A Blog by James Forrest for TSFM
I am a socialist, and as a socialist I believe in the fundamental goodness of people. Some people find that hard to believe when they read the stuff I write.
I published my first novel recently, on politics and the corrupting nature of it, and it is a deeply cynical book, a book where no-one has clean hands come the end. What has surprised some of those who’ve read it is that I didn’t focus on the lies and smears of the right, but the hypocrisy and deceit of those who claim to be of the left.
Corruption, you see, doesn’t respect political boundaries or points of view. It’s like rainwater. It finds every crack, and gets in there.
My political beliefs revolve around two apparently paradoxical elements; the belief in the inherent decency of people and the need for a strong, and powerful, state. I believe the second underpins the first, and this brings me into conflict with a lot of people, some on the left and some on the right. Too many people see the state as inherently evil, as something that interferes too much in the lives of ordinary people. As something suffocating.
Yet the state exists to protect us. It exists to provide a safety net. It exists to regulate and to oversee. If the state is made up of bad people, if the gears of society are captured by those with malicious or selfish intent, the results are obvious; war, corruption, chaos.
The vast majority of our problems in the modern age can be neatly summed up in two lines from Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming”, which I used to open my novel. “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
We live in a time when those who are protecting their own interests have assumed such power that they’ve cowed the rest of us. They have become a law unto themselves. They have changed the nature of the game, because they have sapped our will to the extent some barely put up a fight anymore. The weak get weaker, and the strong use their strength to crush the rest even more. It is a vicious struggle, a downward spiral.
Society is held together not only by the endeavour and common interests of its citizens but by a collection of laws. We elect the people who make those laws. They do so in our name, and we can remove that right every four years. That is a powerful thing, and we do not appreciate it enough. The present corruption exists because we allow it to exist.
The people around me continue to puzzle over my uncommon interest in the affairs of a football club on the west of Glasgow. My own club plays in the east end. I tell those who ask that my primary interest in the goings-on at the club calling itself Rangers is no longer about football; how could it be, after all? With promotion this year they are still a full two divisions below us, emasculated, skint, weak and unstable. If we were fortunate enough to draw them in cup competition the match would be over, as a tie, by the halfway point … in the first half.
In footballing terms they are an utter irrelevance.
Rangers is more than a football club to me. They are a symbol. Their unfolding calamity is an on-going outrage. What is happening there, what is being allowed to happen, is an offense to decency. It is a stain on the face of our country.
In short, it is a scandal. It is a scandal without parallel in sport.
Yet it’s not just a sports story either. If it was, I might not be so focussed on it. What is happening at Rangers is a colossal failure of governance. It is a damning indictment against the very people who are supposed to oversee our game. It is a disgraceful abrogation of responsibility from those at the top, those who claim to be “running things.”
If this is not a failure of governance it is a result of corruption at the heart of our national sport. It says they are bought and paid for, and I will say no such thing here.
So let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. We’ll say instead that what they are is weak, indecisive, inept and disconnected from reality.
It reminds me of our political class, which has become insular and ignorant about what the public wants, and what it needs. It’s not a wonder parties like UKIP can achieve national vote shares of 25% at local elections. Nigel Farage strikes me as a dog-whistle politician, the kind who knows how to appeal to a select group of voters. He is little different to Charles Green, the man who beguiled Rangers fans into handing over large amounts of money, because he was “standing up for the club.” It is easy to do what he did, easy to do what Farage is doing.
Real leadership requires toughness. Say what you like about the Tories, but they have that in spades. Yeats was right about the worst being full of passionate intensity. Green was. Farage is. Cameron and Osborne personify it in their political outlook.
It is easy to be cowed by blunt force politics, and by “tough talking Yorkshire men” and venomous speeches about “strivers and skivers.” The politics of divide and conquer is the oldest form of politics there is, and it’s no surprise to see it practiced by some of the vested interests in the game here in Scotland. Yet, lest we forget … something significant happened last year. The maligned and the ignored, the weak and the voiceless found something they never realised they had. They discovered that, in a very real sense, the power was in their hands.
Last year, the fans rose up when the governing bodies and the media went all-out to save Rangers from the self-inflicted wounds caused by a decade of cheating, malpractice and ineptitude. I have no problem calling that what it was.
What happened at Rangers seemed incredible, but it was all too predictable, and some of us had been talking about it for years before it hit. The Association seemed caught in the headlights but it would amaze me if they really were as insular and ignorant as they appeared. They must have known how bad the outlook was for Rangers. They just chose to ignore it.
They were aided and abetted by a thoroughly disreputable media, a collection of cowards and compromisers, charlatans and frauds, masquerading as journalists, but who long ago laid aside any claim to be bold investigators and settled for commenting on events as they unfolded. More often than not, with their ill-informed opinions, sometimes due to weaknesses in intellect and others wilfully ignorant, they failed even in that.
Entire newspapers became PR machines for crooks and swindlers. They aided in the scam because they didn’t do their jobs, some because they were lazy, some because they were incompetent and others because they wanted a seat at the table and were willing to sacrifice whatever integrity they once had in exchange for one.
That all of this was embraced by the Rangers fans is amazing to me. They trusted when they should have been asking questions. They closed their eyes, covered their ears and sang their battle tunes at the top of their voices so they wouldn’t have to hear anything they didn’t like. As incredible as I found it then, and still find it now – and now, even more so, when they have already seen the results of it once – I find it pathetic too, and I do feel pity for some of them.
A lot of these people are genuine football fans, and nothing more. They have no interest in the phony narrow nationalism, or the over-blown religion, or the notion of supremacy which manifested itself in a ludicrous statement from McCoist when interviewed recently on Sky.
Some of the Rangers fans look at their team of duds, kids and journeymen, they look at a boardroom of cowards and crooks, they look at a failing manager in his first (and last) job in the game and at a dark future and are not in the least bit impressed by, or interested in, the chest-out arrogance espoused in those ridiculous words “we are the people.” They know full well that their present crisis was made by men like McCoist, and they understand that pretentious posturing is not an act born of strength, but a scrambling around in the gutter, and a symptom of weakness.
They understand their position, and they hate it. And because they care about Rangers, because they value the club, because they cherish those things that made it a great Scottish institution, they want that back. They understand that before the Union Jack waving, Sash singing, poppy wearing, Nazi saluting, Orange element became the public face of their support Rangers meant something else, and that, above all things, is what pains them the most.
People do not hate Rangers. When the country appeared to turn its back last year, they were turning the back on favouritism and the bending of rules. Yet it would be a lie to say that there is not an element of dislike in the gleeful mockery of many rival fans.
But they don’t hate Rangers either. They hate the version of it around which a certain section of the support continues to dance. They hate the version which hates, and so too do many, many, many Rangers supporters, and they definitely deserve better.
