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Everyone on this site has football experiences, views, stories and opinions. Everyone also wants things to be better in the future too. These are bonds that make us who we are and this forum what it is.
I’ll share a few experiences with you now.
I will never forget an impromptu and inspirational 60 minute Q. and A. masterclass by Davie MacParland to a group of relative youngsters at Hampden in 1975 after Scottish Unis had played a friendly with his team.
It was “over the moon Brian” time for me on finding a £5 note in my shoe. This was after I played my first game (unexpectedly) as an S form in the Highland League when my club’s Aberdeen-based players had been held up by a road incident.
So happy and corrupted was I that I never questioned the widespread practice of giving money to amateur players thereafter so I’m part of the problem.
I also sat next to a young Jim Leyton who came to Butchart to watch himself on a match video after he had let in two goals when we dumped Deveronvale (where he was on loan) out of the Aberdeenshire Cup. It was the very early days of video and Jim had never seen himself on a tv before.
Every person in the SFM community will have equally diverse and interesting experiences and I’m going to share one more with you now in a little more detail.
In the mid 90s I was given an amazing insight into how Scottish football really worked. In many ways it hasn’t changed much since.
Back then I was part of a small group brought in to help find funding for the upgrade of Tynecastle with the urgent need to construct three new stands. At the time it was a massive requirement for a very financially challenged organisation and at a push there were potentially just about enough pots of monies available from several sources to trigger the investment from the Football Trust and squeak over the line.
The most critical pot was mobilising the fans.
My role was to find a way of getting them to come aboard working with some fine lifetime Hearts fans like the late Alex Kitson so it would all look like a Hearts Community rather than a Mercer initiative.
The then, colourful Hearts majority owner was under constant pressure on other fronts at the time.
The team was not really performing with relatively new manager Jim Jeffries trying to get best out of predecessor Tommy Mclean’s mixed bag of old pros and kids. Making things worse was a growing, highly critical and very vocal consortium of local business people trying to get Mercer out (and themselves in).
I guess you could say in today’s parlance that they were RHM and civil war was very much happening down Gorgie way.
Anyway I can’t now recall all the detail and apologies if my memories have fused a little but a key AGM type meeting for Hearts shareholders at Ingliston was coming up and there was an agenda that looked like it might hurt “The Chairman” as Wallace liked to be called.
Never any flies on him though, he had seen the danger signs and was ready in his own way.
He turned up with his trusted few and simply yet quite brilliantly hijacked the negative agenda and ignored the real issues. He didn’t have a solution for them and couldn’t implement the changes that were in reality needed but quite simply he kicked all the trouble into the long grass.
He did this because he fundamentally understood that most shareholders in the room were just ordinary football fans and wanted nothing more than to be able to talk about football the game, Hearts their club, who they were due to play next and who would be playing.
It was that simple.
Mercer’s message to all that night was “Yes things have been tough but our best possible future is with me”.
He rammed this home by confidently telling the assembled body that Hearts were on the up because we had a new manager who needed time and then blew everyone away by announcing he just signed three amazing new players for them, Giles Rousset, Bruno Pasquale and Hans Eskilsson. After the applause and mayhem died down he had won.
Bruno and Rousset were newsworthy in any Scottish football context one being a French International and the other an ex Juventus tough guy with a EUFA and a couple of Coppa Italia winners medals.
Oh and Eskilsson had amazing hair.
Mercer’s simple bit of insight, showmanship, brinksmanship, call it what you like, led to the survival of his regime.
In a parallel maybe to what the SFA did after their meeting with Craig at the Hotel Du Vin in Glasgow, Mercer had enough time to be ready for the trouble he knew was coming and used his power to ignore the real issues and the detail and move on with a big gamble.
Looking back Wallace got a lot right .
He understood what the majority of ordinary football fans wanted. He’d also learnt that good press was needed and came from feeding the football writers enough tasty exclusives so they’d look after him in a symbiotic relationship, the kind of relationship that remains much the same today.
Even back then in the days when there were less full-colour pages pre-allocated to certain teams to fill and more able journalists to fill them, the sports pages were about game reports and gossip rather than insight.
The packs of hacks all craved being handed tasty semi-exclusive stories.
It was and ever is thus and in those days the Daily Record was a wee gem with circulation nearer 700K than the 200K-ish today and amazingly all its costs were covered by it’s advertising revenue alone. The proud boast of Endell Laird was the purchase price was pure profit.
With hindsight Wallace may only have postponed the inevitable campaign by the RHM rebels that night at Ingliston. History tells us that the Robinson/Deans rebellion eventually forced their chance. They did have to dig much deeper financially than they ever wanted when their time eventually came, and soon fell out too, but that’s another story.
Wallace’s long grass was just never going to be deep enough to hide the issues he wanted to ignore but to his credit on his watch the stadium was upgraded and the first Scottish Cup since 1956 was paraded to the fans.
Mr. Mercer was an operator who like others before and since could see personal and business value in owning a club.
He cultivated friendly football writers.
He learned that the SFA could be difficult to deal with but much less so when you placed people on their various management boards. That was key to the inner power sanctums and brought you at best influence and at worst early warnings.
He may have been autocratic but knew you needed powerful friends at other clubs too and was always close with David Murray in particular.
So what has this little piece of retrospection and a handful of Finloch football stories got to do with a blog on SFM?
Last week I met Big Pink for the first time over a few coffees.
It was like meeting an old friend in the pub because of all the stuff we’ve lived through and shared over the last 5 or so years.
We talked about stuff and traded stories and opinions on life, football and about SFM what it does and what we are.
We got on to the subject of it’s future and with my business background he asked me to consider a piece for the blog about where the SFM, our fledgling business might go from here.
I maybe agreed too hastily because I have found it challenging to gather and spell out my thoughts.
So this is very much a starting couple of steps to bring in the SFM minds and set up future discussions following this blog and when we meet in Perth in April.
My starting point was to first consider what we are today.
It’s a personal view but to me SFM is a valued medium I come to most days. It’s for when I want to find out or to discuss what is happening.
It is populated with a bunch of people with different backgrounds, skills and insights, is always polite and often very funny.
I’d actually like to see more headline blogs because I enjoy them but our biggest value will always be analysis discussion and good humour.
SFM is fundamentally different to the MSM back pages that still offer us all a mono diet of whatever day-to-day gossip they have been spoon-fed by the Level 9’s of this world or made up and maybe embellished with a random phone call for a quote.
Yes their world is declining and will inevitably see fundamental restructure and change but that change has in reality nothing to do with how they cover and will continue to cover Scottish football.
I’d even posit (to use a wee word I’ve learned from the excellent JJ site I visit sometimes) that the red tops currently see their style of football coverage as a way of slowing their inevitable declines because it delivers the difficult to reach male audience their advertisers crave access to.
As a spectator I’d say the MSM in Scotland mostly seem to suffer from a polarised demographic focus/ bias too but that can never excuse their revisionism or the Spiers and Haggerty episodes we’ve just witnessed.
There is one benefit though. One you maybe hadn’t thought about from all the dreadful MSM football reportage.
The stuff they collectively generate enables all of us to have daily conversations with friends and strangers without actually saying anything about anything.
It gives us our daily top-up for the international language of football minutiae we all converse in every day.
I’ve been able to speak it fluently since I was in my teens. You know the kind of thing – the ins and outs, the ups and downs, the comings and goings and the toings and froings.
The good news, the bad news the made-up news – its all part of being involved with a team or indeed just being a football fan and it’s all conversation for the males of our species.
There are plenty of places I can and do get access to that kind of stuff but SFM isn’t and never has been a source.
I quickly found out that most of my pals don’t want to talk about side letters in the pub on a Friday, or the need for asterisked titles because they are more interested in tomorrow’s match and who will be out of contract at the end of the season.
Without being disrespectful in any way I think they are cut from the same wood as the majority of Mr. Mercer’s Hearts shareholders and if I’m honest part of me is too.
