Your fathers, their fathers, and their fathers before them, have walked away from football grounds thinking the game in Scotland was skewed in favour of another team. As a club founded by immigrants, with our historical support drawn largely from some of the poorest sections of society, for decades Celtic-friendly people were underrepresented in the professional classes, the very classes those who administered and refereed our game were, and still are, drawn from.
No one believes more than me that times have changed. That immigrant community gained equal access to all professions years ago – yes, including referees. The prejudices which, perhaps not surprisingly, developed in Scotland when an incessant flood of around 800,000 immigrants poured into the country over a few short decades, have moved on. Our society is not without prejudice, but it’s others who are now targeted most.
Football decisions made by referees are difficult to prove to be deliberately unfair. I have no doubt that Celtic suffered unfairly in this regard for decades, but I see little evidence of it now, and even if there was, it is impossible to tell the difference between incompetence and bias.
Conclusive evidence of what we were up against was established in 1999 when an independent SFA Commission heard a complaint from Celtic that Jim Farry, the Association’s chief executive, deliberately delayed the registration of Jorge Cadete, meaning the player was unable to play for Celtic in a cup game against Rangers. The Commission upheld Celtic’s complaint and Farry was sacked for gross misconduct – even back then holding a torch for due process.
That incident came at the end of a difficult period to be a Celtic fan. Rangers had violated one of our cherished records, Nine-in-a-row, was matched, not by wonderful athletic achievement, as Celtic did, but by the might of the cheque book. Fergus built a stadium, left us a little over £2m in debt and taught the SFA a valuable lesson. In short, he put Celtic on a level playing field with everyone else in the country.
In August 2000 an almighty game of football reset all the dials. Celtic scored six against then champions Rangers. We won the league by 21 points, won the Scottish and League cups, our first treble in 32 years. On and off the park, we were better than a team who only a few years earlier seemed light-years ahead of a sorry looking Celtic.
Rangers responded by flooding more cash into their football squad, this time using Employee Benefit Trusts. In February last year Celtic Quick News was first to raise the question that these EBT payment might not have been registered with the SFA and SPL. Within three weeks the SPL commenced an investigation into the question, which found Rangers had a case to answer. The league set up the Commission which will report at noon today.
This is the most important decision in Scottish football history with implications for past and current directors of the organisations which run our game; people who were legally obliged to ensure rules were applied fairly, thoroughly and evenly.
It has implications for the Rangers group of clubs and for the international reputation of Scottish football, but none of this matters to you and me. We want to know if we were watching a level playing field for 11 years, or if the game was rigged. I can’t think of a more important decision in the history of British sport. There has never been and will never again be a decision which casts a shadow on 14 trophies, ‘won’ allegedly by a team playing by different rules to the rest.
The First Tier Tribunal decision last year and forthcoming Upper Tier Tribunal are sideshows. This is the main event, second only to Lisbon in importance to Scottish football. I am confident the decision will go against the group of clubs. If it doesn’t, we should not demean ourselves by slipping into paranoia. This is an independent commission, anyone who tells you otherwise is deluded.
My only concern is that the scale of punishments which would be appropriate for a guilty verdict are, frankly, so enormous, I expect every available opportunity to mitigate the sanctions to be exploited. This is a black cap verdict, but despite their impartiality, I don’t expect the Commission to dress sombrely when signing the decision.
A bottle of expensive fizzy stuff is in the fridge, in case we need to toast all those generations who, unlike us today, never had the opportunity to nail the truth.
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They are guilty. I think UEFA might have something to say about those sanctions as the took part in European competitions especially the UEFA cup final in 2008 with illegally registered players, don’t know who they played on the way to the final but they were cheated as were we.
‘A fine legal mind’ is an oft quoted term.
Possessing one is one thing.
The ends to which one puts it is quite another matter.
beneficiaries, payments by such trust or trusts and/or sub-trust or sub-trusts to such Players
and/or for the benefit of such Players and any and all arrangements, agreements and/or
undertakings and the like or similar relating to or concerning any of such Players and payments.
“Issues”
The issues for inquiry into and determination by the Commission set out in paragraph C. of this
notice.
