Another day another Uefa fine for crowd-related transgressions, the umpteenth in recent years. When we went to Seville we knew you could take tens of thousands of Celtic fans anywhere, secure in the knowledge they would make friends with police and locals alike. That reputation’s gone, the Fifa and Uefa awards, relics.
The world appears to have its share of Pussy Rebels. Someone who will tarnish another’s reputation (in this case Celtic) but not have sufficient courage in their convictions (in this case their right to break Uefa rules) that they will do so in their own name, accepting consequences accordingly.
The internet is full of them too, keyboard hard men who will carry a campaign to the ends of the earth, as long as it doesn’t leave a trace of identifying information. If their name gets out, they will run 100m in the opposite direction of their declared stance, faster than Usain Bolt at am Olympic final. Pussy Rebels, every one of them. Lots of people have crazy/offensive/just plain wrong views, but manage to put their names to them – nutcases, but Tiger Rebels.
If you have a view, or way you like to enjoy a game of football, stand up for it.
The incidents in Zagreb pale into insignificance compared to the mini-bus attack which left a child injured before the League Cup semi-final. That wasn’t a rule transgression, it was proper violence.
A few days after the incident I wrote I was concerned there had been no arrest. Despite the overwhelming outrage among Celtic fans and others, and the damage done to the victim, the reward money is still unclaimed. Do the proper thing, report the crime and claim your reward. We have a reputation worth putting your name to.
Not sure how things will go (on the field) tomorrow night. Celtic have an incredible record in the San Siro over 90 minutes, four draws and I think only a couple of defeats? A win would see us into the last 16, it’s a huge ask, but don’t bet against Ronny.
Farewell James Easdale, we’ve loved your work.
My thanks to Andy Coyle. Don’t know him from Adam, but he called me out of the blue, met outside Celtic Park, and put £100 in my hand for our Mary’s Meals appeal. God bless the Celtic support.
On the subject of which, you know you’re dealing with someone special when you learn Lisa Hague, Kris Commons partner, bought a ticket for CQN11 St Patrick’s Dinner. She’ll be helping out too, more on that later. After the dinner we have Packy Bonnar, Joe Miller, Tommy Coyne and the one-and-only Tom Boyd, with Archie Macpherson speaking about Jock Stein and Patricia Ferns on song.
Let me know if you still need a ticket, celticquicknews@gmail.com
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31641734
Former Australia striker Scott McDonald is in talks about a return to his former club, Motherwell.
The 31-year-old, who also had a successful three-year spell in Scotland with Celtic, was released by English Championship club Millwall in January.
Motherwell hope to conclude a deal on Thursday for the player who left Well for Celtic in 2007.
McDonald, who joined Millwall from Middlesbrough in 2013, scored three goals in 26 appearances this season.
But, having only amassed six goals in 60 appearances for the Lions, he was released by new manager Ian Holloway.
McDonald, capped 26 times by his country, began his career with Gipplsand Falcons in his homeland and headed for England in 2000 when he switched from Cranbourne Comets to Southampton.
He subsequently played for Huddersfield Town and Bournemouth before joining Wimbledon, from whom he moved to Motherwell in 2004.
McDonald earned the last of his Australia caps in a 3-1 defeat by Scotland in August 2012.
Motherwell manager Ian Baraclough is looking to bolster his squad with his side without a win in eight games and having dropped to the bottom of the Scottish Premiership.
Good signing for the Steelmen. Might just keep them up.
LB
hebcelt
11:12 on
26 February, 2015
7 hours before KO and the politicos are still bitching.guys you are chasing posters away from this site. Not saying never but time and place. H H Hebcelt
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I only reply………..I suggest you use the scroll on past function……..Hail x 2
LiviBhoy, thanks or the update – it’s been a long time since I was last in there, or any other Edinburgh bar, for that matter. If I were in Forrest Road though, I’d more than likely be stopping off in Sandy Bell’s for a couple of pints, before trying out Malone’s.
If I’m out tonight, I’ll be going to Whiskey Joe’s, in Girne, to watch the game with Brian Docherty – it’s his final week in the bar, before he & his wife sell up, and retire.
