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/
mullach says: Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 18:12 58
…
CW reckons that despite the urgency he has paperwork to prove the corpse belongs to him…
==============
That made me laugh.
What sprung to mind was the unseemingly squabbling between York and Leicester over the recently found remains of King Richard III !
Although, God forbid, that they will still be squabbling over the corpse down Govan way in 528 years time… 🙄
chipm0nk says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 23:22
achillesacronym says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 23:10
What is it you see being put into place.
A club winning the fourth tier of Scottish football and moving into the third tier. Based on having the second biggest wage bill in Scottish football.
Still with an unsustainable business model, spending the proceeds of an IPO on operating costs.
How is it “the establishment” sorts that for them.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
‘A club winning the fourth tier of Scottish football and moving into the third tier’. Exactly like that.
Those wages and the business model – its only us (and a few TRFC fans) that spend time thinking about that. And, now that they’ve got them through the first part, they’ve got time to fix these too.
Interesting though, that when all else is said and done, the cheating, lieing and thievery, that’s what we have to pin our hopes on – a crap business model! See how quickly we have forgotten – the making it up as they went along, the outlandish ‘legal’ processes and decisions, the introduction of outright spivvery to obfuscate – but it’ll be the business case that does it? Turn it up!
‘Unseemly’ ! D’oh…
ianjs says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 22:35
“Paul James Hassall”.
————
Ian, Mr. Hassall appears in one of Charlotte’s tweets yesterday :
http://www.scribd.com/doc/142046684/dont-tell-murray
The last e:mail has ‘Merchant House Finance’ in the address line.
As newtz map shows, many of these companies are interrelated and the same characters crop up over and over again. It seems to be a closed world, like football management in some ways.
Liquidation of any of these companies is just a typical event. None of the companies appear to increase in value to any extent. Many end up going bust.
Charlotte had mentioned something about pensions so perhaps that is one motive for acquiring certain businesses but whatever the motive, they just seem to act as ‘smoke and mirrors’ to obscure other activities. The stalwarts are grown near fatigued with it by now which is why new readers probably benefit from the recycling of the old information; so the liturgy is not erased.
It is a business and legakl education I have found. A window onto corpoerate governance and other things too.
achillesacronym says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 23:43
It was the failed business model which led to Rangers’ liquidation and the club dying.
It is likely to be the same failed business model which will do the same to the new club.
I still don’t see what you think the establishment can do about that.
macbrayne says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 21:21
Oi Mullach, did you ever spot her on match.com 🙂 I certainly haven’t and he certainly never met her up the Savoy your ole dancing haunt 🙂
greenockjack says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 22:48
“The screen grab was from a CF tweet”.
———-
So much information was piling in yesterday that I got to the stage of thinking, what’s the point in me trying to correlate all this; the game must surely be up given the level of incrimination. However it probably does no harm to keep a record so if you could post that tweet I’ll put it on my list.
This stuff bursts my head at least as much as anyone elses. A plausible conspiracy theory would be ‘give them so much information that it chokes them into submission’. However I suspect there will be people picking through the detail. The beauty about the internet is that it is like a virtual brain. Someone has an idea or observation and within minutes all sorts of connections might be made to previous information. It is a powerful thing.
Posters also act as a tribal memory. Ther has beed at least one occasion over theb last few days (dogsbollox) when I’ve been corrected or tipped off by someone recalling information from much earlier in this saga.
The suggestion that Charlotte’s offerings might be AT inspired was cautioned by TSFM moderator. AT’s stuff is under legal scrutiny we beleive and it is unlikely that a journalist of his standing would act in anything other than a professional manner. It could be however, this is speculation on my behalf and have absolutely no knowledge of such, that the same information source that AT is privvy to has decided to take their data elsewhere. Who knows?
We can’t really gain too much by such speculation other than to attempt to bring credibility to Charlotte’s documents. That would be counter to the principles here since we must judge information on its own merits rather than relying on others to vouch for it, however respectable their reputation.
Having said that, TSFM did draw back a little from their initial high level of scepticism and mention was made that RTC had felt it was credible. However there has been nothing on this site directly from RTC in that vein so that comment is hearsay as far as I am concerned. It does however have the opposite effect to the scenario if RTC was reported to have said he thought it was fake. We can’t help being influenced to some extent by our environment (earlier conversation concerning referees touched on this).
I am not surprised that speculation would take this route and did allude to such myself (if I might be so bold/very stupid), in a possibly ill mannered and long winded (who me!) comment a few days ago. However we should prefer to consider scenarios rather than simply speculate without end.
The Irvine/CW e:mail did seem to be a bit ‘off the radar’ which did make it curious.
I had mused that perhaps Charlotte was trying to make a media rights connection between Chris Akers and the shenanigans. The Pearl & Dean/ STV stuff seemed to fit that profile. It was a very tenuous framework however and unless more connections are found it is presently not sufficiently robust to stand up to any real stressful scrutiny.
I did a Google search on the twitter image our friend CtheH uses “seek truth” and the following was one of the interesting facts that came up in connection with the image.
“Seek truth from facts” (simplified Chinese: 实事求是; traditional Chinese: 實事求是; pinyin: shí shì qiú shì) is a historically established expression (成語) that first appeared in the Book of Han. Originally, it described an attitude toward study and research.
It became a key element of Maoism, first quoted by Mao Zedong during a speech at the Sixth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 1938, in reference to pragmatism. Mao had probably remembered it as being the inscription on his alma mater.
every day is a learning day on TSFM
Nope
The real question is not what Whyte is doing to Green or what Green is doing to Murray
It is
Who is leaking information from both camps ?
And how are they getting their hands on it ?
I wouldn`t be a bit surprised if the key offices and IT hardware at Ibrox has been bugged for years
Ever since the EBT decision was taken back in 2002
Think about it
If you had good reason to suspect that some RFC Directors might turn against you in order to protect themselves from a future prosecution by HMRC
Wouldn`t you ensure you had cast iron proof of their cooperation?
