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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John McGlynn has been mutually consented by hearts.
BBC Sportsound@bbcsportsound
BREAKING NEWS: John McGlynn has left Hearts by mutual consent according to the Hearts website.
It’s on the BBC website now. Huns already celebrating.
Shockerooooni !!!
If the huns don’t get the titles that they ‘stole’
taken off them then…every stadium in the country
will be empty as a result and – the game will be killed.
Now here’s the rub – all the clubs can get the chance
to rebuild Scottish football on – THEIR – terms!!!
RESULT !!!!
Anarchist’s – CSC
Other clubs who’ve been found guilty of registration breaches should look at this decision (when published) and think about compo.
Jungle Jim
Say hello to Kev when yer oot!!
According to SSN, he was bagged!
Off oot
Graham Spiers@GrahamSpiers
Various:if the old Rangers are found guilty I’ve always argued some other means of punishment than the squealing charade of title-stripping.
LOL…………….. If that is the case Graham, i suggest a lot of Scottish clubs at all levels in the game will be taking football authorities in Scotland through the law courts
hen1rik
It is painful to think about not going back and is a knee jerk reaction but if true then I spent a number of years watching a rigged league. If Celtic don’t go to UEFA with this they are letting us down.
LB
Celtic has been cheated out of millions.Celtic what ARE YOU going to do?
Scunnerd …again. Sad, sad wee country we live in!
If they are found guilty, methinks other clubs will be queueing up to seek compensation, throughout Europe.
lionroars67 10.51
Starting with Celtic and backed by the fans!
Tom English @TomEnglishSport
A little later I’ll be hosting a webchat at http://scotsman.com on Nimmo Smith’s conclusions. Link to follow
Paul67
Back in Feb/March 2010 CQN was in uproar about referee Dougie McDonald who sent off Scott Brown at Ibrox and left Kyle Lafferty on the field of play.
It was just another in a series of referee decisions that became known as Honest Mistakes.
The problem was we knew in our hearts something wrong was taking place but were powerless to do anything because we had no proof. I used the bowling ball analogy that if we knew nothing about bowls, observation would tell us that a bias was at play to explain the curve.
Now we know that bias was at play and the form it took and it is going to take me some convincing by LNS that we were not watching a curving ball.
As to punishment will we be told they were just were very naughty boys?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOuWWzP7wl0
I’d find that hard to accept too, but I’ll settle for a guilty verdict and the world knowing what we have always suspected, their nature is to cheat and cover up as a scorpion’s is to sting. The regulation of our game has to take that into account.
any one who thinks celtic will pursue is living in dreamland did you not read paul 67’s
statement?
SSN now reporting that titles won’t be stripped
SSN reporting no loss of titles.
!!Bada Bing!!
10:47 on
28 February, 2013
Peter Lawwell ,this is your time.Step forward and show leadership now.IMO This is critical for Celtic supporters who may now turn away from Scottish Football.
————-
agreed
THT@TheHumanTorpedo
Hearing one of the proposed sanctions in the LNS report is a three match touchline ban for Neil Lennon.
Retweeted by Paul McConville
In this whole saga, the only time justice was even close to being done was when fans acted in unison.
This sounds to me like Sevco will have another world record on the weekend – the only club to have fans at their game when every other ground is completely empty.
!!Bada Bing!!
10:47 on
28 February, 2013
Peter Lawwell ,this is your time.Step forward and show leadership now.IMO This is critical for Celtic supporters who may now turn away from Scottish Football.
Peter Lawwell & Celtic will say and do nothing.
DC or BC.
It was always going to come down to what Celtic will do.
Do they continue to contribute to a charade and expect the support to be complicit in cheating, or do we press a nuclear button?
Tom English, in an article posted on the last thread, presented it as a conflict between us and them.
Wrong. It is a conflict between them and every other club in Scotland.
Will ST holders react like last year,or will they just abandon the game?
It is a very difficult decision for an attending supporter to make.
Do you continue to finance the club you love, even though they are contributing to a crooked game, or, do you follow through on your personal integrity.
There has been much talk on here recently of fans walking away from Celtic over perceived treatment of the GB.
They are coming from a position relative to their principals. Will they do likewise if the rumours of retained titles prove true?
A decision I would hate to have to make.
Next home game a mass walk out at half time,to be replicated across the SPL (except Motherwell)
The bhuns will be hoping none of the eminent ENGLISH judges eminate from MANCHESTER….
BBC Sport already Tweeting rangers will NOT be stripped of titles.
Welcome to the greatest wee bigot country in the world…
Paul67,
I agree with you that this is an important day in Scottish football; I think the game will die if Rangers are not found guilty and are not stripped of titles as so many people will just walk away from football if both of these things don’t happen.
there is no point, otherwise.
Kayal 33- I suspect you are right but we need leadership now.
So the club has now been given advanced sight of the report, and so the spin begins.
The key issues will be in the detail of the report – read it, understand it, then form a view.
Just read back……SSN are famous for speculating…..best to wait for high noon ….?
jake the snake @celticservant
Chatter suggesting other sanctions will be applied. That indicates a guilty verdict.
Superscoreboard @ClydeSSB
Rangers will not be stripped of any titles. There will only be a small punishment. more to follow
1 hour to go!
lionroars67 10.57
I guess you’ve gotta laugh sometimes too!
The last bit of P67’s article primed us, or should have, he said even if they are found guilty, don’t expect too much. But I still got my hopes up.
I am actually surprised that so many of you thought they would be punished in any way whatsoever.
It’s scotland, the goatfiddlers don’t like losing, it’s all about face.