When you have a potential loss to the tax payer of £75m, allegations of tax irregularities, political interference, alleged sporting malfeasance and stand of the brink of the largest corporate failure in Scottish history (discounting the bailed-out RBS) the profile of the story rises above the blogs and regular Scottish media.
Alex Thomson, chief correspondent for Channel 4 News, a man who reports from war zones, interviews prime ministers and presidents, decided to look into how the SFA were handling the current crisis in Scottish football. Yesterday he blogged on the subject, raising many of the questions we have asked in recent months.
On Twitter this morning he reported his experience in trying to get some sense out of the SFA, this is what he said:
“SFA say President Campbell Ogilvie is ‘distancing himself from the current Rangers investigation’ but did not explain how.
“Campbell Ogilvie ‘did not know’ about EBT contract when he was Rangers FC secretary?
“When we asked why not – that was his job – SFA said they didn’t know.
“SFA say their President and fmr Ranger secretary Campbell Ogilvie will not be interviewed by c4news about what he knew…
“SFA say their President Campbell Ogilvie ‘has no plans to stand aside from his job pending current Rangers probes…
“Interesting SFA have just accused me of ‘lying’, ‘pig-headedness’ and then put the phone down mid-conversation….
“all because I put their own statement back to them that Campbell Ogilvie denied knowing about EBTs at Rangers…
“And suggested there might be a perceived conflict of interest in his current position until the investigations are complete”
Three weeks ago we suggested that Ogilvie’s position as SFA president was untenable, saying “The association cannot have a president embroiled in a tax evasion scam which, even before a verdict has been decided, has already caused untold harm to his former club and the reputation Scottish football.”
The SFA have been able to dismiss pleas for sporting integrity and ethical standards from the blogsphere while the mainstream media have either chased the hapless fall-guy, Craig Whyte, or refused to take the Improper Registration of Rangers players seriously.
SFA chief executive, Stewart Regan, was flushed out his slumber by Mr Thomson’s comments this morning, Tweeting to the reporter, “Please could you confirm who you have spoken to. thank you.”
Stewart, if you really need to ask that question, you’re in more trouble than I thought. There are several thousand CQN’ers who could help answer that one.
Campbell Ogilvie and the SFA cannot hide from the facts of this crisis. He is president of the SFA and both he and the association must acknowledge there is work to do. We can only hope Uefa finally decide to take a look.
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Excellent work P67. Keep on diggin’!
Bought the print version of the mag this month, mainly for my dad – he’s not a computer person. Must admit, it’s great. There’s something nice about having it in your hands as opposed to on the computer screen.
Hail hail
Philvis, with a bit of luck it’ll be a mortician they’ll need soon!
PB
ST MARTIN’S BHOY 1408
Naive?
I remember the famous occasion when Frank Munro got left on his arse in the centre-circle and the huns charged en-masse up the field to score,wi Greig shouting-gie it tae me,I waaaaant to score it!
All our players were down the other end celebrating the penalty we thought we had-rightly-been given.
To add insult to injury,Greig was offside.
On the bus back,my Dad’s mate asked what I thought,and we were in danger of relegation that season,btw.
My reply was that it was never 3-1,and we wuz robbed,as per.
His words have lived long in my memory.
“Read the papers the morra,it’s there in black ‘n’ white. Yer fifteen,ye should ken better”
He was right,and a good man.
Philvis said @ 14:22
“Rangers are the Daleks of Scottish football.”