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Either way the mess is heading for an unholy alliance between The Spivs, The Good Bears and The Gullible
All of them aiming to force another liquidation tol see off the bad guys and provide a fresh start
Look out for an orchestrated ST boycott brought about by the return of Green
StevieBC says:
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 23:34
“What sprung to mind was the unseemingly squabbling between York and Leicester over the recently found remains of King Richard III “!
—————
Now you’ve got me onto a favourite subject of mine, as when I read that I subconsciously inserted ‘Duke of’ as a prefix to both those place names (although I’m not sure their was ever a Duchy of Leicester).
I think it might be the second part of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, battle of Shrewsbury perhaps, Henry Duke of Hereford (Later Henry V) defeats Harry Hotspur, the valiant son of the Duke of Northumberland in combat during the battle, slaying him. Hereford’s despicable acquaintance, Falstaff, who has been lying feigning death throughout much of the fighting, arises from his slumber and drags Harry Hotspur’s body from the battlefield as a trophy, claiming he has slain him himself. In that particular case Hereford deigned not dispute this unworthy claim, since his majesty was above squabbling over corpses, however revered.
Things were different back in ye olde days apparently.
Was going to write up a bit of Henry V last night, before the battle of Agincourt but I suspected the pomposity of it might have sullied an otherwise remarkable day.
briggsbhoy says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 00:44
—–
Chairman Mao was as far removed from the’ truth ‘as the Scottish Football authorities and those deceitful creatures fighting over a dead club ,whose sheer bloody malignity Charlotte has pointed up.
A wickedness only surpassed by the unforgivable deceit and pusillanimity of the Scottish Football authorities and the craven complicity of the SMSM in that deceit.
Charlotte Fakeovers @CharlotteFakes 8h
Prominent Rangers Supporters Spokesperson sends me this, thinking I’m Craig!!! “Been an admirer of your recent work. Would be good to talk”
_____________________________________________________________________________
Charlotte Fakeovers @CharlotteFakes 8h
I should have offered the clown a seat on the board on the basis of unconditional support. However I shall never claim to be someone else.
______________________________________________________________________________
TU if you think its Chris Graham : TD for Mark Dingwall
(Either one would be hilarious)
john clarke says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 00:57
Indeed, just like the Rangers, all the wrong doings are ignored and a purer innocent image created.
Have you seen the latest tweet from Charlotte with the screen print from a Rangers website, just like Newton’s Law for every action there is a reaction.
Green-Whyte team would break all rules
By TOM ENGLISH
Published on 19/05/2013 00:00
IF YOU asked the hardcore Celtic support which they’d prefer, sex or social media, some might say: “What’s the difference?” Without a doubt there was a near orgasmic glee last week when a new Twitter account started posting links to private documents and previously unheard audio featuring a cast of characters in the Rangers story.
Within a few days this account had nearly 9,000 disciples, all of them looking at the paperwork and listening to the tapes and becoming utterly convinced that a “biblical” scandal had taken place at Ibrox – or as one tweet put it, an “atomic bomb” had gone off in Govan.
What is bonkers about this latest Twitter phenomenon is that at least some of it has come from Craig Whyte, a man who Celtic people rightly viewed as a discredited chancer up until such time as he started leaking stuff that was damaging to Rangers. At that point he suddenly metamorphosed into a font of truth, a bloke you could take seriously – all because Celtic folk suddenly liked what he was saying.
Not only liked – loved. Believed. There was a bit of an online orgy when these documents started to emerge and, it would appear, an unquestioning approach to them. We’re getting to a stage now where, when anything is leaked, it is immediately branded explosive no matter what the hell it is. People see what they want to see in all of this. A document full of business technobabble is deemed an “atomic bomb” not because it necessarily is but because some people desperately want it to be.
Some have not learned the lesson of the big tax case. For two years there was certainty that Rangers would be found guilty of industrial-scale cheating, a prejudgment that was proven to be wrong.
There is a prejudgment going on right now as well and it centres around Whyte and Charles Green and the suspicion that they were in cahoots when buying the club. Let’s be clear. There is a lot of evidence that suggests they were. And, if that turns out to be the case, then the sky is going to fall in on Rangers in a way that made last summer’s implosion look like a warm-up act.
In the worst-case scenario, Green is exposed as a shameless liar who got into bed with another liar, Whyte, to buy the club from an administrator, Duff and Phelps, who might have the police knocking on their door for doing a deal that should never have been allowed. If. The doomsday picture shows Rangers having conducted a dodgy share issue as well as obtaining an SFA licence under false pretences. Every rule in every book would have been breached if it is proven that Green and Whyte were definitely and indisputably a team. If.
There is an investigation happening, headed by Deloitte and the legal firm Pinsent Masons and the suggestion is that the findings may be published this week.
The liquidator, BDO, is also going about its work quietly and will report in due course. A penny for its thoughts.
Whyte is fighting for his business life – and possibly his liberty – and has done a fine job in muddying the waters but there won’t be any fooling these investigators. Either he was involved or he wasn’t. Either Rangers will get some relief or they will be plunged into a new pit of despair.
We shouldn’t have to wait much longer to find out, but wait we should. Online documents are all very entertaining but, given that Whyte is involved in the leaking of papers and audio, then you have to be circumspect.
What is beyond any doubt is the power struggle at Rangers and what Alistair Johnston, the former chairman, calls a cancer spreading through the club. It’s a cancer that has been there quite some time, beginning, of course, in the hubristic days of David Murray and, to be precise, with his devotion to the EBT scheme.
When Murray wanted out of Ibrox it was the fear of a howitzer tax bill that kept prospective responsible owners away, a vacuum that was eventually filled by Whyte and later by Green and Imran Ahmad and now possibly the Easdale boys and any number of other mysterious characters who know little of the club but know for sure that there is money to be made from it.