David Murray chose not to openly challenge that version. Indeed, he encouraged certain strands of it to flourish and grow, with his “Britishness Days” and his effort to turn the club into the “team that supports the troops.” Other clubs have done as much, if not more, for the British Army than the one that plays out of Ibrox. Other clubs have given more money. Other clubs have lent their support to those on the front lines. They just chose to do it with respect, and with class, and with dignity. They chose to do it in private, understanding that there eventually comes a tipping point between looking after the ends of the soldiers and using them to promote your own.
The army has not battened on to Rangers. Rangers has battened on to them, and although it is unclear when an altruistic motive became darker, what started out as a gesture of solidarity is now used to entrench division and promote a notion of superiority.
Craig Whyte took over from Murray and immediately understood the lure of the “dog whistle.” He knew too that the media would accept whatever he told them, without question, and as he spoke up for “Rangers traditions” he made sure the lunatic fringe was well onside. He met face to face with the hard-core extremists in the support first and made them his praetorian guard. They spoke up for him until the day the club entered administration.
So, whereas Murray pandered to them and Whyte used them to further his own ends, it was only a matter of time before someone suggested to Charles Green that he could use the same tactics to win over the support. He went even further and blatantly promoted and encouraged this mind-set, and stoked the hate and nonsense to frightening new heights. The same people who cheered Whyte to the rafters jumped on board the Big Blue Bus and the results are clear.
Through all of it, the ordinary Rangers fan has seen his club buffered against the rocks, battered, broken, smashed to smithereens and sunk. Now there’s a big hole in the side of the lifeboat, and they are terrified that further tragedies await.
They are right to be concerned. Much of the media is still not telling them what they need to know. The people in charge of their club – the owners who have lied, the former hack who covered up the truth about Whyte and now acts as a mouthpiece for Green, the “club legends” who are content to sup with the devil and take his greasy coin when they should be standing toe-to-toe with the fans – are trying to silence those members of the press who do have facts to present.
How many times now have media outlets been banned from Ibrox for daring to report the truth? The manager who demanded the names of a committee last year defends those inside the walls who are desperate to keep secret the things that are going on. He is either an unprincipled coward, or he is, himself, bought and paid for. The fans suffer for it.
The “inconvenient truth” is still being kept from them, and this denies them any chance to play an active role in their club. Indeed, it is all too possible that they’ve passed a point of no return, and that their club is heading for a new liquidation event and it can no longer be stopped.
In either case, their power has been eroded to the point at which they must feel they have nothing left to do but stand back and watch what happens next.
They are wrong. I am a socialist. I believe in the inherent good of people. I think the ordinary decent Rangers fans are the only people left who can save their club … and the means by which they will do it is as simple as it could be.
They must stand up for “big government.” They must embrace the need for a “strong state.” They must lobby the SFA, and they must trust the SFA and they must get the SFA to follow its own rules and thereby save them from any further harm.
There is a tendency amongst some Celtic fans to see our governing bodies as pro-Rangers. If it is true then those running our game are ruining Scottish football without benefiting the thing they love more. The incalculable harm that has been done to Rangers in the last 20 some months is a direct result of the subservient media and the willingness of the football authorities to be “deaf, dumb and blind.” Those who believe this has actually helped the Ibrox club have not been paying attention in class. It has irrevocably scarred them, and it may yet have played a hand in destroying them once and for all, as a force if not as a club entirely.
For years, the SFA sat and did nothing as a club in their association operated a sectarian signing policy. They did nothing whilst the fans sang sectarian songs. In their failure to act they strengthened those elements of the Rangers support, instead of isolating, alienating and eventually helping to eliminate those who saw that club as a totem pole of division and hate. Their failure over EBT’s, and their lack of scrutiny, led to one of the greatest scandals in the history of sport, and I say that with no equivocation at all. The testimony of their registrations officer in the Lord Nimmo Smith investigation was a disgrace and in years to come it will rank as one of the most disreputable and damaging moments in the association’s history.
The most egregious failures of all were the failures in the so-called “fit and proper person” tests, which allowed first Whyte and then Charles Green to assume controlling positions at Ibrox. They will pass the buck and say the responsibility lies with the club itself, in much the same way as they are content to let the club investigate itself at the present time, but any neutral who looks at this stance knows it is unprincipled and spineless. It’s like letting the defence set the terms at a trial. It is foxes investigating the chicken coop.
It is a blueprint for corruption, and a recipe for disaster.
It is now too late for the SFA to declare Green “unfit”, as it was too late when they finally slapped that title on Craig Whyte. He and his allies own Rangers, and they control its destiny. They can push the club to the wall if they choose, in the final extremity, if that gets them what they want. The time for changing that is past. The damage has already been done. The barbarians are not at the gates. They are inside the walls, and sacking the city.
The SFA will be forced to punish Rangers for the sins of the owners, for the second time in as many years, and whilst it is right that the club face up to that, all the better to send a message to other clubs and other owners, the SFA cannot be allowed to slither off the hook here as though this was none of their doing. Green will skip off into the sunset. Craig Whyte has yet to pay his fine. These people never cared about Scottish football and they don’t care now.
The SFA are supposed to. Our governing body is supposed to govern, for the good of the whole game, and not as a support system for a single club. What they have allowed to happen on their watch is absolutely shameful and if the people responsible were men at all, with any sense of accountability, they would resign en masse.
They can pretend ignorance, but only the truly ignorant would accept that. Craig Whyte was not inside Ibrox a week before RTC and other sites were dismantling his entire business history, with some of the people here doing the work the SFA would not. Whyte himself claims to have made the governing bodies aware of the scale of what was facing the club, and they did nothing at all. Heads should have rolled a year ago.
In October of last year, on this very site, I posted an article in which I wrote:
“Which isn’t to say the due diligence matter isn’t worrying, because, of course, it is. Again, no-one is going to convince me that the SFA has conducted proper due diligence on Charles Green and his backers. No-one will convince me they are satisfied that this club is in safe hands, and that the game in this country will not be rocked by a further implosion at Ibrox. They failed to properly investigate Craig Whyte, because of lax regulations requiring disclosure from the club itself, regulations which are just a joke, but they can be forgiven for that as the press was talking sheer nonsense about him having billions at his disposal, and a lot of people (but not everyone!) were either convinced or wanted to be convinced by him.
To have witnessed what Whyte did, to have witnessed the Duff & Phelps “process” of finding a buyer, and having Green essentially emerge from nowhere, with a hundred unanswered questions as to his background and financing, for the SFA to have given this guy the go ahead, only for it to blow up in their faces later, would annihilate the credibility of the governing body and necessitate resignations at every level. There would be no hiding place.”
There are times when it is fun to be right, but this is not one of them. It is dispiriting and disquieting to have been so on the nose. It scares the Hell out of me, as someone who loves football in this country, to have seen this matter clearly when the people running our game apparently either did not or chose to ignore very real, very obvious, concerns. The Internet Bampots had no special insight or access to information that was denied those at the SFA. We just weren’t prepared to ignore it and pretend that it wasn’t there. There was too much at stake.
