The Existence of Laws

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/

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Tom Byrne

About Trisidium

Trisidium is a Dunblane businessman with a keen interest in Scottish Football. He is a Celtic fan, although the demands of modern-day parenting have seen him less at games and more as a taxi service for his kids.

5,802 thoughts on “The Existence of Laws


  1. Ecobhoy,

    I have read your detailed analysis of the LNS process and legal logic behind it.
    If you are correct, and you likely are, then to my mind there was a deliberate strategy at the SFA to minimise the sanctions to TRFC / RFC.

    As others have commented previously, no one in big business apparently sets up an inquiry without knowing the desired outcomes, and sets out a strategy to achieve it. They probably sought opinion from LNS or others similarly qualified on how the regulations and procedures could be interpreted or manipulated or what else would need to be done to meet the objectives, hence Mr Bryson’s evidence and the SPL lawyers agreement not to pursue the natural justice / laymens’ views accordingly.
    It did take some time for the inquiry to take place, so there was plenty time, (or it took that long) for the script to be written. The sporting advantage and the irrevocable registrations scenarios are examples of what had to be invented that could have been consistent with the rules that had however never previously been applied to any other club that had the misfortune to be judged by the SFA’s greatest administrators.

    LNS in your view did no wrong, but in my view it was complicit in a stitch up of an inquiry. I don’t think many of us in LNS’s position would have been so unquestioning of partial information and strange pronouncements with no written evidence to back them up. I think I would have had more self respect in seeking the truth and justice outwith the court environment. No wonder folk see conspiracy theories.

    Anyhoo, thats my rant. Ecobhoy, I mostly trust your judgement and logic, but there is still that niggling at the back of my mind that all was not as it seemed and great efforts of analysis took place to find the best solution for RFC / TRFC rather than finding the truth and attempting a just and fair outcome.


  2. * Mather is telling the club’s internal news he wants to be CE on a permanent basis. How many STs to pay his wage?

    * Daft question: several players have agreed to ‘join’ the club, but who did they ‘sign’ with and who owns the players’ contracts? Club or company? Does anyone know?

    * Where’s Charlotte and the Fakeovers?


  3. Craig Mather’s comments regarding overtly made threats brings the game into disrepute…

    Anyone in the MSM or the SFA care to ask him to clarify those alleged remarks?

    I would suggest if anyone in Scottish football…whether a club…supporter or club official…finds himself on the receiving end of those threats then they should seek legal redress against that clown Mather!

    IMO…it borders on incitement!


  4. bogsdollox says:
    Monday, June 3, 2013 at 01:37
    ‘… I don’t buy a local paper either because it’s full of shit too.

    What about these guys?

    http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com…’
    —-
    Sorry, bd, hadn’t seen this post of yours till a few mins ago, and thank you for it and for the link.

    I’ve no idea how good, bad, or agenda-driven they are, but I’ve fired off an email to them about inflammatory language from football club interim CEOs.


  5. Captain Haddock says:
    Monday, June 3, 2013 at 22:29

    … great efforts of analysis took place to find the best solution for RFC / TRFC rather than finding the truth and attempting a just and fair outcome.

    Is there not a maxim of Law which states that he who questions well learns well?
    Perhaps LNS forgot it?


  6. I think by now we should have learned that asking the Scottish Main Stream Media to act in an ethical and non partisan manner is merely inviting ourselves to feel powerless. I was reading some RTC blogs earlier and the phrase ‘bought and paid for’ was sitting right there alongside succulent lamb back at the beginning of 2011. Here’s the link if any wish to refresh their memories.

    http://rangerstaxcase.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/lies-damned-lies-and-scottish-football-journalism/

    What was true then remains even more staunch now since we have viewed a pageant of revelations that would make the ordinary citizen marvel. The SMSM however have merely shifted uncomfortably in their chairs and continued to recycle their favourite press releases without a hint of conscience. Time has been the judge and by any measure of justice they are guilty of a dereliction of duty. So do not bemoan their inactivity. We are on our own. Like the striker that breaks through the last defensive obstacle, there is nothing between us and the goal, no-one to pass to, we must apply the clinical finish.

    There has been much discussion of LNS many months after his conclusions were arrived at. This can be a bit tedious but I welcome it. The more such conclusions are poured over and examined the better an understanding of the machinations of the ‘system’ can be understood. Despite there being a legalistic logic behind the decisions, it does not sit right with me and with many others I believe. For me the critical point is that there was a rule that required all details of a players remuneration to be lodged with the footballing authorities. The existence of side letters that promised additional remuneration and that were not known to the authorities was a clear breach of the rules. That a perverse outcome could be arrived at does not alter the existence of this breech.

    I have HirsuitePursuite’s 2006/2009 SFA articles of association but am unsure if these are complete or if they are the pertinent documents concerning player registration. Can someone please post the text of the specific clause that pertains to player registration along with a link to the full rule set so that I can navigate my way steadily through this legal maze?