Arrogance put Rangers in this hole in the first place and Whyte just kept on digging. A few weeks ago I spoke to Paul Murray, a former director at Ibrox and one who unquestionably has the best interests of Rangers at heart, a description given to so many but deserved by so few.
Murray felt that there are only two people on the current Rangers board that he trusted – Walter Smith and Malcolm Murray. Soon both might be gone. Perhaps Malcolm Murray’s apparent indiscretions warrant the desperate push to get rid of him as evidenced by the recent vote of no confidence. That’s fine, as long as you’re replacing him with another executive whose reason for being there is to ask what he can do for his club rather than what the club can do for him.
It’s a symbol of horrible neglect that this type of character is a dying breed at Ibrox.
briggsbhoy says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 00:28
“…never met her up the Savoy your ole dancing haunt”.
——————–
Perhaps she moves in different circles but if she is as alluring as both our imaginations would have her, then perhaps thee and I should duel for her hand.
Charlotte, mortal combat for the benefit of your riches.
My weapon of choice?
A possil squirrel (cover your ears dear Charlotte for a naughty word will be uttered).
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2rh2f418qc2divq/WlTW899mG2
What say you sir?
Charlotte Fakeovers @CharlotteFakes 18m
Dear @TomEnglishSport Report is so far wide of the mark. Don’t you think CW has a legal team battling me right now? http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/sfl-division-three/tom-english-green-whyte-team-would-break-all-rules
Charlotte reads the Herald……………….
Charlotte Fakeover’s, I’m only a part time poster on here pop my head above the parapet after a bottle of brown champagne now and again. Reading with interest the last few day’s and I just can’t shake the feeling it’s someone who’s not after justice, or even what’s best for Scottish football which I believe with the majority of post’s on here many of us are. I see a few of the big hitter’s on here are alluding to this, so just thought I’d add my opinion too, if it’s too good to be true and all that. Human nature tell’s us every one after something (am i being cynical) in the end!
LOL
Mullach, I fear our dear friend Mr Clarke referring to Henry V and quoting Shakespeare has changed your character somewhat and your style of prose to pure poetry.
Pistols at dawn, Glasgow Green
Until there is a major reaction to CtheH postings, they are only but amusement. There has to be a motive and until we know that I don’t know what to make of this lady.
Palacio67 says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 01:11
Green-Whyte team would break all rules
By TOM ENGLISH
Published on 19/05/2013 00:00..
‘….Duff and Phelps, who might have the police knocking on their door for doing a deal that should never have been allowed…’
————-
Thank you, Palacio67, for posting the semi-anglo Irishman’s piece.
i personally have no doubt that certain people who were’ court-appointed’ administrators will be facing some awkward moments.
And that the reference in the D&P webpage to their involvement with the dead club will disappear pronto, if it has not already done so.
enoughx2 says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 01:19
“TomEnglishSport Report is so far wide of the mark”.
————-
Just trying to court affection from TSFM? We’ve seen CG use this tactic with Rangers gullibles. Fool me once…
briggsbhoy says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 01:23n
‘.mullach, I fear our dear friend Mr Clarke referring to Henry V..’
—-
Not I. At least not tonight. I’m too afeard of Essexbeancounter to mention Shakespeare!
Musht be some mistake!
@ Mullach
I’m not Charles Green! 🙂
Gentlemen, I bid you farewell, forsooth my lady from our chamber calls…. “what the f are you doing down there get aff that laptop and get tae yir bed, she cries 🙂 There is little chance of some affection I fear
Found this link in my Bookmarks, Can’t remember why, but the “Charlotte/stories” part of the address caught my eye.
The article refers to Bill Miller and a failed venture from 2004. http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/stories/2004/03/01/daily36.html
Forgive me this ramble..
It’s perfectly understandable that more than a year on from Rangers FCs inexorable slide into administration and liquidation, after the SFA truly expose their own woeful inadequecy to deal with a football club’s liquidation and what that should truly mean – and not some malodorous manufactured outcome to give any incarnate of RFC a helping hand – people begin to question, what does all this internet bampottery mean. It doesn’t lead anywhere, nothing ever changes. Our SFA , our SPL won’t do anything. I say this – times are a changing. The fact that two of the SPLs biggest clubs wouldl be liquidated within 2 years should be the tipping point. Nobody is particulary surprised at Hearts – whats surprising is that it’s taken so long. Romanov for all of his posturing and constant brinkmanship with players salaries, lost the inevitable battle to keep his bank afloat and as also seemingly inevitable Hearts.
Our professional game is in danger of going down the plughole or this is what we’re told. This is what they want us to believe. We need a strong Rangers, a strong Hearts, dont we ? What we do need are clubs who function within their means, who give young players a genuine chance, who do their scouting properly. Budgets worked on and kept to – not blown by the need to keep up with a neighbour who will buy a player they patently can’t afford. Our game is now undergoing the badly needed calibration. People are having to re-evaluate what house-price they can expect to sell for or afford. Or whether heating gets turned off. Nobody needs telling its difficult times. But we also need a strong leading body who make sure that proper financial initiatives are provided to see on-going generations of young footballers have places to play and train safely and in the right way to potentially see a better national game and team. Properly maintained grass pitches would help. Its not by chance or by dodgy refereeing decisions Scotland haven’t qualified for an international tournament for so long. Rome wasn’t built in a day…
But apathy is what they want. The city spivs, the gents in blazers will have made their money and toddled off to sunnier climes. They want us to be seen as just internet bampots, not football fans who care that the game is being ripped asunder by inept governing bodies who are more concerned with making sure swearing in a dugout picked up on a tv mic is punished before football clubs going to the the wall through malfeasance, greedy city gents or corporate-wily city wankers are properly controlled and kept within the laws of corporate finance – not just the football rule-book. WTF ? Lunatics, asylum – really ?