If you don’t mind, I’ll share that …
FF
garcia lorca on 13 March, 2012 at 14:07 said:
i too work and live in central london and i’ve had exactly the same problems trying to explain the level of complicity of the scottish media in ragers cheating
i work in an environment where technology, the internet and new media are all-important but in the past, and despite my best efforts, the level of complicity of the scottish media and the bias we’ve had to suffer has been too much for rational and intelligent people like my colleagues and friends to comprehend. even my boss and friend who has other tims as friends and who is a part-time tim himself having been to celtic park a couple of times and been there for the 6-2 game shakes his head and smiles knowingly at me when i try and explain it all, until now that is. i’ve bored him with finer details for nearly two years now and explained the sub-text to the whole story which is the growing irrelevance of the old media and the democratisation of scottish football thanks to the internet and honest celtic supporters with sharp minds and a will to make a change. he’s well aware of cqn and i’ve shown him ragerstaxcase. now as it all slowly unfolds exactly as i said it would and with the names i’ve been telling him about appearing in the media down here he isn’t quite so quick to laugh.
you’d think that a managing director of a new technology company would be a bit quicker to understand the power of new and social media but i think what we’re seeing here is even an even bigger and quicker change than most people can get their heads round.
the ball is burst for the old timers in scotland, and its not just celtic supporters who are asking how this could have been allowed to happen without anyone doing any digging at all.
VOGUEPUNTER 1410
What’s the subs for your CSC?
I think I might qualify
……..haha
do any of you think we could coax roger cooke out of retirement . to follow up on the sfa and thems , that would worry them .
jimtim
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS – Good point.
Phrases you don’t hear in Scotland: “Plastic Italian”. (thumbsup)
Peat Blog – Philvis, with a bit of luck it’ll be a mortician they’ll need soon!
Or a taxidermist. (thumbsup)
Folly Folly – I’d be honoured. (thumbsup)
Celtic Mac on 13 March, 2012 at 14:27 said:
“Now I am no expert but I could not help but notice, (on Alex Thomson’s blog) that the Union Flag being waved outside the Poor Hoose was actually upside down, or in the vernacular used in those parts, “the wrang way up!””
Is that not a signal of distress?
paulsatim is neil lennon on 13 March, 2012 at 14:24 said:
“From the thread on FF re Alex Thomson and CO, here is the “master plan” to fight back……..
Someone like David Leggat could be key..”
Good lord! If Leggo is the key we’re all doomed……..Doomed I tell ya!
Union flag upside down, how appropriate in military terms means that they are in trouble and need assistance.
SFA/SPL Complicit with huns all the way have been for years. Might be interesting to see what flanders and co on snyde tonight say about a genuine journalist asking the questions that Paul67/RTC/Phil ( internet bampots so yees ur)have been asking for last 18 months. Flanders dream tonight he gets to cut ye aff. LOL
HH
JohnnyClash on 13 March, 2012 at 14:39 said:
paulsatim is neil lennon on 13 March, 2012 at 14:24 said:
“From the thread on FF re Alex Thomson and CO, here is the “master plan” to fight back……..
Someone like David Leggat could be key..”
Good lord! If Leggo is the key we’re all doomed……..Doomed I tell ya!
***************************************
Rangers don’t do walking away….they Leggat. ;-)
Coat on, taxi called etc
Chick Young’s view on Celtic’s Treble chase
By Chick Young
BBC Scotland football pundit
Tucked away in my wallet is a betting slip growing ever more valuable by the day: I invested – some time ago at a price of 100-30 – some hard-earned cash in the prospect of Celtic winning the domestic Treble.
Actually, I tried to couple it with the prospect of Blackburn Rovers surviving in the English Premier League, because not for many a year have I seen anyone conduct themselves with such dignity and class as Steve Kean, but the turf accountant in question refused my bet.
In any case, I digress.
The champions elect stand – in reality – just three games from me welcoming my ship coming in, for they could not blow the title even if they asked John Prescott to be their midfield dynamo.
So, Sunday’s Communities League Cup final against Kilmarnock, a William Hill Scottish Cup semi against Hearts or St Mirren and a final in the wake of that… and I’ll l be trousering my gotten gains.
Celtic feel they have been squeezed off the back pages by the toil and trouble of the neighbours on the south side. And they might have a point… but bad news flogs newspapers. It is a fact.
Every cloud has a silver lining.
While Rangers hawk everything that isn’t nailed down – and how they must wish someone had put a stake and tent pegs through the Arsenal shares – tree fellers in the Amazonian rain forests are banking bonuses as they try to keep up with the demand for newsprint.
