Retiring SPFL chairman Ralf Topping addressed the issue of Rangers EBTs in the light of the recent Supreme Court ruling in an interview today with The Scotsman. It is clear he is well-briefed on what is ‘in the post’ for the football authorities in Scotland from “fans groups”:
“There are a lot of wealthy people who support football clubs who will fund certain activities around challenges. The authorities just have to accept it and be measured in their response.”
Topping told The Scotsman, their solicitor, “the finest in the land”, made sure they were “ready for any challenges subsequently”.
The SPFL would save themselves and everyone else a lot of time and money if, instead of briefing friendly journalists who would refrain from asking the pertinent questions, they would address the matter in hand.
Why did the SPL (now the SPFL) set the parameters for what became the Lord Nimmo Smith (LNS) Commission to examine from 1998, then, when it became clear Rangers would admit guilt for offenses between 1998 and 2000, change that date to run from 2000?
Why did the SPL not lead evidence to the LNS Commission on the five players Rangers admitted guilt to the First Tier Tribunal, for offenses committed during the period in question (after 2000)?
Why did the SPL not reserve the right to appeal the LNS decision, which was predicated on EBTs being executed legally, pending the HMRS appeal?
Other questions, like who made the above decisions and why, can be addressed later.
If only the SPFL would “be measured in their response”, if only they would respond at all! There has been no response to these questions, only prevarication, misdirection and evasion.
The more those at the top of Scottish football speak, the more they sound like Sepp Blatter, who for years set inquiries and boasted about his robust legal advice on the running of Fifa.
Frankly, Topping and his cronies are not in Blatter’s league. They are not career criminals, but their briefing of selected journalists while studiously avoiding the question every fan would like to see answered, increasingly looks like a cover-up.
Celtic’s call for action will be ignored by the SPFL and SFA, but that must not be the end of it. Just do the right thing, Ralph; answer the questions.
964 Comments- Pages:
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- ...
- 26
- »
First ?
Topping of the Pops
What a topping idea!
In the old days, i could have given these fellows a damn good thrashing, and nobody would have said a word.
Thats modernity for you, total scam:)
I demand the right to box the ears of these cheats:)
Slap!
HH
top ten
BMCUW
To TGM
“The huns cheat,you stop going to watch the team you love,the club lose your money.
Sorry,I don’t see how that works as a means to the result you want,which is the huns punished.”
**************
The mere threat of supporters withdrawing financial support worked in 2012, to prevent the unconscionable admission to Sevco to the top tier, which would have allowed them to escape the consequences of becoming a new club, in order to dump the debt mountain.
That’s how it works, you force them to do the right thing.
No reason it can’t work again if supporters find ignoring over 10 years of cheating, while they were financially supporting their clubs, equally unconscionable.
AULDHEID
It’s impossible to tell just one lie:))
The game is so mired in lies and self interest and now as we see fromTopping, Regan et al, extreme self preservation…
They would rather let the game die that face up to their misdeeds, cowards ra lotta ‘em
This cannot stand…
Peter Lawwell is on the same SPFL Board that Topping alleges the ‘finest QC in Scotland’ reported to 4 times. Was PL aware of this? Are we being strung along? I not sure myself. I would be amazed if Regan, Doncaster, McCrae and Topping hadn’t got together behind the scenes to try and figure out a way to make this go away. No doubt the likes of Dave King and Campbell EBT Ogilvie have thrown their tuppence worth in.
Yip, BRTH post from this morning worth an article on its own in the CQN magazine.
TURKEYBHOY on 15TH JULY 2017 12:46 PM
The numpty commentating on Celtic TV last night was woeful.He actually said twice”We dont want to lose an away goal”.Hayes shot that nearly hit the corner flag was,”A wonderful effort”.
Where do they get them?.
Thetimreaper
Glibby hasnae got tuppence!
Could Dermot Desmond as a concerned individual possibly take the SPFL/SFA to court over this? Or maybe back wee Fergus McCann to do it for him. Maybe Stuart Milne and a few other wealthy chairmen, directors could get involved.
The SPFL Board has Celtic,Hibs,Hearts,and is now supposed to be led by a Celtic fan.Not sure what other teams,but I have a feeling Raith Rovers are also on it.
Lets wait and see.
Linfield are scum FACT HH
starry plough on 15th July 2017 11:50 am
https://thecelticblog.com/2017/07/blogs/the-wagons-are-circling-as-scottish-footballs-leaders-line-up-to-defend-cheating/
JF on Topping…
======================
James is spot on. What the SPFL and SFA appear to be saying is either it is legal to cheat (if that is what their QC’s said) or its illegal to cheat but there is SFA you can do about it.
If either is so, why have either parties in a position of governance? What purpose do they serve?
However the real story and James has nailed it, is that this is not about protecting Scottish football, this is about protecting themselves, and to do that they are prepared to sacrifice Scottish football to a lingering death unless the club poisoning the game die of their own toxicity first.
The fix was in from the moment CW told Ogilvie and company Rangers were heading for the rocks and any enquiry would reveal that fix.
All the evidence of skulduggery is now on line. CQN Magazine published the WTC Timeline which shows a linkage between the UEFA Licensing in 2011 and the LNS Commissioning in 2012.
If the SFA did not have the 20th May 2011 HMRC letter in 2011 then Rangers FC failed to comply with UEFA FFP. If the SFA did have it at any time up to March 2012 (and The Tax Justice Network/Offshore Game have asked the SFA if they do
http://www.theoffshoregame.net/sfa-admits-it-did-know-about-rangers-unlawful-tax-avoidance-scheme-at-time-of-nimmo-smith-inquiry/
but if you read the TOG report you will see that the SFA failed to provide any response to TOG questions.
