I digress),
anyway I wouldn’t be doing what they are currently doing. I would accept the fact that ‘my’ club has been exposed for being the corrupt bastion of all that is rotten about Scottish society, is now dead and good thing too.
Except that’s not how they think.
Difficult to think like a hun when you’re a tim.
I simply can’t imagine being consumed by hatred and being so one-eyed that I actually believe that my club is entirely innocent of any offence and the whole world is out to destroy it.
It’s easier to believe that there is actually a timmy conspiracy controlling all levels of Scottish society than to imagine that my clubs directors are crooks and have cheated all ‘ra peepul’ all these years.
Nope. I give in. I just can’t put myself in their shoes.
kitalba on 22 July, 2012 at 09:48
kitalba, I’m with you.
I believe McCoist’s comments are designed to put a ‘position’ out in the msm this is ‘official’ position on the issue. It’s for the benefit of their hordes and to stir them up behind this invidious position.
They are supposed to be trying to be granted a licence but at the same time telling the body that needs to grant it we’ll not be bound by your rules.
Seems a strange stance to take unless you believe that mobilising your support could make the licensing authority bend their rules to accommodate you.
Now we don’t believe that could happen. Do we?
kitalba on 22 July, 2012 at 09:48:
Calamity McCoist is simply playing to the gallery. Like Moonbeams and the Whyte Knight before him he is saying all the things he knows the knuckle-draggers want to hear. They are so easy to fool.
Bluster from Moonbeams and Whyte always lacked substance – and Calamity is performing the same old trick again. He says he won’t accept the stripping of titles, but he doesn’t say how he can possible do anything to prevent it. That’s because Calamity knows there is nothing he can do.
But he is smart enough to know that detracting the Huns with this nonsense helps take their minds off his appalling managerial record.
Friends in Celtic
An idea for the ole flagpole…….
A way to support Celtic and, for example, the Kano Foundation.
It’s been a few years since I’ve had a Season Book, largely an emotional investment that others have historically had the benefit of – having lived abroad for more than 20 years.
So, is there any interest from the blog in a couple of CQNrs clubbing together to provide The Kano foundation with an additional season book?
The book would be primarily used for the Kano effort with occasional use of the contributors………..
I have flighted this idea to the redoubtable Sannabhoy and he has suggested we guage response from the blog and take it from there.
To be clear, my intention here is to provide Celtic with additional Season Book revenue via a worthy cause. Any financial arrangements would be with the Foundation, not amongst individuals and the Foundation would administer the book.
I intend to show my support for the Club in these difficult times by doing what I can, any others interested?
HH
said:
Good morning Celts, blue sky and light winds 10mls up the coast from Lytham.
Bourne isn’t it just great for Scottish football that in the future any teams falling foul of the game can just negotiate until the punishment is dumbed down to acceptable levels.
Have we resigned yet?
HH
How many of the team last night were playing their first game?
Matthews, Wanyama. Any others?
The CH debate is interesting. Two of or weaker players in that position have moved on, Dan and Glen, from a team that had a record number odd clean sheets.
Bring another in or promote a youngster for cover would be sufficient for me in that it should be enough to see us into CL group stages and win SPL.
Pre season results don’t mean a thing.
Lenny will have a plan, he’s an intelligent guy and perfectly capable of taking us forward in the current financial climate.
For the same reasoning that I would not have been over-confident had we won 4-0, I am not going to become too deflated about us losing 4-0.
In some ways it is better to get these disasters out of the way before the season starts to help avoid any complacency. On the plus side, it will have clearly shown Lenny that we are not good enough to play 3-5-2, and that we are much more comfortable with a 4-4-2.
It will also have been a stark reminder that to hold our own in Europe, we need a commanding CB to augment what we currently have.
It will also have been good for our fitness, chasing shadows for 90 minutes!!
Lenny will have learned what we CAN do well, and what we, as yet at least, cannot do.
All in all a bit of a disappointing result, but it may well help us in the long term once the season proper gets underway.
OnwardsandUpwardsCSC
Alistair MacLean
I hate language pedants on here but if you use ‘ranking’ as singular you should use ‘does’ not ‘do’.
HH
Steinreignedsupreme:
I agree McCoist is not so dumb that he won’t embrace tribulations to idulge his selfish deflections.
What I really, really, really, want to know is when Campbell Ogilvie goes into his office at nine o’clock on a Monday morning, what does he actually do before he leaves at five to justify the bloated salary that he sponges up.
The game is said to be in crisis, and he is the President and we get not so much as a whimper out of him. Either he starts to earn his coin, and pay due tax, or he should go.
DavieL @ 10.05
Us vs Ajax – compare and contrast.
We are low cost high wage – any duds hang around as they are getting above market wages.
They are lower wages but higher cost if they buy and they plan to move people on at the right price.
Not sure about the financials but our 5 year T/O is higher than theirs. The problem is in on a downward trajectory while theirs is on the up.
