Or, a story of how and why Mr Lawwell consigned resolution 12 to the deepest grass;
by Finloch
“It’s about history and being neighbours”, young Elisabeth said to her mum.
And it has to be done for tomorrow, Elisabeth said.
“I’m supposed to ask in an in-person interview about what life was like where an older neighbour grew up and what was life like when the neighbour was my age.
It’s not my fault that we’re new here and haven’t spoken to our old, next door neighbour yet and don’t even know his name.
“I’ve an idea her mother said, why don’t you make it up.
Pretend you’re asking him questions and then write down the answers you think he’d give”.
“It’s supposed to be true”, Elisabeth said. “It’s for News”.
“They’ll never know”, her mother said. “Just make it up.
The real news is always made up anyway”.
I was lucky enough to catch Ali Smith at the Edinburgh Book Festival.
I was part of a very diverse audience and unusually for this kind of event nobody in the sold-out Charlotte Square tent had a Scooby about what she was going to share with us.
Most would have been expecting a reading or two from her recent short story collection, Public Library, about the cynical, thoughtless and almost silent and unpublicised demise of Libraries up and down our land.
Our libraries.
Our land.
Ali is always value for money though and was amazing, reading from her as yet unpublished “Autumn” book, the first she said of a four-book series.
As I listened to her, I was also thinking and juggling around at the back of my mind about what I was going to write for this blog, having been asked for my thoughts, as a non-involved, non-Celtic supporter, on how I see the Resolution 12 situation.
Well Ali’s words stung like a bee and proved quite inspirational. The wisdom and clarity in her new books is highly relevant to all of us who care about Scottish Football and Resolution 12 including Mr Lawwell, Mr Doncaster, Mr Regan, Mr Petrie and us too – the real stakeholders.
Ali also shared with us a Bernard Maclaverty insight from when he once visited a school as part of (I think) a Scottish creative writing initiative and in the course of his talk asked some youngsters,
“What is fiction” ?
Someone put their hand up and said “Please Sir, it’s made up truth”.
Near the end Ali also got to talking about post Brexit Britain and used the chaos to ask the bigger question.
“Why do we never seem to have real debates about anything and why in any “debate” we might see or read that there never seems to be room for to-ing and fro-ing on points because everyone seems to have already made their minds up and just wants to maintain their status quos, achieve their own personal agendas or to steamroller us all to their point of view”.
“People in power seem to be genuinely scared of honest debates”, she said.
She asked how without more real discussions and insightful and open minded debates can any of us (and the debaters themselves too) learn because without that we will just get more of what we’ve had.
And that’s not good enough.
So thanks Ali I’m going to combine these three things from your hour along with two personal career experiences and review Mr Lawwell and his company’s reaction to the bona fide Resolution 12 raised by some of his shareholders a few years ago.
(My career experiences were as the head of a small, and treated as unimportant, company that was part of a worldwide group of companies run (badly) out of the US; and my time as head of a trade association that had two very dominant and troublesome members).
My Five Insights to review Resolution 12 are.
- Some people think “made up news is fine” and feed us all with it all the time.
- Don’t expect real discussions or debates about anything in your club. No two way dialogues, except from those about money once a year.
- “Made up Truths” become gospel not to be challenged.
- The people running the club know they are smarter and more important than any of their minority or remote stakeholders.
- All decisions that really matter in football or indeed in any business are pre-agreed and never discussed in the open.
So now to what I think of Resolution 12.
My starting point is to say this. It is wrong to see or to discuss Mr Lawwell and Resolution 12 as being about the awarding of a license – or the boardroom processes since The Requisitioners first raised it.
Sadly, I’d suggest Requisition 12 was history before it was even raised.
In the late Murray days at Ibrox and in the early Whyte ownership period there had been rumours, and I’m certain deep and meaningful business discussions between the heads of the SFA and SPL and their key committee members.
You can be sure that the SFA, SPL, Celtic and others were all watching the post Murray Rangers situation closely, and the new regime at Ibrox and related financial stuff would have been the talk of the exclusive football steamies.
Despite what some Celtic fans believe, the reality has always been that while Rangers may have dominated (just) all things SFA and SPL, nothing was ever done without the knowledge of and input from the green side of the Old Firm business model.
Sadly, I’d suggest Requisition 12 was history before it was even raised.
Scotland’s unique, idiosyncratic, religio-political old firm business model was not just about driving the individual Glasgow teams to their leviathan duopoly in Scottish football. We all knew (because we were told so) that it was also the commercial bedrock of the business that is Scottish Football.
And yes, for a while David Murray thought his club was bigger than the Old Firm, but he and his ego had moved on when all this stuff happened.
Put simply, Regan who was quite new, was convinced at the time – and still is absolutely certain – that the SFA and Scottish Football needed a dominant Celtic and Rangers, and he also personally needed and needs the support of their CEO’s.
Doncaster too was convinced that the SPL needed Celtic and Rangers arch rivalry with all it entails, delivering TV monies and maximizing his bonuses. He too also personally required and requires the support of the Old Firm CEO’s.
Lawwell the astute numbers man, under a constant watchful eye from Dublin, needed Rangers to ensure his business plan did not develop un-fillable black holes.
And yes, for a while David Murray thought his club was bigger than the Old Firm, but he and his ego had moved on when all this stuff happened.
Importantly, Peter was also one of a small influential football group who effectively controlled the actions of Regan and Doncaster. Nothing strategic would ever have been done by either of them without his involvement and input. That doesn’t mean he necessarily knew all the detail about Craig’s UEFA license shenanigans but he’d have had his suspicions.
And you know something, – at a squeeze I think he and Desmond might have thought keeping a Rangers team alive (for its future dependable revenue streams) was maybe even worth one season’s lost Champions League status.
There is no doubt in my mind that in 2011 Peter and the Celtic Board were worried but supportive of and committed to keeping the Rangers company alive.
Looking back I don’t know when Lawwell and Desmond actually discovered de facto that Rangers should not have been awarded the license.
Was it before it was awarded?
Was it after by which time it was too late anyway?
Those would be two good questions to ask them.
I’d suggest that by the time they knew for sure it was too late, but I could be wrong.
Anyway history shows that pretty quickly after McCoist failed in Europe, Lawwell committed his club to the complex and complicated secret Five-Way Agreement and all it entailed.
Celtic were senior signed-up members of the attempt to help protect and leverage the future blue revenue streams into the SPL then the SPL 2 then the bottom level.
It was all about the blue pound.
It was all about the blue pound into the future.
It was all about the blue pound into the future being central in the business model at Celtic that needed (then and now) a blue pound generating Rangers.
We all know now that compromise was somehow reached ahead of the Brechin cup tie in the summer of 2012.
Many – in fact most of – Scottish football fans were glad that football had once again broken out, having become fed up with all the politics, and were glad to return to talking about players and stuff.
Football gossip is after all more comfortable than finding out we’d all been cheated for years.
Not all fans were ready to “Move-on” however.
Some, like many of us on this site and others like it wanted to dig deeper and examine just what happened and who did what.
Some wanted Celtic as the most wronged club to do and say more about Sporting Integrity.
Some wanted to rub their old rivals into the dirt.
Some wanted a full and frank review because they believed that without Sporting Integrity we would make the same mistakes in the future.
I’d be one of these fans.
There is no doubt in my mind that the Celtic shareholders who pieced together the jigsaw that led to Resolution 12, correctly identified that their club were illegally denied a place in the Champions League and denied substantial revenues.