I have become convinced that things will never change until the Rangers supporters join us in demanding the full and unabridged truth here. They need to come out from under the bed, and confront their fears. They need to be willing to take the consequences, so that their club can emerge clean from this, and start again, with all this behind them.
And it can all happen with one simple thing. The application of the rules.
The existence of laws comes down to a simple principle; they protect society from those elements within it who are interested only in their own selfish ends. We may cry out at those rules and regulations we see as “restrictive”, but the law was not made to restrict our freedoms but to protect them. Had the SFA years ago acted against Rangers sectarian signing policy, and the songs from the stands, the club would not have mutated to the point where there was no help on hand when they needed it the most. Let’s not kid ourselves about this; Whyte and Green were only able to grab control because the club itself has a dreadful image which put off respectable and responsible buyers. The SFA could have helped change that perception years ago and did nothing.
The SFA could have conducted its own investigation into who Craig Whyte was. They could have asked David Murray for full disclosure when he was running up £80 million of debt, a sum of money that is beyond belief for a single club in a small provincial backwater league. Had they had the guts to do that the club would never have spent itself into oblivion and forced the hand of Lloyds, which led indirectly to their ignominious end.
The SFA could have fully investigated Charles Green and the means by which he took control, instead of rushing through a license. His emergence at the last minute was transparently suspicious and designed to force them into a quick decision, but they did not have to bow to that pressure by making one, without being in possession of the facts, as it is now 100% clear they were not.
Had they asked for every document, had they insisted on legal affidavits and personal securities from investors (and this would have been perfectly legitimate and is common place in other licensing areas) none of this would have come to pass. After Craig Whyte they had a moral responsibility to the rest of the game to get this one right and their failure is without parallel in the history of Scottish football.
As the club hurtles towards a new abyss, names are cropping up which should send a shudder down the spines of every honest, genuine supporter of not only Rangers but every team in the land. The SFA claims that a strong Rangers is essential for the sake of Scottish football, but they have been extraordinarily lax in protecting that club, and therefore the game, from destructive elements. Craig Whyte and Charles Green had dubious personal histories, and the acquisition of the club itself was mired in controversy and scandal. Yet it was allowed.
Neither Green nor Whyte were known to have operated outside the law, yet neither was worthy of trust or stood up to scrutiny. Neither man should ever have been granted the status as fit and proper persons to assume a role in our national sport, and if it is true of them what can we say about the three men who are, presently, being touted as the Great White Hopes for a bright, new Rangers future; Dave King and the Easdale brothers?
King recently cut a deal with the South African government over an on-going dispute over taxes. In other words, he pled guilty and accepted the central plank of their argument; that for years he was engaged in wilfully with-holding vast revenues from their Treasury. The media does not like to put it like that, and the SFA seems willing to ignore it utterly, and this would be scandalous enough. But it does not stop there. HRMC rules – as well as the SFA’s own governance documents – actually bar him from serving on the board of the new club.
Last but not least, aside from being an admitted tax cheat, King is also awaiting trial in South Africa, having been indicted for corruption, forgery and fraud – 300 charges in total. Yet as recently as last week, we were told that the Association was willing to look at him and consider representations from his lawyers. This is almost beyond belief.
If Dave King’s position is untenable, and he is yet to be convicted of a crime, what can we say about the position of the Easdale’s? One of the two brothers, Sandy, has already served jail time. He is a convicted criminal, a fraudster nonetheless, who’s “victim” was the same Treasury who are appealing one case involving the old club and liquidated it entirely over another. This is precisely the kind of “businessman” the fit and proper person test was supposed to weed out, and if the SFA holds its nose here the reek will stink out the halls at Hampden for decades. If King or the Easdale’s are judged fit and proper, then who exactly is the test for? What exactly do you have to do to fail it? How do we explain the existence of laws, when these are not applied?
Pascal says “Law without force is impotent.” The SFA’s weakness has allowed one version of Rangers to destroy itself, and has allowed an existential risk to another. If the next power at Rangers resides in South Africa or Greenock I can say with some certainty that the Association is engaged in an even more dangerous roll of the dice, because the surfacing of fresh scandal will be an ever present risk, and will be of the sort no-one will survive.
The damage to Scottish football will take years to heal. The Scottish game has been through enough trauma. It does not need more. It barely survived the last calamity to hit Rangers. The rest of us should not be forced to pay the price of the next one.
The greater damage will be done to Rangers itself. If the Green crisis ends in another collapse – as it well might; another administration event is a certainty, and another liquidation is a much more likely prospect than it was before 14 February 2012 – the club will once again have to start from the bottom, and this time the reputational damage will be impossible to repair. The club faces internal strife, sporting sanctions, and criminal investigations. The last takeover might be declared a fraud. the Whyte takeover will almost certainly be. The share issue might be invalid, as well as criminal, and the people involved may well end up in jail. Lawsuits could follow from investors, there could be as yet unknown consequences from the Upper Tier Tax Tribunal (thank you Brogan Rogan for pointing out what those might be) and a host of other issues.
Rangers fans must be the loudest voices here. How do you want the world to view your club in years to come? Do you want one to be proud of, or one forever associated with the shame and disgrace of these days gone by? The one which bailed out on its tax obligations. The one with supporters who disgrace your very name. The one which allowed Whyte and Green to take you to the cleaners and send you to the wall. The one which handed over control to one convicted criminal and another awaiting trial. Do you want to be reborn clean, or mired in the muck?
David Murray destroyed your financial stability. He made it so no bank would issue you a line of credit and no investor of note wanted to buy. Craig Whyte liquidated you. Charles Green has cast the future of the Newco into doubt and acted in a manner which has annihilated your credibility with the financial markets for decades to come.
Between these three men, they have taken everything from you, and the press and the people who run the game here, as well as some of your own blindly ignorant fans, have allowed them to do all this and more. Now they conspire to hand the keys to Ibrox to other men of questionable character, who will wreck further havoc on the reputation of the club.
The Scottish Football Association has damaged the game it was supposed to protect, but above all else their greatest failure of governance was a failure to protect one of its biggest clubs from its own excesses and those of its owners.
Rangers fans, the SFA have betrayed your trust, more than the trust of any other club. What you must insist on now is full disclosure and transparency from the powers that be in Hampden. The SFA has to end the charade of allowing your club to handle this in-house. They must hand everything over to an outside agency – whether a legal one, or a footballing body like UEFA – and they must demand co-operation and answers, and threaten to withhold the license if they don’t get them.
You must not be afraid of that. You must embrace it. The men with their hands on the gears at Ibrox are motivated by money, and nothing more. If the license is withdrawn their “investments” are worthless. They cannot risk that.
You must demand that the rules on fit and proper persons are applied, and where necessary even made stronger, to prevent your club falling into unclean hands. You must demand that they protect your reputation from further damage, by getting this all out there and acting accordingly, even if that means your club does not play football for at least a year.