North Cyprus (formerly Baku) Bhoy
Funny that mate but Sandy Bells is one of my favourite pubs up the city centre. Was in there after the semi as well. Departed Malones at FT and was in there a few hours then went to the IB for one. Great wee boozer. My mate likes the IB because he went to Uni through here. I was in years ago and it was a decent pub but it’s not great these days I’m afraid. Not even sure the Uni bus use it at all now.
LB
Another crook welcomed in Scotland with open arms will anyone ever learn in this country ? Dave King’s Bermuda Triangle http://t.co/lLTvLX9Wvo
NEWS
Dave King’s Bermuda Triangle
How do you hide a R1-billion fortune from the taxman? With bespoke help from offshore bankers desperate to get their hands on your portfolio, documents emerging from the long-running battle between the South African Revenue Service and its number one target, Dave King, suggest.
30 May 2008 00:00Nic Dawes, Lynley Donnelly
How do you hide a R1-billion fortune from the taxman? With bespoke help from offshore bankers desperate to get their hands on your portfolio, suggest documents emerging from the long-running battle between the South African Revenue Service (Sars) and its number-one target, Dave King.
A series of memos, emails and file notes from the Bank of Bermuda, which is now a subsidiary of global banking giant HSBC, show how the bank, eager to secure King as a client, helped him restructure his network of trusts and offshore companies to “present a blind alley to any revenue investigation”.
The documents are evidence in a Pretoria High Court trial, which will effectively determine whether Sars can seize assets held by King’s offshore structures.
King made about R1,2-billion from the sale of shares in Specialised Outsourcing, the company he founded to handle treasury operations for parastatals and government bodies. The company’s share price crashed not long afterward, as news of the sales trickled out. It was pushed down further as concerns about the company’s accounting practices grew and King moved on to a new venture, Financial Insourcing Specialists.
Angry institutional shareholders racked up massive losses while revenue authorities tried to reconcile King’s apparent enjoyment of a wine farm, a Ferrari and a private jet with his modest reported income.
In late 2000 he was contacted by Sars, wondering where the government’s slice of the proceeds from the share sales were. He has since stood on the defence that the profits were a capital gain, not revenue, an incurred no-tax liability, but at the time he quickly set about making sure that the money, much of which was held through a company called Ben Nevis, stayed firmly out of reach of the fiscus.
On November 15 2000, Steve Bougourd, senior trust officer at the Bank of Bermuda, wrote to his colleague, Dave Hewitson, saying: “Apparently DK wishes to ‘dismantle’ current structure and transfer the assets of Ben Nevis into a new company, as the ‘tax authorities are chasing him’.”
This is important for two reasons. First, it helps bolster the case that King was the true owner of Ben Nevis. Second, it suggests he restructured his holdings solely to escape tax scrutiny, which is a crucial plank in the case against him. King’s role in managing his assets was also to be kept quiet, Bougourd made clear: “DK’s position as an adviser should be very much an ‘off the record relationship’.”
Less than a week later a summary of a meeting with King, circulated within the Bank of Bermuda, restates the case: “DK has no tax adviser but is happy there is no problem from his point of view in closing the Ben Nevis company. His intention is just to present a blind alley to any revenue investigation.”
By March 9 2001 there was a clear plan, Bougourd wrote in an email to the bank’s Adrian Fairbourn: “[W]e are restructuring Ben Nevis to stop the South African taxman in his tracks. To kill two birds with one stone we are also liquidating all investments, as he wishes to take stock, consolidate his position and think through his strategy going forward.”
Even at this stage, before the bank secured more of King’s business, the sums involved were substantial.
“What we are doing is selling all his investments in the name of Ben Nevis, that is, a £10-million portfolio with Barclays Private Bank, and two Royal Skandia portfolios (managed by [Cape Town hedge fund firm] Alpha) amounting to approx £3-million.
“There is already some £50-million on depo with Barclays Private Bank (he has a long-standing relationship with Sir Anthony Richardson),” Bougourd wrote.
As the assets were sold they were “transferred up” to King’s Glencoe Trust and then into a new holding company, Metlika, “thus making a clean break with Ben Nevis”.
“Other assets, namely a property and shares in Murray sports, are being reregistered in the name Metlika … Glencoe Trust is also selling its portfolios with Old Mutual and Capel Cure Sharp, which amounted to £2,5-million”, the email continues.