That has given our administrators and clubs too easy a ride.
Beyond the gossip it is fair to say in the last 40 or 50 years football has changed beyond all recognition.
It has become a source of power and money and as we know proverbially and in real life power can corrupt and money can be the root of all-evil.
The stuff happening at FIFA now can be no surprise to any fair-minded fan and I’d be inclined to think that there have been finagled decisions at the top for longer than the current stewardship of Mr. Blatter.
Way longer.
Football-land is a dirty world. A world where all the transparency is for show and real stuff has always been controlled and rewarding for those in the right places.
Closer to home football in Scotland is no different. Power and money have been the origins of our own North of the Border soap opera saga.
Its sometimes been very funny, often been entertaining too but is ultimately tragic and a sad indictment on our country.
Being Scotland nothing is ever as simple as it should be.
We started from a unique kind of place where for over a century we have had to live with an unhealthy, quasi-tribal, two-club duopolistic domination of all things football including the fans, the trophies, the money, the media attention and the administrators controlling our game.
The stark reality of 2016 is our biggest club/economy now finds its real ambitions thwarted, potentially forever, by its location in our restrictive league structure. It has nowhere currently to go and annoyingly the biggest league in the world is just over the border and part of the same country in political terms.
This is a destabilising influence on our game that won’t go away until change allows the next evolution.
Our second biggest economy as we now know had to cheat a little to keep up, post Fergus, and is now making its way back to the top end but with some truly nuclear baggage that I guess we still really only know the half of. Nothing will be simple in its return to what we’re told everyday is its rightful place. It too is a latent destabilising influence awaiting like a grumbling volcano.
What depresses me is the fact that the much-vaunted return of our dysfunctional duopoly is not a formula to recreate the European success we all took for granted for so long. Those days will never return.
The decline of the Scottish giant that was and is Rangers has dominated our thoughts because it encapsulates so much more than what is wrong with our game.
It is a huge business and establishment fall from grace. A shocking story that has become an elephant in the room to our politicians, our media and many of our fellow fans and is still playing out to deafening silence in some quarters.
In the manic run up to the decline of David Murray’s club we benefitted from insights from the seminal RTC and were bombarded with mass denials from almost everywhere else.
We witnessed the £1 sale to Craig Whyte, the subsequent McCoist European failure, the eventual slide into messy liquidation with tax issues etc.
Our administrators failed us all the way through because they had a different agenda.
Our MSM didn’t want to know partly because it involved more than regurgitating press releases and partly because it was real news for real reporters and not back pages gossip.
Their editors failed us there too, big time.
Now the revisionism and invention of the post-liquidation ephemeral club and company scenarios has been creative to say the least.
I remember Mr. Traynor’s initial headline and smile how he and others are now wading in a contradictory swamp of their own making. It’s all confusion when it needn’t be.
I only know the kind of stuff that really happened because of this site and its RTC predecessor.
Four or five years on and I think these guys (SFA, SPFL) acted like Wallace Mercer did at Ingliston and ran roughshod over process to “win”.
These well paid admin staff were never off-piste though and our clubs share complicity for their actions to varying degrees.
If I was Regan’s or Doncaster’s devil’s advocate I could just about comprehend that they acted because they feared for their TV revenues. The prospect of being without half of their duopoly ace card and the blue fans scared them and they were mandated by the clubs to maintain the status quo.
I don’t mean all the clubs but if we look at the key committee structures we’ll easily see who were in that inner sanctum at the time. They collectively decided to throw their rulebook out the window and there is no grass long enough to bury their collective actions because truth always outs.
Cast yourself back a few years not long before the St Valentine’s day 2012 news when the push was all for a 10 club league.
I remember Stewart Milne aggressively trying to sell us all a 10-club league because of the TV revenue it delivered (to the few).
At that time there seemed to be a collective “TV Gold Fever” prevailing in the cabal of top club chairmen that makes the real decisions and tells our administrators what to do.
Luckily they failed.
They nearly failed again too in 2012 with their tawdry 5 way agreement and we all owe a debt of gratitude to the late Turnbull Hutton whose personal integrity, bloody-mindedness and leadership meant a significant change to the premeditated 5 way plan that our top clubs had all signed off.
Since then we’ve all suffered from Armageddon and long may it stay.
SFM has been at the forefront of the last five years. A place where fans from all the clubs come together to question, analyse, give insight, balance, consciousness on all aspects of the meandering road that has been this story so far.
It’s all recorded on our archives somewhere too. We’ve noted and discussed the following and more –
- Two different signatures from the same club on the 5-way agreement
- Two different and concurrent memberships of the SFA
- Players TUPE-ing for free and no lawyers getting rich in trying to get them back
- Pre-season games being cancelled because of registration and insurance issues
- The Brechin game coming too soon for the paperwork
- The entry-round in The Ramsdens Cup for the old club or is it the new club?
- Record crowds, an even more aggressive songbook
- Ian Black getting a surprise call-up and a bit of a game to legitimise The New Rangers with their first cap
- Millions raised from a gullible city and desperate fans but still several last gasp saves needed to avoid new financial stramashes
- A charity that pays for holidays in America
- Quasi-legal stuff with dodgy parameters for questionable enquiries like Nimmo Smith
- Bryson and his logic that Spartans could and should have used to stay in the cup
- A “Hopelessly Conflicted Chairman” re-elected and a new one who has fitted in seamlessly
- Real legal stuff like HMRC appeals, and phrases like side-letters
- Charlotte Fakes and maybe even Fake Charlotte Fakes
- Fit and proper persons running our clubs
- Recorded conversations
- Onerous contracts
- Metaphysical concepts of what football clubs in our courts with big bucks being spent on our behalf by our administrators
There is and has been a whole lot more and more to come on the schedules too.
How much of this would I have found on our MSM?
Very little – so thanks to those who go the extra mile for us including John Clark, EasyJambo and others at the courts, Phil who will never go away, James Doleman and others too including JJ – all playing blinders where the hacks don’t dare.
Finally fast-forward to today.
Most Scottish fans probably know a little about the stuff I’ve touched upon and we’ve debated in depth. Not enough though.
But we have Darryl Broadfoot who is the SFA so we can all sleep rest assured each night.
Going forward we must address how we communicate as a medium to spread the word.
Ask yourself – Is what we do more important than knowing Rangers signed Dean Windass’s son from Accrington Stanley on a free because he’s going to play for England one day and stuff like that?
I’d say it is different although both have a place.
Our challenge is to create more impact with ours.
In finishing I have one serious starting proposal to make as a community but first a thank you.
Thank you to all the blog writers and posters because we have collectively created a site where real stuff can be dissected and discussed politely and in a non-partisan way.
Well done to the mods in particular and to our community In general
My simple proposal as our first step forward is to start a Wikipedia style library of the facts and keep it on our site.
Dates, happenings, people and all the stuff that will not allow any of it to stay buried forever in the long grass. The kind of detail that is in Auldheid’s amazing and resolute Resolution 12.
Chapter and verse whys and wherefores with dates and names.
This will achieve three things.
- It will create bedrock for us as a trusted media channel whatever we decide to become.
- It will put stuff factually into the public domain forever.
- It will contradict any highly paid revisionists trying to change what really happened for their own agendas into the future.
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Why did you set a trap for a fellow poster ?
“MARK WARBURTON’S side were seconds away from clinching the sought-after promotion back to the top-flight but a 94th minute goal postponed the party.”
(Daily Record, Alan Clark).
As I mentioned this morning Alisdair Lamont’s piece on the BBC proves that it is possible to write an article about TRFC without mentioning the ‘return to the premiership’ or ‘demotion 4 years ago’.
As we can see in the opening sentence of the Daily Record article they find it impossible not to mention ‘the return’.
They want us to ‘move on’ but continually antagonise many fans by resorting to this type of reporting. It’s cheap and sensationalist, which we could expect from the tabloids but the so called quality broadsheets are equally as bad.