And yet it would be crass not to applaud the players at Ibrox who agreed to a 75% wage cut. Would you do it to bring your employer salvation, especially if you had the prospect of a new job at your previous salary? I’ll leave your own conscience to percolate.
Frankly I can’t blame Celtic if they currently feel as if they must have put an X on their coupon for ‘no publicity’.
But they do deserve a bit of credit for a) what they have achieved and b) massaging my bank balance.
Prove me wrong, Kilmarnock, prove me wrong St Mirren or Hearts and Aberdeen or Hibs… but I still believe that the Parkhead trophy cabinet will be like a jeweller’s window before May has breathed its last.
It is utter hogwash to suggest their victories are faded out because of an impotent Rangers, limp with the exhaustion of their financial toils. Remember that 15-point lead?
Around that time the Ibrox club still couldn’t beat Malmo nor Maribor nor Falkirk nor later Dundee United as they evaporated from cup competitions like the tooth fairy in the night.
Celtic are the best team in the country and are entitled to instigate a party which might run from Sunday until the end of May.
But then what? Do we have worthy champions who can make a genuine dent in the Champions’ League and can Motherwell – now poised to be our other representatives – hang on to their coat tails at least until the domestic season is under way again?
Too good for Scotland, still ill-equipped for the Big Boys’ playground?
Celtic’s real test will come in the European months between July and Christmas in the three or maybe five years to come, during which they will face no domestic challenge worth the name from Rangers, who will be leaden booted with financial restraint.
That is why Neil Lennon will take a baseball bat to any suggestion of complacency and insist on raising the bar yet again in the summer transfer market. Have you see the quality on offer in the latter stages of the two European competitions?
On which subject, incidentally, if I hear anyone else suggest that the English Premier League is better than La Liga, I’ll insist on launching another Armada making its way to Plymouth Sound.
The press officer of the SFA with the interest in porcine cranial anatomy…. would that be the very same person who alllegedly discussed Ugandan affairs with a certain Coatbridge born chanteuse?
does googlemail count as a roaming app on your mobile when abroad?ta
As ever when things get messy and start to unravel the thing that is usually the cause of the undoing is not the act itself but the activities that go on to attempt to cover up the act.
I suspect that Ogilvie – and maybe a few others – are about to be roasted.
In my view it’s good ( or stupid depending on viewpoint) that the SFA are blanking a UK network which already has a lot integrity.( James Traynor – take note) They – Channel 4 News and the chief reporter – will not like this and unlike the Scottish MSM will almost certainly smell a story her and go get it, as should any journalist worth his salt. The story may then develop “legs” in other outlets who will professionally report the story.
Now that Thomson clearly has the bit between his teeth will be interesting to watch how Jabba, English and co react since the will surely now know the game is up.
I suspect there may, reluctantly, have to be a wee change of tack in the Scottish MSM.
philvisreturns on 13 March, 2012 at 14:22 said:
Arguing for folks to be paying their taxes are we philvis?
Campbell Ogilvie has three hats ( one of which he has shared at various times with Gordon Smith, George Peat and Jim Farry), two heads and umpteen faces. Exactly the type of guy you’d want running an investigation into himself eh?
Nemo Iudex in causa sua, Mr O.
PHILVIS RETURNS 1434
Nice one,mate.
I might just forget to attribute that to you when I repeat it down the pub some day…..
So everything done so far by Duff&Phelps has no legal basis?
I think CRAIGWHYTECSC has played another blinder. I assume HMRC could in theory challenge their appointment at the High Court if they are not satisfied with the work done so far.
Duff&Phelps are coming out of all of this as the most incompetent company imaginable. If I was a major stakeholder in them, I would be demanding they compile a bill for work done so far and get the hell out of rangers.
“Someone like David Leggat could be key..”
Leggat would have to study for years to rise to the status of vegetable.
AWE NAW 1445
Another armada?
WTF?
He really disnae know the history.