You must be willing to suck it all up, knowing that what will emerge is a Rangers which has been cleansed and moves forward with honour, and dignity, led by custodians who treasure it rather than those who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
The Rangers Standard has recently emerged as a genuine voice for those in your support who are sick and tired of what Rangers has become, and want it restored to something that is worthy of the love and respect in which you hold it. On that website, there are discussions about the kind of club you seek to be and about whether the institution of Rangers is about more than just football.
If that’s how you feel about it then you know it is about more than how many titles the club can claim, about more than just results on the park, about more than just the game. Rangers, like Celtic, is an idea. It has to be something you are proud of.
I am a socialist, but one with a fevered imagination and a tendency to write very dark things. This piece won’t have been good reading for some of you (perhaps all of you haha!) but I think there’s more hope in here than in other things I’ve written.
In spite of everything that’s come to pass, I still believe. I believe in Scottish football. I believe in our system of football governance, even if those who are working in it are failing on some level.
In society, as much as we strain against them, laws exist for our protection. To fail to enforce them is to leave us at the mercy of those elements who would do us harm. The rules of football ensure the protection of all clubs, not just a few.
The failure to enforce the rules has never had graver consequences than here in Scotland. The irony is that bending and breaking them has hurt the one club those violations were designed to help. It cannot be allowed to happen again.
The rules must be applied without fear or favour.
The best must find their conviction, and their passionate intensity once more.
James is a co-editor of the On Fields of Green Blog http://www.onfieldsofgreen.com/
Sceptical, schmectical! Don’t really care! Just spent 2 hours undergoing the most pleasant hangover cure ever! Laugh out loud stuff!
MSM (and I know you are lurking) must now, at least, deploy their collective investigative skills and ASK QUESTIONS!!
Charlotte. Baby. Candlelit for 2 anytime.
Yours,
An Admirer.
XX
chipm0nk says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 10:09
Given that the most recent tape released is apparently Brian Stockbridge conspiring with Craig Whyte and Charles Green his position at rangers is surely just as untenable as that of Mr Green (which may actually suit him). Worth reminding ourselves of his background
===============================================================
Finance Director The Rangers Football Club
June 2012 – Present (1 year) Glasgow, United Kingdom
Director Zeus Capital
January 2012 – June 2012 (6 months) London, United Kingdom
Director – Corporate Finance Allenby Capital
January 2010 – January 2012 (2 years 1 month) London, United Kingdom
============================================================
Yes but worth looking at cross linkages such as Stockbridge and Ahmad both being at Zeus as directors and coming to TRFCL as directors. But Ahmad was apparently involved in Rangers from Feb 2012 and Zeus also advised and was heavily involved in Green’s consortium takeover of Rangers and Zeus directors and associates have at least 5 million RIFC Plc shares.
Then Allenby – this was founded by Imran Ahmad. Good piece by 100bjd at: http://scotslawthoughts.wordpress.com/2012/10/19/imran-ahmad-of-rangers-the-portfolio-of-his-former-co-allenby-capital-by-100bjd/
However I did stumble across one of honest Ahamd’s belters from the past when he was beloved of the Rangers support before he developed a split persona and became ‘IamaRanger’ – that rangeritis can be a terrible disease and someone ought to warn Craig Mather about it.
Still back to Ahmad who stated: ‘Rest assured Octopus, DM, CW and Ticketus have no interest in Zeus or RFC – you can quote me on this. (Rangers Standard October 2012)
A Rangers Standard follow-up article the next day (Oct 2012) derides Paul McConville for stating: ‘‘it is noteworthy that Mr Green denies direct contact with Mr Whyte even though Mr Whyte does not allege such contact took place.’
The Rangers Standard author goes on to state: ‘What? Sorry? Why is it noteworthy? Oh, you mean it is more nudge-nudge, wink-wink insinuation? I get it. Read between the lines and all that. In all seriousness, that is what it amounts to. Look how much Mr Green is saying he has no contact with Mr Whyte other than he has stated, that must mean he has. It is pointless and disingenuous’.
And Paul’s concern of the: ‘Possibility that there could be links, either deliberate or coincidental, between Mr Green and Mr Whyte’ was similarly dissed.
I really hope that since last October some Bears have found a few brain brain cells because if they haven’t then their club could be facing extinction yet again.
100bjd says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 11:44
I am sure his penny shares are tucked up nicely in a blind trust somewhere!
===============================================================
You truly are a terrible man – indeed it may well be a vehicle designed by Zeus 🙂
That Dropbox version of the 5 way agreement is the one I put in at the tail end of January, but it pre-dates that point.
Which brings me to Charlotte: I’m not too au fait with financial and legal matters, but have taken an interest in her posts. My curiosity has been tickled not so much by the content, which to date has offered few surprises given what many suspected, but by who ‘she’ might be. I also wondered why she has selected the items revealed. Is it simply a scatter-gun technique?
The following is guesswork.
Through the night (for us) she has added in some photos of Craig Whyte, with various party goers, and Charlotte might be giving us another clue. In fact, is ‘she’ in any of these pictures? Wearing a blue dress? I’m using my imagination here, but when spivs fall out, they needn’t all be male.
I’d say the person posting as Charlotte might be someone looking for stimulating, challenging, and fun work, having a keen interest in technology. They may have been living in Monaco in recent times, but have a background in a time zone quite a few hours removed from there, or even the UK. They could have a fascination for human behaviour and society and perhaps a degree in Sociology from a US university. She’s certainly skilled in Media and Communication Science!
Charlotte’s ‘Seek Truth’ profile photo partly displays a woman with centre parting and long hair with rather distinctive eye make-up. ‘She’ looks familiar. 😉
TSFM says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 09:52
“One thing (amongst others) that gives me cause for caution is the Dickensian-style management of the story-line. Why the tease”?
—————–
TSFM, if I might be so bold to venture an opinion.
I too felt the drip release of information suggested we were (are) being played. However another possibility is that the volume of information and complexity of interrelationships is so vast that she felt the need to lay a trail of ‘sweeties’ to lead us along the path. As the squirrel clip showed earlier, nature has taught us to be wary of free gifts but we cannot igniore them either. A cautious approach was always the most prudent attitude and as a community I think we exhibited this.
chipm0nk says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 10:26
‘…The SFA and the SPL tried to blackmail and bully them into the top league. They predicted Armageddon for their own organisations if it didn’t happen.
So let’s bear in mind where the blame really lies, rather than laying it at the feet of the football clubs who actually said no….’
——-
Absolutely.
I am really enjoying reading Charlotte’s revelations and the forensic analysis thereon, and am now inclined to think the documents are authentic. (If they are not, then the creative genius behind them has to be greatly admired).
However, you have reminded us,chipm0nk, that for this blog (as opposed to those who would like to see the total extinction of any kind of Rangers ) it is the skewed and perverted relationship over many, many seasons between one member club of the SFA, and the wilful blindness of the MSM to that fundamentally damaging relationship, that is the source and origin of all that has happened and is yet to happen to Scottish Football.
The present office-holders are reaping not only the harvest of their own deceitfulness, but crop of generations of lies and deceit.