  7. Ecobhoy,

    I bow to your greater knowledge and obvious greater research into the findings of the LNS tribunal, I genuinely thought the verdict was that they had been found guilty as charged of deliberate mis-registering of players and it was only when writing an earlier post I realised that the ‘no sporting advantage’ opinion was, perhaps, based solely on the question, if the players were not inelligible, did the mis-registering of players, in itself, constitute a sporting advantage, and of course, it doesn’t, no more than missing a date would. While I accept your assertion on the grounds you have more knowledge of the wording of the findings (you’ve obviously taken a lot more time to sift through it than most), I just can’t believe that the existence of side letters could be wrong, and Rangers penalised for it, and yet the players involved registrations be deemed, not mis-registered! And, by my, again poorly researched, belief that Bryson had accepted they were mis-registered but claimed that that didn’t make them inelligible. On that note, I wonder why he waited until the tribunal was under way before dropping that bombshell. Surely it would have been in everyone’s interest to have advised the SPL before the tribunal was even mooted, as a great deal of expense could have been saved by all. But, of course, great inventions are often a long time in the making!

    While I agree that the Pinsent Mason ‘enquiry’ was far removed from a tribunal chaired by a Law Lord, I took that as a given when comparing the two. I was merely trying to make the point that, like Pinsent Mason, it was not carried out under the umbrella of a court of law, and had parameters set out by one of the parties involved and was an internal investigation into a member of the overseeing body. Like you, I am of the opinion that LNS acted honourably and only acted on the evidence presented, and interpreted everything in terms of the rules, or laws, of Scottish football as presented to him. I do believe, though, that the rules/laws were presented in such a way that he had no option but to interpret them in a way that met the aims of the SPL and SFA. LNS can’t have often presided over an enquiry where the laws were so incomplete that someone, who himself was implicated, by his failure to spot the irregularities in the registrations, should be called as an ‘expert’ witness and no one from the opposite side dispute his claims, or discredit the man himself. It’s almost as if the laws were being made up as the hearing went along.

    Something I still don’t get, if your interpretation is correct, if LNS didn’t find that the players had been mis-registered, why on earth did he find it necessary to come up with the ‘no sporting advantage’ scenario at all?

    Anyway, have enjoyed our debate but am off to bed now, so night all 🙂


  8. M8Dreamer

    Selection of CD’s that should be played at every Sevco/TRFC away games in Scotland next year.

    Money for Nothing – Dire Straits
    Dignity – Deacon Blue
    No Surrender – Bruce Springsteen
    Loaded – Deacon Blue
    Wages Day – Deacon Blue
    The Fix – Elbow

    I am sure that there are many more suitable songs for this discredited organisation that has brought Scottish Football into disrepute on a daily/weekly basis with their actions in the last 15 months.


  9. CF seems to have posted some screenshots of a document that now appears to have been taken down at the request of Biggart Baillie? Looks like it was SFA stuff. #rufflingfeathers

    @CharlotteFakes
    BiggartBaillie being protective re SFA discussions . 1) i.imgur.com/6bjSJaL.jpg 2) i.imgur.com/30t7zf9.jpg and 3) thelawyer.com/dwf/415033.sup…
    3:06am – 4 Jun 13


  10. Crikey someone was up early this morning!

    Charlotte’s post i.imgur.com/6bjSJaL.jpg was taken down (removed) by DWF,Biggart Baillie.

    Mr. James Mure QC of DWF,Biggart Baillie represented Oldco during the SPL ‘investigation’ of January this year.
    Link for this :
    http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/21283401

    The contents of the tweet:

    Charlotte Fakeovers ‏@CharlotteFakes 3h
    BiggartBaillie being protective re SFA discussions .
    1) http://i.imgur.com/6bjSJaL.jpg
    2) http://i.imgur.com/30t7zf9.jpg
    3) http://www.thelawyer.com/dwf/415033.supplier


  11. Crikey someone was up early this morning!

    Charlotte’s post i.imgur.com/6bjSJaL.jpg was taken down (removed) by DWF,Biggart Baillie.

    Mr. James Mure QC of DWF,Biggart Baillie represented Oldco during the SPL ‘investigation’ of January this year.
    Link for this :
    http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/21283401

    The contents of the tweet:

    Charlotte Fakeovers ‏@CharlotteFakes 3h
    BiggartBaillie being protective re SFA discussions .
    1) http://i.imgur.com/6bjSJaL.jpg
    2) http://i.imgur.com/30t7zf9.jpg
    3) http://www.thelawyer.com/dwf/415033.supplier
    (Apologies: this might turn out a double posting as the first one simply disappeared)