Fair play to them.
If I was a Celtic shareholder I personally would have wanted to know why my board had not pursued these significant revenues that were due to my company.
It was and is a big deal.
No it was and is a huge deal.
It remains an open sore and everyone involved seems to have ducked any blame.
I applaud those Requisitioner Shareholders for how they have gone about the process, and I have a huge respect for everything they have done on behalf of Celtic and fans of all Scottish clubs.
However in my opinion it was always doomed to failure because of the simple fact that their own club, having been an integral part of the whole murky “Armageddon” process, had already moved on into the new world they had helped to forge, and did not and could not look back.
So Resolution 12 was treated politely but cleverly by the club in the finest traditions of Sir Humphrey.
They did not want to fight their shareholders corner then and I’d suggest still don’t – and wont.
So going back to my five points earlier.
- Mr Lawwell et al did not want to establish the real truth, which they already knew. Hey had already signed up to what had been reported, moved the club on and spent his personal bonuses along the way no doubt.
- Mr Lawwell et al did not want a real debate because he and his small team had already done what they believed at the time to be right for the club they were paid to manage.
Nothing more to say.
And yes he could mumble agreement that Sporting Integrity is important when cornered but between us chaps it wouldn’t ever have filled the yawning gaps in the stands at Celtic Park without a Rangers counterbalance. - Rangers are now back and the Old Firm is once again dominating Scottish Football.
The truth at Celtic Park is we need each other and season book sales and TV revenues are up proving my point all along. - We tolerate the intellectual end of our support, just, but they are hard work and you’d think they own the club.
We even quite enjoy some of their stuff sometimes as long as its not too political but we have a business to run and quite frankly sometimes they just don’t get it. They should realise the SFA and the SPFL are there to do a job for us and we keep them on a short enough leash. - We will always be grateful to Fergus for what he did. We benefited at the time from the fan’s money and now run a very successful shareholder liaison programme. Once a year we have an AGM and try to manage the reality of running a business while having to hear from people who would prefer us to regress to what we were in the 1880s. Shareholders are fine but this club is a business and must be run as such.
My Five Insights sum up the position and stance of the Celtic Board.
I don’t know what will happen to Resolution 12.
The club never wanted it because they are a business and see the world differently from the group of fans who see themselves as the Celtic soul.
I applaud these Celtic fans.
Celtic does not deserve you.
Thanks Finloch, I very much enjoyed reading that. I now feel like crying in despair.
Great article Finloch .I agree with your analysis in respect to Celtic involvement and as a Celtic supporter I’m truly gutted. I can see Lawwell’s point about what is best for the PLC but it’s certainly not the best for football and the people who pay for it, both financially and emotionally. My big fear is that the followers of the new Ibrox club will really kick off if things don’t go their way. What will the SFA and Spfl do then, poor things?
I have just read that quite carefully and I sadly agree with it all. I think we Celtic fans are more emotionally concerned with our clubs moral stance and views and I think peter lawell is employed to make the business function efficiently. He doesn’t do emotion. Sadly, this is the way of modern top level football. We fans are looking back at our traditions and values we feel the club was formed with and want them to still be present, and P L is paying us lip service and running a business. . A sad but ultimately not surprising situation. Finloch, I think you summarised it perfectly. Well done.
It would still be nice to see the CEO of Celtic Plc stand up at the next agm and explain that it was in shareholders interest to ensure that the preservation of a ‘rangers’ was far better in the long term than one off champion leagues revenue, and furthermore how the customer base had to accept that ,although they had been defrauded by the ebt cheating, there was nothing that could be done to redress this .So resolution 12 was humoured because it was the best way to handle an awkward minority holding and the customer base ie fans, are too stupid to care anyway. They are half right..I am stupid enough to hope that Celtic beat Hapoel sheeva but not stupid enough to buy season tickets, shirts etc. Sadly it looks as if i am in the minority…maybe I should just move on?
Good analysis by Finloch, and like all good writing you realise its all been so obvious once explained in that way.
If it is the case that nothing will be done by clubs or the guardian of the rules in retrospect, what does that mean for the possibility that TRFC goes the same way in not being able to meet their financial commitments? Will it all start again? A blue pound franchise? How many of us will give a shit about the game and our clubs if they allow A Rangers mk 3 back into the senior leagues?
My only hope now is the regular reminders by an Irish blogger ….cash is king, no line of credit at a bank, a business that has never made a profit, and near £1m losses most months and owes parent company millions….just how long will there be a blue pound for the clubs and regulator to sell their souls for?
The ongoing legal & commercial troubles and potential stadium repair bills might also mean a smaller pool of spivs and chancers ( sorry, investors) to fund the resurrection of another dead club.
I would also hope that in the event of TRFC not surviving, the SFA have to be rebooted to meet these new challenges of a game without the big two.
I do feel for The Rangers fans to some extent, but not to the extent that the rest of us should see our game prostituted to keep their traditions alive.
Great read Finloch. I posted on here months ago that I suspected Peter Lawwell was at the heart of it all. Someone posted on the previous blog God is Mammon. It’s simply about money.
Very good read Finloch, good in the sense of well written, depressing in the sense of the content is probably 100% spot on!
For sometime I have had the crazy idea that the SFA/SPFL/PL/TRFC etc have all missed a trick in this. Imagine back in 2012, that all clubs, governing bodies, supporters groups, everyone agreed that the club from ibrox had gone the way of the dodo and was no longer, but instead of the nonsense that is the continuation/survival myths, they came out and said “There will be a new club given special dispensation to enter the professional game in league 3 as the spiritual successor to RFC” No doubt, there would’ve been an bit of shouting and balling by some opposition fans and much knashing of teeth by the RFC fan base, but imagine the huge amount of anticipation built up over the last 4 years climaxing in their official entry to the top league and a build in the media of “How will the new rangers go against their predecessors traditional rivals?” I truly beleive we would have had more faith in the MSM, integrity in our competitions and a huge interest from around the world in this new comer trying to take the mantle of the old club being CFC’s sparring partner!
As much as this is a huge flight of fancy, I would have much preferred that this was what had taken place rather than the very likely scenario outlined above!
I fear our game has not only sold it’s soul, but actually prostituted it out for a very small sum then sold it for some magic beans?? Depressing
GUNNERBAUGUST 16, 2016 at 23:57
It would still be nice to see the CEO of Celtic Plc stand up at the next agm and explain that it was in shareholders interest to ensure that the preservation of a ‘rangers’ was far better in the long term than one off champion leagues revenue
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This is the theory I don’t understand. Firstly, only one team can win the league, and only one Scottish club gets a crack at qualifying for the Champions League. If Celtic qualify this season the rewards are huge. To get another chance at those huge rewards they will have to win the league again this season. Assuming they see it as a two way fight with the club from Ibrox, why would they risk the chance of these huge rewards by facilitating the club from Ibrox to become stronger? I know that one very prominent ex Celtic Manager privately said if it’s nip and tuck in the title race with 2 or 3 games to go, Rangers are far more likely to prevail. His belief was Celtic have to be MUCH better than Rangers to win the league. I trust the person implicitly who heard him say that. If money really is all Celtic want, then CL qualification 3 years out of every 5 will bring far more rewards than a strong Rangers with the following wind of the media and whoever else behind them driving them on.
UPTHEHOOPS
I think you’re being too rational.