Did Craigie pay her after the arrest of the Bentley gentlemans motoring machine? or is she still waiting.
Brogan Rogan Trevino and Hogan says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 10:27
“…Green and Whyte are a team…”
I see what you did there.
borussiabeefburg says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 12:05
‘Charlotte’s ‘Seek Truth’ profile photo partly displays a woman with centre parting and long hair with rather distinctive eye make-up. ‘She’ looks familiar. 😉
———
Apart from the Arch-villain, can posters identify any of the partying people?
Brogan Rogan Trevino and Hogan says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 11:42
Allyjambo
Now what were they if Bryson was advising that there was nothing wrong with the registrations as per his subsequent– unchallenged expert evidence?
=====================================================
I still have never figured out why the question was never asked of Bryson by Rod McKenzie: ‘Is that your personal opinion or has it ever been discussed by the SFA and if so was it adopted as SFA policy’.
We appear to witnessed what may be someone’s mistaken or distorted personal view elevated to SFA policy without being tested in the slightest way – tbh a first year law student should know better and I have no doubts that McKenzie knows better.
So why was there silence on the issue and who instructed McKenzie to switch his brain off and become a block of wood. In many ways I blame McKenzie more than Bryson for what went down which smacks of things I had better not give words to.
john clarke says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 12:16
Izabella Andersson ? (Blue Dress)
http://www.izabellaandersson.com/cv%20book.jpg-for-web-xlarge.jpg
Kim Whyte ? (Group round table, black and white photo)
http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01476/SNA2304GX2-532_1476224a.jpg
rantinrobin says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 11:43
—————————————–
I would add that the BBC must surely be set to revisit this story,
——————————————————
That wouldn’t surprise me in the least 🙂
Timing though is everything here
54 (???s) till the next Panorama special?
chipm0nk says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 11:26
So will this Chris Morgan be just another Green man in the Blue Room.
Follow the money – Best reading on PC brightness full OR LIT…..
chipm0nk says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 10:26
Rangers, the SFA and the SPL are the guilty parties here. Not the other clubs.
========================================
…and that’s it in a nutshell Sir!
Brogan Rogan Trevino and Hogan says: Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 11:42
———————————
I suspect that Bryson wasn’t involved in setting up the five way agreement. Remember that document predates the FTTT judgement which was widely expected to find RFC liable for their tax avoidance/evasion and would make it easier to sanction the club by the loss of titles.
Once the FTTT ruled largely in favour of RFC, there was an opportunity for Bryson (I suspect at Ogilvie’s request) to come up with a scenario that would avoid CO having to resign.
The LNS judgement was also notable in they way that it found the club guilty of non disclosure but failed to sanction any of the individuals involved, although I can’t recall whether or not that was in LNS’ brief.
john clarke says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 12:12
The present office-holders are reaping not only the harvest of their own deceitfulness, but crop of generations of lies and deceit.
============================================================
In the past year I have often pondered that the SFA has moved on to a level way beyond base lies and deceit which have been elevated to just the standard operating procedure. It has become so ingrained that it isn’t part of the culture: It is THE CULTURE.
Borussiabeefburgh
Who is Charlotte and how did ‘she’ come by this material,
Personally I wouldn’t pay too much attention to the twitter profile pic,at first glance it looks like a typical ‘anonymous’ (those pesky hacktivists) twitter account which begs another question is it deliberately set up to look like an anonymous account for further confusion or is it an anonymous account.Given that all these documents and recordings are digitalised then its not beyond the realms of possibility that someone’s hacked the info from the guilty party’s computers and if that’s the case then some spivs should be very worried because once they’re on to you they’re on you.
We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.is their motto I believe !
greenockjack says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 11:49
Mullach
Was Charlotte in your bed last night ?
————
It is not for me to defend her good name. We are all trollops at heart. I am warming to her however.
barcabhoy says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 11:34
Mark Daly and Panorama did an incredibly effective job in exposing the EBT issue, and the issues surrounding Whyte. The advantage Mark had, and still has , is that the BBC Lawyers are not prepared to bow to threats from PR agencies and will run a story which is in the public interest ahead of their own commercial interest .
====================================================
Only through the good fortune of knowing someone, I put it to him that the BBC must surely have enough for another programme. Sadly his answer was that people involved in the first programme had a far from easy life after it was aired, and that greatly reduced the chance of a follow up.
Just to get this clear in my own mind – the latest Green / Whyte / Stockbridge tape appears to be the meeting Green says he had with Whyte at which Whyte agreed to have over his shares for two quid?
Allyjambo
So therefore this draft, which seeks to remove titles, was drafted without any discussion with THE expert on proper registration procedures?
Fair enough.
Why would they seek the removal of titles if not to do with improper registration or ineligibility to play in terms of the rules?
borussiabeefburg says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 12:05
2 0 Rate This
Charlotte’s ‘Seek Truth’ profile photo partly displays a woman with centre parting and long hair with rather distinctive eye make-up. ‘She’ looks familiar.
———–
The one that also appears to resemble CF’s Twitter profile pic (a little) is the one at the very back of the table group. Is that the lovely Izabella? Or is she the one to the left with distictive look?
Chris mck (@Chrismck3) says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 12:40
_______
The Twitter pic is just a tease and a stock photo, I accept.
——
john clarke says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 12:16
and
chipm0nk says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 12:27
_____
Blue dress is Izabella Andersson, she is also in the large group photo beside Craig Whyte. I’m not at all convinced that Kim Whyte is in that photo.
borussiabeefburg says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 12:05
“Which brings me to Charlotte…Wearing a blue dress?…a degree in Sociology from a US university”.
—————
Sounds like my kind of woman, Beautiful, moneyed, intelligent. Get her up on date.com briggsboy.
From CelticResearch
The voice on Charlottes tape overnight is Aiden Earley not Stockbridge as revealed by the Super Soaraway Scottish
patsymcd1888 says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 12:59
“The voice on Charlottes tape overnight is Aiden Earley not Stockbridge as revealed by the Super Soaraway Scottish”
—————-
I suspect they are correct but haven’t bothered to check. I did uncover this piece of audio allegedly of Brian Stockbridge if any wish to compare. Kicks in at 20:29.
http://glasgowradio.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/live-interview-with-sevcos-brian.html
To ‘Chris mck’ MCR
FFS, seriously, your having a laugh.
You know what you did last summer!
Chris mck (@Chrismck3) says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 12:40
Borussiabeefburgh
Who is Charlotte and how did ‘she’ come by this material,
Personally I wouldn’t pay too much attention to the twitter profile pic,at first glance it looks like a typical ‘anonymous’ (those pesky hacktivists) twitter account which begs another question is it deliberately set up to look like an anonymous account for further confusion or is it an anonymous account.Given that all these documents and recordings are digitalised then its not beyond the realms of possibility that someone’s hacked the info from the guilty party’s computers and if that’s the case then some spivs should be very worried because once they’re on to you they’re on you.