  12. Re the LNS findings
    IMO the bottom line in all this is that everyone and their granny knows that the EBT scheme was set up to avoid paying tax on players wages ,even the most gullible and entrenched thinking ragers fan know it the ( ” aye but they can’t prove it “) nonsense is just that NONSENSE .
    As for Bryson’s contribution ,that epitomises the level the corruption and toxicity that the now dead club had spread through our game .
    Any club that still believes that having Sevco in our game have more or less admitted that our game is finished as a sport .
    This should have been a one in a lifetime chance to clean up our game and I believe the majority of football fans would have at least have had a semblance of a level playing field but after witnessing the goings on in the last 18 months alone the last thing we can call our game here ,is a SPORT .
    everyone who says that Sevco will not be challenging for many years ,fails to take into account what they have witnessed in all this .A bottom 6 Sevco is of even less use to the peepil in charge than a Sevco in Div 3 .
    I enjoyed my football last season as at least I could think their was a sporting element to it .St Mirren won the LC and IMO if Hibs had one the SC it would have been a great season for our game .I will enjoy it as long as I can because if we thought the corruption of our game was bad this last 18 months wait till the peepil in charge get Sevco into the SPL .


  13. bobferris70 says:
    Monday, June 3, 2013 at 16:51

    After Craig Mather’s comments regarding their enemies and “choosing the right moment to strike”, I’d be very wary if I were Stephen Thompson. Sounds like he might be in for the old “bucket of water above the door” next time TRFC come calling.
    —————————————-
    After the Raith Rovers experience last year following threats to them, having a bucket of water or two to hand might be an advantage


  14. Well there’s no doubt about it 🙂 Mather is a ‘peepil’ 🙂 wonder when these ‘threats’ will be carried out?


  15. Re Bryce & Derry City

    Using the words “Derry City” must cause him pain and several times at that 🙂 does he know where Derry is?


  16. Danish Pastry says:
    Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 04:25
    “….CF seems to have posted some screenshots of a document that now appears to have been taken down at the request of Biggart Baillie? Looks like it was SFA stuff. #rufflingfeathers..”
    —–
    Hope CF summarises the docs and posts the summary on this blog, or further tweets.


  17. Missed CF’s new stuff, that came down quick, someone somewhere is on a watching brief!

    That means someone somewhere, or even lots of people, are very very worried about what she has in that stash of hers.

    Wish I could make up my mind about her and her purpose :p


  18. Danish Pastry says:

    Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 04:25

    CF seems to have posted some screenshots of a document that now appears to have been taken down at the request of Biggart Baillie? Looks like it was SFA stuff. #rufflingfeathers

    __________________________________________________________________

    Did anyone get a download of these? This was taken down very quickly indeed…..


  19. Exiled Celt (@The_Exiled_Celt) says:
    Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 08:28

    I have them all downloaded – how to distribute?

    ———————

    At least wait until after the school runs 🙂


  20. Exiled Celt (@The_Exiled_Celt) says:
    Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 08:36

    Any Mods on here to advise? Can I cut and paste onto here?

    *******

    I’d have to suspect that you shouldn’t put them up here, as that would cause those who run the site problems.

    Maybe put them on dropbox, and post surreptitious links elsewhere? Or wait until someone with more savvy than me comes on to advise? 😉


  21. Exiled Celt (@The_Exiled_Celt) on Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 08:28
    10 0 Rate This

    I have them all downloaded – how to distribute?
    ———-

    A DM via twitter to anyone you happen to follow or who follows you (he said, knowingly), though not sure if attachments are allowed that way … otherwise a DM message with an embedded link?


  22. Charlotte linked to an article about DWF taking over Biggart Baillie and two documents that have been removed at request of Biggart Baillie. Hmmm


  23. Its the email from BB to Stockbridge listing out 20 items needed for the meeting with SFA for them to transfer over the membership – the first one is to “clarify the relationship between the 2 Sevco companies”


  24. Maybe post them on a site out with jurisdiction. Wiki leaks? Overseas? Somewhere else, where they’re happy to tell the truth and out of reach of the corrupt scumbags and their spiv friends. Must be serious, posted at 2.06 am and removed before 4.25 am. I’m very keen to see these documents.


  25. Exiled Celt (@The_Exiled_Celt) says:
    Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 09:19

    “Rangers SFA 1 document was what he put up on May 31st – nothing new last night”
    ————

    Exiled, I noticed I wasn’t able to get into a Charlotte link I had made a copy of. It was this one.

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/144718597/Rangers-SFA-1

    If that’s the one that has been taken down then we have all seen it already. Perhaps since you have taken some written notes of its contents you can remind us what it is we were looking at recently.