What we have seen over the last couple of years is football fans – genuine football fans have had layers of bullshit drip-fed from a pathetic mediocre Scottish media medicated on a strictly monitored menu of meat and red wine. Conspiracy theorists written off left, right and centre. But why bite the hand that feeds ? It’s a gravy train and why the hell would you get off ? Credit where its due, Mark Daly had a good go but has intimated to someone on this forum, via a pal, noted in the last day or two that BBC staff involved in the documentary about Rangers EBT scandal are too scared for their own well-being to do any follow up. Again, WTF ? Do we have to rely on a Channel 4 journalist to point out how meally mouthed, parochial and self serving our own media has become – a truly damning indictment. Are we left to our devices then if Alex says, ‘f#ck it – what a bunch of sad pr*cks’, would anyone blame him ? There’s certainly plenty for him – and a national media to get their teeth into – if they weren’t so blinded by their own shortcomings.
What I’m basically saying is – keep the faith – what these blog sites have clearly shown is that there is a lot of amazing resourceful people who can help hold these people to account.
BDO ,HMRC, even the effin SFA etc have plenty to go on now and a lot of it can come from the work a lot of the clever contributors to this site, RTCs and others.
Ahh… that feels a little better…
Briggsbhoy,
i’m sure there are others on this site have heard something similar on occasion
enoughx2 says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 01:43
@ Mullach
I’m not Charles Green! 🙂
————————-
Methinks he protesteth too much!
textual analysis of CF updates :
Genre: Informal
Female = 97
Male = 259
Difference = 162; 72.75%
Verdict: MALE
So you may want to calm your fevered imaginings 🙂
back to the cui bono thingy, the CF posts as speculated before seem to be well aligned with the US east coast, now what if there was a rangers minded person with an axe to grind with all the characters leaked so far, who may or may not reside on the east coast – maybe Florida? – and would like to clear out the spivs and charlatans, now this person probably wouldn’t be doing this themselves but may have experience and access to the inner workings of TRFC and also access to individuals used to exploring the inner workings of sports businesses and corporate deals. someone who isn’t appreciative of the cancer at the heart of his club. hmmm just a rumination.
I posted the contents of TE latest piece at 0111 hrs just to prevent anyone from clicking the link.
Simple question, Why the thumbs down? 🙁
Palacio67 says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 02:59
my guess is the TD are not for you posting but possibly TE content, but who knows 🙂
bayviewgold says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 03:02
1 0 Rate This
Palacio67 says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 02:59
my guess is the TD are not for you posting but possibly TE content, but who knows
————————————–
Thanks bvg, never thought about it that way, going to thumbs down myself now 🙂
Green and Ahmed enter the surreptitious recordings war? According to this rag a new recording was sent to it via sources ‘loyal to Ahmed and Green’. Who might that be then?
“Secret tape reveals Gers boss sacking”
http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/4933628/Secret-tape-reveals-Gers-boss-sacking.html
I can’t help but wonder on what or whose authority Ahmad was acting to sack the chairman when he isn’t a member of the Board of RIFC Plc.
He’s an employee of TRFCL and employed as the commercial director there. All very strange.
If I was an Institutional Investor in RIFC I would be very worried about who was actually controlling the company behind the scenes. It’s one thing directors of a public company board at each others throats but totally another when it’s a director of a wholly owned subsidiary company calling the shots.
Just thinking, we should have done our own awards. Player/manager, best print journo, worst print journo, best broadcasting journo, worst one and so on.
With the tu/td voting would be easy. Maybe TSFM aka big pink and a few of the big hitters could have came up with a shortlist of nominees for us mere mortals to vote on.
It’s a pity as with gym trainer no longer doing print and broadcasting his chance to win worst in both categories may have passed him by.
Reading the Tom English article, I am puzzled why he feels the need to mention Celtic at all. In the cold light of day I’m sure many other clubs and their fans will be feeling mightily aggrieved at the potential for cheating to have taken place on this scale, including obtaining an SFA licence under false pretences. His put down of Rangers Tax Case is premature, as it is only half time in that particular squabble. He should dig out the view of the dissenting Judge and ask how that might be viewed by three new Judges on the appeal panel – just a thought.
The real crux of the matter for me is that once again an Internet contributor has trumped the mainstream media in quite spectacular fashion and I’m sure much of the ire in T.E’s article is clouded by that. Perhaps he and his peers should try telling their Editors to forget whether they might upset the Rangers support, and give them the wherewithal to go after stories like this with a vengeance, without fear or favour. At the moment they just look downright stupid as this news breaks on a daily basis and they never get the scoop on any of it, and don’t even appear to try.
Palacio67 says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 01:11
I find it interesting that Tom English’s article dances around @Charlotteleaks – he does everything but spell out the Twitter address.
Why would he do that?
Alex Tomo hinted that there was an injunction. Perhaps Tom’s journalistic style here reinforces that suspicion – or it may be the case that Tom has zero faith in the materials and does not want to direct people to the Twitter account?
For me the main plus point in the provenance of @Charlotteleaks comes from the endorsement provided by @RangersTaxCase and @alextomo:
Rangers Tax-Case @rangerstaxcase 15 May
I urge anyone interested in the affairs of Rangers & The Sevcos to follow @charlottefakes . This is going to get interesting.
alex thomson alex thomson @alextomo 16 May
@rangerstaxcase indeed it will. Hope you’re good
Perhaps I am reading far to much into the line “[I] Hope you’re good” – to me this sounds like Alex is chatting to a friend or acquaintance (which I hope is the case).
Did Alex make RTC aware of the materials and/or the background to elements of the C4 story, for RTC to then offer his/her endorsement of their own free will?