!!Bada Bing!! Kano 1000
I think anything that uses the internet is counted as a roaming app… you should be able to turn off your internet connection without bothering with the apps. Don’t know about other phones but on HTC a long hold of the power button then turn mobile network off changes your phone from a smart phone to good old fashioned cellular connectivity which can be used only for calls and texts. And will no doubt double your battery life.
I hope the Huns’ Savings Fund is held offshore in trust so that it can be donated to the club in the most tax-efficient manner possible.
Fortunately, I trust Messrs Smith and Jardine will be au fait with the necessary paperwork.
The Scottish newspaper football hacks are more interested in pontificating ( if I may use that expression here) on broadcast media and preserving this little earner, than doing any actual investigative journalism.
Is there a football “writer” ( I’d use another description if I could imagine a more suitable description of their execrable work) in Scotland who doesn’t pop up ad nauseam on radio or TV?
The current stories around RFCIA are a gift to anyone moderately interested in furthering a journalistic career. Only Mark Daly emerges with any credit, and he’s not a sportswriter. Nobody winning a Pulitzer Prize on the sport pages.
“Lazy Journalism” – CQN’s subtitle.
Always thought it was a just bit of banter (sic) – never truer than in this story
The Blue knights?, wasn’t that the Friday night movie on channel 5?, both full of (insert appropriate phrase)!!!
Paul67
You are playing a stormer in the attempts to get this out to the widest possible audience…I salute you.
I would consider dubbing you “The Herald”…but that indeed, may be considered an insult:)
Someone, somewhere, in this world and the next, is very proud of you.
In fact, I just heard an angel smile.
Always remember Hercules and the Hydra.
LongwaytogoCSC
TAL
Philvis,
You are probably right. That is, predominantly, their culture.
It’s not always easy to get this point across, and that’s why I rarely post these days, but we need to hold ourselves, and them, to higher standards. So, sure they’re probably suffering from a supremacist thing, and certainly their arrogance has blinded them to some harsh realities, however, we need to be careful not to assume too much about the peepul. Indeed judging each peepul as you find them is a basic tenant we should always, no matter what the provocation, uphold.
There’s a lot said about cognitive dissonance on CQN, and not much about categorical imperatives. There is a fair degree of irony in this. It’s disappointing that in these moments what I thought was a genuine superiority of character has been somewhat missing amongst our own. A little gloating is fine, and a little relish is fine and we sure told them so, and everyone needs to be reminded of that… and then there are some realities they must face up to, without anyone’s help… but after all that, do we not want to be the better people? It is a very, very, rare post on CQN that reflects well on our character, or our understanding of cognitive dissonance at the moment.
I told Keevins on the Hotline that Ogilvie shouldnt be in the building never mind the room he didnt print it. So I phoned the SSB that night and told him and Delahunt the same. Keevins came back with. “Lord William Nimmo Smith is overseeing this enquiry” as if he was on first name terms with him.
Pompous fudd!!!
goldstar10/mighty tim
Is it the masonic equivalent of the SOS? Or are they just not as loyal as they claim?
Seems app!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPaSM7sVSOU
BONTY BOY 1506
It’s not always easy to get this point across, and that’s why I rarely post these days, but we need to hold ourselves, and them, to higher standards. So, sure they’re probably suffering from a supremacist thing,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Is tat comment in itself not a little supremacist?
As I remember,you have a dislike of engaging with the type of moron you seem to find so prevalent on here.
BLINKIN’ FLIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Another typo…..
Awe_Naw..,
regardless of the FFT the contracts under the table are the big issue for me and that does not depend on the FFT investigation.
I see monkeyboy is back trying to claim some sort of affirmation for stuff he tried to cloud, now telling us we have no righht to be happy with being proven correct after decades of cheating we have suffered.
stupid hun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoZ7JXkv6_o
Hail Hail
canamalar
What´s FTT ?
Hail Hail
jimmci on 13 March, 2012 at 14:49:
Spot on, Bud.
No surprise – and no less delicious – that it is taking someone from a media source with previously little interest in Scottish football to do in a couple of days what our lot have been avoiding doing for a couple of decades.
No need to make it up: it’s true.
FF