  26. john mcgrevey ‏@johnbhoy1958 44s

    Spent last night watching a thoroughly enjoyable amateur cup final at Somerville Park,Cambuslang.the teams were Third Lanark and Broomhouse,with third Lanark winning 1-0 in front of,at a guess,around 200 spectators.Here’s a pic of the victorious team(I don’t know how to post them on here 😆 )

    Congrats to Third Lanark on their cup win last night.Please retweet. pic.twitter.com/L1dJgWNh12
    Hide photo

    Embedded image permalink


  27. Danish Pastry says:
    Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 04:25

    “CF seems to have posted some screenshots of a document that now appears to have been taken down at the request of Biggart Baillie? Looks like it was SFA stuff. #rufflingfeathers”.
    ———–

    If true this provides some verification of this particular documents authenticity. It also indicates that its content is embarassing/incriminating. Since it will have received many of thousands of views and no doubt some will have taken copies, it is a pointless intervention. It merely adds much needed credibility to Charlotte’s material. This angle should not be discounted but is a level of conspiracy that may be beyond the players concerned.

    As the document has been in the public domain and its contents will have been recorded in some manner I cannot see that discussing its contents can be contentious unless we are advised to the contrary.


  28. From the Evening times article.

    CRAIG MATHER has dismissed any suggestion Rangers would welcome being fast-tracked back to the summit of the Scottish game.

    The Ibrox interim chief executive said: “We’re now in June and we have had no contact whatso-ever from the SPL regarding anything. We want to work our way up the leagues creating building blocks so that when we get back to the top of Scottish football, we have the right team and ethos.

    “As far as we are concerned, we will be playing in SFL2 or whatever that league will be called next season. There’s no grey area there, we want to work our way up.”

    Bert Mitchell
    Sports Writer

    N.B

    “Ethos” Greek word for “character” that is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology.

    You couldn’t make this stuff up, it’s not even pantomime season yet…


  29. Exiled Celt (@The_Exiled_Celt) says:
    Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 09:35

    “Mullach – same thing – that is the one taken down. Posted above for my copy”
    ———-

    I have a copy of it Exiled. It is possible your posted copy might be taken down in due course but with so many people having copies it only draws attention to itself. As I said, it received thousands of reads so the information is out there so there is nothing to stop us discussing its contents. If hard copies were made then even a seizure of TSFM register of bloggers, however unlikely that is, would not prevent its further discussion.

    It might be worth some taking hardcopies of her material so that any further interventions do not thwart our discussion.


  30. mullach says:

    Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 09:51
    Exiled Celt (@The_Exiled_Celt) says:
    Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 09:35

    “Mullach – same thing – that is the one taken down. Posted above for my copy”
    ———-

    I have a copy of it Exiled. It is possible your posted copy might be taken down in due course but with so many people having copies it only draws attention to itself. As I said, it received thousands of reads so the information is out there so there is nothing to stop us discussing its contents. If hard copies were made then even a seizure of TSFM register of bloggers, however unlikely that is, would not prevent its further discussion.

    It might be worth some taking hardcopies of her material so that any further interventions do not thwart our discussion.

    *****

    Correct I think BB will request it coming down soon – it has had 130 reads already – I will take it down in a few hours time anyway so please download what you want meantime – I always download Charlottes things before reading just for case like this 🙂


  31. Ecobhoy, and others 🙂

    Last night I entered into a debate with Ecobhoy over his interpretation of the LNS findings which differed from most of us on this board. Eco’s posts were less well recieved than my own, though his had been thoroughly researched, while mine had been put together from memory of other peoples research, findings and interpretations. We were, though, in agreement that LNS had not aided in finding the desired result in any way.

    This morning I switched off my lazy mode and checked out Paul McConville’s blog on the subject (from Feb13) which included extracts from the findings as well as his own interpretation. As a result I am more in accord with Ecobhoy and see now that LNS didn’t find RFC guilty of mis-registering the players, though how that could be I still fail to grasp.

    I still, however, stand by my assertion that LNS, and the tribunal, were hamstrung by the parameters set by the SPL and that that negated, to an extent, their standing and effectiveness in a court of law as they would be adjudicating on matters specifically set by the SPL within a framework of flawed laws. It would appear, from my layman’s understanding, that, once it was established that mis-registering players (although RFC were not found guilty of mis-registering players, probably because Bryson’s evidence made that not an offence) LNS was left with the question: does the act of failing to complete a registration form properly, itself, gain a sporting advantage? Rather than the more pertinent question: does the act of failing to complete a registration form properly, with the intent of misleading HMRC to facilitate a tax avoidance scheme, legal or otherwise (or for that matter, any other form of money making/saving scheme), create a platform from which a sporting advantage may be gained? I think the answer to the first, and I believe the type of question LNS was asked to answer, would be no, but the answer to the second, avoided by the SPL, would be yes. Of course, these are not the actual questions put, or that should have been put, to the tribunal, but the thrust, I think, is an illustration of how the desired result can be gained while avoiding questions more likely to result in a just, but unwanted, verdict.