Finloch puts this situation in the context of people who run businesses that give them bonuses. I think it’s a very smart way to think about what happened. Almost all of the decision makers that he has referenced will get MORE BONUS MONEY SOONER with Celtic and Rangers in the Premier League, regardless of whether they are the ‘real’ Celtic or Ranger.
While I have some sympathies with grand conspiracy theories, it does seem like almost everyone that we complain about gets paid more when Rangers and Celtic are in the same division.
A fair summation if a little speculative. Unfortunately, I agree that there is no appetite amongst the plc board to do anything but sideline and delay Resolution 12. The requisitioners are no doubt well meaning and passionate about this but made the mistake of getting into bed with the plc. That Celtic are complicit in much that is wrong with Scottish football is no secret but the truth is that the only solution is too drastic to contemplate. The majority of us will continue to moan about cheating and corruption in our game, whilst still turning up or tuning in to watch it.
UPTHEHOOPSAUGUST 17, 2016 at 07:12 This is the theory I don’t understand. Firstly, only one team can win the league, and only one Scottish club gets a crack at qualifying for the Champions League. If Celtic qualify this season the rewards are huge…. If money really is all Celtic want, then CL qualification 3 years out of every 5 will bring far more rewards than a strong Rangers with the following wind of the media and whoever else behind them driving them on.
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Given the chatter coming out from UEFA about re-jigging the Champions League format again you would have to say that the days of any Scottish team having a chance to qualify for it are about to come to an end. It will reach the status the big boys from the big leagues have always wanted – a closed shop, a European football league. Thats where mad pursuit of money will ultimately take European football.
The rewards for qualification are huge, but only in the context of the Scottish game. It won’t give you funds to be able to set off on a sustained climb to Champions League victory. It will give you funds to romp to another SPFL title, but ultimately we all will still be falling further back from the massive teams from those big leagues. Whilst destroying competition in the domestic league.
The solution – forget the Champions League. Forget the Europa League, it will simply fill up with teams excluded from the Champions League. The so-called smaller leagues – Scotland, Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Portugal etc etc have to waken up. The big 4 have complete control over UEFA these days. UEFA no longer represents the majority, only the behemoths, its time to stop the rot and either hold UEFA to account or preferably tell them where to go and set up an alternative. An alternative where proper competition can flourish, proper european cup competitions – no leagues, no pre-qualification starting before the end of the season just past, no seeding, home and away knock out cups. Champions cup for champions, cup winners cup and another for the 2nd/3rd best in ALL leagues. Most importantly, decent spreading of the wealth and the understanding that all clubs are equal.
Thanks Finloch for a thoughtful and balanced piece. It was, and still is, a big disappointment to me that Rod Petrie played a significant part in the big lie. I’m glad he got a deserved mention in your piece. Though probably just a bit player in the whole farce he was perhaps representative of all the other club boards and Chairs that acquiesced. While it is convenient to have the Celtic Chairman and Board as scapegoats, I cannot get over the role my club, through Petrie, played in whitewashing the corruption of the game all for the sake of the so-called ‘blue pound’. In reality, when corruption goes unchecked, it breeds more corruption. I fear that corruption is now systemic within the game and a big turn off.
Tommy B
The mistake made was not getting in bed with the PLC, the mistake was going alone via solicitors in 2014 when the club, in spite of all the evidence accumulated as a result of acting with the PLC and getting some access to SFA as a result, pointed to Res12 being necessary.
This was the opposite reason to that given by Celtic for not supporting Resolution 12.
Why they didn’t is for them to explain to shareholders.
The full story when it comes out will be as damaging to the illusion that is our game than have been the attempts to protect it, no matter how well intended.
Tayred
You would think that a club, having gone out of business in pursuit of UEFA geld and an industry brought to its knees (and I include the media in that industry) as a result might have learned the lessons of that history.
Hell no. Let’s do it all over again.
As oil is to the oil industry so stupidity (insanity) is to football. (A quote from Soccernomics.)
“Nothing personal, it’s just business” is attributed to Otto Biederman, aka Otto ‘Abbadabba’ Berman. He was an accountant for American organised crime in the 1920s & 1930s.
Perhaps the SFA and/or SPFL should make that their motto?
It’s becoming more & more obvious as the days & months pass that the governing bodies (& their mouthpieces Regan & Doncaster) who represent member clubs, don’t give a rat’s bahookie about those with a personal, emotional involvement in the farrago that is Scottish football: the fans.
We’re lost: we’re bleeding out. The controllers of the sport don’t get it.
In the future, when Regan, Doncaster & the other major characters are asked what happened with the Ibrox implosion & its aftermath & why they didn’t do anything different when they could & should have, they can all reply, ‘It was nothing personal, it was just business. Emotion had no place in our decisions’.
Debated whether to post on yesterdays discussions or not – I hope you can indulge me one small post on this before returning to debating Finlochs excellent blog.
BP, the last thing any of us want is for you or Tris to “fold the tents”. However, surely, if anyone here who is a fan from any club spots something they perceive as wrong you would hope they would raise it for debate? We agree on most things, we disagree on some – nothing unusual there. This is the best site I have found for debate on Scottish football, but to suggest it doesn’t have a few issues would be wrong. They certainly ain’t unsurmountable, but to simply pretend they aren’t there is dangerous.
As BP suggested maybe there is some worth in taking the discussion on a wee bit further on the comment mod thread?
Finloch,
-A story on how and why Mr Lawwell consigned Res 12 to the deepest grass
-I’d sadly suggest Res12 was history before it was even raised
-I don’t know what will happen to Res 12
I have now read your contribution twice.I’m still not sure that I follow you.
Is the entire res 12 thing all over?
Are you and many others actually,seriously advocating the Celtic CEO spearhead a campaign to out the “cheats” at the SFA for allowing a Licence to Rangers when they should’nt?Really?
Have we had a definitive answer from UEFA?my understanding is this matter is still ongoing,subject to a concluding outcome,and is currently being handled by lawyers for the requisitioners and presumably for UEFA.
If that is the position at this time,then Lawwell will have been well advised to say little or nothing until we have a definitive conclusion,he would not be acting professionally otherwise.
There ate lots of conclusions being jumped on here
Im a little confused by the article and in particular this view:
“There is no doubt in my mind that in 2011 Peter and the Celtic Board were worried but supportive of and committed to keeping the Rangers company alive.
Looking back I don’t know when Lawwell and Desmond actually discovered de facto that Rangers should not have been awarded the license.
Was it before it was awarded?
Was it after by which time it was too late anyway?”
I believe the Resolution 12 Group are of the opinion and in agreement that the license was originally awarded correctly. And further to that belief, UEFA have confirmed to Resolution 12 Group in writing that “Any sanction envisaged by UEFA arising from the licensing submission made by Rangers FC and channelled through the SFA in June 2011 would not have applied until the following season.”
Given this information which the Resolution 12 group has released, the whole paragraph and to be honest premise of the piece aimed at PL and DD is wrong.
Good article Finloch.
The main thrust is that while Celtic were formed with community and charity at its heart the club has moved well beyond that.
Similarly the SFA and SPFL have also become money making enterprises and the principles of sporting integrity are often seen as a side issue to be put aside in favour of commercial interests, self preservation and large salaries.
On that basis you can see why T’Rangers are trying to put pressure on Regan and mounting yet another attack on Ashley.