“Rangers FC”
Rangers Football Club, Ibrox Stadium, 150 Edmiston Drive, Glasgow, G51 2XD
“Rangers PLC”
RFC 2012 P.L.C. (in administration) (formerly known as The Rangers Football Club plc), Ibrox
Stadium, 150 Edmiston Drive, Glasgow, G51 2XD
“Specified Players 1A”
35
1. Tore André Flo
2. Shota Arveladze
3. Michael Ball
4. Stefan Klos
5. Russell Latapy
6. Neil McCann
7. Christian Nerlinger
8. Arthur Numan
“Specified Players 1B”
1. Alan Hutton
2. Andrei Kanchelskis
3. Barry Ferguson
4. Bert Konterman
5. William Dodds
6. Christopher Burke
7. Claudio Caniggia
8. Craig Moore
9. Fernando Ricksen
10. Lorenzo Amoruso
11. Maurice Ross
12. Ronald de Boer
13. Steven Smith
14. Tero Penttilä
“Specified Players 2A”
1. Mikel Amatrain Arteta
2. Shota Arveladze
3. Jérôme Bonnissel
4. Thomas Buffel
5. Jesper Christiansen
6. Nuno Fernando Gonçalves da Rocha
7. Dan Eggen
8. Tore André Flo
9. Stefan Klos
10. Russell Latapy
11. Peter Løvenkrands
12. Neil McCann
13. Michael Mols
14. Kevin Muscat
15. Christian Nerlinger
16. Arthur Numan
17. Dado Pršo
18. Alex Rae
19. Gavin Rae
20. Paolo Vanoli
21. Grégory Vignal
36
“Specified Players 2B”
1. Alan Hutton
2. Barry Ferguson
3. Robert Malcolm
4. Christopher Burke
5. Egil Østenstad
6. Fernando Ricksen
7. Jean-Alain Boumsong
8. Lorenzo Amoruso
9. Marvin Andrews
10. Maurice Ross
11. Ignacio Javier Gómez Novo
12. Ronald de Boer
13. Ronald Waterreus
14. Sotirious Kyrgiakos
15. Steven Smith
16. Steven Thomson
17. Zurab Khizanishvili
“Specified Players 3A”
1. Mikel Amatrain Arteta
2. Shota Arveladze
3. Michael Ball
4. Olivier Bernard
5. Kris Boyd
6. Thomas Buffel
7. Jesper Christiansen
8. Steven Davis
9. Brahim Hemdani
10. Peter Løvenkrands
11. Pedro Mendes
12. Kevin Muscat
13. Saša Papac
14. Julien Rodriguez
15. Grégory Vignal
“Specified Players 3B”
1. Alan Hutton
2. Carlos Cuéllar
3. Christopher Burke
4. Fernando Ricksen
5. Federico Nieto
6. Ian Murray
7. Jean-Alain Boumsong
8. Libor Sionko
9. Lorenzo Amoruso
37
10. Marvin Andrews
11. Ignacio Javier Gómez Novo
12. Ronald Waterreus
13. Sotirious Kyrgiakos
14. Steven Smith
15. Steven Thomson
16. Zurab Khizanishvili
I’m afraid that its for me.
As someone mentioned earlier, why spend my hard-earned cash on a competition that is corrupt.
I will always love Celtic but enough is enough. No longer will i follow what is going on in Scottish football.
Been a pleasure conversing with you all over the last 6 years.
Hi Paul,
Going by the findings of the LNS I feel that the truths of our fathers still exist today.
The disappointment of the result is clear in the slap of the wrist imposed and which will never be fulfilled.
I hope that the member clubs of the SPL have the courage to appeal the punishment metted out however I doubt it. I look forward to some reaction from these clubs.
Hail Hail
For some time I have been thinking that I have been spending too much of my time monitoring the ins and outs of Scottish football, mainly on this site.
I needed an impetus to break me of the habit.
Thanks LNS, impetus received.
Farewell.
It really disturbs me that the media make a very clear distinction between company (oldco newco) but that the club remains the same as it always was.
It is the first, and only time in the history of football that this will happen.
Club & company one and the same. If not then why does any club pay bills or care about debts.
If what has happened to them happened to us, god forbid, you could guarantee 1967, 9 in a row, seville etc would be wiped from our history pronto. There would be no distinction between club & company.
Total nonsense. Keep ra peepil happy.
I dont think I have seen Izzy play so poorly as he did last night and he had no appetite to do his usual overlapping also Matthews had a very poor game.Big Efe had his usual blunder and is in my opinion is becoming a liability.To many Celtic players were not up for the fight last night but I dont see how Lennie is helping by spouting all about players not being with the club if they continue to perform so poorly if indeed he did make those comments, we dont need a knee jerk reactions we need to sort it out on the training ground.I think the cup game on Saturday will be difficult if we play like last night.H.H.
250k fine? Thats the paper laddie no paid then. <:o(
Won’t say I will not set foot in Celtic Park again. But I most certainly will never do so if thon deid team ever play there again. Can’t get my head around the independent tribunal simply saying black is white, that cheating is ok. The SFA/SPL have penalised clubs far more seriously for far less serious administrative errors. Sad to say, but Scotland’s Establishment seems corrupt to the core.
So £250k fine for an administrative error, what is the error?
Mission accomplished for Murray, Ogilvie and the rest of the wee ludge.
Sickened to the point of “whats the point”.
Well, that’s it for me. Yet another perverse ruling when it comes to Rangers but did we really expect anything different?
I’m sure we will see increasingly empty stadia across Scotland and rightly so in my opinion.
I’m off oot to lie in the sun.