  32. Exiled Celt (@The_Exiled_Celt) says:
    Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 09:19
    1 0 Rate This

    Rangers SFA 1 document was what he put up on May 31st – nothing new last night ….
    ———

    Indeed Exiled. From the initial tweet I thought it was some new material that had been uploaded and quickly removed. Nevertheless, as @mullach points out, it adds some serious credibility to the documents and makes this from CF even more fascinating:

    #5WayAgreementComingSoon #WhoElse
    8:56pm – 30 May 13


  33. This retraction reminds me of when as a schoolboy we were visiting Poland on a summer school trip in early 80’s – we were in Gdansk harbor when we were told sternly by our Polish guide that under no circumstances were we to take photos of any of the ships in the harbor. At which we all looked at each other and started taking photos of the Russian Baltic fleet – if he had never said anything we would not have bothered.

    Now BB have made a fuss about this, seems to be a bit more interesting!

    FYI – in 1 hour its had 333 reads and 8 downloads – will leave for another hour then delete!


  34. LNS

    The difficulty faced by those fans who are endowed with neither legal training nor legal knowledge, is an obvious one. We are regularly baffled by the decisions handed down in some cases e.g. the LNS Commission.

    Our protests are dismissed and we are dismissed.

    But, something remains.

    And that is the unshakeable belief that the intention underlying the entire process was that RFC would not be stripped of their titles and trophies.

    The intervention by the SFA in the person of Sandy Bryson whereby a unique and skewed interpretation of the rules on registration was presented, and accepted by LNS, clearly had the intention of getting RFC off the hook.

    So, legally, what resulted may have been technically ok, but the intention was not ok.

    The SFA were guilty of fraudulent intent and they got away with it.

    Or did they ?

    As an elephant never forgets, so it is said, so the fans will never forget the corruption of the SFA in the LNS Commission.

    Nor forget everything else which has taken place to date whereby the SFA has turned corruption into an art form in order to save Sevco old and new.


  35. Good news and bad news

    Bad news……………..Leggo is off rambling again showing us the “moral high ground”….

    http://davidleggat-leggoland.blogspot.co.uk/

    Of course, should Scottish football once again kick off into more turmoil and should an SPL2 be formed against all the odds and should an invitation for Rangers to join it be forthcoming, it should be dismissed out of hand.

    Unless….

    It comes with a public apology from the Neil Doncaster-Peter Lawwell-SPL cabal and their tea boys at Aberdeen, Dundee United and Hibs. A grovelling apology that they wronged Rangers last summer and in doing so inflicted serious damage on Scottish football and on themselves.

    And an admission that they need Rangers. That they cannot survive without the Blue Pound.

    Along with that apology and admission would have to come an invite for a Rangers representative – chairman Walter Smith would be my choice – to fight Rangers’ corner as a member of the SPL board.

    Plus….

    Financial recompense from the Neil Doncaster-Peter Lawwell SPL cabal to Rangers for the money lost last season. Starting with the £2M prize money.

    If the Neil Doncaster-Peter Lawwell-SPL cabal grovelled and coughed up the cash then that would constitute unconditional surrender, with Rangers stepping up to the high moral ground on
    more than merely favourable terms.

    ****

    Good news – he is off on holiday and won’t be writing much for the summer!!!


  36. There we go another white wash complete, via the ASA. What a huge scam our great wee country has provided. Whilst horrified at the event’s that have been allowed to conspire, unfortunently I cannot say I am shocked. My overriding thought through all of this has been what will stop other club’s doing the same? Green light Heart’s, Kilmarnock, Dumfermline and the side from Govan mach 2. Run up huge debt’s chase the dream, but come time shed them and you’l be ok. What a disgraceful precedent to set, a morally weak one bowing to the establishment is how I read it. Will take me a while to get over this one, no matter what they will be protected, and other club’s can spend what they wish no fear’s, Is this really how they expect football to flourish in this country?


  37. Exiled Celt (@The_Exiled_Celt) says:
    Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 11:03

    Good news and bad news
    Good news – he is off on holiday and won’t be writing much for the summer!!!
    ____

    More like white bricks scurrying of to a bunker as they have today or tomorrow CoB to confirm an EGM –or rescind motion – or propose new to re-set the clock to August. Talk about hedging bets 😉


  38. I still have that nagging feeling in the back of my head that I /we are being let down by our individual clubs, especially those who have been directly disadvantaged over the last 2 years ( DAFC, Dundee, Brechin etc). And everyone else over the last two decades of course.

    Comfort can be taken from the knowledge that all of this would have been done, dusted and under the carpet if not for sites like this, and men like T. Hutton. One hundred times more than they would have liked, is out in the open.

    But still, officially no challenge from any club. That, must change. Or are they indicating to us that resistance is futile. Whatever the case let me know, I have a form to fill out.

    They had every help that could be given, and died trying to keep up. Heaven knows the new levels we will encounter to sustain the establishment. Donation done, I think I’ll get further use of TSFM, probably on match days.


