Dundee United chairman Stephen Thompson’s comments to yesterdays’ Herald are worthy of attention. During the summer, when United received a £1m bid from Rangers for David Goodwillie and Blackburn Rovers were hovering, Bank of Scotland, took an active part in the deliberations. Thompson told the Herald, “The bank wanted me to take £1.2m for him, but I said no to that. I had to stand up against the bank.”
Thompson more than doubled the money on offer for Goodwillie, allowing him to shave over £2m off their bank debt, but this exchange took place only a few months after the same bank told former Rangers chairman, Alastair Johnston, to accept the bid for the club from Motherwell born thousandaire Craig Whyte or the bank would demand same-day repayment of Rangers borrowings.
Bank of Scotland, part of Lloyds Banking Group (LBG), are significantly exposed to Scottish football and required a taxpayer bail-out two years ago, so although their interference in the running of clubs could seem overbearing, we shouldn’t be surprised at it. It’s business, and if you are employed at LBG with a responsibility to your taxpayer-shareholder, it’s necessary business.
Fortunately, Celtic are free from such interference, as are Rangers, thanks to their aforementioned benefactor, but if a liquidation event at a large club threatened income streams to the league I would be amazed if the Bank didn’t use the ‘Vote Newo FC into the SPL or repay your borrowings immediately’ line.
Stephen Thompson, who sits on the SPL board, might not have a choice on whether or not to vote a Newco FC into the SPL ahead of 30 Scottish Football League clubs, but he and his fellow board members will be able to set the tariff on any exceptional league entry to what would become a financially privileged football franchise.
12 seasons of cumulative benefit from financial mis-dealings should result in 12 seasons of penury at whatever points rate the league calculate benefit was accrued. For one scenario I have in mind, around 15 points per season sounds fair, with an expunging from the records of any trophies ‘won’ by Financial Doping.
This is measured, deliverable, is in the power of the SPL board to impose, and sets a minimum moral hazard to inhibit future mis-deeds.
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James Forrest..
Great Post earlier..Good to Talk about Celtic Again..
I Disagree about the Killie Game but Agree with the Kris Commons ‘Moment’..
If We Had lost to Killie..There was a Very Good chance Lenny Would have Walked..So it’s hard to Argue with that..Also the Support would (Not All but a Lot) turned on Him..
The Kris Commons ‘Moment’ reminded Me of the Strachan GTF Moment in the Motherwell Game when we Went 12pts behind in the Tommy Burns season..also in that Game Skippy Spat the Dummy at WGS..My Point is l think it Galvanised the Squad..It was Us against Them..Them being Everybody..Rangers Media but Also Part of our Support in the Strachan GTF Game..
When we Went 12pts behind that Season l bet Celtic to WIN the Title as l thought the 12pt lead was False..Game in Hand 3pts and they had to Come to us twice 6pts and l thought they would drop points in the run in..
Also the 15pts was False 2 games in hand 6pts come to us 3pts AND..they Had to Have their BAD Patch 4-6pts..
Sounds easy in Hindsight..
But l go More with the Psycology Factor in Football than Anything else..ie a Unhappy Striker does NOT Score Goals..Okay The Moaning Marsupial (Skippy) did score a Few..Ha..:O)
Again Great Post..Lets talk about Celtic and Lenny Bhoys..
Summa
Word on the street – Thatcher has died.
Oh you’ve got green eyes
And I’ve never met anyone like you before
Can’t make it on Sat, but moon the Hoops. Massive game in my view, before cup break.
Hail hail
Snake
Don’t wind me up, is that true?
I remember 90 when she got the push, so I celebrated then, not now.
@rascar
can you verify thatcher is dead???
@coneybhoy
not a word in reply
like you i await some news
Margaret,
I do deals as a living and have never lied on any but always made money I budgeted to make. If parties need a product and all are honest, everyone wins.
Worst areas for honesty are North America and Indian Subcontinent, Europe and China are best. In my experience as a lifelong socialist.
You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met
Well not just yet…..
Margaret Thatcher will die at some point.
We all will.
Hatred of Maggie is like hatred of Niggers or Orange Bastards.
Its ridiculous.
She can’t be my Aunt.
So we view Maggie through OUR veil,
Join my tears, allay my fears
Sent to me from heaven, Sally cInnamon, you are my world.