It’s quite simple really, make no mention of demotions or returns. Why can’t they just focus on a Title Win and Promotion from the Championship?
Seeing it’s Sunday can I go a bit off topic and recommend an excellent fitba documentary which I’ve just enjoyed from start to finish – Brian Clough: I believe in miracles. Brilliant footage and amusing interviews with most of the squad.
Pure fitba nostalgia from an era (late 70’s, early 80’s) when honours were won with honesty and integrity.
Christ, even old Rangers won some, but then David Murray arrived and the rest is history ….(and as we all know, you can’t buy history!)
Great letter Althetim. Unlike our provincial version of a supposed unbiased broadcaster, I’m sure the lads down in England will feel compelled to respond.
Howdy, what a wheeze that was when Walter was “loaned” out to The Scotland Team only to be brought back again when things were getting a bit ropey. Was compensation ever paid ?
ROUGVIELOVESTHEJUNGLEAPRIL 3, 2016 at 12:18 Seeing it’s Sunday can I go a bit off topic and recommend an excellent fitba documentary which I’ve just enjoyed from start to finish – Brian Clough: I believe in miracles. Brilliant footage and amusing interviews with most of the squad.
Pure fitba nostalgia from an era (late 70’s, early 80’s) when honours were won with honesty and integrity.Christ, even old Rangers won some, but then David Murray arrived and the rest is history ….(and as we all know, you can’t buy history!)
Great letter Althetim. Unlike our provincial version of a supposed unbiased broadcaster, I’m sure the lads down in England will feel compelled to respond.
=================================
I watched that film over the Christmas period. It was absolutely brilliant. What was particularly interesting was the revelation that Nottingham Forest only bought players like Trevor Francis and Peter Shilton with money the club had earned. There was no over the top bank borrowing.
As for David Murray, it beggars belief that anyone can argue he was good for the game in Scotland. However, it also can never be forgotten how complicit the Bank of Scotland were during his time in charge, at least until the point it ceased to be in Scottish hands. They bought Rangers nine-in-a-row, and also attempted to buy them the European Cup. As a Celtic fan I will never forget they wanted to put my club out of business in 1994. Despite the media overload these days about how we need a strong ‘o*d f*rm’ I am utterly positive that in 1994 the media would not have cared if Celtic had gone to the wall, such was the control Murray had over them at the time.
John ClarkApril 3, 2016 at 00:49
AllyjamboApril 2, 2016 at 23:21 ‘.. I think you must be mistaking me for my fellow Jambo, Easy. ..’ _______ Ach, it must have been the excitement of that time that got to me! There were three, possibly four, people I met ( guardedly) on the occasion I’m thinking of. One of them had travelled up for free from Yorkshire, I’m sure. One other was Cast of Thousands, and another was a very nice chap ( not that CoT wasn’t a nice chap as well!) who has some legal background. It was on that occasion that I was reinforced in my view that there was a broad spectrum of the Scottish Football fandom that, like me, felt that there was something fundamentally wrong with how the liquidation of RFC had been dealt with by the football Authorities, and something even more fundamentally wrong with the 5-way agreement and the whole set-up of the new club as a ‘continuation’ ( without responsibility for debt!) of the liquidated club. I know that easyJambo is not a hundred miles from Tynecastle, so I’m not confusing him with you. So, at this time of a Sunday morning, who was it that I thought was you? I am intrigued. Or suffering from oldtimers!
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Well JC, I’m the chap who travelled up ‘free’ from Yorkshire in order to sharpen your pencils. I must admit that I was sorely tempted to take the “Who are these people?? We should be told!!” line with your puzzle, but I think that that thread unravelled some time ago. Obviously the biggest impact I made on you was the fact that I got to Auld Reekie free (and got back), never mind the fact that I was one of an ever-diminishing band of Killie supporters.
All through my working life I got the ‘free rail travel’ thing thrown up by all my non-railway pals and family. Needless to say, many of them had cars that went with the job or cheap mortgages if they worked in the financial industry. I don’t think that I need to say anything at all about rates of pay in BR days AND we were taxed on our free travel as a benefit in kind. On top of that, and despite the fact that I was on the civil engineering side of things, one of my aunties used to complain to me (quite seriously) if the buffet car on her train ran out of sandwiches.
I am happy to relate that, despite certain goings-on at Queen Street High Level at the present time, my free travel got me to and from Firhill yesterday to see Killie gain a valuable point. I have to say, however, that it was not a game for the purists! For those waiting for the highlights later today – you have my sympathy, but there is a tremendous miss of the season by Kris Boyd.
Ah Bogs Dollix: You say you wanted to draw the site back to the reason for it? Football clubs,players and administrators sticking to both letter and spirit of rules and laws and paying a consequence if they have not is IMO the point of this website. If you think this EBT issue hijacked the site you clearly weren’t reading when the Resolution 12 from Celtic’s AGM took over with nary a mention of other issues – Celtic fans berating their board and binning season books for not being unilaterally strident enough against the dead club. Rangers ironically hardly entered the equation other than as a starting point.
if anyone was dismissive of your argument I thought it was me. It was the same argument as on Phil Mac’s site where I posited the same argument to an almost verbatim post to yours. Still, you were apparently out to trap Homunculus and not me, so I don’t feel slighted, and I’m sure AllyJambo, and anyone else who also replied, feels the same.
JOCKYBHOY
APRIL 3, 2016 at 16:51
To be honest I’m still not quite clear what the “trap” was.
He said that the new legislation would fall foul of ECHR
I asked which article.
He said Article 7 (for starters)
I said I thought Article 7 related to criminality.
Maybe it’s just me but I really don’t see the trap or how I was taken in by it.
Homunculus
“I said I thought Article 7 related to criminality.”
It does, the link below confirms this, or if anybody would rather read the salient
Points here they are.
I thought the last line was the icing on the cake?
http://uk.practicallaw.com/0-518-8006
A clash of moral imperatives
Since ethics seem to be pervading the world of tax, let us conclude that retrospective legislation is nothing other than a clash of moral imperatives. Few would disagree with the proposition that the rule of law is at the core of democracy and that retrospective legislation is therefore morally reprehensible. However, the vast majority will accept willingly that taxes are needed to enable the government to fulfil its public duties and that those who seek to avoid sharing the burden should accept the risk inherent in their decision.”
“Although tax sometimes does feel like a punishment, it is outside scope of Article 7, as it does not belong to the criminal sphere. (Tax penalties are arguably within Article 7 (see Jussila v Finland (73053/01) [2006] ECHR 996.)
Taxpayers have had to rely on a different human right to appeal against the use of retrospective tax legislation: the right to property. This right was not originally included in the ECHR, which perhaps shows the difficulties governments had with the very concept of an enforceable right to property. After several failed attempts, the right was enshrined in Article 1 of Protocol 1 of the ECHR:
“Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions (…) The preceding provisions shall not, however in any way impair the right of a State (…) to secure the payment of taxes…”
“So there you have it: the very Article which is intended to protect citizens against the arbitrary confiscation of their property is subject to the caveat that states need to be able to raise taxes. This is not very promising. Indeed, Stanley Burton J commented in R (ex parte Federation of Tour Operators and others v HM Treasury) [2008] STC 547 that “the hurdle for the taxpayer on A1P1 is very high”.
Cathya Djanogly is a professional support lawyer in the Tax Disputes & Investigations team at Pinsent Masons LLP.
AllyjamboApril 2, 2016 at 23:21 ‘
? 
)
‘..I think you must be mistaking me for my fellow Jambo, Easy..’
HaywireApril 3, 2016 at 16:08
‘…Well JC, I’m the chap who travelled up ‘free’ from Yorkshire ..’
______
I think I know what happened to the brain cells, Haywire- they didn’t go ‘Haywire!’ Instead, they went haywire.