We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.is their motto I believe !
Charlotte Fakeovers @CharlotteFakes 10m
Pinsent Mason deadline expired yesterday without a formal response from Whyte and others. Full and explosive QC’d LBC in 5-10 days instead.
upthehoops says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 12:41
Mark Daly …… Sadly his answer was that people involved in the first programme had a far from easy life after it was aired, and that greatly reduced the chance of a follow up.
—————————–
Just because there is a world weary not surprised reaction to hearing that doesn’t make it any more shocking! Was there any sense of how life wasn’t made easy or who by? This was after all a programme that won awards for “a superb piece of investigative journalism.” It’s the sort of thing that shows the best of the BBC, all the more important when it has been put on the defensive by scandals and attacks from a Murdoch empire whose own ideas of what constitutes superb investigative journalism were centre stage in the Leveson enquiry.
By GLENN GIBBONS
Published on 18/05/2013 00:00
Sorely-tried Rangers fans in the past couple of years will surely have formed an understanding of the anguish with which the American writer, Dorothy Parker, would react to the chiming of the doorbell or the shrill of the telephone in her New York hotel room: “What fresh hell is this?”.
For the famously acerbic Parker, the pain was merely the easily-remedied consequence of her own slovenliness in the business of meeting the deadlines imposed on her lucrative magazine commissions.
For followers of the Ibrox club, the distress derives from the immeasurably more complicated, questionable motives and actions of others, a series of would-be controllers who are quickly becoming too numerous to count – or even to know.
It will have surprised no-one, not even among those at the heart of the tumult, that the latest eruption of boardroom in-fighting should have prompted a warning from Andy Kerr, president of the Rangers Supporters Assembly, on the danger of alienating the members of his and similar organisations, thereby risking potentially serious damage from a dramatic fall in the sale of season tickets.
Even less of a shock would be registered by the readiness with which the recently-installed chief executive, Craig Mather, rushed into print to assure the club’s regularly alarmed fans that he is to be trusted to work exclusively for the good of the club and that renewing their subscriptions would be a sound move. This plea was a direct follow-up to the announcement that the cost of retaining their books would remain unchanged from last season.
It is not difficult, therefore, to imagine the grimness with which Mather would receive the news that the club’s former chairman, Alastair Johnston, had made public his view that “there is a cancer spreading through the club and it’s not going away”.
But, whatever picture may be formed when the various strands of the Rangers tapestry are eventually pulled together – these comprise mainly investigations and projected court proceedings of entirely uncertain outcomes – even a superficial review of the Ibrox situation at present confirms that the allegiance of the fans and the income it generates are utterly indispensable.
Anyone who recalls the great resurgence of Rangers in 1986, when the Lawrence construction company assumed control and appointed Graeme Souness as manager and David Holmes as chairman, will recognise the present circumstance as a betrayal of the ideals that were incorporated and began to be pursued 27 years ago.
The vibrancy and ambition of the club in those exciting days were articulated by its irrepressible commercial director, the late Freddie Fletcher. He caused rampant scepticism among the less enlightened guardians of the Scottish game (especially the Dickensian mindset of those at Celtic Park) by declaring that Rangers’ objective was to create an enterprise in which “gate money will represent a maximum of only thirty per cent of our revenue.”
A certain dismissiveness among the established order may have been understandable, since gate receipts had provided around 99 per cent of the clubs’ income for almost a century of the professional game and nobody knew anything else. Holmes and Fletcher created the model which Fergus McCann would replicate at Celtic eight years later, taking a potentially huge club that had been rendered virtually dormant and revitalising it with marketing skills and the promise of better times that were founded on sound business practices.
McCann’s legacy would be honoured, while Rangers would pass to the David Murray regime, which appeared for almost two decades to have a pronounced predilection for bravado and financial extravagance at the expense of even reasonable – that is, not necessarily even parsimonious – housekeeping.
Fletcher’s ideal nowadays seems further out of reach in Scotland than it was back in 1986, while the top clubs in England achieved the desired ratio a long time ago. Manchester United’s income from season ticket sales of 52,000, for example, represents only about 12 per cent of their annual turnover of around £350 million.
Rangers, of course, are not alone in their reliance on a large and active fan base. Ironically, however, they have been enjoying substantial attendances in the Third Division, their followers doubtless driven by the kind of rally-round-the-flag mentality that tends to manifest itself in times of adversity.
But it is their very status, with its built-in obligation to charge reduced, lower-division admissions, that necessitates their followers’ attendance in great numbers. The SPL clubs are also in need of a telling resurgence in crowds; the decline, however, is not attributable merely to Rangers’ expulsion, as the waning was evident some time before their present predicament.
Match attendances had been, in any case, impossibly artificial, a result of the aforementioned entrepreneurial skills of McCann and the natural rivalry between the big Glasgow clubs. No city with a population of around 600,000 is entitled to produce aggregate crowds for two football clubs of 110,000, with waiting lists for season tickets. Those heady days have been receding for at least the past four years, with, for instance, Celtic’s season ticket sales down from a high of 53,000 to about 43,000.
It was the success of those earlier campaigns which created the season-ticket culture which led to a reluctance among supporters to spend any more on football. The result has been mass kicking of the habit of attending away games.
Any pursuit that demands effort, commitment and financial outlay will always be vulnerable to competing distractions. Spending a lot of time travelling appreciable distances at considerable expense to watch mediocre football will be a prime target. All things considered (but, specifically, the number of years the playing standards have been putrid), the dwindling has been long overdue.
Well well curiouser and curioser.
patsymcd1888 says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 12:59
From CelticResearch
———–
Having compared the two audio clips, the guy on Charlotte’s seems to have a deeper voice than the phone call from the radio station. Not sure if this might be explained by Stockbridge being more relaxed?
If Charlotte’s so clever, why would she make such a basic error? I’ll let others consider and offer their opinions.
ecobhoy says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 12:04
100bjd says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 11:44
I am sure his penny shares are tucked up nicely in a blind trust somewhere!
===============================================================
You truly are a terrible man – indeed it may well be a vehicle designed by Zeus
——————————————————————————————————————
Eco,
I think you might find that Zeus are not on the same page as Ahmad and Stocksbridge. They went off piste…just like Chico. Someone posted on here about “breaking the circle” and I think they have a good point. Trouble is that everybody seems to breaking the circle.
Charlotte Fakeovers @CharlotteFakes 9m
Alleged minutes of Sevco 5088 board meeting 9 May 2012. http://www.scribd.com/doc/142190916/Board-Meeting-9-May-2012 …
Are people really taking Charlotte to be a woman, or just using “she” because of the name the twitter user has chosen.
I took it to refer to the project name used for the fakeovers.
ianagain says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 13:25
Well well curiouser and curiouser.
————————————————————-
Context?
Devils Advocate @Devi1sAdv0cate 1h
@CharlotteFakes if you look into Chris Morgan look at a company called RISC Management. Chris works for them. Dodgy (with a capital D)!