I don’t believe the thatcher rumor, too much of a coincidence, but I still want my milk back you evil , uncaring , selfish , insidious, evil, ugly swine.
Hail hail
Rascar
I agree with you that the wait for her passing by many good people is a negativity that holds good people back.
However, she was unrepentant in her model for permanent unemployment to fuel growth for the few and as such needs to pass out of our generation without fuss and no stupid films, memoirs or state funerals. Too many suffered for no good reason and she never repented.
I’m stand in alone, I watch you fall , I see you sinking, fools gold
Snake,
Do you have an exclusive?
Looks like it was a wind up
So cruelly you kissed me, the killing moon will come too soon….
recent u19 tournie vid
http://www.celticfc.tv/archive?vid=213
@rascar
or hunger strikers??
or miners?
or argentinians
or the disabled
or yer maw
you may well play devils advocate but not on my watch.
I must admit,that all the rumours of Thatcher’s death are like an anti-climax.
Unexpectedly so.
I always thought that I would celebrate her death with a fair old gusto,but,let’s be honest,she has simply faded through ill-health.
Punishment enough for her,even though it has robbed me of the pleasure of her passing(I know,I don’t even feel good writing those three words about HER)
Still detest all she did,and all she stood for,though.
Drambowiecelt
Debate all you will on the political capital Thatcher made from the falklands conflict and who was allowed to shoot who and where and was it all engineered but plain and simple the Argentinian armed forces attacked British islands unprovoked and humiliated the small garrison on international TV. There was only one response that could be contemplated by any UK government and the guys that carried out that job were brave and professional. Nothing to do with politics or strikes or unemployment. This is not a socialist fight, the miners strike was.
@coney
fair point but,is your historical knowledge stuck in the eighties?
hows about the 1780s? britain ravaging the world in the name of
a bastard monarch.
haffey
mckay kennedy
crerand mcneil clark
gallagher fernie hughes chalmers and auld
ritchie
shearer caldow
greig mkinnon baxter
henderson mcmillan miller brand wilson
oops acker byrne
and mckinnon
Thatcher Dead?
Mebbes Aye…. Mebees Naw….
But it got me thinking…..
Of Parties in Trafalgar Square, Petitions for Private Sector Sponsored Funerals. Ostentatious State Funerals, Divided Communities and, of course…
Elvis singing Tramp The Dirt Down.
Then I read this and I thought to myself interesting and revealing PERSPECTIVE..
Guess who wrote it….
The year was 1977 or so, and [Thatcher] was still a very provisional Leader of the Opposition. At the New Statesman, which was then the flagship journal of the British left, it was easy to share in the prevalent view, which was that the Tories had made a historic mistake. By picking that “shrill, narrow, suburban housewife,” they had surrendered the all-important middle ground of politics and set themselves up for a thorough trouncing as “extremists” and “ideologues.” I had other reasons for thinking this opinion to be a mistaken one, but this article is not about my foresight. It’s about my political libido.
You couldn’t beat the British Conservative party as a man’s club in those days (or indeed, alas, in these). And most of the senior leadership had not voted, on the first of the second round, for the lady who deposed Edward Heath. So she was stuck, for a goodish bit of time, with a load of red-faced paunches who thought she was the spawn of hell. And loyalty being a premium virtue in that party, she had to affect to think of them as wise and experienced colleagues.
Yet, at the party conference and in Shadow Cabinet meetings and in Parliament, she regularly reduced these chaps to mush. It was at the annual conference that, as I stood in the body of the hall, it hit me. That feline smile, the composed but definite body-language, the voice at once stern and cajoling… to say nothing of the Valkyrie helmet of blond locks. My god! She has them in her thrall! And she knows it! The minx knows it! It was for writing this that I got into the hot water of what nobody then called political correctness.
Mark the sequel: Not long afterwards, I was at a reception in the Rosebery Room of the House of Lords. She came. (I’ll try and keep this brief.) A mutual Tory friend offered to introduce us. I agreed with some alacrity. The subject of the moment was Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. I held one view on this. She held another. The introduction was effected. Did I imagine it, or did she recognize the name of the scribe who had hymned her feminine allure? At once we were embroiled in an argument on the subject of racism and decolonization. I was (I only mention it) correct on my facts as well as my principles. She was lousy on both. But what a bonny fighter! She wouldn’t give an inch. I found myself conceding her a trivial point, and bowing as I did so. She smiled.