  39. allyjambo says:
    Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 09:59
    =================================================

    You’ve moved beyond the easy bit of just accepting what other people state is ‘fact’ re the LNS Decision and actually started to think it through yourself. It isn’t an easy task especially when, like you and I, we don’t have a legal background but by taking time and repeated readings of the Decision it is possible to understand why the LNS Tribunal made the decisions they did and what they based it on.

    Obviously I’m not saying everyone should agree with their conclusions and I don’t agree with them all myself but as there isn’t a full transcript of the proceedings and I haven’t been able to examine the evidence and more importantly haven’t seen how people gave their evidence then I start from a not fully informed knowledge base.

    On why LNS found there had been no mis-registration of players – or more correctly no ineligible players used – I can understand how you can accept that but still have difficulty in understanding how the decision was arrived. I had the same difficulty and read and re-read that part of the Decision many times because I saw it as a key issue.

    The penny dropped for me when I realised that even if there had been a breach of the registration procedure the first time a player registered for Rangers that they didn’t become an ineligible player until the registration was revoked and that was never done. I accept all the criticism made of how could a registration be revoked if the side letters were kept secret as that to me is a key issue.

    However, it was up to the SPL QC to make that argument and produce strong counter evidence – which I believe would have been an easy task. However the SPL QC not only accepted the Bryson ‘line’ but produced additional evidence to reinforce the Bryson. I make it clear that although Bryson was Head of Registration at the SFA the SPL QC as far as I can see didn’t seek to establish whether the virtually irrevocable registration was his personal position or an SFA one and there is a world of a difference there. I have made this point many many times and the importance of it appears to have been totally lost on fellow posters and the MSM although I doubt if it has been lost on the SFA or SPL.

    However LNS could only decide on the evidence presented and when the SFA, SPL and Rangers were all happy to sing from the same song sheet then LNS had no alternative IMO to conclude other than he did and that led logically to his decision, according to the rules, that sporting sanctions could not be applied as no ineligible players were used.

    Allyjambo last par: LNS concluded, on unanimous evidence given, that there were no ineligible players and on that basis there could be no sporting or competitive advantage gained by playing them. I agree that is what he did.

    Then you pose the more difficult hypotheses: ‘Does the act of failing to complete a registration form properly, with the intent of misleading HMRC to facilitate a tax avoidance scheme, legal or otherwise (or for that matter, any other form of money making/saving scheme), create a platform from which a sporting advantage may be gained?’

    I think the instinctive answer of most of us would be: ‘Of course it does’. But we have to look at the rule books of the SFA and SPL to see how a lawyer might answer it. They would say that a ‘legal’ scheme wouldn’t require incorrect completion of a registration form and I think that’s a fair point.

    So let’s look at an illegal scheme – did it exist here? Well in a sense the jury is still out on that one and the decision of the UTT will move things along in due course. But we have to deal with how things were at the LNS Tribunal and the SPL QC accepted the decision of the FTTT that the EBT scheme used by Rangers wasn’t illegal. So we don’t have an illegal scheme full stop as far as the LNS Tribunal is concerned and that IMO is the correct decision for that forum. The SPL QC also made it clear that if the FTTT decision was subsequently reversed that this wouldn’t affect the future SPL position.

    The SFA and SPL rules are not designed to financially regulate football and the mere fact that one club is wealthier than another does not, under footballing rules, provide a sporting or competitive advantage. It obviously can do – we all know that it does in real life but it isn’t a matter for the SFA or SPL unless that financial advantage has been procured illegally or in breach of footballing rules.

    We now have the UEFA Financial Fair Play Regulations meant to provide a more level playing field – we’ll see how long it takes for the regs to be twisted – but they weren’t applicable to Rangers for the periods in question.

    Many may wonder why I harp on about this issue so let me try and explain without being sued. LNS has provided an almost unique insight into the interaction of the SPL and SFA and a major Scottish Football Club which many believe to be protected by the Establishment.

    I will repeat as I have done before that the SPL case against Rangers was a shambles because IMO it was poorly researched, presented and not thought through. The question for me is whether this was just down to individual failings or was there any kind of conspiracy at work? Neither scenarios are acceptable but the latter goes not just to the core of how football is controlled but how our country is run.

    While LNS is painted as a co-conspirator we take our eye off the desperately needed investigation of what the hell went wrong at Hampden and who was responsible for it. In my book that is more important than stripping titles from Rangers.

    Btw I have no problem with those who paint LNS as the conspiracy arch-demon in all this but I do feel a starting point for their claims should be an examination for his decisions and the legal basis for them. If he can’t be faulted then it leaves a conspiracy theory without a shred of evidence. And what about the two other prominent QCs comprising the LNS Tribunal were they also involved in the alleged cover-up? I strive not to attack anyone’s integrity and professionalism without a shred of evidence and I recommend it as good practice for others.