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/14686892.Rangers_to_make_new___1m_damages_claim_over_allegations_Mike_Ashley_s_Sports_Direct_breached_trademark_use/?ref=mr&lp=2
Given that ‘business is business’ I note with interest that SMSM are suddenly able to dissect a companies accounts and highlight matters such as ‘going concern warnings’ but seem to shy away from commenting fully on the accounts of RIFC Plc and TRFC Ltd that clearly don’t add up in terms of where money is coming from for the known and unknown outgoings.
Auldheid, Thanks for your reply, I look forward to the day when everything is out in the open and acknowledged by the club, football authorities and msm.However I’m not holdin my breath.
NTDEALAugust 17, 2016 at 11:34
Finloch, -A story on how and why Mr Lawwell consigned Res 12 to the deepest grass -I’d sadly suggest Res12 was history before it was even raised -I don’t know what will happen to Res 12 I have now read your contribution twice.I’m still not sure that I follow you. Is the entire res 12 thing all over? Are you and many others actually,seriously advocating the Celtic CEO spearhead a campaign to out the “cheats” at the SFA for allowing a Licence to Rangers when they should’nt?Really? Have we had a definitive answer from UEFA?my understanding is this matter is still ongoing,subject to a concluding outcome,and is currently being handled by lawyers for the requisitioners and presumably for UEFA. If that is the position at this time,then Lawwell will have been well advised to say little or nothing until we have a definitive conclusion,he would not be acting professionally otherwise. There ate lots of conclusions being jumped on here
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It is indeed a bit early because Res12 is not history as in a matter of the past, but will be history in terms of what it eventually reveals about Scottish football and those running it and why they cannot be trusted.
The one thing about the UEFA response mentioned is that it puts to bed the idea that pursuit of Res12 had RFC as the target for sanctions, it never did for the reasons UEFA gave. It was and is about holding the SFA accountable and every reply obtained, even the prevarications, are a step in that direction.
It is interesting that UEFA saw the matter through the “West of Scotland” lens, (whoever gave them that idea?) and responded in that vein. Putting any issue of SFA governance, be it refereeing or setting up a Commission to achieve a desired result, into a West of Scotland/sectarian framework, has always been a tactic used by the SFA (and their friends in the media) to avoid true scrutiny.
It used to be a pint of paranoia but now it has been shown that supporters were not paranoid enough, its a heady mixture of obfuscation, prevarication, deflection and delay served in a tankard engraved “The Disingenuous Cup”.
The response back to UEFA, which has been delayed by a couple of bereavements, will ask UEFA to consider the SFA’s role throughout the process and the fitness for purpose of that process as it allowed a club on the verge of bankruptcy access to UEFA competitions under new UEFA rules designed precisely to stop such an event.
This is why Res12 asked UEFA CFCB to investigate and thereafter Res12 will have run its course.
The time for Celtic to say anything will be at the next AGM, not just on Res12 but also on LNS. By then folk will have enough information to make up their own minds if there is indeed a case for the SFA to answer, but one way or another there will be an account.
tayredAugust 17, 2016 at 08:47
“…………..The big 4 have complete control over UEFA these days. UEFA no longer represents the majority, only the behemoths……”
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This brings me rather nicely to the enigmatic (?) statement from Rodgers [as quoted in the ‘Scotsman’ this morning as part of his plea that UEFA should not ‘shut us out of Europe’].
He says ” …But surely it’s not all about the money. It’s also about the prestige and there has to be a door open-and a door open wide enough- for the type of clubs like Celtic and the great historical [my italics] clubs of European football”
(As variously posted above, there’s a lot of belief that for Celtic in relation to the Res 12 issue, it bloody was all about the money)
But can we interpret the absence of the ‘obligatory’ coupling of ‘Rangers’ with any mention of ‘Celtic’ as indicating that Rodgers personally does not include TRFC among the ‘great historical clubs’?
If so, stout chap.And if he can get his players to shut up “Rangers” being back, so much the better.
You make many good points about truth and news Finloch, but you have written opinion, supposition and assumption. Now a character assassination of Peter Lawwell as the second of the cheeks that starts with Murray may be what the good folks on here want to hear but does that advance the debate one iota.
if I want to hear unfounded opinion of what may or may not be in Lawwell’s head I can go to 100+ Celtic websites.
I come here for more than that.
JOHN CLARKAUGUST 17, 2016 at 13:41
Maybe being an apparently historically minded person, he was aware that if comparing histories in Europe that the achievements of Celtic and however a warped idea of RFC/TRFC he has, are dwarfed by the mighty Aberdeen with their magnificent haul of 2 Euro trophies.
🙂
tayredAugust 17, 2016 at 14:29JOHN CLARKAUGUST 17, 2016 at 13:41
Maybe being an apparently historically minded person, he was aware that if comparing histories in Europe that the achievements of Celtic and however a warped idea of RFC/TRFC he has, are dwarfed by the mighty Aberdeen with their magnificent haul of 2 Euro trophies.
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And a 100% win record against the mighty Real Madrid!
Good effort Finloch.
As a Celtic fan, I was ‘hopeful’ that PL would eventually do the right thing and speak up on behalf of all Scottish football.
Perhaps naive, but I am a bit disappointed – especially after there were rumours of something coming from Celtic ‘imminently’ about Res.12…which IIRC were circulating around ST renewal time.
PL has played a blinder and the Rodgers signing has also proved to be a massively helpful distraction, IMO.
But whilst I am not a huge fan of PL, it’s perhaps too easy to personalise frustrations.
The whole RFC/TRFC/SFA/SPL/SFL/SPFL shambles over the last 4+ years has been supported – if only implicitly – by ALL 44 senior clubs in Scotland.
PL was perhaps the only one person in Scottish football who could have stood up and said ‘enough’.
He didn’t, and he may regret that decision in his dotage…or he may continue to believe that the ends justified the means, when delivering acceptable financial results ?
The Requisitioners have done a great job in trying to force some honesty and transparency on the game.
But the 44 senior clubs just don’t seem to want that for the game – or for their customers.
StevieBC
As you know, it’s not an SFM thing to do personal attacks – except in the case of criminals, or proven liars.
I don’t think that Finloch’s piece is in any way a personal attack on Lawwell either. Lawwell is, like it or not, the public face of the Celtic boardroom, and sometimes the big bucks puts you in the firing line. He is a metaphor for the Celtic board.
In fact he is also a metaphor for all the boardrooms around the country who have stood by and allowed the game to be trampled over. Celtic are het in this instance, not because they are the biggest club left standing, but because they were impaled on the pointy end of a pike by The Requisitioners.
Jockybhoy
Is Finloch’s piece speculative? Yes I suppose it is. In the absence of nobody in any boardroom saying anything about this matter, we are left to intelligent inferences – and the odd off-the-record briefing.
I would refer you to an earlier illustration of how speculative it might be;
I have never been to Australia, so it’s only speculation for me that it exists. Pretty damn sure it does though. In fact I know it does.
In the end it all comes down to trust. I trust Finloch’s instincts, and I trust our sources.
[Edited]
Auldheid @ 13.12
Thanks for that,I feel Celtic will have their say when the time is right ie when enough information is out there and not before.
FFS T what rules
“I have never been to Australia, so it’s only speculation for me that it exists. Pretty damn sure it does though. In fact I know it does”
I have not been to Australia either but I have seen pictures of it, seen video footage of it including sound. I have met people who have been there and they have told me about it – first-hand eye-witness reports. From multiple sources. That I trust.