Our other problem is coaching, or the lack off. Goes beyond NL but we are always slow starters and look half baked, this year unfortunately is the same but just a bit worse.
good workout last night. lots to learn from that performance.
hh
DavieL @ 10 05.
Said mate lurks on here — you can consider him told !.
Interestingly – another mate made basically the same comment after attending the game at Norwich . They are unconnected so will have drawn that conclusion from their own thought processes . Both have been attending Celtic games since the late 1950’s
if the SFA and sevco agree to drop the dual contracts in favour of a tv deal, how will you feel?
Remember this is a sting…….
HH
Row Z
Maybe some of the legal bods on here could help, but I’m pretty sure I remember reading that Celtic shareholders would be entitled to launch a joint action for titles won during the double contracts era?
I agree with those saying it’s time for root-and-branch renewal if Scottish football is to have any chance of progress. Everybody out. The whole lot. Especially, Regan, Ogilvie, Longmuir, Levein and the guys who run the referees, and the referees.
Spain has 25,000 FIFA-qualified coaches, Italy 30,000, Germany 35,000.
Germany didn’t work with wee Bertie and Rainer Bonhof, but so what? Try again. Recruit from the best, a Spanish FIFA-qualified coach with direct experience of the Barcelona academy at La Masia. Start from the beginning. New referees, new perception of what is good and what is bad.
Good morning CHAMPIONS
Weefra HH
A international class ,imposing,hardworking,hard tackling and most importantly …. Organising centre half is required .
We have finally sorted the left and right back problems but have now neglected the ch positions.
I’m not knee jerking … Just finding it frustrating that EVERY SEASON. We endure this … A jigsaw with a piece missing !
You can shoot me for this if you want …..
But if it’s about finance ?
Then we could do worse and get bocanegra …..
Short term .. He will add experience and back up !
Wanyama ain’t a ch rogne is still young and has to negotiate 2 games and numerous training sessions to avoid injury..
And wilson???i don’t need to say anymore
Having watched our “backline” when I went to the Stuttgart game, I’m afraid the AJAX result comes as no surprise. A dependable CB is a must if we are to have a hope of getting through the qualifiers. Hate to be in any way negative but reality will hit home if we play with what we’ve got at the back.
HH Gerry
McCoist bares his soul:
“We have been caught and that is enough, surely.
Have you any idea of the pressure that has been upon this club during those decades? Every season …. just waiting for the the knock at the door…. it has been a nightmare, apart from the title parties and win bonuses and tax free wages and jaunts around Europe ………….”
Gretnabhoy on 22 July, 2012 at 09:18 said:
I heard Wilson yesterday on Off The Ball. His thesis was that rfcil had everything sorted and the club was on an upward trajectory until just over a year ago. When did Whyte took over?
Cowan/Cosgrove applauded the ‘wee teams’ for their refusal to to treat Rangers and – wait for it – Celtic as special cases.
Now, in the 1990s I can’t remember one member club of the SFA even offering Celtic sympathy, one bank offering Celtic a line of credit, one paper campaigning on our behalf, nor one broadcaster being exercised by the possibility of our demise.
But Wilson, Cowgrove et al concoct a version of history which will, no doubt, have a stronger hold on the public imagination than the truth.
kitalba on 22 July, 2012 at 10:20:
The game is in crisis because of people like Ogilvie. That joker has some brass neck.
Anyone with an ounce of decency would have resigned from their post for being so heavily conflicted in an EBT scam with a totally disgraced football club.
If Scotland had a balanced media then Ogilvie would not still be in his office at the moment.
Fat Sally says he won’t let anyone strip oldco of the titles they stole.Suppose he’s demanding the names of any panel members.Listen fat boy,your lucky your club isn’t being sued by the Celtic support for defrauding them out of millions of pounds.
ROW Z,
Sorry, of course you are correct but that was a careless spelling “typo” I’m afraid.
I wouldn’t say I was being being pedantic, I was, I don’t know, pointing out what seems to be a very common fault these days – for no other reason than to be helpful.
Bankiebhoy 10.11
It will be interesting to see any response to your suggestion as the idea is being looked at by Celtic.
I approached them with something very similar and we looked at variations on the theme to cover the support everywhere, spreading the cost in the process.
Email me via Paul and I’lll keep you up to date.
Andrew Smith hits the nail firmly on the head in Scotland On Sunday.
“McCoist’s confused stance reflects the fallacies that have been regularly repeated during this saga. Rangers have not been heavily punished over their financial meltdown but suffered heavy consequences. The new club want to acquire the SFA membership of the old club and their history.
“They must therefore accept the sanctions imposed on them for the malfeasance of the Craig Whyte regime and the outcome arising from the SPL’s investigation into the improper registration of Rangers players, through their use of the Employee Benefit Trust scheme from 2001-2011.”
…..In other news, Billy “Doddsy” Dodds says if he he hears the phrase “sporting integrity” again – he’ll swing for someone………..
Aye, he really said that – it’s in the Herald, printed an’ everythin’…………
Has ‘ra bommur’ been giving him tips d’ya think?