  40. ‘We have chosen and we will continually choose the right moment to strike.’ (against our enemies)

    I find this line from the Mather rant particularly interesting – in a disturbing way. It suggests that they have already struck against their (percieved) enemies. I wonder how that was carried out! Which of their imaginery enemies were chosen? In what way did the TRFC Strike Force strike? Has Regan had his fingers broken, hence the lack of tweets? Have others had their teeth broken, and are awaiting dentures before appearing on our TV screens? Or have they had bullets through the post and are more easily cowed than Neil Lennon?

    I know that I have indulged in a bit of exaggeration here (I hope) but what have we to glean from such inflamatory statements? What is anybody expected to glean from such statements? The use of the word ‘strike’ suggests violence, more than just ‘getting our own back’. We know that members of the board, previous and current, have used extremely underhand methods to attack another member of the board, and we should expect to see a more measured and calmer approach from the new regime. There are men trying to get onto the board, and there appears to be no attempt to thwart them, who have a public persona likened, by some, to the Krays. Is it wise to use such rhetoric in view of this?

    We know it is all part of the campaign to boost season ticket sales, but what sort of organisation uses such violent expressions? What state must an organisation find itself in that it has no alternative approach to season ticket sales than to use rabble rousing? What sort of customer base would accept this kind of sales pitch? Silly questions really, for we know the answers already. It is an organisation that has an ethos of WATP. One that embraces violent organisations. One that has repeatedly escaped meaningfull censure from it’s governing body for repeated inflamatory statements aimed at said governing body and it’s members. One that represents the worst elements of a club called Rangers FC. It is one that encapsulates what Rangers stand for, without the more dignified styling of previous regimes.

    Previously led by men of loftier standing within the community, the rabble is now led by the rabble!


  41. To be honest, I never lose a wink of sleep over the history of Rangers remaining with Rangers, mainly because the fans see the new Rangers as a continuation of the old Rangers in their hearts and minds, for them, they are the same club/team with the same traditions as past. Just as long as they don’t try to convince me that Rangers were the ones that were somehow wronged.

    I repeat, I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with the fans believing that.

    And as long as Rangers continue to believe they are the same club then I will therefore continue to show my distain towards them, much as I did before they changed “holding company”. I will see them as the team that plays at the iconic Ibrox stadium, that play in Red, White & Blue, that are closely affiliated to The Church Of Scotland, that have a huge, passionate and loyal fan base but…. that also have a that have a clear anti Irish and anti-Catholic following and policy, that has a superiority complex, that believes Britain still has an empire, that attracts and encourages divisive groups into the fan base, that abuses rules to suit their aims, that controls the media, that forces the changing of regulations to suit an agenda that only benefits them, that bully anyone that does not conform, that has an extremely negative reputation of violence and destruction on The European scene, that should be forever known as the team/club who “changed holding company” for the sole purpose of not paying their debts.

    Rangers then…Rangers now…Rangers forever!

    Here is an example how I deal with it now and going forward; this is based on a conversation between 2 Celtic and 2 Rangers fans last week. Rangers Fan No1 is a diehard, steeped in the wool bluenose who thinks nothing has changed over the last 2 years except being demoted because Celtic & Aberdeen hate them. Rangers Fan No2 is also a massive fan, season ticket holder (past and present) but who believes the club has wronged and should pay the penalty, he is also a believer that you cannot buy history!

    Celtic Fan No1: “Now that Hearts have some money issues, I heard they will be offloading some players. Is there anyone in their team that Celtic should be looking out for?”

    Rangers Fan No1: “I like that guy…”

    Me: “Shut it, until you pay your debts, you have no opinion on Scottish Football.”

    Rangers Fan No2: “There are a few I would like to see at Rangers but not sure if I would say the same if we were in The SPL.”

    ME: “I don’t know; it’s hard to judge based on last season due to injuries, coaching and background upheaval but they do have a few useful players.”

    Rangers Fan No1: “Driver didn’t…”

    Celtic Fan No1: “Shut it, You’ve already been warned, if you want to pretend you are the same team and that nothing bad happened the last years then you are not allowed to discuss football in this group. Wait until we talk about what car Stevie should buy next month, and then you are welcome to join the club.”

    Rangers Fan No2: “Eh hold on, he likes that stupid looking box shaped Merc so not sure his opinion is valid for that subject either”

    Cue laughs all round….

    Rightly or wrongly, he will be forever reminded that although we are best friends, his insistence on brushing Rangers misdeeds under the carpet will forbid him for ever having a viewpoint on Scottish football that is not tainted.


  42. The ASA have fallen into the trap which I believe Goebbels professed,

    “If you tell a lie long and loud enough, people will eventually start to believe it”


  43. So newco/sevco have told the ASA that they have the transferred SFA membership of diedco which is exactly the same “full” membership. I thought sevco got a temporary membership? Was it called associate membership? Or was that just with the SFL? I hope the ASA haven’t been misled. Not that sevco or any footballing authorities in Scotland would ever dream of doing such a thing.