Charlotte Fakeovers @CharlotteFakes 22m
Correction. Last audio featured Earley not Stockbridge. Untenable Brian appears at later meeting acknowledging hiding Craig and Pension Fund
So, if these minutes are correct Whyte really was a Director of Sevco 5088.
The company whose bid was accepted by Duff and Phelps.
Jack J
This context:
torrejohnbhoy says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 13:18
Charlotte Fakeovers @CharlotteFakes 10m
Pinsent Mason deadline expired yesterday without a formal response from Whyte and others. Full and explosive QC’d LBC in 5-10 days instead.
@mullach
Just compared it, I think it is Earley. Thanks for the link
Gregory Ioannidis @LawTop20 1m
Yes they can! “Can Football Supporters Challenge Decisions of Football Bodies?” http://lawtop20.blogspot.com/2012/11/can-football-supporters-challenge.html …
chipm0nk says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 10:26
36
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_________________________________________________
You hit the nail on the head.
Now imagine the scenario where Sevco were allowed to play in SPL or Division 1?
Things would be very different now.
None of this would be coming out I suspect.
This makes Regan/Doncaster/Ogilvie complicit in the defrauding of Scottish football to a huge extent. They may or may not have known the full extent of the fraud, but they went all out louddly and publicly to promote it, even using threatening language (armageddon).
These revelations make their positions completely untenable.
If any of them had a shred of decency they would immediately loudly and publicly resign, decrying CG and claiminhg to have been shamefully misled, while accepting that their actions 12 months ago could unkonwingly have seriously harmed the credibility of the sport, and facilitated illegality on the stock market.
Their silence is deafening.
Their continuance in office can only be seen as evidence of culpability.
Charlotte Fakeovers @CharlotteFakes 25m
Alleged minutes of Sevco 5088 board meeting 9 May 2012. http://www.scribd.com/doc/142190916/Board-Meeting-9-May-2012 …
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Gregory Ioannidis Gregory Ioannidis @LawTop20 14m
@CharlotteFakes @SusanBurke9 Unfortunately this has no legal effect whatsoever
Expand
SFA Know SFA Know @garybhoy78 10m
@LawTop20 @CharlotteFakes @SusanBurke9 it doesn’t have to in order do discredit CG&Co fo what they are. #Rangersitis pmsl
Expand
Gregory Ioannidis Gregory Ioannidis @LawTop20 8m
@garybhoy78 @CharlotteFakes @SusanBurke9 There is a governing body for that. Or is there?
Expand
Mintys Moonbeams Mintys Moonbeams @Moonbeamsnomore 7m
@LawTop20 @garybhoy78 @CharlotteFakes @SusanBurke9 thats a killer one-liner right there Gregory! 😉
ianagain says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 13:57
0
0
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Jack J
This context:
torrejohnbhoy says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 13:18
Charlotte Fakeovers @CharlotteFakes 10m
Pinsent Mason deadline expired yesterday without a formal response from Whyte and others. Full and explosive QC’d LBC in 5-10 days instead.
——————————————————————————————————————-
Thanks, Ian.
I always enjoy your contributions and wanted to benefit fully from this one.
hell hath no fury like a woman scorned !!!
resin_lab_dog says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 14:06
I couldn’t agree more.
Had the plan gone ahead there would have been A (debt free) Rangers playing in the SPL. They would have shafted everyone else … again.
After decades of cheating, lying and stealing they would have gotten a fresh start, to the detriment of every other club in Scottish football.
What they tried to do was shameful. And we are still having to listen to “Scottish football needs a strong Rangers … it needs to be done for the good of the game … the other clubs can’t survive without them” etc.
Forget shameful, they have no shame.
Follow the money – Look East…..
Nova is Orlit is Green is Whyte
chipm0nk says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 14:19
resin_lab_dog says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 14:06
I couldn’t agree more.
Had the plan gone ahead there would have been A (debt free) Rangers playing in the SPL. They would have shafted everyone else … again.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
But with Alistair at the helm at least they would have been cack at football.
borussiabeefburg says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 12:05
…………………………………
I would say there was no real purpose to releasing those photographs…other than to provide a convincer to suggest the associated documents are genuine…
There are a few who are questioning the reason and the authenticity of the….on the edge documents….the photos are merely a…’here is a reason to believe what I am giving you’…
If you had access to a batch of documents…I know I would…sift through them and locate the ones that provide the killer blow…unless of course by doing so…it also damaged you financially…
Sam
I’m intrigued you think or ??
Sam says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 14:23
Follow the money – Look East…..
Nova is Orlit is Green is Whyte
chipm0nk says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 14:19
…………………………..
The question is who drafted the document?
It appears all parties were in general agreement to it…as long as the conditions were agreed to…
It seems odd…but the championships are not the liquidated clubs to give back….they are a historical record of the SPL…and it is their choice to remove if they so choose..
torrejohnbhoy says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 13:51
Charlotte Fakeovers @CharlotteFakes 9m
Alleged minutes of Sevco 5088 board meeting 9 May 2012. http://www.scribd.com/doc/142190916/Board-Meeting-9-May-2012 …
—————————————————————————————————————–
The minutes are unsigned. One explanation may be that Charlotte only has access to digital files e.g. MS Word.
In any event the legal status of this document is moot.
Interesting and fitting in with what is now generally believed but moot none the less.
And what is this all about :
“Charlotte Fakeovers @CharlotteFakes 10m
Pinsent Mason deadline expired yesterday without a formal response from Whyte and others. Full and explosive QC’d LBC in 5-10 days instead.”
To whom will this LBC be addressed? Surely we should instead be expecting a Letter of Claim by now?
Or is the meaning that a “Full and explosive QC’d LBC” i.e. the original LBC will now be leaked by Charlotte in “5-10 days”?
Scottish football needs a strong Arbroath.
paulmac2 says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 14:34
Personally I think they suggest that the person has access to a computer or a download from one. The photos would make sense if it was Whyte himself or someone close to him.
There are a few people who would have that sort of access. Whyte himself, a former wife or mistress, the Police who raided his house, COPFS, staff working at the house.
However if it is from Whyte’s computer one would imagine it would be password protected. So the person would also have to know that, or have it provided to them
Sam says
‘Havin a laugh’ probably !
There’s always the possibility that Charlottes is the worlds biggest squirrel 😉
All that wasted money on internal investigations when Charlotte had the answers all the time. And for free. No wonder these guys need to get Malcolm Murray out the door asap as it now looks like he is the only one at TRFC that has the balls to want the truth out in the open. Do not be fooled by Souper Ally’s ‘This Club needs cleansed’ call. He needs the spivs at the healm because he needs his big pay cheque each month and he knows the last thing the spivs care about is performances on the pitch and a true TRFC board would kick his fat ass right back to Question of Sport. The Cardigan is so far off the pace and out of his depth that he is in fact an empty shirt in the boardroom struggle.