Sorry about that, gentlemen.
I should have remembered that Haywire and I met again not that very long ago at another ‘saga’ court hearing ( which one I cannot quite remember at the moment……Hmm! is there a pattern developing here
John Clark, I have a solution for you. After the demise of The Night Manager series, I was wondering what could replace the Sunday night slot for me. Lo and behold Auntie comes up with Undercover. You will love it. And it’s breaking new ground. Gripping. A Bafta nominee next year if I’m not mistaken.
It will get the leetle grey cells back to normal (a la Monsiour Poiret). SP.
BTW forgot to mention, a wee bit off topic, sorry.
But lets face it it’s late on a Sunday night so no new footie stories.
So there’s nothing worth talking about is there in SPFL at the moment then.
Let me just say that top six for the ‘Well is pivotal on 2 Thistle games,
Home v Dundee utd and away To Ross county and then depending on those results we might need to beat Celtic at home.
I wouldn’t say we couldn’t do that.
However the whole top six bottom six for me is very exciting.
Maybe were just a wee diddy team though.
Or maybe we will be up there causing a bit of last 5 games chaos.
Sorry Ian no disrespect intended.
ianagainApril 3, 2016 at 22:37
‘..Home v Dundee utd and away To Ross county and then depending on those results we might need to beat Celtic at home.I wouldn’t say we couldn’t do that.’
_______
Nor would most of us, ianagain.
But how all of our honest teams’ sporting achievements are overshadowed and, as it were, set a naught by the fact that sporting achievement can be bought, rather than earned, by the abusive use of power by our ‘sporting’ Football Authorities!
What is the point of honest sporting endeavour , of young men straining every fibre of their bodies in using their skills and talents in competition, when sporting achievements can be bought in secret deals made by the Sporting Authorities with charlatan new club owners?
We know that at the top end of our game, things can be ‘fixed’.
If it suited the fixers, any combination of results is possible.
And that is a problem.
We now just do not know whether fair sporting competition in Scottish Football is possible.
I’ve been off-planet for few days, so sincere apologies if the topic in question has already been done to death. The Sunday Times’ story about alleged blood doping in the EPL was anticipated by this web site, which also made some curious comments about England’s favourite underdog team:
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/
I remembered the name of the site from its past coverage of TRIFC, of which the following is an example:
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2015/11/orangeopoli.html
Being the cynical bunch that we are I’ve no doubt none of us have been really surprised at the revelations coming out of Panama with respect to the dodgy financial dealings of the rich and powerful.
However one of the organisations involved in the reveal is new to me at least, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. I doubt if any member of the sports side of the SMS have even heard of the organisation.
They are looking for information on corruption and their website even has a page devoted to the matter.
https://www.icij.org/leak
Resolution 12 anyone?
At the risk of seeming like I’m sooking sour grapes, I’m surprised
that nobody has mentioned Saturday’s double standards in officiating in a match between a big club and a diddy team. Bearing in mind that the offence committed by Scott Brown was by dint of his outlawed, reckless, two-footed, airborn tackle and not whether or not he injured an opponent, it is astonishing that Bobby Madden saw fit to issue two yellow cards to a Hearts player for two innocuous challenges, yet Brown escaped unpunished after perfectly replicating the epitome of a tackle that is rightly banned. To add insult to injury, the Brown tackle is missing from the BBC’s five minute highlights clip. Has the BBC no shame in its blatant bias towards Scotland’s other establishment club? 
http://waitingfortax.com/2016/04/04/some-thoughts-on-the-panama-papers/
A topical take on the avoidance/evasion arguments.
Provoked by the Panama papers. Think I’ll spend a while trawling these tonight for any familiar names.
Scott brown didn’t appear to make a tackle went for ball and it was long away before hearts player got there and decided to fall over.As for the flying headbutt I thought you only got that kind of thing in the wrestling.Of course it’s only my opinion and like a+++++++s everybody has 1. As for that idiot mccannt why is he even there
Like this quote from the icij papers article on football corruption revealed in the Panama papers.
Over the years, we’ve seen an increasing penetration of offshore finance into sports, which we believe is detrimental to the game,” said George Turner of the Tax Justice Network, a fair-tax advocacy group based in London. “If we’re shifting competition away from the athleticism, the skill, the talent of the players and into the skill and talent of the accountants, lawyers, bankers, and boardroom executives, the sport quickly becomes a pointless thing to go and watch.”
More interesting news. Comes under What Really ?
The secret documents also expose how one club, Real Sociedad in Spain, paid its players in a way that appears to have allowed both the club and its players to slash their tax payments.
The documents show that the club shelled out millions of dollars each year to the foreign players in its employ, even as the players reported a fraction of those payments to the Spanish government. Real Sociedad paid seven of its foreign players that way between 2000 and 2008, the records show, via companies and banks in Niue, Panama, the British Virgin Islands, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Jersey in the Channel Islands.
Spanish authorities were told that Darko Kovacevic, a well-known Serbian footballer, was earning about $2,000 a month from the team during the 2006-2007 season, according to an online news site, ExtraConfidential.com, which in December published parts of an investigative report by a Spanish prosecutor . Mossack Fonseca’s files show that that the team paid Kovacevic roughly $1.4 million that season through IMFC Licensing in The Netherlands.
Real Sociedad’s general manager, Iñaki Otegi, declined to answer questions about the club’s payment practices. But the club’s press officer said that Otegi “asked me to phone you and tell you that this sort of practice of using companies abroad to remunerate the foreign players was and is a common practice in all Spanish soccer clubs.”
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SHUGAPRIL 4, 2016 at 10:06
Scott brown didn’t appear to make a tackle went for ball and it was long away before hearts player got there and decided to fall over.As for the flying headbutt I thought you only got that kind of thing in the wrestling.Of course it’s only my opinion and like a+++++++s everybody has 1. As for that idiot mccannt why is he even there
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Not normally a fan of McCann, but personally for once I think he was spot on!
It never fails to amaze how differing peoples opinion on referee decisions can be. One persons glaring red card is another “didn’t even touch him!”, almost always split firmly based allegiance. I suppose that should mean we have more respect for those poor blighters in black that have to make a decision there and then. But then sometimes they make that very hard to do!
Hearts previous regime had a link to a Panama registered company called Natborg Projects Corp. This Romanov controlled company was assigned £8.8M of Hearts debt on 30 Jun 2011, then on the same day the debt was “forgiven” in full.
Romanov used a number of other offshore or secretive companies in his dealings with Hearts. A subsidiary of Romanov’s UBIG consortium, ImpExNet, similarly forgave £5.9M of Hearts debt in 2010. Other debts were held at various times by Milson Capital Corp, Ensco 133 Ltd and Ensco 165 Ltd.
I dare say that Romanov could well find his name included among those involved in the Panama Papers.
ianagainApril 4, 2016 at 11:27
easyJamboApril 4, 2016 at 12:24 ‘
_______
Yes, the ‘Panama leaks’ story seems to be throwing up all kinds of bits related to the football world, and has made me read about the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
I have half a mind to ask them whether the cheating of an Association of , in the main, privately owned soccer clubs ( which , although privately owned, nevertheless get some public funding) would be of interest to them, in the context of the wider- world corruption in Football.
And I wonder at the brass necked hypocrisy of our SMSM , who knowingly and deliberately have not only refused to investigate the SFA and SPFL but have collaborated in the whole shameful attempt to hide the whole truth about the cheating by RFC(IL) and the perverted 5-Way agreement with CG.
There cannot be one newspaper editor in Scotland who could seriously look me in the eye and honestly insist that there was nothing to investigate.