Whatever the motives – if indeed there are any I believe that RTC, Alex Tomo, Phil M, Stewart Cosgrove want to tell the truth about the RFC and the Sevcos stories. All power to them – lets hope the truth comes out and soon. My better half is getting to the stage that she is threatening to confiscate the wireless router from 22.00 – 06.00 🙂
I strongly suspect that Tom English also wants the truth to be told. On @Charlottefakes he does not appear to be on the inside – and his stance of making reference to this new source, while being skeptical has some merit. If he is not convinced of the provenance then logically he would have to write with some degree of caution.
Tom English couches his Scotsman piece in terms of what ‘Celtic folk’ are making of the CF tweets and the info they contain. I’m not ‘Celtic folk’ Tom, neither are many of the people on this site. I’m just someone who wants the rot that infests Scottish football, and that has undoubtedly in recent years enanated from Ibrox, but spread far and wide, to be cleaned out for the good of the Scottish game. No doubt many Celtic forums are leaping with joy at the implications of a smoking gun or two appearing, although the complexity of the story perhaps makes that unlikely. For the rest of us (and this forum has shown a level of sensible debate and caution), anything that might cast light on the source of Scottish football’s disease, and perhaps in time help isolate and start to reverse its progress, is surely to be welcomed. Seeking the truth, to coin a phrase, is the best means we have of doing that, but no-one is pretending that’s easy, given the levels of obfuscation that have been deliberately put up by many of the players involved. This is only a Celtic story in the most peripheral terms, Tom, I think the context in which you set your article was a misjudgement.
Long Time Lurker says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 08:00
==========================
In terms of any possible injunction on Channel 4, should it not be public record that one has been obtained, without having to reveal any reason why?
internetbampots says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 01:51
———————————–
Couldn’t agree more, we are winning despite what some may think. There are many things that have happened over the last 24 months that I would never have thought possible. But there is much more to be done, a lot more that can be achieved.
The fact that the MSM regularly have a pop at social media shows the more astute posters on here are having an effect, even if they don’t always get it 100%. And isn’t that the point? They put something out there for discussion, it gets debated and we are all left with more information that we had previously.
I have to admit to being a regular subscriber of the Celtic magazine “The View” but over the years I also started reading the alternative version and also being a part of the Celtic social media sites that although 100% Green & White, give a view other than that of the club management.
But this sites takes my interest to a new level, I cannot just offer an opinion that suits my point of view without it being challenged (and sometimes corrected), I can only learn or have my beliefs strengthened by the regular input from the likes of CE, Angus or Arabest. I look forward to more of the same, even from Night Terror 😮
two panda @ 21.46
its all about the “handshake” … thats the point !!!
Long Time Lurker says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 08:00
Perhaps I am reading far to much into the line “[I] Hope you’re
good” – to me this sounds like Alex is chatting to a friend or
acquaintance (which I hope is the case).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You’re reading too much into it. I’ve no doubt Alex and RTC have exchanged more than a few cordial emails but Alex talks to everyone like that, even he’s being abused.
Palacio67 says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 02:59
English likes to think he is part of the MSM intelligentsia a la Speirs. His patronising attitude to John Brown 2 weeks ago represented a new low in Scottish sports broadcasting.
Basically he is a failed Irish journalist who has been forced to leave his own country to earn a living and unfortunately came over here. He’s decided therefore that he has a mission to show that the Irish can be even handed in dealings with Rangers & Celtic.
Hence most of his articles seek “balance”; so his piece today, which should cover the shambles going on at Ibrox, is written from a Celtic fans’ paranoia perspective. That is entirely irrelevant and frankly gratuitous and insulting
Please do not give this man credence, do not cut and paste his articles, do not post links.
There is only one thing worse than having to read the lowlife MSM and that is having the pseuds like English and Speirs thrust in front of you, as if they are models of balance. They are down there in the gutter too, they just have a posher accent, that’s all.
Leave him and Speirs where they belong, lounging together head to toe on the MSM chaise longue, whispering sweet nothings to each other.
Regarding media voices, I was surprised at Jim Delahunt on SSB. I know he’s traditionally not flavour of the month, but yesterday’s SSB podcast starts with some very decent callers going on at length about CF docs & recordings, media pro-blue bias, 5-way agreement, and so on. As usual, Keevins comes across as something of a closed mind, Guidi has bought a new pair of blinkers and ‘doesn’t care’ anymore, and DJ is merely an obsessing fan. But Delahunt appears to have listened to the CF stuff, read the docs and thought it through. Anyway, credit where credit is due, even at Clyde one of the panel is at least trying to stay informed. To be honest, the quality of critical caller getting through was better than anything I’ve heard on the taxpayer-funded station of late.
With the tu/td voting would be easy. Maybe TSFM aka big pink and a few of the big hitters could have came up with a shortlist of nominees for us mere mortals to vote on.
It’s a pity as with gym trainer no longer doing print and broadcasting his chance to win worst in both categories may have passed him by.
—————————————————–
You could always give him a lifetime UNachievment award, possibly in the form of a writer at his desk, blindfolded & using crayons
creepylurker on Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 08:46
/////////////////////////////////////////////////
Brilliant
🙂
A couple of things are worth remembering as we wonder about Charlotte and the fake overs .
It’s worth looking back on the history of RTC , as the most successful exposé site , and what it had to go through.
The initial reaction was slow burn, and read mostly by those who already had an interest in the financial shenanigans of David Murray. There was a narrative written and the occasional drip of evidence to prove or reinforce a point.
The initial reaction of the MSM was non existent, or disparaging . As the site become more widely read and increasingly credible, there were some journalists, who recognized the value of the information , and commented on that , mainly in the broadcast media. Tom English , to be fair, was amongst a limited number who credited RTC with making a valuable contribution to understanding what was THE major issue in Scottish Football.
There were however those , mostly in the tabloids, who never allowed themselves to recognize the value of the information and the value of the site. Indeed they went to great lengths, encouraged by Jack Irvine, to discredit the site and attack it on a regular basis.
How can it be a bad thing for football fans to be more educated and better informed about what is happening at their club or a rival club ?
