So much happened yesterday, I’ll be as brief as possible:
Newco Rangers sent their counsel to the Court of Session to protest Charles Green’s contract with the club, stating it should pay legal expenses, now crystallising ahead of his forthcoming criminal trial.
In opposing Green, James Wolffe QC raised various objections, but as is often the case when people speak on behalf of Newco, included an arbitrary insistence that Newco operated the same club as the now liquidated Rangers.
Green’s QC, Jonathan Brown, put his pit boots on before stating his client’s case, but tantalisingly, before lunch informed the court that he would return to the same club/new club debate later. And didn’t he. Brown explained that Sevco Scotland purchased the assets of Rangers, not the club itself, with poetic prose adding:
“The team are paid by Sevco, plat at a ground owned by Secvo, are trained by a manager who is employed by Sevco and fans buy tickets from Sevco. That is the business that is being carried on.”
Adding that Rangers were “a collection of assets”, “What if the players were sold to one person and Ibrox to antoher, where is the ‘club’ then?”
I had to look away from court reporter, James Dolman’s Twitter feed at this point. It was like watching an acquaintance being humiliated. Not something you want to see.
Lord Doherty will determine if Newco should pay Green’s costs in due course, but this will be soon, as Jonathan Brown noted, “the rainy day has arrived”.
This next bit is really important:
Soon after court ended, Dave King was out with a rambling statement on the Newco website. If it was designed to play to the galleries, it hit the spot. If it was designed to influence what happens to his club, or how others will regard his input, it was surely an horrendous mistake.
It was a hard day to be chairman of Rangers International FC PLC. The court hearing only happened because the club objected to its contract with Green, so the unedifying episode could easily have been avoided. Despite this, sometimes you have to shut your mouth.
Sure, some Newco fans love a bit of grandstanding, but you know what yesterday’s statement will achieve. If the objective of the statement was to convince other Scottish clubs not to consider disciplinary action against Sir David Murray, or oldco Rangers, for their actions, it was an almighty miscalculation.
Threats seldom work. This one is unlikely to curry favour: “If the history of our Club comes under attack we will deal with it in the strongest manner possible and will hold to account those persons who have acted against their fiduciary responsibilities to their own clubs and to Scottish football.”
In short:
Don’t threaten clubs you are trying to influence.
Don’t grandstand to your own fans if you are trying to influence other clubs.
Keep a poker face. Keep your mouth shut, even if it means taking grief from your fans for the lack of public reaction.
King’s statement also addressed the sporting advantage issue from what we now know was an unlawfully operated tax scheme. While the EBT scheme saved tens of millions of pounds, and King earlier intimated this did provide a sporting advantage, yesterday he insisted the advantage was financial, that the shareholders were “committed to providing funding to the club” and would have done so, if required.
Here’s the thing, in 2012 another King statement revealed, “I have made a claim of £20m on the basis of non-disclosure by the then chairman, David Murray, of Rangers true financial position as far back as 2000.”
That commitment to further shareholder funding seems predicated on some controversial information. According to King, of course. Controversial enough to launch a £20m claim, but not to inhibit investment.
For the war-chest hunters among you, if you read this article covering King’s 2012 statement, you’ll find a strong clue.
One other quick but important point:
Some media are attempting to portray questions of sporting advantage as Rangers being punished for spending money they could afford, a travesty, as so many other clubs have done likewise.
This must surely be a deliberate attempt to misunderstand the issue and manipulate the debate.
No one suggests Rangers should be punished for spending money they could not afford. The questions are straightforward:
Did Rangers break tax law, break SFA rules and break SPL rules, when contracting football players?
Did they disclose matters openly with authorities (in other words, inadvertently make mistakes), or did they conspire to subvert the rules by hiding incriminating information?
Spending like the Borgias? Time to move on. Conspiracy to subvert the rules? We have a problem.
Don’t be distracted by potential ramifications to these questions, they are irrelevant for now. We should consider no more than did they break all of the above rules, should any the rule breaking be interpreted as an oversight, or does evidence of conspiracy to subvert the rules exist?
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Snowing…
Low 20s / clear blue sky -way down south .
Lunch break spent watching last night’s -Norway 0 – Hungary 1 . Norway should have buried Hungary but didn’t . ..A dreadful performance from Mark Clattenburg didn’t help…. .
Jobo
Why is it nearly pitch dark in Glasgow?
SOT, what was Johansen’s performance like?
Seems that clarence went to Allan Glens, same school as proddy forsyth hmmm.