The net effect of this move was temporarily to obscure from Sars the more than R500-million in cash and other assets that had been inadequately concealed by Ben Nevis.
HSBC may have a difficult time proving that the Bank of Bermuda (which it bought three years later in 2004) wasn’t a wholehearted participant in a dubious arrangement.
“The timing of the visit creates a great opportunity. He is heavily encashed, he is taking time out to think his strategy through and hopefully the markets will have stabilised a little by then and therefore offer a calmer selling environment. The key, I think, is that we need to be creative … this could be significant business for the bank,” Bougourd wrote.
Sars’s efforts to recover R2,5-billion in taxes and penalties from King have been mired in a series of preliminary court battles over the seizure of assets and other technicalities—trial on the main tax charges is yet to begin.
The state is pressing a raft of criminal charges, including money laundering and racketeering, against him.
HSBC denied any knowledge of the type of services being provided to King through its subsidiary, Bank of Bermuda. Asked to comment on the evidence that its subsidiary had potentially been implicated in tax evasion and money laundering, HSBC said: “The incident would appear to relate to the period before HSBC acquired Bank of Bermuda. We do not believe, on the evidence presented, that HSBC is implicated.”
King claimed he had no idea which court case the documents related to, saying Sars constantly changed its version. The “bully tactic” of “seizing everything” and forcing “you to negotiate with them” has only made him more determined to fight the case, he said.
“We have fought for six years over the seizure of assets and still not gone to court,” he said. “After six years they have not won anything because their [case’s] merits are not good enough.” Despite the help of the South African Reserve Bank and the Financial Services Board “they still can’t beat me”, he said.
“I believe in the legitimacy of the trusts … I will do everything within my power to protect the legitimacy of my interests until I lose the tax case.”
Additional assets to seize
Last Wednesday, Sars won the first round in its latest bout with King.
The Pretoria High Court rejected with costs King’s application for the postponement of a trial to determine whether tax authorities can lay hands on assets held by Metlika, an offshore company allegedly used to hide hundreds of millions of rands in profit from the sale of King’s shares in Specialised Outsourcing.
Sars wants the court to reverse a series of transactions in which cash, shares, and property were shuffled from Ben Nevis, one of King’s main offshore vehicles, to Metlika.
Sars is leading evidence that suggests that this move was intended purely as a tax dodge.
Ben Nevis owes about R1,4-billion in taxes and penalties and if the transactions are reversed it will mean assets worth at least R500-million flow back into the company, where they can be seized by Sars and sold.
The trial, which is set down for six weeks, should help bring an end to six years of complex legal skirmishing over the recovery of money from King and set up the conditions for his trial on criminal charges arising from the affair.
Celtic will be posting League Cup Final tickets to season card holders on Monday 2nd March.
As with the semi-final, letters will be recorded delivery, so someone has to be there to sign for it.
mickbhoy1888
11:51 on 26 February, 2015
‘I would just love to know where these plastic rebels and Buckfast socialist get the circa £600 all in it will cost them to head to Milan for a one night stay sojourn’
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Perhaps they’re more astute in their travel and accommodation arrangements than you give them credit for.
We thought we’d run a Poll this afternoon to measure the optimism or otherwise re Celtic’s chances of winning this evening. We will close the Poll at 5.30pm and put up the results ahead of kick-off. VOTE NOW!
http://www.cqnmagazine.com/?p=3444
new article posted.
Livibhoy –
I used to travel with the Heriot Watt & Edinburgh Universities CSC out of the International Bar during the 90s.
It was indeed a great Celtic Bar in those days.
Bawsman
10:48 on
26 February, 2015
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Well said and researched – these Pussy SNP are mostly parrots who learn their lies and lines from Wings Over Scotland and others of that ilk – the sediment of the social media.
That’s why I take, and will continue to take, these people on, and like you ram their tripe down their throats – Nuff Nuff Nuff said ! Hail Hail !
£87,100 is the total so far, that the green brigade have cost us.
Thats our money that we scrimp and save each year to purchase our season tickets,and this band of Irish political supporters are costing us dear.
In my opinion its time to rid ourselves of this problem.