John ClarkApril 4, 2016 at 13:23
ianagainApril 4, 2016 at 11:27 easyJamboApril 4, 2016 at 12:24 ‘_______Yes, the ‘Panama leaks’ story seems to be throwing up all kinds of bits related to the football world, and has made me read about the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). I have half a mind to ask them whether the cheating of an Association of , in the main, privately owned soccer clubs ( which , although privately owned, nevertheless get some public funding) would be of interest to them, in the context of the wider- world corruption in Football. And I wonder at the brass necked hypocrisy of our SMSM , who knowingly and deliberately have not only refused to investigate the SFA and SPFL but have collaborated in the whole shameful attempt to hide the whole truth about the cheating by RFC(IL) and the perverted 5-Way agreement with CG. There cannot be one newspaper editor in Scotland who could seriously look me in the eye and honestly insist that there was nothing to investigate.
______________________________________
Is that because you’re a koala bear (check out John’s avatar
) and the editors are all too tall, but you live in a tree anyway and are very shy? Or is it because you are a bit naïve and believe that the editors of the SMSM have enough of a conscience to feel embarrassment at a lie?
I know you’re neither (though koala bears are so very cute) and that you are just being so very kind to the editors
John Easy
This is just the headline stuff. Messi etc up to his neck in trouble.
They are releasing more football stuff early May, following a strict methodology of not just publish and be dammed but contacting each individual or company for comment.
“Hello this is ICIJ here is that Mr Bryson there, er hello hello”
The Real Sociedad blooper is going to put the Spanish FA in the deep sticky stuff.
I anticipate a huge wave of whataboutery over that one.
Depressing reading in The Times this morning. Both Graham Spiers and the ever hapless Michael Grant work in references to an O** F*** game in the offing. They’ve neither of them popped up on Twitter to plug the pieces today, so it’s been impossible to ask if 2012 was a bit of a blur for them, or if they work under strict instruction from Level5pr, and whether their employers are aware of the arrangement.
Also bad news about Alloa going down, but I skipped the game on Saturday and familiarised myself with the accounts of the former Sevco Scotland, SC425159. Thank goodness we’re only getting relegated. This financial basket case are moving up to a more competitive league, and they’re apparently delighted about it. Their accumulated losses of £30m plus over their three year trading history presumably constitute “the inherent advantages the Ibrox club have over all the others they’ve met”, in Mark Palmer’s words in yesterday’s Sunday Times. That’s certainly one way of putting it, Mark.
So, we’re living in a wonderland where pretty well the whole press pursue a deluded agenda predicated on the need to spin the overweening ambition of a club founded in May 2012. The continuity myth, hammered home repetitively, and absolutely no adverse comment allowed. As some wag said, the death of Rangers didn’t spell the end for Scottish football, but the birth of Sevco very well might.
Good Afternoon folks.
I’m surprised no one has posted this wonderfully uplifting post by a Brian Barrett (clever man) in reply to one of JJ’s recent blogs.
This is where I am at. It hits the bulls-eye for me and I adhere to the ‘Tipping Point’ Theory. I’m convinced this happened in 2012 and I’m confident and optimistic that history is going to repeat itself soon.
As a neutral fan (Dons) I have always been confident that justice would prevail and I have that same feeling again that something is bubbling away near the surface and it’s coming to a head.
Many have the impression that Res 12 is not fully understood nor supported outwith Celtic Football Club. I can assure you that it is.
35% Tipping point.
Do not let this go. Fans across all supports have a real chance to address the wrong doing at SFA Towers and I truly believe fans will embrace this chance. This is called doing the right thing.
Here is the post anyway. Apologies that I’ve C&P it but it strikes a chord with me and I hope it does with you too.
GV
JJ, while I have generally agreed with you apropos title stripping and Res 12, I am beginning to alter my thought process a little. The central tenant or your assertion – namely, that there is no appetite either at CFC or SFA/SPFL – remains true, however, I think that there are a couple of things beginning to brew that may very well take it out of their hands in the same way as the decision on which division, new Rangers should play in 2012 eventually got away from them.
Firstly, there is a growing momentum within both the Celtic support and those of other clubs, that Res 12 actually has some veracity and that it is being swept under the carpet by both CFC and SFA in the hope that it will all die down. As we all know, Scots in general and Scots football fans in particular don’t like being told a lie or deceived and as with 2012 it is entirely possible that a groundswell will slowly build until it is impossible to not confront the issue. There is scientific research that shows when crowds are involved, the tipping point for mass involvement is 35% (for anybody interested watch you tube footage of a loan dancer busting some weird shapes at a festival. Over a 10 min period he goes from being on his own to having a few people think it funny to join in to a small crowd. Slowly the crowd builds to about 100 and then wham, in 20 seconds the entire festival audience rushes to join in. It is amazing viewing!)
So in essence when 35% of Scottish football fans take this up as an issue, it will be inevitable that eventually the majority will do. I think that we are probably talking about 15-20% of CFC fans are already on the bandwagon for this and at a conservative estimate CFC account for c40% of fans in Scotland we are close 10% already. Now, if auldhied and others keep pushing this in the CFC community going from 15-20% to the 35% tipping point at CFC is not too far a jump, it would quickly escalate to the majority and would force CFC to act and that would bring other clubs’ fans into the debate. It is not too much of a leap to get the whole of Scottish football to the 35% tipping point for mass participation which then immediately drives the majority and hey presto you have a cause celebre.
Now, it is entirely possible that as we approach that tipping point that Regan, Dickson et al scurry around getting their house in order and jump ship before having to confront or being confronted with it and thus get away scot free, but I am of the belief that in the end the Res 12 issue will be aired and there will be damming findings against both RFC and SFA.
Now, for me Res 12 is the foundation of the house of cards, once that goes, the whole house will go. As for Title Stripping, CFC have already been on record, on more than one occasion, that they were surprised by the LNS conclusions. I am going to posit several ‘if’s, all plausible, that will destroy the fabric of the SFA/SPFL and force a total clear out.
If the SC uphold the latest CoS verdict, it finally puts to bed the EBT issue and given that my premise is that Res 12 will out, CFC will be emboldened to push for more. Once Bryson, Dickson and Regan are shown to have favoured RFC, all their actions will be called into question and with a definitive result on EBT, there will be a clamour for a review of LNS, its terms of reference and conclusions. IN addition, the upcoming judicial review of DCK fit and proper and what is left of the criminal trials could very well expose what Regan/Doncaster knew in Sept/Oct 2011 and what action/inaction they took, the 5WA, the membership and licensing of what was at that time Sevco Scotland (now TRFC) and the rationale for the terms of ref for LNS. If these details come out in court, there will be nowhere to hide in terms of a review of not only SFA/SPFL processes but also the personal, the culture at those organisations and thus the decisions that they took. If that happens, one of those decisions under review will be the LNS ToR and any pre-determined outcome. In the very least that whole process will be independently reviewed and could very well come to a different conclusion that sets aside LNS and orders a new fully independent review covering the DOS years and the deliberate scuttling of the tribunal through ‘imperfect registration’. Under those circumstances, I think that it is entirely possible that in 2-yrs time we will be left with almost entirely new office bearers at both orgs, checks and balances on single club influence, some time bound restrictions on TRFC involvement in the administration of the game or ability to move from TRFC to SFA/SPFL offices and a re-writing of historical records.
None of the above may come to pass, but it is all plausible and would be entirely the correct course of action, albeit I may have underestimated the ability of the cabal to protect itself.
BB
GiorgioVasariApril 4, 2016 at 17:15
‘….albeit I may have underestimated the ability of the cabal to protect itself.’
__________
The principal protectors of the unprincipled cabal( if the cabal is constituted of a majority of the Board memberships of the SFA and SPFL) are, of course, the other member clubs of the SFA and the SPFL and other associate members of the SFA.
We know that there was a lot of anger when the the bully-boy paid officers of the organisations tried to bludgeon the SPL and SFL clubs into accepting the new club into their leagues at any point higher than a new club should be allowed.( I leave aside the question of whether the new club was accepted ahead of other eager applicants)
It is very likely that a lot of anger still simmers below the surface: the anger of people who in a bit of a panic and trusting their Governance ‘experts’ , allowed themselves to be weak enough to agree to a Lie which has already severely damaged the Sport.