It was not an elitist school as parents who paid domestic or business rates to Glasgow Corporation were charged a much reduced fee, enabling children from less wealthy households, but who had passed the entrance exam, to benefit from the high standard of teaching at the school.
It was also a rugby playing school which he would have in common with bader as well as relieving unsuspecting investors of their money.
So a club started by rowers fae Rhu who took the name from a rugby annual have been later owned by 2 rugby fans. Quite fitting that their greatest player is the rugby tackling ham and egg.
Now if only King had put out a statement along the lines of:
“Tomorrow I will deposit my £30m in Rangers bank account. The first £5m of which will be used to pay back the Sports Direct loan and give us our retail operation back.”
Any reason why he didn’t say that….?
Blantyrekev 8.59,
As usual, a superb, forensic analysis of the disgraceful rankings of the GASL.
It got me thinking about the world before we had the ability to read each other’s views, before social media. Can you imagine if our only intelligence on Sevco/EBTs etc came from the SMSM?
Toddy Forsyth’s shameful article in yesterday’s Telegraph is an illustration of how so much would have been swept away from any critical analysis. Yet, I’m continually amazed at how many fans in Scotland have such a scant idea of any detail of the biggest scandal in British football. We who read CQN, SFM and other sites (and are well served by Auldheid, Barcabhoy, Phil and others )know and are appalled by the scale of cheating and cover up. But too many remain disinterested. This troubles me for the challenges ahead. It provides a platform of ignorance which allows devious PR to mould, shape and polish a new ‘truth’, full of the same bluster and threats of the old regime. A new ‘truth’ offering the SMSM and the SFA a lifeline away from the inconvenient logic, reason and justice they currently fear. How can this be tackled? Perhaps the various legal actions can bring some justice and overwhelm the plans of the GASL. We also need fans of all other clubs to be better briefed on how the cheating harmed their club. Another avenue would be the English quality press. I contacted the Sports Editor of the Guardian the other day and directed him toward Alex Thomson’s excellent blog. The level of awareness and interest in the Ibrox scandal is tiny so it won’t be easy to ignite activity. Nevertheless I’d encourage you to take any opportunity you have to engage with the English quality media.
– See more at: http://www.celticquicknews.co.uk/scottish-football-cannot-be-haven-for-lawbreaking/comment-page-15/#comment-2717908
Bsr that is corrrrrrect re Chaplin
David Bellamy the botanist entered one oo er missus in the radio and finished 5th
On the radio
Trust a question that may come up in this can of worms opened, it may have been asked not sure, if thems had players not legally registered with the SFA , now I’m only asking here, would that have made them unable to play for there national teams too?
BSR –
that really did sound like it deserves a punchline. But for the life of me I’ve no idea.
Snow’s aff…
glasstothirdsfull
Even if he paid the £5m which he wont they would not get the retail operation back just a higher percentage on sales.
Andrew Kerins
Where would Sevco come in the ole Rangers guisin competition?
Jobo
I know it’s Black Friday, but ver near thought it was the end of the world a wee while ago there.
LowerEK CSC
My friends in Celtic,
From last article.
Trying to follow the most recent episode of the “Reservoir Rangers” saga. As part of Mr Greens severance deal he signed an agreement for any future legal costs if he was dragged back into the pit. Surely Mr Brown can produce the signatures from all parties. Simples.
Part with the dosh you cheating bassas.
HH.
TD67
Maybe that’s why old Sepp took a wee breakdown the other day.
Any of you lovely people unfortunate enough to come into contact with fans of Lehman brothers fc and they mention this same club gibberish ask them when they new club started in div 4 why were they only associate members of the league and not full?
And the players leaving for nowt
And broadfoot
One thing that I can’t get my head around is what made Warburton go to Sevco – and why the hell would he stay with decent jobs on the go at QPR and Fulham?
What was he promised? – or has some previously hidden vanity and ego taken a grip? – or did he just catch Rangersitis?
Rubicon
…But too many remain disinterested. This troubles me for the challenges ahead…
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I agree with this sentiment. I think we need to work out how to transplant the instatiable thirst for truth and knowledge that the Scottish football fans that are in engaged in new media have developed to those who just can’t seem to kick the habit of buying Sevco fanzines like the Daily Record. That may seem condescending but I don’t apologise for that – if you are not a Sevco fan then it makes no sense to buy that publication. I know people that just stare blankly when you mention the DOS scheme, the 2011 UEFA licence or inconsistencies of the LNS report. How do we get them interested enough to actually learn about this stuff, to logon on to sites like this or SFM etc?