SFA need to stand up here and refuse a playing licence to shoo away the vultures. Let some real rangers men try to regain control of the assets and start to rebuild from scratch.
barcabhoy says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 11:34
barcabhoy,
best comment for a long time.
Ive read many say the CtH stuff isnt really adding anything new, but maybe just confirming whats been guessed already, and that the real intrigue is now in the ‘who?’ of the CtH angle.
But your points are the real beef. There has been activities and actions here that are of importance to the public whether non-fan or fan and regardless of hue. Criminality is, at the least, not out of the question. The SFO should be interested, amongst others.
There are questions hanging over the governors of our game, and they are important unanswered questions. They are precisely the type of questions that the TSFM need to keep asking of these governors, administrators and organisations. But what it seems has been happening here, are of wider and greater importance to society.
I agree fully with the view that there is strong public interest in full exposure of the dealings through this football insolvency event. Again, that is the case regardless of any interest in football and regardless of which team is supported.
Brogan Rogan Trevino and Hogan says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 12:43
…………………………..
BRTH….the more you ponder on the title element of the draft the more bizarre it becomes..
It is drafted as tho the liquidated club owned the titles? If that was to be true..does this then follow that with SEVCO winning SFL3 this year do they have to purchase that title from last years winner who by logic must currently own it?
If that is the case…what if they refuse to sell them the title…does that mean SEVCO did not win it but merely finished at the top of a lower league where the title is owned by another club?
The bottom line is the draft was politely asking SEVCO fc (I don’t know why) to do the honourable thing and accept their removal from history…they refused…it was not theirs to refuse!
Whoever drafted this piece of utter unadulterated garbage needs to be placed in a set of stocks outside Hampden and have an endless amount of horse sh*t thrown at them until our arms get tired.
Someone should make sure Private Eye is up to speed with our Charlotte’s postings. I think they would find them very interesting.
!5 Minutes ago
Charlotte Fakeovers @CharlotteFakes 15m
Non redacted version of email from Imran to others inc Chris Morgan (inadvertently uses work domain when forwarding).
http://www.scribd.com/doc/142201436/Imran-Rafat-Craig-Aidan-Chris-2 …
Some more just in
Charlotte Fakeovers @CharlotteFakes 1m
Ah, here’s some legal opinions on the merits of the claim dated 22 March 2013 http://www.scribd.com/doc/142204728/Letter-on-Worthington-Claims-Final …
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Carfins Finest. (@edunne58) says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 14:56
SFA need to stand up here and refuse a playing licence to shoo away the vultures. Let some real rangers men try to regain control of the assets and start to rebuild from scratch.will
==================================================
‘Real’ Rangers men are conditioned to being allowed to spend other peoples money in order to stay in front more often than not. Even now they sign players they can’t afford.
wow..
“Sevco 5088 should in those circumstances be able to obtain a declaration from the Court that it is the rightful owner of the ClubAssets in addition to orders for damages for losses caused to Sevco 5088 and/or damages for the tort of conversion. Alternatively, an administrator or liquidator of Sevco 5088 could make an application to the court for the return of the Club Assets or an application could be made pursuant to s190 of the Companies Act for their return.”
(taken from Charlotte’s latest)
2.
The Assets Claims
We understand that Charles Green was a director of Sevco 5088 at all relevant times as well as being a director of Sevco Scotland at the relevant time. This latter fact is important
as Green’s knowledge would be imputed to Sevco Scotland as a result.
We have seen a copy of the signed agreement (dated 12 May 2012) (“the CVA
Agreement”) between Sevco 5088 and RFC 2012 and its administrators pursuant towhich it was agreed that Sevco 5088 and RFC 2012 would enter into an agreed formSPA to acquire the Club Assets if the proposed CVA failed. Pursuant to that SPASevco 5088 had the right and obligation to purchase the Club Assets. Similarly, RFC2012 had the right and obligation to sell those assets to Sevco 5088. We have also seen transcripts of texts and copies of emails which support (a) the allegation that Green and Ahmad were effectively acting in accordance with the instructions of Craig Whyte and Aidan Earley and (b) the assertion that it was agreed between the four of them that the acquisition was to be carried out in the name of Sevco 5088.
It is always useful to revisit statements etc with the benefit of hindsight ……
CG spokesperson summed it up nicely for everyone ……..12 April …. to STV
“Mr Green is appalled by this blatant attempt to discredit him”
continues ….
If this documentation was correct then, as Sevco 5088 was formed as the initial bid vehicle, the administrators would have been negotiating a sale of the club to a company which had a director who was clearly forbidden from being involved with it.
Charlotte ….. you really are a very naughty girl ..
Mullach 18 may 2013 @ 12:55
“Sounds like my kind of women”
What age group shal I place her in and do we go for a pop up picture of her with the words “remember me” ? You will of course have to provide a further details so please update you profile to ensure that you are compatable 🙂
BTW could CtheH be a disgruntled former bit on the side of CW !
now THAT is “very interesting”…
Brian McHugh (@pbmchugh) says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 15:17
Assuming this is genuine, then has the attempt to put Mr Morgan on the board just been taken off at the knees?
These docs would appear to vindicate Mr Malcolm Murray
Merchant and Legal website
http://www.merchantlegal.com/ContactUs/ContactUs.html
The excitement on here at the prospect that “Charlotte Fakeovers” might be a female, and maybe even an attractive one at that, is desperately sad.
This is why the sports journalists should stick to writing puff pieces, and, give this story over to the Business Section
”
Tom English@TomEnglishSport
@Subterranean_C @CharlotteFakes You’re getting all of that from these documents? I might have missed that information…”
NT
The excitement on here at the prospect that “Charlotte Fakeovers” might be a female, and maybe even an attractive one at that, is desperately sad
Agreed NT, get a grip guys, fantasising isn’t getting us anywhere, now stop being naughty and stay focused on the real issues here lol
Very interesting to see how the ‘independent’ commission’s report into the goings behind the scenes will contrast to what is alleged by these documents – will it be a hasty rewrite or a complete fudge ? How long before the timorous beastie that is the Scottish media grapple with the facts ? Never mind sporting integrity – do these guys have any integrity ?
More importantly, how long will it take the leaden hooves of the football authorities to get in aboot it. Their complete fuddery in the licensing of a new Rangers given entry to the 3rd division under false pretences – i.e no Whyte involvement, only adds to their shambolic reputation. Unfortunately its the whole of Scottish footall that suffers in their incompetence.
Very interesting days ahead….
Night Terror says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 16:03
The excitement on here at the prospect that “Charlotte Fakeovers” might be a female, and maybe even an attractive one at that, is desperately sad.
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Given the volume of potentially damaging information in the last 24 hours, the fact that the thing you deem most worthy of comment is that “peoples excitement on here at the prospect that ‘Charlotte Fakeovers’ might be a female, and maybe even an attractive one at that”, is desperately sad.
Will the AIM react to these latest releases and suspend the shares? I would have thought on the basis of the latest release that there is reasonable doubt as to the rightful ownership of the assets.