None of that is here – not a quote, not a recording, not an eye witness report. Look have a go a at Desmond – he has said what everyone seems to think Lawwell thinks and say in private – heck even infer that Desmond is pulling Lawwell’s strings if you want, at least it is based on a fact, but to say time and time again that Peter Lawwell is to blame purely because you (as a group) think he should be to blame or because he gets a big salary he should carry the blame is not what I understood this site to be about. And saying somethig often enough as we know, makes it true
Look I get it. People want Celtic to be the guys to throw the first stone, then they may or may not fall in behind because, well, someone else took the lead, took the risk. But I have said many times Celtic is in an invidious position – as the group best placed to benefit from the demise of Rangers and the ongoing issues at NewCo, Celtic is pretty much precluded from taking a lead. It would just reaffirm it’s a Glasgow thing, a rivalry, two cheeks etc. There’s a moral high ground and Celtic (and yes, Lawwell) occupy it squarely. Do we give up high ground for no material gain? No. Hence (and here we go) my opinion for the inaction.
Understandable IMO and unlikely to change IMO.
I think that most (if not all) clubs dread a visitation of “social unrest ” as they don’t have the wherewithal to defend themselves, and look to and look to the country’s premier club to stand up to the Scottish football establishment on their behalf . The media pay no attention to the diddy clubs anyway, and would probably poke ridicule at them should they raise their head above the parapet . The raised nail invites the hammer .
PTFC going for #1
jockybhoyAugust 17, 2016 at 18:17
‘….But I have said many times Celtic is in an invidious position –’
______I myself took that line quite forcibly in relation to the general cheating of RFC(IL) and the Football Authorities and the 5-way agreement etc etc.
And in the early days of the surfacing of the ‘licence’ issue, I frankly confess to not really understanding the issue and thinking it too remote and abstruse.
The continuing work by the Requistioners forced me to get to grips with the ‘technicalities’, and convinced me that there was/is a case for the SFA and the then RFC board to answer.
Even then, I accepted the smooth assurances by “Peter Lawwell, CEO” ,as passed on to us by the Requisitioners, that the Board was exploring the issue and blah blah blah.
I was drawn up short, though, when phrases like ‘statute of limitation’ began to be bandied about, and I got the feeling that the ‘Requisitioners’ had been being strung along to the point where the CEO could say ‘dash it! It’s too late for UEFA to prosecute!Sorry, chaps’, and breathe a deep sigh of relief.
To be conned by SDM, CW, CG and the rest of that crew of miserable wretches made me angry.
The possibility that I ( note the hubris) may have been conned by Peter Lawwell CEO makes me incandescent with rage.
The ‘invidious position’ was clearly no longer a factor to be considered once you had a plc with a serious matter raised by, not supporters, but shareholders, to consider .
If the argument was that the Resolution had been adjourned , and not voted upon and carried, and that the Board had therefore no obligation to act on it ( and no intention of so doing) then a bit of up-front honesty would have been appropriate.
And that commodity seems to be in as short supply at Celtic Park as it is on the 6th Floor at Hampden or at the top of the marble staircase.
Finloch’s observations are well made and to the point. And entertainingly, refreshingly and eloquently expressed.
If we ever refrain from speculation, we might as well shut up shop!
If it was just the case that we didn’t know the truth, and therefore made wild stabs just for the heck of it, then shutting up shop would be the honourable thing to do. But, sadly, it is not just the case that we don’t know the truth, we know that we are being lied to, by our clubs, the governors of the game and the MSM – and individuals from within the game.
So let’s not speculate, let’s write nothing that might force a reaction, because we don’t want to offend or insult those who, even if they are not lying to us themselves, could take the necessary action to out those who are, but they choose not to.
If the SMSM had, some few years ago, speculated about what was going on at Ibrox using the known knowns and a healthy dash of common sense, the truth might well have been outed, and our game would be in a much healthier state now. They didn’t speculate, they didn’t dare speculate, and when one of their number did, he ended up letting the story grind to a halt – with no explanation, leaving speculation our only option as we searched for the truth.
If anyone is offended by any speculation about their part in the big disgrace, here or elsewhere on social media, or in the MSM (if only), then they need only respond with their version of events, and we can make up our mind if it makes sense and is therefore truthful.
It’s a bit like discussing whether or not someone took a dive, without knowing what was in his mind, we can only speculate (by using the evidence of our eyes in this case) as to their intent, but, unless the offender tells us it was his intention to ‘win’ a penalty, we can never been truly sure! (Please don’t use this as a cause to start up the diving debate, it is only an example of how something quite obvious, can still only be speculated about).
“Irish Olympic Chief Patrick Hickey Arrested Over Ticket Touting”
http://news.sky.com/story/irish-olympic-chief-patrick-hickey-arrested-over-ticket-touting-10540517
===============================================
Olympic ideals.
FIFA Fair Play.
Boll*x !
AllyjamboAugust 17, 2016 at 19:52
‘…If we ever refrain from speculation, we might as well shut up shop!..’
_______
Indeed.
We simply cannot as thinking human beings NOT speculate about things which puzzle us. We wonder at the ‘why?’ and/or the ‘how?’ of things.
In the world of football, who didn’t wonder and speculate on the reasons why SDM could not find a buyer for RFC?
When we learned ( in my case, via Rangerstaxcase) about the potential tax bill, we speculated about how that came about.
When we heard of the pornographic struck-off lawyer’s wizard tax wheeze, we wondered how much the President of the SFA knew about undisclosed payments to players.
.And when we heard of Motherwell-born billionaires that nobody else had ever heard of, we continued to wonder and speculate… and began to wonder why the SMSM was not also ‘speculating’ and drawing conclusions.
Outside of football, I’m speculating like mad about the reasons why Aberdeen Council are not releasing their second internal report on how it came about that the bodies of babies were cremated with the bodies of unrelated adults. To protect ‘officials’? or to protect whichever local politician made a policy decision to issue directions to the officials?
And I am speculating , more generally, about why we allow, say, the Cabinet office, to lock away papers for 30, 40, or 75 years related to the deeds of government, as if the deeds of ‘government’ were not ( with the occasional honourable exception) the deeds of grubby self-serving politicians who are no better, wiser, moral than any of the rest of us.
We heap praise on those news reporters who dig away until they establish something like the truth.
We should equally vituperate those who do not.
Back in the world of football, and, indeed, of sport generally, only a fool would NOT speculate about the goings on: the SFA, UEFA, FIFA, the IOC (and the Irish OIC), Havelange, Platini, and Blatter and and and..
Only a fool, or an SMSM football hack- when the object to be speculated upon was SDM’s cheating RFC, and/or CG’s new club and its board and its ‘holding company’ board.
Speculation and the asking of hard questions to look for answers is a must , in any kind of democracy.
And when answers are not forthcoming from those of whom questions are asked, we are entitled to draw conclusions.
And, of course, obliged to correct or amend our conclusions in the light of new facts.
JOHN CLARKAUGUST 17, 2016 at 23:00
“And, of course, obliged to correct or amend our conclusions in the light of new facts.”
_______________
Which is the exact opposite of the SMSM, who print, not speculation, but PR guff written as fact, and then don’t acknowledge the error once the true facts are known.
Informed speculation is our antidote to PR!
Jockybhoy,17th August@18.17
I agree
I’ve made my point and I’ll leave it at that. BTW this isn’t having a go at Finloch, it’s a nicely written piece, or at anyone who commissioned him, but it is an ongoing theme I have picked up previously on here.