I’d bet that privately, the overwhelming majority of club owners/directors are ashamed of their mute and frightened acceptance of what was done , supposedly on their behalf. (Although he was the only one to speak out publicly against the ‘cabal’. Turnbull Hutton surely cannot have been the only honest man in Scottish Football)
I suspect that fewer than 35% of clubs would be necessary for the ‘tipping point’ to be reached, and a concerted effort made to rectify the wrongs that have been done. And restore some sporting and fiscal integrity to the business of football.
If not out of principle, then out of fear that many thousands of us will cease to have any interest at all in maintaining a seriously self-contradictory ‘business’ in existence, which, while it preaches ‘Fair Play’ and ‘Integrity’, has by its own nefarious actions made those Ideals an absolute nonsense.
Hi. Just a small diversion to show that clubs can be the focus for good things too. I’m sure many out there can quote similar stories about thier own clubs.
http://www.gloucestershireecho.co.uk/Amazing-Archie-Koncher-great-time-Partick-Thistle/story-29043529-detail/story.html
I said I’d get my ‘reminder’ to Mr McRae to the 6th Floor by the middle of last week, so I’m running a little behind schedule ( my little printer was out of commission for some days, and then ran out of ink).
I shall post this tomorrow, Scout’s honour.
“Mr Alan McRae ,President,The Scottish Football Association,Hampden Park,Glasgow G42 9BA
Dear ( Mr McRae in manuscript)Following our meeting of 19th January,I wrote to you on 11th February 2016, I wonder if I may now ask you to favour me with a simple reply to the fairly straightforward question I asked in that letter?For ease of reference, I reproduce the relevant part of my letter, in which the question is asked, in the bold lettering in the third paragraph : “It may be that copies of certain documents sent by the Scottish Football Monitor to Harper McLeod LLP ( who acted for the SPL Board in servicing the LNS Commission) and which, according to his contemporaneous letter to the SFM , Mr McKenzie of that legal firm forwarded to the SFA’s Compliance Officer in September 2014, were not passed on by the Compliance Officer to the SFA,(as an interested party in the Commission’s enquiry).Now, I would not for a moment question the veracity of Mr McKenzie. But I do accept that the Compliance Officer may have decided, for reasons that appeared to him to be honest and sound and valid, not to pass them on to the SFA Board.In such circumstances, I have to ask you , please, before I trouble the Compliance Officer and/or the Board of the (now) SPFL, to let me know whether the SFA files do in fact contain copies of the documents from SFM which Mr McKenzie passed to the Compliance Officer.”
Yours sincerely,
me,
4th April 2016
John you should maybess induce a wee ‘startle” by adding, look its in the second drawer in the middle bank of 3 behind I am SFA ‘s seat and always has been.
“Saw it last time I visited”
Re the Oshaniwa /Brown incidents. It has nowt to do with club allegancies but everything to do with refereeing consistency.
Brown’s two footed airborne lunge was at the beginning of the game. A stupid impetuous lunge but it doesn’t to any harm to Juanma and at 0-0 it can be argued it doesn’t have any real bearing on the game. It is early on afterall. Brown gets a warning but folks in the stands know it can go either way. He is either just putting down a marker or he is going to be at it all day.
Oshaniwa goes in sliding, one foot extended and wins the ball. No Celtic player is injured but Oshaniwa gets booked, in stopagge time, when Hearts are 3-1 down. Like the Brown incident it has not bearing on the game, no one is hurt. In fact the sending off it eliminates any chance of Hearts coming back. He may have stuck in a few dodgy challenges but this one is no worse that stuff that has gone on the last 90 Mins.
Why then does Madden decide to book one player and not the other?? Why, given the dying moments of a game that is clearly in the Celtic bag and a tackle that has no malicious intent does Oshaniwa not deserve the courteousy extended to Brown of a simple word in the ear. Why is a cumulation of of fouls is somehow deemed worse than a single incident that is a near text book example of a potential leg breaker.
IMHO both Oshaniwa and Brown are easily booked ‘bombscare’ type players, given the right situation, be that 5 mins in or in time added on.
PS Not really surprised as Madden is the ref I have witnessed as beign unable to consistently take 10 equal steps when pacing out where a defensive wall should be a free kicks.
No wish to be defeatist. But do today’s revelations mean appealing anything to UEFA is kind of pointless given the head of ethics for goodness sakes is comprimised?
Have never posted on SFM but like many I’m an ardent follower. Just wanted to say that for the sake of those working so hard on the likes of Res 12, improper registration, Old Firm, I have decided to write (email) Celtic for some clarity as regards their point of view. I have indicated that the likes of reference to Rory Bremner or omission of ‘Rangers’ in semi final promotional material may be mildly amusing, but a little thin.
As I say, I focussed on those three points but there are so many more. I have also encouraged friends to write. Probably a drop in ocean but I feel better and the outcome will determine whether I purchase two STs next season. No ranting or threats, just giving them my viewpoint that having spent tens of thousands of pounds in my lifetime on Celtic, if quiet acceptance of the MSM views represents our Board’s stance, with that acceptance including blind eyes to the granting of UEFA licences to an insolvent club, acquiescence around improper registration, and the expectation that a new club along with mine should be referred to as The Old Firm, then to be honest such an attitude will never change, and I would prefer not to finance a loaded game. Like all football fans, emotional attachment to your club can never change, but no matter our views, we all deserve to know our club’s views on these matters.
Morarbhoy April 4 2016at 23:39
good luck with that.I emailed the club along the same lines.I received a reply but it was patronising and really paid lip service to the points I raised.I suspect others have had the same response.
MORARBHOYAPRIL 4, 2016 at 23:39
Welcome MB and well done. Those who were previously a silent majority could prove pivotal in cleansing our game. If everyone takes their first tentative steps in registering their displeasure, they will soon get the message.
JOHN CLARKAPRIL 4, 2016 at 20:58
======================
Only in Scotland would the National Football Association get away with treating customers with such utter contempt. Only in Scotland would the media sit back and say nothing. Then again Rangers exist only in Scotland and that is the crux of this matter. Not a single inch will ever be conceded that the SFA deliberately advantaged Rangers. The SFA won’t discuss it, and the media won’t dare to raise the subject. To concede an inch would mean the next 100 miles would need to be examined as well. Far better to say Rangers were relegated because of hateful clubs, they are still the same club, they are back to where they belong, and only bitter Celtic fans care anyway. Not even the illegal holding of millions from the public purse is enough to stray them from their path.
Well, tonight’s the night and no doubt, should Rangers prevail, we’ll get gleeful backpage banner headlines of the Journey’s Over, Journeys’ End and other such pap along with pullouts documenting the last four years of Rangers torments and triumphs as a Rangers took itheir “punishment” on the chins, the fans follow-followed and it’s la-la land. All of course without a mention of Rangers being liquidated and this being a new club
Then it’s back to business as usual. What an awful thought and it kinda sums up our country’s press. Shame on them all.
WOTTPIAPRIL 4, 2016 at 23:02
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Oshinawa got sent off for performing a tackle, it shouldn’t wasn’t even a foul. Brown committed a two footed tackle that by in large these days is an automatic red card.
The timing of the offence is irrelevant, or at least should be, but we all know that in the first few minutes you can get off with almost anything – Brown most certainly knows that, as like all “combatitive” midfielders from every team he does like to make his mark early in games. No problem with hard tackles, in fact their absence is part of the reason I find tiki-taka type games so god damn dull, but I do have problem with dangerous tackles.
Ach, tried to edit my above comment but “computer said no!”.
I meant to add to the first paragraph that its annoying that we never get to hear back from the referee after games. I honestly think that allowing/making referees available for press questions can only be a good thing (SMSM bias aside). Firstly it will allow us to see incidents through the referees eyes, maybe then clearing up confusion. Secondly it will remove the constant accusations about bias in refereeing. If the referee knows he will be asked about decisions it will remove that possibility of “ach I’ll just let that one go, its only the 1st minute” (as an example!)