So what we have here are a group of people who hatched what was a cunning plan to save Rangers because of the financial cost to Scottish football, but had to lie in the process. Had the SFA and then SPL done their registration jobs properly in the first place dishonesty would never have got past the start gate and further dishonesty would not have been needed to cover up the original sin.
Good result last night
Off to Dublin for the first time next week to see U2 at Croak Park, going to pop in to see some old relations.
Sleekit huns…guid cheats an’ bad losers.
HHH.
Only a matter of time before PL gets questions asked about his integrity, dear oh dear oh dear :))
THE GREEN MAN SAYS SACK THE BOARD on 15TH JULY 2017 12:43 PM
In the old days, i could have given these fellows a damn good thrashing, and nobody would have said a word.
Thats modernity for you, total scam:)
I demand the right to box the ears of these cheats:)
Slap!
Like the old Billy Connelly one,done in the old posh voice,
“Yes,you left Phillip everything did”nt you Father,well,you”ll pay for it now,look away Martha,
SCUD”
TD67
All im saying, is surely the PLC cannot be happy about this.
I dont care who challenges this, if its PL or DD, i will be the first to applaud them, and give them total support.
We cant just ignore these cheats.
HH
BEATBHOY on 15TH JULY 2017 12:50 PM
Thetimreaper
Glibby hasnae got tuppence!,
Oh,I am sure he has.Loads of people have got tuppence.
Topping?
Marie Antoinette style topping is what’s needed here.
Turkeybhoy
I react to the blazers, the same way you react to neganon:)
Hope you are feeling slightly better:)
HH
BEATBHOY
I know. And I’m genuinely torn on the whole thing. We know we’re being done over for the benefit of a club who,in any other country,would have been ignominiously consigned to history.
Instead,they got to keep their history!
Think back. Your Dad and his Dad knew the fix was in. So did I,pretty early age too.
Too many to mention.
We were pretty damn sure they were cheating-somehow!-from Murray’s early days,signing players from tax havens. Murray was so sure he was Teflon-man he could even show a de Boer contract to prove he “was playing for petrol money”
Any time a Rangers player was in court,they could “prove” their wages were grand,aye,a grand a week.
And we still turned up!
Like those before us still turned up.
I don’t know why the board aren’t going for the throat-they disappoint me!-but I don’t support the board. I support Celtic.
And I respect the opinion of every Celtic supporter who doesn’t go,despite the pain it causes them.
Ntcham,Benji,Eboue,could make up the midfield today.Well worth a look.
THE GREEN MAN SAYS SACK THE BOARD on 15TH JULY 2017 1:00 PM
Turkeybhoy
I react to the blazers, the same way you react to neganon:)
Hope you are feeling slightly better:)
Much better thanks.A lot of that down to seeing The Griff tie the Celtic scarve to the Linfield posts.
Dont you just luv him?.
TGM
Lewis Carroll would’ve baulked at some of the fantastical nonsense produced by the Scottish Farceball Association and their SPFHell accomplices.
Look no further than the Rangers (sic) club page on their website, and how they use their Tardis to reverse their birthday by 140 years.
BMCUW@1:01pm
I appreciate the acknowledgement contained in your final sentence. Genuinely.
Hail!Hail!
Johnjames tweeting that the Top[ping] lawyer is Rod Mckenzie.
He assures he has the best sources in Scottish football…
Well…he assures us after he has rattled the begging can first.
How does such a well connected, and clearly trusted, man find himself on his uppers…
Turkeybhoy
Glad you are recovering:)
Griff. Love that bhoy dearly.
He gave the John Knox Huns a huge GIRUY:)
Bhoy after my own heart:)
HH
BMCUWP
I think it might be more accurate to say our dads suspected the fix was in. But without evidence, they couldn’t Know. So, the club ‘kept its powder dry’. We now have the evidence, but still silence. Big difference.
How we laughed When the zombies said their company died, but their club was alive because it was somehow separate and distinct. Aren’t we now saying the same thing? If our PLC is going along with the cheating, isn’t our club doing likewise?
As has been suggested, and I agree, if our Board aren’t prepared to step up, they aren’t fit for purposes, and need removed.
Was Rod Mckenzie not the guy the zombies were alleging as big Pete’s bestest pal? I think a lot of referring back to 2012 is going to go on.
BEATBHOY
HH and thank you.
THEGREENMAN
We all are,it’s how we do it that f…s it up. Damaging the club isn’t an option for me,and that includes legal action which opens us up to a retaliation via FIFA rules.
But as Fergus said,that regulation places football above the law.
And no-one is above the law.
Box clever,clear them out. Only way.
Meantime,join DELANEYSDUNKY on a wee dayooooot at Paradise. You can go undercover,no names.
And then,once you’ve got that hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck feeling,and the surge of blood-and joy-of being back where you belong,you can make me jealous down in Swindon by telling me how good it was!
(For the avoidance of doubt,I’m not talking about how good DD’s company is. That’s a given)
I totally understand those that have already withdrawn the financing of a bent game. Not a policy I follow myself at the moment but these people have just paid the ferryman (BEATBHOY) to cross thon Italian river much earlier than me.
For me the line in the sand is the AGM. No action by then and I’m starting a Celtic badminton club…
Anyone know of somewhere to watch Celtic games in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia?
MIKE IN TORONTO on 15TH JULY 2017 1:20 PM
The concern isn’t whether Scottish football is bent.
It’s whether, and to what extent, Celtic are involved or complicit.
But I’ll still probably watch games on illegal streams.
Like when you check your ex’s Facebook page…I mean…erm…
Davidopoulos
Running shuttle services, cock!