For the record, I am not against speculation – i happily wildly speculate with the best of you, in fact I speculate it’s probably the oldest human past-time – but I can’t be the only one in seeing the irony of complaining about made-up truth, made-up stuff becoming “facts” and complaining at the lack of a debate because people have made up their minds already, based on those perceoved “facts”; then writing an entirely speculative piece, which does exactly all that.
OK, am off to do some work and add up all my TDs. Think this is my record.
Jockybhoy,
Thanks for that. I don’t think anyone was suggesting that you were having a go at Finloch, but you make your point well.
As I said earlier, Peter Lawwell is not being attacked here – but I think it is reasonable that as the chief operating officer at Celtic, he will be in the firing line. There is certainly no abuse of him personally – and as I said earlier, he is more of a metaphor for the rest of Scottish football.
As far as speculation is concerned it is speculation in name only, because we have to protect our sources. It all comes down to trust. If I was betting on the veracity of the ‘speculation’, I’d be going all in – and I don’t know how to bluff.
After this blog, there have been accusations of anti-Celtic sentiment. During the course of the last one, we were accused of being pro-Celtic.
Perception is king of course, but after several years in the lifetime of this blog, we hope that most of our readers will at least believe that nothing has ever gone into this blog with any bad faith.
As I alluded to earlier, we weren’t in the room when discussions were ongoing about Res 12, but we are certain that we are correct in our conclusions. The Requisitioners WERE lied to – and at the risk of sounding smug, we knew that before they did, such was the trust they put in the club.
We didn’t arrive at those conclusions because we WANTED to single out Peter Lawwell or Celtic – and I think we have made it very clear that this is not the case.
As I said to Tayred last week, we have no problem with people disagreeing with each other on here, but a refusal to accept the good faith of each and every poster (with the obvious exception of trolls) is destructive.
Morning BP,
Given my name was thrown in there – I don’t think I can accuse the site of being either anti-Celtic or pro-Celtic. What makes SFM fun is you hear the viewpoints from both sides, whereas in your typical rabid fan site there is one viewpoint when it comes to rivals and that’s it. What I do feel is an… uhm struggling to find words and realise the wrong word could open a huge can of worms (and TD’s), lets say as its basis a difference in attitudes as to what is and what isn’t important multiplied by a few barriers thrown up very much along clubs lines.
There are undoubtedly more CFC fans here than there are of any other single club, such is the demographics of Scottish football. To that end I would say that is reflected in the barriers we have to attempt to overcome, there are equally reticent folks from all clubs represented here, sheer numbers mean there are more CFC fans fall into that group than any other. But! I would say its significantly less of a problem here than elsewhere. Debates can usually take place without anyone getting to het under the collar. There have been exceptions though, and often that falls to folks maybe being unaware of what they perceive to be a small problem is a major source of irritation to others.
Lets take Scott Brown for example. I don’t want this to break into another divegate, cheatgate argument, I just want to use this as an example. Brown called out a player in the press as being a cheat. I believe Forrest went down a little easily last night, I haven’t seen it, I have no opinion again this is just an example. If guilty, can we expect Brown to publicly point the finger at Forrest for this? No, of course not. But, if you are happy for your Captain to start flinging accusations and mud about can you not see how it riles opposition fans? Browns comment was poo poo’d in more than one post as unimportant, and trust me Brown is not a player that many opposition fans see as being a virtuous individual, cheat is not a term that goes unused against Mr Brown! Jokergate had a similar feel to the argument, many just cast it aside as an irrelevance. In the bigger scale perhaps it is largely an irrelevance, but add all these little irritations together and you end up with a large amount of bad feeling at what amounts to build up of incompetence and mis-governance that one section of SFM unilaterally decides just to ignore.
Hope that makes some sense…
Fabulous result by the way, even if it went a bit brown trousers early 2nd half!
I’ve read on here several times, from fans outwith the 2 large Glasgow clubs, that the media are obsessed with ‘Old Firm’ and have scant regard for the rest of Scottish clubs.
I was having a look at the links on News Now and came across this one:
“Transfer News Live. Latest rumours and done deals from Celtic and Rangers plus the rest of the SPFL.”
(Daily Record.)
Why mention Celtic & Rangers? Why not just say Transfer News from the SPFL?
I know, I know it’s the demographic, but they could try a bit harder to be less disrespectful.
Anna Politkovskaya
“The duty of doctors is to give health to their patients, the duty of the singer to sing, and the duty of the journalist is to write what this journalist sees in reality.”
She paid with her life for writing what she saw in reality.
————————————————————————————————–
In the early seventies I read the following book by Vance Packard, originally published in 1957. The link below is to a pdf version.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261641698_The_Hidden_Persuaders_Then_and_Now
This extract is from chapter 19 The Engineered Yes
“The public is enormously gullible at times.”
—The Public Relations Journal
Judge Learned Hand expressed himself as being enormously disturbed
by the growth of professional publicists in our society. He
called publicity “a black art” but agreed it had come to stay.
“Every year adds to the potency, to the finality of its judgments,” he said:-
By the fifties some of our publicist-persuaders, feeling their
power, were no longer content with such bread-and-butter chores
as arranging publicity and helping their company or client maintain
a cheerful, law-abiding countenance to present to the world.They were eager to get into mind-molding on the grand scale.
As one P.R. counselor, G. Edward Pendray, stated:
“To pubic-relations men must go the most important social engineering role of them all—thegradual reorganization of human society, piece by piece and structure by structure.”
Then, around 2010, I read Flat Earth News – Nick Davies.
Part one is where the Anna Politkovskaya quote comes from.
On the back of the book there is an acknowledgement by Ian Hislop
‘A must read for anyone worried by journalism which on this analysis, should be everyone’
Last word
“A cynical, mercenary,demagogic,corrupt press will produce in time a people as base as itself”
Joseph Pulitzer
TSFM, keep asking the questions!
Palastine flags at Celtic Park. Why?
No place in football or not? Did the PLF not fund the IRA in the past so leading to the mindless display? Not condoning or condemning either we have to consider whether a football game is a legitimate platform for political statements? I would prefer not but others may disagree? Racism at football is rife in many eastern European Cities and we condemn it but they are making a political statement. Sorry been at the boozer! Feel free to say I am talking s@ite
Hi Borderson , I hope you enjoyed your evening. I was going to attempt an expansive reply but my fathers words echoed in my mind ..”dont discuss politics and religion son”….and for some you may substitute football for either of the aforementioned.
bordersdonAugust 18, 2016 at 21:14
A lot of terror groups are discreetly assisted by monies from Governments (ISIS ?). I hope you get a lot of TU’s for the lucidity of your post . Well done , that man .
Sometimes Mark Warburton comes in for a wee bit of flack from Celtic supporters, not anywhere near hatred, but most of it is generated by the Scottish media’s constant fawning over him as the greatest thing since sliced bread
. He is asked about everything under the sun ” what will the weather be like tonight?” sort of thing.
Last season especially the comparisons between the reporting on MW and RD was profound. Rangers manager = good, Celtic manager = bad.
Now I am happy that Ronny has moved on and we now have a different type of manager.
But today I am in full agreement with Mark Warburton. In an interview with the Daily Mail he was asked if he was worried about the prospect of Celtic going through to the group stages of the CL and the rewards that will bring. The effect on Celtic’s transfer budget. His answer was basically you can pick up a gem of a player for nothing or next to nothing. That is so true, Celtic have done it often enough.
On the other hand you can spend millions and get a dud, once again Celtic have done that many times.