Re Brown’s tackle versus that of the Hearts boy. Firstly, I’d rather thought this site was above “Septic” and “cheats” as shown in Highlander’s video post, but there you go….was that the only clip he could find?
Secondly, I unfortunately agree with the view that many “combative” midfielders stick in a hard challenge early doors knowing they’ll probably get away with it. Being charitable, the referees might be being more lenient as the game is just starting and they don’t want to affect it adversely whilst the game is getting up to speed, but that courtesy is not extended to those subs coming on and smashing in a hard one and getting an immediate red which we see happening more than it ought. Going on from this, I seem to remember PierLuigi Collina was quoted as saying he studied film of teams before big games and if he saw a player who always goes in hard first five minutes, he would have a quiet word in the tunnel, saying he’d seen this and he’d be watching out for it. Now that was a ref…
Having now watched the clip, with the benefit of slo-mo, I do see differences between the challenges in that Brown gets there well before the Hearts player who slides into Brown, having got there second, whereas the second yellow, there is a shin already there when the studs go in. But then again opinions are like Our Souls, everyone’s got one (did I get that right?).
MORARBHOY
Welcome to SFM. Like Corrupt official, I agree that the non-vocal majority of fans are beginning to smell a rat, and that may be our best hope of bringing the authorities in line.
My own growing belief is that the Res 12 issue is one where it is essential for the future of the sport that the SFA is held accountable. There is little doubt that the licence was awarded incorrectly in 2011, but I have no doubt at all that the SFA knew they were awarding the licence incorrectly.
That is not a Rangers issue, despite them being the beneficiaries of the award (not as if you take it off them retrospectively), nor a Celtic issue, despite them appearing to be the most disadvantaged.
This is an issue of a systematic, either deliberate or negligent, breakdown in a fundamental aspect of football governance. Despite the existence of overwhelming evidence to support the claims being made by the Res 12 people, the clubs have thus far failed to seriously address the accusation, never mind the substantive issue.
That is a clear enough indication to me that they have acquiesced in and approved of that fundamental breakdown.
I have no doubt that ONLY a withdrawal of season ticket membership will work. Short of that, the clubs will continue to ignore our pleas for a return to sporting principles, and see those pleas as subversive ‘soviet – style’ agitation.
And it’s not just about sorting out the halfwits who allowed this to happen in the first place, nor the shocking (and as yet unreported) “I would do nothing” betrayal of trust by Regan. It is about putting in place structures that will ensure a repeat is not possible.
Right now, it is not only possible, but likely.
I gave up my own season book three years ago, but continued to pay for my two sons. Failing a clear moral response to res 12 from my club, that will stop also.
I know it is not right for everyone else, and I can’t blame those who have such an emotional and social attachment to football that they cannot countenance a boycott, but if we really want to have a game that is clean, and seen to be clean, my view is that our only option is to wait until it is before we return to it.
If we truly want to have football back as a sport, sacrifices have to be made – and might yet get us what we want.
“Tough love and no season book” is my new approach.
The “Newspaper of The Year” has arisen from slumber today!
Shock horror,
WAKE UP WORLD AND SMELL THE CORRUPTION.
In a story on the Mossack Fonseca leak it opines interalia
Newspaper Of The Year View
“They robbed the tax from the poor to pay the rich and we all let it happen”
“But this blatent , immoral self-interest lies on our own doorstep”
“Semantics have been key in perpetuating the myth that there has been “no wrong doing”” *
“Tax evasion is illegal tax avoidance is not – but there is a fag paper of difference in their dishonesty and nothing between their immorality”
That last one is the best of all.
*No mention of “phantom” tax bills this time.
Just out of interest, how much is a Season ticket around Scotland these days? I know where I would normally sit at Pittodrie (if I still attended) would be ~£360 mark next season for a standard ticket.
TAYREDAPRIL 5, 2016 at 11:18
Just out of interest, how much is a Season ticket around Scotland these days?
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Not sure about the new season, but my season ticket for the East Stand at Fir Park was £295 for this season, that was with a £15 discount for buying early. (£162 (£8 discount) for my father who is a senior citizen).
tayredApril 5, 2016 at 11:18Just out of interest, how much is a Season ticket around Scotland these days? I know where I would normally sit at Pittodrie (if I still attended) would be ~£360 mark next season for a standard ticket
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So £300 + VAT. Say that’s an average then for every 1,000 Dons fans who write to Stewart Milne telling him that because he is complicit in the whole charade they are not going to renew (unless he and his fellow Chairs do something PDQ) the club will lose £300k + other match day income. (what percentage of match day income is that?). How many 1,000 fans need to write before he takes note?? Is the fan will out there?
Similar figures for Hearts and a few others and similar, in relative terms for every club.
Hi, first post from a long time lurker. I too have Emailed Celtic regarding the progress of resolution 12 and my general dissatisfaction with my clubs apparent complicity in helping our former rivals maintenance of this continuity nonsense. I have had two season tickets for in excess of 25 years and feel that I have been cheated for much of that by paying to watch a rigged game. I have received a polite but pretty unsatisfactory response which stated that they have had a number of Emails on the same subject and that these had been passed on. So, I know that the people responsible for deciding what happens next are aware of the level of concern amongst the support. Their response will determine whether I renew or not. This is not a situation I am comfortable with but paying to watch the football equivalent of Saturday afternoon wrestling really doesn’t appeal. If nothing is done, it looks like it will be the juniors for me. I will be gutted though, I have great seats.
BORDERSDONAPRIL 5, 2016 at 15:03So £300 + VAT. Say that’s an average then for every 1,000 Dons fans who write to Stewart Milne telling him that because he is complicit in the whole charade they are not going to renew (unless he and his fellow Chairs do something PDQ) the club will lose £300k + other match day income. (what percentage of match day income is that?). How many 1,000 fans need to write before he takes note?? Is the fan will out there?Similar figures for Hearts and a few others and similar, in relative terms for every club.
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Thats what I was thinking. How many fans withholding their season ticket money would it take before the potential loss becomes significant? Bearing in mind that season ticket money is doubly important as it helps bridge the gap between seasons. To be honest I don’t think it would take 1000 in the case of AFC, even 500 would surely set alarm bells ringing.
Slightly off topic, but the Supreme Court is due to hear an appeal by Eclipse Film Partners No 35 LLP next week (13-14 April). This is the film scheme used by footballers and others to reduce their tax liabilities.
The lead counsel for Eclipse is Jolyon Maugham, who was among the first to raise his concerns about the CoS decision in the Rangers EBT case. He was also invited onto Sportsound to discuss the matter. He also writes the “waitingfortax.com” blog.
The list of current cases at the Supreme Court can be found here:
https://www.supremecourt.uk/current-cases/
I don’t think we will see the EBT case appear in the list for some time yet. The Court of Appeal in the Eclipse case gave its judgement back in February 2015.
I used that clip partly because someone sent me it on Facebook but mostly because it included former Celtic manager Neil Lennon agreeing with my point of view, which in turn reduced the possibility of me being accused of the sour grapes I jokingly referred to in my post. I do however apologise for the words you found offensive, which I genuinely hadn’t paid attention to.
Whether by accident or design, those who responded by defending Brown’s tackle have all conveniently missed the fundamental point I was trying to make. Whether Brown made contact with the Hearts player is entirely irrelevant. The tackle he attempted – that is with both feet off the ground – is outlawed in the game. To say he shouldn’t be punished because he never injured his opponent is akin to a burglar fleeing a property empty handed whilst being pursued by the pet rottweiler, then querying why he’s being arrested.
Found myself once again shouting from another room ” they weren’t relegated, ffs can you no get your facts right” as I of course heard the Sky Sports News guy give us the lie. “Rangers could return to the top division again after relegation to the 4th tier of Scottish Football. Why is it so difficult for them to geasp this.