The turning points were the documentaries by Mark Daly. These largely endorsed the view on RTC and other sites that Whyte was seriously bad news, and not a £ Billionaire with wealth off the radar. When the EBT documentary appeared, here was conclusive proof that what RTC had been telling us , wasn’t just accurate , it was groundbreakingly insightful.
Tom English shamefully changed his tune somewhat when the FTTT reported a majority verdict , which cleared Rangers on most of cases of tax evasion. It found them guilty on some, but that’s been lost in a Jack Irvine conducted blitz of self congratulation. It’s also been largely overlooked , that the FTTT was only stage 2 of a 3 or possibly 4 part process to establish a final verdict .
So what does this history lesson tell us about Charlotte.
1 Those who have an interest will be early followers . This will be at a much faster initial rate than RTC , due to the medium now being better understood and more widely used
2 There will be disinformation by those who feel they have most to lose. This includes Whyte, who must be absolutely panicking just now. Green equally will have realized the consequences for him are potentially devastating
3 There will be those in the media who don’t know the back story, and understandably are keeping their powder dry
4 Then there are those like Tom English, who I acknowledge is not under Jack Irvine’s spell, who have decided to deride , disparage and pass judgement.
None of this affects the quality and authenticity of the information. The lesson learned from RTC’s site is to focus on the information and not on the attempts by vested interests to distract and undermine
upthehoops says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 08:12
2 0 Rate This
Long Time Lurker says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 08:00
==========================
In terms of any possible injunction on Channel 4, should it not be public record that one has been obtained, without having to reveal any reason why?
__________________________________________________
Not if it’s a Super-injunction.
By which imposition, you aren’t allowed to even acknowledge the fact that there is one, never mind in any other way speculate or allude to the underlying story.
barcabhoy says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 08:58
An excellent analysis IMO
«They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist-»
Last words of Gen. John Sedgwick, spoken as he looked out over the parapet at enemy lines during the Battle of Spotsylvania in 1864.
This “chillingly accurate ” prophesy remind you of anyone ? Tom?
Slim
Suddenly English is a failed Irish journalist working in Scotland.
Now given I haven´t seen that level of criticism on here for TE, it makes me think that to be well thought of on here, that you must write or say what may be regarded as roughly the “partyline”.
I note that Spiers is also out of favour and has been for several weeks in the main for daring to utter an opinion wrt the possibility Rangers being invited to a then mooted SPL2.
Prior to that he was generally seen on here as one of the better journalists.
I happen to agree that Spiers is a vastly over-rated journalist but have done for years and whether his opinion co-incides with mine or not in a particular issue that opinion will stay the same because it is based on his poor and lazy research, lack of knowledge and floundering style.
I think that English is superior to Spiers and darts about Scottish sport with no huge agenda in any direction and a reasonable level of competence. That doesn´t make him a Hugh McIlvanney, in fact it´s a bit like Scottish football itself, he looks better because of the general standard around him.
The one agenda that most journalists will share is their own livelihood and to this end the reaction of Scottish football hacks against new social media is predictable.
It is this that when they get a chance, will see them attack it with gusto.
This is where there is an issue and a reaction like yours actually helps their case with the general audience.
So instead, why not simply point out where he is wrong and/or take your own advice and not read him in the future.
Barca @ 08:58
Interesting post that seems to back up my theory, that Charlotte was actually under the control of RTC or similar.
This would obviously be important wrt motive and the management of the leaks.
Correction: is, not was
that Charlotte is actually under the control of RTC or similar.
greenockjack on Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 09:42
1 0 Rate This
Slim
Suddenly English is a failed Irish journalist…..
///////////////////////////////////////////////////
No it took Tom many years.
What is evident in Toms piece and on broadcast yesterday is a drive at isolating the Celtic fans as the force behind the focus on the omnishambles. This simply isn’t true.
Ask any SPL chairman. Read the posts on here. Hark back to last years 5 figure online survey were 97% of fans from all clubs, (except TRFC) agreed.
Divide and conquer may be the pincer MSM move but as all fans appear to be sticking together this move will fail.
That is why they hate the term MSM, the very name implies that there is more than one form of media outlet, and they don’t like it.
john clarke says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 01:36
Rate This
briggsbhoy says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 01:23n
‘.mullach, I fear our dear friend Mr Clarke referring to Henry V..’
—-
Not I. At least not tonight. I’m too afeard of Essexbeancounter to mention Shakespeare!
Musht be some mistake!
===================================================================
JC…I heard that.!..nice to see my loathing of Shakespeare still reverberates round your most literary posts…LOL
PS how many posters on here suffer from chronic insomnia?
Palacio67 says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 01:11
6
18
Rate This
Green-Whyte team would break all rules
By TOM ENGLISH
Published on 19/05/2013 00:00
==================================
It’s interesting that Mr English is chastising other people for rushing to judgement, whilst at the same time saying that the source of these documents is Craig Whyte.
I’m not saying that’s not the case, it could well be. However do you have a source for that, or are you just assuming it Tom.
Nice to see you pay homage to the Spartans reply to Phillip of Macedon.
I realise I’m going against the flow, but I think there is merit in the Tom English article.
A journalist can put comments in an article to ensure that he is not accused of bias, that his article is “balanced”. Putting comments in about Celtic supporters getting all excited about releases of information on a new Twitter account provides that…. You can just hear him if asked about it on Radio Scotland…. Look, I was critical of Celtic supporters, of how bampots on the net got over excited and could have been jumping the gun, unlike what us sober, law testing journalists would do. That’s what the first four paras do.
But go beyond that and you come to this:
“There is a prejudgment going on right now as well and it centres around Whyte and Charles Green and the suspicion that they were in cahoots when buying the club. Let’s be clear. There is a lot of evidence that suggests they were. And, if that turns out to be the case, then the sky is going to fall in on Rangers in a way that made last summer’s implosion look like a warm-up act.