His philosophy is that you have to look very deeply, do your research on your targets to get it right, that is the position he is in and it is the same for most clubs in Scotland who don’t have a warchest.
But it also applies to Celtic. In the past 4 seasons the decisions about transfers seemed to be outwith the control of the manager. Both Ins & Outs. I think PL read some American book about ‘How to make money in Sport without really trying’ Buy ‘projects’ and hope for the best.
But this time it is different. BR is nobody’s puppet, he only brings in players that he wants.
The same as Mark Warburton!
TAYREDAUGUST 18, 2016 at 11:22 TU 36 TD 127
The most I’ve had for a wee while! I wonder how many thumbs down I would have got if I had mentioned Palestine!!?
Did our twit of a national team manager really say this last night on BT?? If so he must be getting trained by the same PR guru as Doncaster.
“Brendan is here for Champions League football. There’s fixtures in the Scottish Premier League that you just have to put up with and deal with, that’s the way it is. Sometimes that’s not very exciting”
BORDERSDONAUGUST 18, 2016 at 21:14 22 154 Rate This
Palastine flags at Celtic Park. Why?No place in football or not? Did the PLF not fund the IRA in the past so leading to the mindless display? Not condoning or condemning either we have to consider whether a football game is a legitimate platform for political statements? I would prefer not but others may disagree? Racism at football is rife in many eastern European Cities and we condemn it but they are making a political statement. Sorry been at the boozer! Feel free to say I am talking s@ite
———————-
Could someone please answer the question here.
Palastine flags at Celtic Park. Why?
I really have no idea, maybe been out the country too long.
TAYRED
‘I don’t think I can accuse the site of being either anti-Celtic or pro-Celtic.’
I agree wholeheartedly, and appreciate the efforts and interventions of Tris, BP and the other mods.
I do still believe the comments of the national captain, and those you raise re the national manager require an airing.
That both statements were made against a Celtic background, does not make questioning it anti-Celtic, equally the responses should not be of the ‘wading in to defend’.
Keep asking the questions, still no reported comment from Paul Hartley re game changing decision, that cost his side the chance to play 10 men. Or have I missed it?
Wow indeed, maybe I was wrong. Above debate? I’ll roll up my tent.
JOBURGT1M and Tayred
I happen to agree with the cause but I go to football to see the football and for a little bit of escapism. The problem I’d have if I was a Celtic fan is that this small group is being seen as representing the views of all fans. And, while UEFA, like FIFA and the IOC, are hugely arrogant in trying to control people’s right to express opinion in order to to serve their commericial paymasters is galling, this same small group at Celtic Park continue to damage their club by doing so.
Anyway, more information about their motivation and beliefs here: http://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/sport/sport-opinion/celtic-fans-showed-solidarity-people-11767772
In the same vein, why do the people fighting with supporters of the Palestinian cause outside Central Station on Wednesday past think that wearing Rangers tops is relevant?
I think somebody has been at the madam with the ratings? Abuse like that might be the best opportunity ever to persuade all the mods to get rid of them 🙂
Also some posts here designed to wind people up. Please don’t do that.
Other posts are concerned with how others react to certain topcis. Pretty sure that the implicit criticism of people’s views contained in that will make it a self-fulfilling prophesy.
The Palestine debate is actually an interesting one concerned with the whole issue of politics in sport. Personally, I think politics at a football match is a big turn-off (if I agree with the cause) and anathema (if I don’t).
The exception is where the politics is concerned with the sport itself. For me as a Celtic fan, that would (on first inspection), give the Palestine thing a TU, but the Irish thing a TD.
What is important in this debate – as in any debate – is that the views of people are accepted as being genuinely held and not only as part of some other agenda. That’s one if the key characteristics of this site – that we accept people in good faith. An absence of that makes discussion impossible and important issues become lost in the background noise.
Changed the ratings style. If they remain the subject for debate, I think we need to look long and hard at how useful they actually are.
I’m around to the view that they prevent people from contributing.
Could any comments be addressed to the moderation thread please?
ta
The distinguishing feature of SFM is that it expressly tries to avoid being a simple(in more than one sense of the word!) one-club-fans’ football blog.
The reason for that is that the evils that the blog focuses on are such as would destroy all clubs if not checked, by destroying the very idea that Scottish football may be clean and free from cheating by individuals, whether players or owners, and cheating and rigging by the ‘Football Authorities’.
We have had the horrendous, cold-blooded , systematic football cheating by SDM:
We have had strong allegations with apparently evidence in support of the cheating by the SFA by misleading UEFA about the debt situation of SDM’s/CW’s RFC:
We have had the ridiculous nonsense of the 5-way agreement:
We have had the most ludicrous lie ever spouted by any football or other sports body- that a liquidated sports club which is still legally alive in its Liquidation is somehow the very identical four-year-old club founded as SevcoScotland by CG:
And perhaps worst of all, we have had what appears to have been and continues to be the more or less concerted attempt by the SMSM print media and the radio media (including ,at high level, the BBC in the shape of Radio Scotland) not only to refuse to engage in any kind of journalistic investigation into these matters but to accept and promote the overall Big Lie.
These are issues where any kind of ‘whataboutery’ arguments are wholly irrelevant: enormous cheating by one specially favoured club owner, caught bang to rights in terms of Football Governance rules, and possibly caught bang to rights by HMRC: even worse cheating by the Football Authorities in terms at least of the disgraceful 5-way agreement, and with very heavy suspicions about collusion and covering up of that cheating: and even worse, de facto support and propagation of untruths by the SMSM.
Nothing that any other club has done can be compared in scale or wickedness to those offences against Sport and the Integrity of Sport.
Sectarian singing? Bad. Political banners? Bad. Racism? Bad.Firecrackers and flares?Bad. Kettling of fans? Bad.Players insulting each other or other managers? Bad. Leagues structured and re-structured, fixtures arrange/disarranged without any regard to the needs and legitimate expectations of fans?Bad. And many more issues.
And of course, all of that needs to be deprecated and dealt with.
But nothing can be as bad as a sports body that has lost all moral authority by its own dishonesty. Except a Press and BBC that complacently and, indeed, aggressively, supports that failed authority.
I will do what I can to support honest Football, administered and played in absolute accordance with all the high-flown idealism of UEFA’s ‘eleven key values’.
And I will do what I can to help this blog stay multi-club supported in our attempts to get Scottish Football Governance held to account for the dreadful mess their partisanship/ commercial greed/ personal fear/personal involvement/ misplaced social obligations/personal complicity/ incompetence [delete any which do not apply] created, and to have grave errors corrected.
We are, of course, all of us, football supporters with our own allegiances. And I think we do quite wonderfully well in keeping the ‘whataboutery’ element to a minimum, most of us knowing that on the pitch, lots of little ( sometimes not so little) acts of cheating go on,and that off the pitch, any player is capable of doing or saying unwise, undiplomatic things ( perhaps at the instigation of the press).
The hope would be that such a climate of trust in the integrity of the game and its administration can be restored that even that kind of on-field cheating and off-field winding-up can be dealt with absolutely even-handedly.
For that to happen, though, the Truth about the consequences of the cheating of SDM and RFC(IL)and the origins of TRFC has to be squared up to, whatever kind of dirt that throws up about the involvement and complicity of anyone in football governance at the material times.