You see, I look at it the other way Briggsbhoy.
We were going to be force fed the shorthand lazy journalism of “back to where they belong” at this point regardless of what caused their expulsion in the first place. The spiritual, if not the actual, was always coming back, so why exactly were we so afraid to discipline them? Because they wouldn’t like it?
If he was tackling the ball only, why did he have to launch himself into the air to do so? That is what made it illegal.
If he was tackling a white pigeon, fair doos.
Nice one highlander liked it lol.
EASYJAMBOAPRIL 5, 2016 at 17:05
Slightly off topic, but the Supreme Court is due to hear an appeal by Eclipse Film Partners No 35 LLP next week (13-14 April). This is the film scheme used by footballers and others to reduce their tax liabilities.
The lead counsel for Eclipse is Jolyon Maugham, who was among the first to raise his concerns about the CoS decision in the Rangers EBT case. He was also invited onto Sportsound to discuss the matter. He also writes the “waitingfortax.com” blog.
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The fact Sportsound invited Maugham on and not anyone who backed the CoS verdict was an utter disgrace. When the host was challenged about it on Twitter he said ‘we can’t have everyone on’. A shocking answer in my view.
On a wider note I am utterly gobsmacked that any Scottish media has the audacity to hold their hands up in horror at the ongoing tax evasion news we are currently hearing about. Most of them gave up the right to do that in 2012.
So Reporting Scotland lead with the story that Rangers can ‘return to the top flight’ tonight. What an insult to every honest taxpayer, and from a publicly funded channel at that.
I have been holding this comment back but to hell with it,it’s regards a Ibrox striker .this guy a few years ago could not get passed a defender to save himself.Now 36 runs passes and overtakes the guy with the ball.looks like age has made him faster funny that.
upthehoopsApril 5, 2016 at 18:26
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The fact Sportsound invited Maugham on and not anyone who backed the CoS verdict was an utter disgrace. When the host was challenged about it on Twitter he said ‘we can’t have everyone on’. A shocking answer in my view.
On a wider note I am utterly gobsmacked that any Scottish media has the audacity to hold their hands up in horror at the ongoing tax evasion news we are currently hearing about. Most of them gave up the right to do that in 2012.
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Is that the same BBC, who, when Chris Graham (I think it was) chickened out of an on-air debate that included Paul McConville, decided to cancel the debate as it would, according to them (the BBC), otherwise have lacked ‘balance’?
Hypocrites doesn’t even begin to describe them.
Long time lurker. Just informed my club that they have lost five season tickets and three generations of fans. Don’t expect much from it, but had to add to the groundswell.
i too spent my morning shouting at the radio as various commentators spoke about the need for everyone to pay their taxes properly, then a cut to the sport about Rangers return to the top league. Clearly I need to find the irony damper button on my digital radio.
upthehoopsApril 5, 2016 at 18:26
‘……On a wider note I am utterly gobsmacked that any Scottish media has the audacity to hold their hands up in horror at the ongoing tax evasion news we are currently hearing about. Most of them gave up the right to do that in 2012.’
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Certainly as far as BBC Radio Scotland is concerned, I think the malignant ghost of Peter Thomson must have moved from Queen Margaret Drive to Pacific Quay along with his successors , such is the stranglehold that still prevents any proper reporting of the disgraceful facts that led to the death of RFC(IL) as a football club, and so strong have been the links over the years between the BBC and that dead club which they have been trying to persuade us is still alive.
As I have said before, newspapers are private, money-making or, these days, money-losing businesses. They can say more or less what they like, because they’re spending their own money.
The BBC, even the little colonial outpost on Pacific Quay, is funded by the licence payer. They have no right to bend, twist, pervert the truth, or shut their eyes to the plain facts, and allow the broadcasting of the lying cant that day after day is burbled and warbled into their microphones, about dead clubs winning championships and such like.
The last four years or so have been among the worst in the life of the BBC in my lifetime, and by the Lord Harry, BBC Scotland really does need the critical kicking up the khyber that will come its way.
And if the feet that are delivering the kicking get tired, I’ve got two good feet to lend to the purpose.
JOHN CLARKAPRIL 5, 2016 at 19:30 Certainly as far as BBC Radio Scotland is concerned, I think the malignant ghost of Peter Thomson must have moved from Queen Margaret Drive to Pacific Quay along with his successors
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I was too young in the 60’s to form an opinion on the BBC at the time. However, it has been documented several times by none other than Archie MacPherson there was an overwhelming anti-Celtic bias at that time. The BBC complaints process at the time was not so accessible, however I’m sure those who chose to do so were assured there was no bias. Just like the exact same assurances given several decades on by the current BBC masters.
Don’t know about anyone else but tonight is nerve jangling.
Oh FFS BBC twat touting Warlbles for Aston Villa.
Pass the sick bag.
I cannot believe that Sevco in the SPFL is on BBC 10 o clock “news” in England.
How much did that cost Jim?
Oh my …
BBC Television 2200 – National News – Broadcast to the UK tonight.
“Glasgow Rangers celebrate a win AND a return to the Scottish premiership”.
The item is yet to be broadcast in full you might want to switch off before the sports section is transmitted – unbelievable a Scottish football story appears on national news facilitated no doubt by BBC Scotland.
Getting the message across to all south of the border that they are the same club. There will be worse to come I’m sure.
theredpillApril 5, 2016 at 18:55
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That’s an interesting blog name you have, the redpill!
Reminds me that the recent discussion on how few dope tests are undertaken by the football authorities died a very quiet death.
The SMSM , after undertaking the most comprehensive and rigorous questioning that skilled investigative journalists can deploy, must have been reassured by those authorities that our game is clean in every respect, titles, honours, licences, player betting, ‘fit and proper’ club directors, etc etc.
JC the Red Pill
Ah
Spanish constant movement fitba (long derided by me as being medically facilitated) has finally arrived on our shores.
Is that correct?
I am hearing Rangers director John Gilligan has just given an interview saying Rangers have been ‘stamped upon’ and ‘we are going for title 55’. Nice to see those at the top having a bit of humility following promotion.
Erchie can now go away and retire quietly I hope.
I’ve never seen such a teed up piece of “news” and on UK wide council telly.
Ill not be paying the council tax (sorry licence fee)after this nonsense.
Forced to re-enter the Scottish professional football pyramid in the bottom tier, Rangers – under manager Ally McCoist and controlled by a consortium led by Charles Green – won League Two by 24 points.
From Alex Burke on the BBC website tonight, I’m amazed at the word “forced” as if somehow herded like sheep into the bottom tier and forced out of their rightful place.
as for this line words fail me
It brings to an end a four-year journey back to the top division of Scottish football for the 54-time champions
Well the Clumpany did warn us.
Its going to be full on P*** for months.
DO one thing motivate your club whoever they are to skelp them at every possible opportunity and send them straight back down.
Its the only way you will feel better.
Nothing agin Sevco supporters BTW its the media needs curtailed and the only way this will stop is they get humped non stop.
ianagainApril 5, 2016 at 22:40
If I had a magic wand.
I emailed Sky today and I basically said that if their anchorman had said the newly formed Rangers who entered Scottish Football after liquidation of the original club have gained promotion to the top tier of Scottish football I’d have had less of an issue. I also pointed out that it was obscene that when we have tax stories all over the news in terms of evasion it’s all overlooked when it comes to any connected with Ibrox. There is no remorse, here’s hoping the go back down quickly
BRIGGSBHOYAPRIL 5, 2016 at 22:47 …
There is no remorse, here’s hoping the go back down quickly
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No thanks.
Glad to see the back of them.
Hopefully the second division (or “Championship”, if I must say, through gritted teeth) will get back to being its normal, interesting, unpredictable, competitive self next year.
The last two years have felt like a pantomime.