In the worst-case scenario, Green is exposed as a shameless liar who got into bed with another liar, Whyte, to buy the club from an administrator, Duff and Phelps, who might have the police knocking on their door for doing a deal that should never have been allowed. If. The doomsday picture shows Rangers having conducted a dodgy share issue as well as obtaining an SFA licence under false pretences. Every rule in every book would have been breached if it is proven that Green and Whyte were definitely and indisputably a team. If.”
Speculation… could this be the story that Alex Thompson wanted to break last week? That he got access to some of Charlotte’s documents? But are those documents strong enough to support a Channel 4 story that what Tom English says may have happened did actually happen? There are draft documents. Unsigned documents. E-Ms that could be genuine or could be contrived. Maybe Alex has put these documents to the players involved? That could well include Duff and Phelps? They’ve denied it in no uncertain terms and maybe obtained an injunction.
So Channel 4 News won’t run a story that starts… this may have happened and may not. It has been denied by the major players. However Tom English can raise the key elements and say there is plenty of evidence (and in the process draw attention to what has been posted by Charlotte) but say it still is an IF. His opening paras give him cover. Balance and comment on the risk of jumping to conclusions. Then the critical point….. IF this is what happened it is more serious than what happened last year. Not sure where else this has been spelled out in the MSM?
Greenockjack
I never suggested any such thing. I said we should learn from the experience of the most successful exposé site , which was RTC.
I never even hinted at any link.
upthehoops says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 07:47
He should dig out the view of the dissenting Judge and ask how that might be viewed by three new Judges on the appeal panel – just a thought.
========================================================================
Recently, I attended a tax seminar, where one of the speakers was Andrew Thornhill QC, who represented the dead Govan club at the FTTT, and was, rightly, enjoying his “success”, notwithstanding the pending appeal to the UTTT
However, he specifically mentioned that he was particularly impressed with the dissenting view of Dr Poon, and the basis of her argument.
From his manner and body language, he certainly seemed to think it was “only half time”.
ecobhoy says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 07:29
That element struck me as well, it makes me wonder if we are really looking at a shadow director(s) situation, which would be very naughty, very naughty indeed.
upthehoops says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 07:47
==========================
It’s not half time yet, in fact they have just warmed up.
I laugh at people like English when they say or imply that Rangers “won” the big tax case.
In the case of something like 5 or 6 players it was ruled that tax was deliberately and systematically underpaid. The exact figure has not been released, but it is generally taken to have been millions of pounds.
So, the position.
Rangers guilty of evading millions in tax on top stars wages over several years.
That is a win how.
Oh and they won the “dual contracts” investigation as well, or so you would believe if you read about it, or listen to the pundits. No, they didn’t, they lost and were fined.
So, the position.
Rangers found guilty of hiding second contracts from the SFA for years and fined £200,000.
Both big stories, in and of themselves. Both sold to us as wins for Rangers. And they wonder why we pour scorn on the media in Scotland. The thing is chaps, you are either idiots or liars (or both). You either don’t understand what is going on, or you deliberately misreport it.
Not all obviously. But you know who you are, whatever side of the fence you find yourself.
Taysider says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 10:13
Interesting take on the piece, I have no doubt that the MSM is looking into this story, even they can’t be so stupid as to ignore Scottish Footballs largest ever story. It will however be stuck with the lawyers and after hearing what has happened to Mark Daly and his team, I am also of an opinion that any potential fallout from the bears is high up on the minds of both journalists and editors.
This story won’t be pushed by the media but simply followed, it will be up to faceless authorities to push this forward.
That won’t be Greater Strathclyde police but a force from south of the border!
greenockjack says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 09:42
I note that Spiers is also out of favour and has been for several weeks in the main for daring to utter an opinion wrt the possibility Rangers being invited to a then mooted SPL2.
Prior to that he was generally seen on here as one of the better journalists.
================================
You have clearly been reading a different blog to me.
Graeme Spiers is ” …out of favour and has been for several weeks in the main for daring to utter an opinion wrt the possibility Rangers being invited to a then mooted SPL2″
It’s good that you can speak for other people though. Not only on what their opinion is, but on how they actually formed it.
Taysider
Where Tom English falls down is his suggestion that CF is CW
greenockjack says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 09:42
I happen to agree that Spiers is a vastly over-rated journalist but have done for years and whether his opinion co-incides with mine or not in a particular issue that opinion will stay the same because it is based on his poor and lazy research, lack of knowledge and floundering style.
I think that English is superior to Spiers and darts about Scottish sport with no huge agenda in any direction and a reasonable level of competence. That doesn´t make him a Hugh McIlvanney, in fact it´s a bit like Scottish football itself, he looks better because of the general standard around him.
———————————-
A good summing up. And the phrase ‘floundering style’ is a direct hit I think.
greenockjack says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 09:42
‘I think that English is superior to Spiers and darts about Scottish sport with no huge agenda in any direction..’
—–
English may indeed have no huge agenda, other than trying to ensure he earns a living.
But he has what many Irish self-exiles have ( people like Wogan , for instance,and that scunnersome wee nyaff (what’s-his-name again? ) on BBC tV talk-shows.
And that is a too-readiness to be ‘assimilated’ into English/Scottish culture, as if ashamed of their own.
A bit like those Scots ( in BBC Radio ) who would really rather not be Scots.
Good Morning all.
I have read the Tom English article and, to be honest, I am not particularly bothered by its content at all– and indeed I welcome its substance,
English clearly wanted to write about Charlotte the Harlot and her leaks but clearly cannot go into the detail of her revelations and indiscretions for all the reasons that we have already discussed— no verification, unaccredited source and all that.
However, we have to remember this morning that many people will wake up, take their copy of the Scotland on Sunday, read the article and go ” What the F**K is this?”. because they do not get their news online or read forums like this.
Anyone checking the Harlots twitter account will see that most of her followers are in fact Celtic fans. There are others there too of course, but the majority of the names and pictures on the visiting accounts reveal a Celtic leaning.