If too many fans in Scotland don’t understand what is at stake then the chances of SFA riding rough-shod over rules and integrity are high. That’s the aim of Roddy Forsyth, Keith Jackson, Richard Wilson, Matthew Lindsay, Chris Jack and a good few others – they want to publish a message that keeps old media reading fans none the wiser. Again, how do we get those readers interested enough to look elsewhere for information?
(open questions btw)
Is it true that live coverage of Glibby’s court case will be shown on Freeview channel Dave?
GTTF
Err, because he hisney any money?
Mind you a mate of mine who supports the huns told me the other day that Mr King was waiting for the right moment to pump his £30,000,000 into the hun bank account and my mate never tells lies.
Spot on re King /Murray, Paul.
“I was certainly shocked when I found out that the money David was putting in – unlike mine, which I lost – was the bank’s money.”
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So he knows it was the bank’s money, but apparently now he is saying that it was the shareholders who were funding the club. Strange…..
Syd Negakev on 13th November 2015 12:55 pm
Is it true that live coverage of Glibby’s court case will be shown on Freeview channel Dave?
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Any lies will be repeated on Dave Ja Vu…
Td67
Tony i was saying at end of last thread. King went to Netherton primary when I was at St Dominic’s. My mate’s wife sat beside him, said he was very bright, left and went to Allan Glens. His da was a copper and they stayed in the Polis houses in Drakemyre . Wee Franks parents live in that house today. My brother in law knew him as a milk boy in the valley too.
Blantyre Kev
Agree with your point on controlling media agenda, however you can also do that by keeping your counsel.
The statement from Rankers yesterday, IMHO , was them blinking first.
Theeir mantra has switched over last 3/4 years from, we didn’t have EBTs to , we did have them but they are ok, to ,we did have them, to , we did we have them and they were wrong but there is no material impact.
There is , in my view an inevitability about in them fighting a losing battle.
As Paul 67 said a few years back ‘ never interrupt your opponent when they are making a mistake’.
Bsr last hopefully
Jobo/BSR
We have had the 4 seasons today as now blue sky
Received my tax summary yesterday
Wonder if wee Baz and his cohorts are waiting patiently for theirs
BAWSMAN 1158
Apart from the frequent spelling,etc,mistakes,that could have been written by a Timposter.
Mibbe ACGR has found another site on which to wave his wand.
He’s fond of that…
OH well, ceilings to pait, phones to upgrade, new cars to look at…. only feasible during International Weekends ;-)
Direct quote from SFA Registration Procedures.
Article 5 Registration
1. A player must be registered at an association to play for a club as either a professional
or an amateur in accordance with the provisions of article 2. Only registered players are
eligible to participate in organised football. By the act of registering, a player agrees to
abide by the statutes and regulations of FIFA, the confederations and the associations.
Only ‘registered’ players are eligible to play in ‘organised football’.
Definitions
5. Official matches: matches played within the framework of organised football, such as
national league championships, national cups and international championships for clubs,
but not including friendly and trial matches.
Seb Co and Sevco
Given the similarities in the names, is it any wonder people now believe the Tory peer has been engaged in incompetence and/or corruption.
GLASSTWOTHIRDSFULL on 13TH NOVEMBER 2015 12:39 PM
It really is that straightforward …… But we all know why he doesn’t just do that
Marakesh Express
I know the houses your talking about, I thought it was all fire brigade fighters who lived there? Cops houses I knew where in Anrnprior Quad, but if they knew them, well then it’s a first, is yer brother in law a Hun? :)
Roddy Forsyth in pole position for the inaugural mint sauce award thus far
We await the musings over the weekend from the SMSM as they sharpen their quills and a new favourite may emerge
thetimreaper
So that more or less says they where NOT eligible to play for their countries if I’m reading it right,
Right?
Bob O’ Baldy on 13th November 2015 1:21 pm
Seb Co and Sevco
Given the similarities in the names, is it any wonder people now believe the Tory peer has been engaged in incompetence and/or corruption.
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As well as being emboiled in the recent Athletics scandal, it should be noted that Lord Coe was the Chairman of FIFA’s Ethics Committee from 2006. That’s right – slap bang in the middle of all the corruption that’s come to light since ole Chuck Blazer sang like a canary. I wonder what was ole Seb’s Ethics Committee doing?
“Keep a poker face. Keep your mouth shut, even if it means taking grief from your fans for the lack of public reaction.”
I suspect that wasn’t only directed at King ;-)