“Bow lower,” she said.
Suddenly robbed of volition, I complied.
“No — much lower.”
By now near to drowning in complicity and subjection, I obeyed. She withdrew from behind her back a rolled-up copy of the Parliamentary orders of the day, and she gave me a sound smack before I could –how does one put this? — straighten up. I regained the perpendicular in some blushful confusion and difficulty, to see her swing away and look over her shoulder, the words “naughty boy” floating over me in my near trance-like state, as the journo witnesses closed in to say, “What was that all about?” I told them they would never understand, and — what do you know — they never did.
Roll On The Wake….
@pjbhoy
you slipped in TRAMP THE DIRT DOWN
well dont be ashamed, call it out loud
and call it proud. Ive stayed awake with un confirmed reports
that the wicked witch is dead ,my eyes hurt my brain deceives me
and theres a pratt on countdown
i swear to god if some pratt comes on here and gives me a weather report i will crack
PJB
You quoted that without a Hitch….:-)
You asked for a weather report…………
Mild, dry on the NW coast of engerlund………. 8C…….. no need for thanks :¬)
2-0 Victor and Stokes.
off tae work……
Vinny
ff u and yer weather report
look peeps its scotland
look outside yer feekin window
its feakin rainin
on the tulsa karaoke
a youngster givin it big licks
with ynwa big hugs
I am the tax man and this is how i play.
what do you play? i play the fiddle
please fill in the blanks
oh p
Some respected posters eg SFTB and ernie lynch talking (with respect) mince last night.
Celtic means much more to many than the actions of those with responsibility for running the club. These people do not represent me and Celtic, like other clubs, are generally run by unattractive men with unappealing ideologies (like DD and Murray) who act on basis that money is King. Notions of fairness and equality mean little to these people. DD isn’t even a supporter for FFS!
So why would we expect the Celtic board to act with integrity in respect of their views on newco’s proposed re-entry to the SPL?
My god, if my support of Celtic was to rely on the actions of the Celtic board, I would have stoppped being a supporter a long time ago. Even Fergus, who is rightly credited with turning around the fortunes of our ailing club at the time, disappeared with £30m of our (including my) money. I dont resent him because he was honest about his intentions and was true to his word but he was a raging capitalist, nevertheless!
Celtic to me are about Glasgow, positive memories from my childhood, my cultural ties to Ireland (and to a lesser extent, catholicism), about a love of football.
But most of all to me Celtic is about a support who are, in the main, made up of good people with good intentions, who despise unfairness and discrimination, who represent the anti-thesis of the bigots (and their many supporters in scotland) and the cheats who call themselves loyal supporters of poundland fc.
I am too young to remember Lisbon but recall vividly our Uefa cup run. I went to Blackburn (dont like their fans, like huns, as they are currently demonstrating). I witnessed the communal singing by Liverpool and Celtic fans at Celtic Park that sent a shiver down my spine. I sat amongst LIverpool fans at Anfield and, when I went wild when BBJ scored our second goal that night, the Liverpool fans allowed me my moment of madness because I was a Celtic fan (and they, too, are, in the main, like us).
I didnt think that night could be bettered but Seville exceeded all my expectations in respect of the number who went there but, more importantly, in how we conducted ourselves (the contrast with thems in manchester is well known). When I returned to discover that nobody had been arrested despite our cruel and undeserved loss, I could scarcely believe that so many people could cope with loss with such great dignity!
These are some of the reasons why I will continue to support Celtic. I have children too but it is silly to compare your feelings towards them with your love of Celtic. I love reading, I love music, I love drinking good beer and I will always love Celtic!
I agree with hamilton tim and, if I knew him as a person, I am pretty sure I would love him, too!
HH and KTF
@mersey
wow your passion comes thru strong
but please elaborate whats this “mince”
you talk of
drambowiecelt
Essentially, ernie and stfb, are stating that, unless Celtic FC actively oppose the possible re-entry of huns newco to the SPL, they will cease to support Celtic.
HH
oh ok
iIcant speak for ernie or sftb but, it may be the case that they wouldnt support the spl
no? Im sure the said individuals would, like you and i would support celtic to the grave.
and god bless your family