Dare I suggest that many Rangers fans– fair minded and otherwise– will not want to know about Charlotte and it is understandable that many would want to boycott her page and starve her of publicity– after all no one knows what game she is playing and if she were playing with my club– I am not too sure I would want to play along with her to further her purpose, all on her rules and at her whimsy!
Tom English brings Charlotte on to the Sports pages– just watch the rest now trip over themselves– trip over their feet and their tongues— to get on the bandwagon and the Charlotte Express!
Of course– this is also precisely what she wanted I suspect– although I see that she herself has tweeted directly at Tom to say she is neither Craig Whyte nor someone doing his bidding– reiterating what I was told myself— namely that Whyte has no control over this at all.
Now— all of that could be balderdash and bunkum. It could be Craig up to his old tricks and ,God Knows, if anyone is clearly not to be trusted on their word it is Craig Whyte — although the more Charlotte reveals— the more some of what Craigy boy appears to have said gains some credence.
However, for the moment lets accept what she says– namely that Craig Whyte has no control over the show.
That leaves me linking two things I have been told:
1. Charlotte the Harlot is an Agent Provocateur outwith the control of Craig Whyte who has access to all sorts of interesting and potentially damaging information which she is intent on revealing for whatever reason– and as I hinted last night it strikes me that the reason is that she prevents Pinsent Mason from presenting a Whitewash– or a Whytewash if you prefer.
2. Charles Green has left Glasgow, leaving goods and chattels behind which he has asked to be sent on to an address in France. He has stated that he is NEVER coming back to the city– for any reason whatsoever! No matter what.
Just drove past Kelvingrove Art Gallery.Seen this:
“MORE THAN A GAME”
How Scotland Shaped World Football.
Wonder what our footballing ancestors would think of our current shenanigans?.
Forres Dee (@ForresDee) says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 10:36
“…That won’t be Greater Strathclyde police but a force from south of the border!.”
———–
Strathclyde’s finest have not got a particularly good record of impartiality in matters concerning the dead club.
There may be even less impartiality in the police regime being brought about by the creation of the unified Police Service of Scotland , which will be( is already?) under more immediate and direct control of him wot had conversations with HMRC touching on the tax problems of that dead club.
Conversations that he refused, incidentally, to make public.
Barca
I didn´t say that you suggested it, only that IMO, some of what you said backed up what is a theory (not an accusation).
I´ll try and be more specific.
The theory came about when we were all wondering who Charlotte actually was.
1. OG Rafferty, a well connected poster on CQN very much pointed to Charlotte being in possession of the AT/C4 exclusive that didn´t pass the legal test.
Timing would be about right.
Not only this but OG professed a general knowledge of the material, specificly that the strongest worst was yet to come.
Going back a few days, there was the understandable initial scepticism of Charlotte´s leaks.
However it seemed that some of the heavyweights in the Celtic blogashere, including RTC came forward together and generally endorsed the material.
Let´s go backward to the moment that AT/C4 got the thumbs down re. material.
You have a source who obviously wants to get the info out there and no MSM that will run it.
You also have AT in possession of the material.
What to do ?
What about those pesky bloggers and friends that you know AT ?
The ones who have a successful precedent in similar matters very recently.
Yesterday there was a tweet from Charlotte that was an attempt to embarrass a “Rangers supporters spokesman”.
After her previous tweets, that was from left-field and struck me as more tribal, more typical of a rival supporter.
In summary, I believe the leaks are being managed by someone/small group that is or is very similar in make-up to RTC.
That they are managing Charlotte and the leaks.
Whether CW or someone close to CW retains a degree of control, I´m not sure.
Feel free to disagree.
But who do you think it is and what is their motives ?
greenockjack says:
embarrass a “Rangers supporters spokesman”.
as if……………
BRTH
IF the motivation is to ensure no Whytewash by Pincent Mason, and I am not suggesting as I am sure out were not, that they would be party to such a thing. In any circumstances and more especially in a publicly quoted company. If that was the motivation, then surely the obvious thing to do is to email Pincent’s with the evidence .
Brogan Rogan Trevino and Hogan says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 11:05
2. Charles Green has left Glasgow, leaving goods and chattels behind which he has asked to be sent on to an address in France. He has stated that he is NEVER coming back to the city– for any reason whatsoever! No matter what.
===================================================================
Charles may have gone but I’m sure Rangers will remain in his thoughts no matter where he roams. Indeed I’m sure his rangeritis will only be kept in check by following his beloved Rangers through a subscription to Rangers TV or if the warchest ends up a bit low he can switch to an unofficial feed.
Charlotte also attracted Richard Wilson to her twittering yesterday when he pointed out that ‘Brian’ wasn’t Stockbridge but Earley. She had corrected her earlier error but it would appear there is another audio to come featuring the ‘correct’ Brian.
But at least Wilson is sniffing around although, unlike TE, he made no mention in his piece today of Charlotte although he wanted her to reveal all yesterday:
Richard Wilson @Richwilsport 19h
@CharlotteFakes saw that. Why not release all that you have, to allow proper context to what you release?
The prob with the MSM in this is that the story for them is more likely to be the unmasking of Charlotte rather than doing the much harder job of checking and using the material she is providing. This isn’t necessarily to fit any agenda – it’s just easier to do.
And then there’s the fairly long recording given to the Sun featuring Malcolm Murray on the naughty step – quite possibly on his way to the gallows – are we going to hear that?
john clarke says:
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 11:15
… which will be( is already?) under more immediate and direct control of him wot had conversations with HMRC touching on the tax problems of that dead club.
===========================
It really shouldn’t be.
The Police operate under the control of the Lord Advocate (currently Frank Mulholland). That post is, at least in theory, supposed to be totally independent and not the subject of political interference.
Clearly the government make the laws, however it is the lord Advocates role to ensure they are enforced.