FAO John Clark’s Court Diary
LORD GLENNIE – K Ramsay, Clerk
Wednesday 24th August
By Order at 9.00am
P1140/15 Note: HMA for Order re failure to comply re Craig Whyte – COPFS
———————————–
I assume that this is the formal notification to the affected parties, of the decision re Whyte’s loss of memory.
There will be no written judgement issued until the criminal proceedings have been completed.
JOHN CLARKAUGUST 19, 2016 at 12:06
I wanted to hold my tongue for the rest of the day before BP and Tris get well and truly sick of me but….
I agree with everything you say there John. Absolutely everything. But, where we might disagree with importance of scale. We have the war to fight sure, but there are numerous small battles and skirmishes that will need to be faced up to along the way. Bad is bad – if something is bad then it should be tackled, not ignored or put to the side for another day.
I actually don’t see any whataboutery in any recent posting, and in fact whataboutery is something that has thankfully been missing for a while now you mention it!
I too desperately share in the desire that this be a multi-club site. I no doubt have come across as a noisy and annoying person of late (and maybe once or twice in the past!) but its only because I care about this place. I have never knowingly met any of you, getting all sentimental here
, folks like yourself would be a big miss from my daily life. Like Reiver, I considered just folding my tent, I’m really not someone that enjoys being Mr Grumpy, but I decided I value this place too much to do that walking away thing (besides coming here has also become an addiction). That I am so noisy of late is because I saw a problem and its a problem that some other posters have also highlighted, while others including one or two major characters in SFM, seemed happy to relegate it as an irrelevance.
Right, I’m gonna try and be quiet now (that at least must be worth a few thumbsup).
easyJamboAugust 19, 2016 at 12:07
‘..FAO John Clark’s Court Diary’
______
Yes, eJ.I was wondering whether there would be an ‘open court’ deliverance of the judgment, given that, as I recall, the judgment was not to made ‘public’.
I’ll turn up anyway, all being well, to see if it is delivered in open court, or ( as I think I remember in another case) delivered to Counsel in chambers: at least, that was what I told at the time).
tayredAugust 19, 2016 at 12:36
‘…I have never knowingly met any of you, getting all sentimental here…’
_______
tayred, start lobbying BP to get another symposium organised!
It does make a difference, no matter how indefinable, when you can put a face to the nom-de-plume and see and hear the fundamental honesty that lies behind the written opinions of posters.
JOHN CLARKAUGUST 19, 2016 at 13:07 tayred, start lobbying BP to get another symposium organised!
and then there is that seductress Jean Brodie…! 
_______
Ah, but I’d be scared it might ruin the image I have of people – I’d be devastated if it turned out you weren’t the dashing and debonaire hero I picture in my head
Interesting stuff today. Jolien Lescott being reported on BBC as having failed his medical and will not be joining Rangers. However, Lescott’s agent has taken to Twitter and stated ‘Well that was a complete waste of time and effort’. Sky meanwhile are reporting that Lescott rejected Rangers offer, and the Aston Villa Chairman has also taken to Twitter to state ‘Sky is right this time. No problem with medical check’.
So the question is, who is telling the truth? I know who my money’s on, and perhaps the BBC would be better trying to verify for themselves.
upthehoopsAugust 19, 2016 at 14:33
What we do know is that someone has put out there that Lescott has fitness/medical problems. Bad enough for his prospects of finding a new club/AV getting rid of him, if true, but if not true, if being used to cover the truth because the truth will make TRFC look bad/less than big, just how disgusting is that? And is it actionable?
Clearly someone has upset someone in the negotiations, otherwise a much more neutral excuse would have been published.
ALLYJAMBOAUGUST 19, 2016 at 15:05
============================
The Aston Villa Chairman has publicly stated Lescott had no problems with his medical. If that is definitely NOT the case then there would be no issue with the Rangers Chairman publicly refuting it. I expect there will be more to come about this.
Now I am going to speculate, which we all got permission to do the other day
Did the bean counters at Ibrox ever have any intention of signing this player or was it a PR exercise for which Waburton was used in the belief he was going to get him?
ALLYJAMBOAUGUST 19, 2016 at 15:05…
Clearly someone has upset someone in the negotiations, otherwise a much more neutral excuse would have been published.
======================
Absolutely, AJ !
A player has a medical, and IMO whatever the result, it should remain medically confidential.
So, if he fails, then a neutral / other reason is given for not signing. Easily done for the benefit of both parties.
To state/allege – and I’m sure the SMSM ‘sources’ will never be confirmed – that Lescott has failed the medical could effectively end his career now.
But not all clubs have the same, standard medical requirements anyway.
IIRC, John Hatson failed a medical with RFC, but was signed by CFC anyway.
A wild guess on the real story could be that TRFC tried to be cute and moved the goalposts at the last minute, thinking Lescott would feel emotionally committed at that point, and worried that time was running out for him to sign for another club.
However, his agent has advised Lescott to tell TRFC to “go away”.
Would be nice to get further details from Lescott and his agent, but I guess they probably conduct themselves with more decorum in public than a certain club – and they will not elaborate further…mibbees ?
With all the smoke of big signings over the last few days over Ibrox way it seems to have gone unnoticed that there has been a removal of the Puma Logo from training shirts, Interview Backdrop Boards and parts of the TRFC Website. Is there a stushie brewing between the Sevco bigwigs and the Puma Boardroom guys? Anyone like to SPECULATE?
upthehoops August 19, 2016 at 15:18
ALLYJAMBOAUGUST 19, 2016 at 15:05
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Roberto Di Matteo has stated that the player couldn’t agree terms in his press conference.
https://www.avfc.co.uk/News/2016/08/19/rdm-derby-county-press%20conference
Quick check of SMSM and a couple of quotes with my highlighting;
“Rangers’ proposed move for Aston Villa’s Joleon Lescott is off after the defender failed his medical, BBC Scotland understands.”
http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/37132034
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“…There are reports he failed his medical…”
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-transfer-news/joleon-lescott-move-ibrox-rangers-8663531
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Level42 anyone ?
EASYJAMBOAUGUST 19, 2016 at 16:19
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Thanks EJ. I really do think the BBC have a duty to check the facts on this, otherwise we might believe they are simply repeating PR on behalf of Rangers!
I am still speculating whether the Ibrox board ever intended to sign him, despite sending Warburton down to speak to him.
tayredAugust 19, 2016 at 13:19
…and then there is that seductress Jean Brodie…!
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You have just excluded me from all meetings as I want to maintain that image!!
The BBC could check facts, I suppose, or they could go the route STV has chosen & offer the three scenarios (or scenarii) of medical/terms/family for the reader to pick from.
UPTHEHOOPSAUGUST 19, 2016 at 16:49…
I am still speculating whether the Ibrox board ever intended to sign him, despite sending Warburton down to speak to him.
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If that was the case, then seriously p!ssing off Warburton would be the expected outcome.
that Warburton – and the Board – acted in good faith at the outset.
I would ‘speculate’
But maybe someone on the Board thought it would be a wheeze to force a renegotiation at the last possible moment – but their bluff has been called ?
Either way, Warbs will not be a happy bear, IMO.
Will anyone in the Blue Room do walking away ?
Have you seen this? Copied direct from the St Johnstone webpage. So St Johnstone can no longer sell to their own fans just because the away team have sold out their allocation?? Ludicrous!
5.25 pm BBC Scotland sports summary:Lescott’s transfer is reported merely as having ‘fallen through'”. No further elaboration.
Just what are they like? Herr Goebbels would have been proud to have bought them.