“Oldco through its senior management decided that such side-letter arrangements should
not be disclosed to the football authorities,”
Now that sounds to me like a deliberate act and not an administrative error.
corruption
(2) Those side-letter arrangements WERE required to be disclosed under the Rules of the
Scottish Premier League (“SPL”) and the Scottish Football Association (“SFA”) as forming part of the players’ financial entitlement and as agreements providing for
payments to be received by the players;
2
(3) Oldco through its senior management decided that such side-letter arrangements should NOT be disclosed to the football authorities, and the Board of Directors sanctioned the making of payments under the side-letter arrangements without taking any legal or
accountancy advice to justify the non-disclosure;
So it’s OK to break the rules.
Celtic_First
12:22 on 28 February, 2013
Ah…..but if the “authorites” were not notified of these “incomplete” docs, how were they, without that knowledge, able to de-register.?
Catch22CSC
Result
[111] In the result, therefore, and for all the foregoing reasons:
(1) We find the breaches in Issue 1, Issue 2, Issue 3 (except Issue 3(c) and the concluding
passage of Issue 3(b) starting with “such that Rangers FC . . . .”) and Issue 4 proved
against RFC 2012 Plc (in liquidation), formerly The Rangers Football Club Plc.
(2) We fine RFC 2012 Plc (in liquidation) £250,000 in respect of Issues 1 to 3, and
admonish it in respect of Issue 4.
(3) We make no separate finding of breach by Rangers FC and impose no penalty on it.
That will be that then.Surprised :Not in the least.scottish Football its not worth the bother infact all football is corrupt.The golf season starts this month Tk Fk
I learned my lesson after the FTT verdict. That is why I and others on CQN have been shouting WHITEWASH for months, the latest during last night’s night shift. No insider knowledge. Just a grim realisation that if the UK Taxman can’t even get them to pay their dues, then the game’s a bogey.
Celtic don’t need to make any statement. Just let them continue their negotiations quietly in the background to move us into the English league, leaving the Huns behind in their moral squalor. THAT will be the final GIRUY to the whole bliddy lot of them.
Boy am I so very happy that I don’t live in that country any more. Get my beloved club to hell out of it.
I am signing off now, because as sure as night follows day, once the initial shock wears off, the usual suspects will turn their venom on Celtic. Tis ever thus.
Hail Hail.
That’s me done with the Scottish game. I only attend 7-10 matches at CP every season but I won’t be going over again. Seriously, what is the point ? 10 years of cheating swept under the carpet. Let them keep there rigged game.
ESPN and Sky Sports getting cancelled this evening. I won’t pay a penny to keep this shambles going.
“Alexander Bryson, Head of Registrations at the SFA, who described the registration process. During the course of his evidence he explained that, once a player had been registered with the SFA, he remained registered unless and until his registration was revoked.”
So it’s alright to break the rules as long as you don’t get caught!
The report seems to be claiming that as HMRC lost the case about the EBT’s then their relevence as payment to players is moot, but the side letters should still have been disclosed to the SPL.
What happens if HMRC win the appeal?
I posted a few days ago that if LNS could find a lawyers way out he would.
Incredibly, he hasnt even felt the need to do that. This verdict us a travesty of all the evidence already in the public domain. It is internally incoherent and simply unbelievable.
Today us final proof of the nature of Scottish society. Not for nothing did Saond call them the ” fabric of society”. That’s exactly what they are.
This is the country we live in: corrupt, venal, hypocritical, dishonest, and profoundly, irredeemably anti-catholic.
Prescient Post Paul67.
The Truth indeed….
And Campbell Ogilvie’s still in a job.
I will always support Celtic and will go to away matches in Europe but I am giving Scottish football no more money, utterly corrupt.
Horrible horrible decision
Play Efe upfront and let him cause havoc thems penalty area for a change!! At least he can heed a ball.
SSN now reporting oldco as being responsible for fine.
Have you ever seen or heard of a guilty verdict being celebrated so jubilantly by those found guilty?
If nothing else, this tells Nimmo Smith everything he needs to know about his decision.
Still, at least he’ll be able to open his own mail.
Do I smell Phils ?
Now that it has been proved beyond reason that we are all indeed paranoid, its time to get rangers back to the top division next season and we can all get back to normal……you know it makes sense
Well like a lot of us, mucho soul searching to be done…………………
Haven’t been to an SFA game of any kind for over two years, never will be back either
Am away oot
Another stitch up , Trout/grayling and golf season coming up, goodbye Scottish fitba.
Goodbye, over and out
we should demand to know which lodge each of the participants/witnessess belong to
It’s a good job Oldco put the correct date on the side letters they failed to disclose or they might have ended up in Big trouble.
I’ve no doubt that there will be more than a few huns on here as they trawl the Celtic sites to lap up the ‘timmy’ pain and rage.
Savour the moment orcs, revel in the exoneration of your cheating, but there is a long way to go. Now away back under your rocks.
I know lots of Nimmo’s and they are all huns!!!