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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We all fell in love of football from an early age,our love of Celtic is in our DNA,in the school playground we all were Jimmy McGrory,Charlie Tully,Willie Fernie,Jimmy Johnstone and countless others.We have all experience the highs,the lows and we still loved the game of football and of Celtic.In all honesty how many still fell that love of football today
snake
im glad you wrote that, I tried to write that but failed miserably
my own thoughts too except worded much better
So the way I’m reading this is that they were indeed guilty, but LNS has chosen not to administer any sort of punishment to fit the crime. Could it be that he, and others, know the reaction a “proper” punishment would result in for the hunnish hoardes, and the consequences to Scottish society as a whole?
“I know, lets give a company who no longer exists a fine, and brush it under the carpet” Nothing to see here Timmy. Move along now…
First of all let me say I’m disgusted but not shocked. Prior to today I had mixed feelings about Celtic quitting Scottish Soccer, now I have no such qualms. I want Celtic out of this cesspit regardless of the consequences. I simply can’t stop following Celtic you might as well ask me to stop breathing. The first immigrants were treated badly and discriminated against, its still happening friends and the revisionists want us to be ashamed of celebrating our heritage. I’ll continue to follow Celtic and to celebrate and keep alive our heritage as long as I live, hopefully in a League outwith Scotland. A very simple Statement is required from our Board, no protest, no rancour, the Statement should simply state ” It is the ambition of Celtic Fc. to join a League outwith of Scotland at the earliest feasible opportunity.”
Paul67 et al
“….my only concern is the scale of the punishments…”
Paul, that is one thing in your life you no longer have to worry about.
crushed nuts
“ … the sale, administration, player exodus and liquidation need never have happened … .”
That was at the bank’s insistence. When the Lloyd’s boys picked up where BoS had got up to, they called time on David Murray. His chosen way out was to sell for £1 to Craig Whyte. it took years to find a buyer, even at that price.
Murray might have stuck to his guns to await the outcome of the FTT, but the bank weren’t wearing it. Craig Whyte might have done that too, but ran out of cash thanks to elimination from European competition (twice). The man we have to thank for that is in charge of Sevco’s first team, so it cost him his job too, but I gather he is doing quite well in SFL division three, so maybe it was just a question of finding his level.
….PFayr @13:48 join in all you want.
If you read the legislation, police guidelines, how the “aggravated” element of the charge was divined, how the statement was then obtained and a transcript of the trial you’ll see the defence had an easy job casting doubt.
The fact that the defence agreed the facts does not equate to a plea of guilty to the charge of assault. The prosecution refused such a plea, thus leaving it to the jury.
Ach, it’s just a storm in a T cup, all will be forgotten soon enough.
Let’s just forget about everything and get back to where we were before all this happened, you know it makes sence.
Chas Green was offered deal by sfa/spl to to forfeit titles,what fekn changed in the rules
from then to now ?
There seems to be a lot of guys having a go at Celtic fans for “abandoning Celtic” because of LNS, I don’t think the guys are abandoning Celtic, they are abandoning Scottish Football as they see it to be corrupt.
For me, like any issue I deal with in business or personal life, it’s wise to take a step back for a few days, gather the data and once all the noise has calmed down take your view.
I was never in doubt they would be found guilty but I did not think it would be black and white, the consequences of an unequivocal decision would be huge and wide spread, nobody was ever going to allow that to happen.
It’s all about the now liquidated club anyway, they died and any sanctions (including titles) were meaningless anyway. What’s interesting now is that the new Rangers are an irrelevance and will be for a good few years to come. When they do get back in to the SPL they will not have an advantage as before, so let’s see just how big / good they are in a level playing field.
Let’s not forget, they liquidated and had to reform as a new club, are in the 3rd division, struggling financially and currently have a very poor team. It’s a long long way back for them, today’s events are noise in the grand scheme of things. Even their blowhards and media groupies know that what has happened to them is completely unimaginable. I can remember taking my boy to his first games back when their 9 in a row was nearing it’s conclusion, I never thought we would ever win the league again, genuinely never believed we could reform and get back there. Little did I know that within years Celtic would be on top of Scottish football for many many years and Rangers F.C. would be liquidated, incredible.
Rest of t he season will be boring after St, Mirren bt us on Sat
CSA latest
http://www.thecsa.co.uk/showthread.php?t=650&p=2888#post2888
Snake Plissken 13:51 on 28 February, 2013
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Excellent post Snake.
Cannot for the life of me understand why so many on here are surprised, really! Did any body really think that hunman and all his cronies and pals in “the ludge” would bring about any other decision, think about!
Next step will be paying compensation to them for all the wrongs suffered and they will be back in the big time very very soon make no mistake.
It is truly sickening but that is football in Scotland for you and always will be.
What can we do about it then? Get out of this cesspit once and for all, end of.
A very sad and unhappy, KINGLuBO
I said I was going to say no more until I had this thing on the run……..well……every day they give you that little bit extra to deal with…..my heart problems are ‘merely’ being exacerbated by the lung cancer, which turns out is incurable and all I can be offered is palliative care.
Three years ago I wsa running up the steep side of Glastonbury Tor.
Today I can barely walk.
Yo no comprendo.
Why do the ratbags live forever?
Well. The upside of this is I’m going to devote a lot of time fundraising for wee Oscar, the finest of wee mhen, and I wish him a full and healthy life. I’ve had a good one. I wish him the same, with no more pain.
The thing that brought tears to my eyes today: my little 3 year old god-daughter said a prayer for me by her bedside last night.
Children, they break the hardest of hearts.