    Ye, look a squirrel n’that


  44. Ecobhoy,

    Our thoughts on the matter are even closer since reading your last post (at 12.22), though I think it was more a lack of willingness to come out with a just verdict that blighted the whole enquiry rather than incompetence on the part of the ‘prosecution’.

    I’ve enjoyed our debate, made more enjoyable by our ‘coming closer’ in our opinion. Hopefully many more such debates can be carried out on TSFM in the future, and over a wider range of topics, to make the site more of the wide ranging football forum sought at it’s inception.


  45. fara1968 says:
    Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 12:40
    0 0 Rate This
    So newco/sevco have told the ASA that they have the transferred SFA membership of diedco which is exactly the same “full” membership. I thought sevco got a temporary membership? Was it called associate membership? Or was that just with the SFL? I hope the ASA haven’t been misled. Not that sevco or any footballing authorities in Scotland would ever dream of doing such a thing.

    Ye, look a squirrel n’that

    ————————————

    apparently the SFA do not have membership numbers…..so a club either has a membership or doesn’t.

    for example – Aberdeen – SFA membership # 1903, Celtic membership # 1888, Rangers Membership # 1690

    they don’t do this, they simply have

    Aberdeen – member, Celtic – member, Rangers – member

    without tracking a membership number, how can they say they have transferred an existing membership from one club to another – as they have no way of tracking the individual membership #’s

    so, they have transferred “A” membership from Old club to new club. or alternatively, Old club is no longer a member and a new club is a member.

    btw, it took about 6 months to get the SFA to confirm that their memberships do not have unique identifying numbers.

    so, i think we can ignore the “transfer” of membership and view it as a new club being ISSUED with a membership. (oh and a made up conditional one at that as well!)


  46. allyjambo says:
    Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 09:59

    “As a result I am more in accord with Ecobhoy and see now that LNS didn’t find RFC guilty of mis-registering the players, though how that could be I still fail to grasp”.
    ———–

    I think that that is it right there. What is the point of carrying out an enquiry to get to the bottom of things if the results are utterly bamboozling. Surely the point of an enquiry is to bring clarity. By that measure, LNS efforts are a miserable failure. It may be clear to him what his train of thought was but if the community who the findings were intended to placate do not recognise its validity then it has been a sterile exercise. The layman is likely to place it in the box marked ‘conspiracy’ thus mocking the whole process.

    The Hillsborough enquiry process is an interesting parallel. I now know that the police were innefective in their crowd control measures and that in order to obscure this failure they set about distorting the facts. This understanding would accord with many of the Liverpool suppoerters and the wider public. Justice was seen to be done…eventually. The previous attempts to explain circumstances never felt right to those concerned so they continued to pursue the matter until a scenario was described that fitted with the vast majority of the facts as individuals could recollect them.

    We are dealing with a much simpler process here. The rules required that players contracts should be fully registered. They were not. Side letters promising additional remuneration were in existence. We all know this. Even LNS/SFA/SPL/WATP know this. If a conclusion cannot be brought forward that encompasses this fact along with its ramifications then the process has brought itself into disrepute. That the intent of the process, to bring the issue to a close, has not succeeded is a clear indicator of this disrepute. These people do themselves no favours. They treat us like fools since that is how they have come to regard us. That was then, this is now.

    If a player is incorrectly registered for whatever reason then the rules have not been complied with. These are not the complex and weighty rules of nucleaur science. This is football. The topic that is close to many peoples hearts and understanding. When rules are not complied with these people know that a sanction is due. By natural justice, the sanction should fit with the level of the rule breech in order to prevent others adopting the same attitude. It really is that simple. Attempts to obscure it in legalise may be very clever but it is not beleivable. It is not believed.

    So allyjambo, continue to fail to grasp the logic because there is no true logic there to grasp. It is a ghostly apparation that has the semblence of the truth without its substance. We all instinctively know when we have heard the truth. On this matter we have yet to be told it. More than that, we already know the truth without anyone telling us, so to provide a contrary interpretation is to take us for fools. Fool me twice, shame on me.


  47. Galling fiver says:
    Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 12:07

    I think we’ve had this discussion on here before – mostly centred around certain Celtic fans claiming that their club was a beacon of integrity in all of this, and the reason that they were keeping their head down was not to give the media a chance to paint them as instigators behind Rangers demise (Firstly, like Celtic would care, and Secondly, too late – Apparently Peter lawell is pulling the strings of everyone, although the ones on Vince Lunny seem a bit slack at the minute……).

    The fact is that the clubs ARE the SFA. They could force the SFA to take action if they REALLY wanted to. They don’t. I suspect that they pay lip-service to the fans, lest they lose the season ticket money, but are wanting Rangers (any Rangers!) back in because, well, because they have absolutely no ambition beyond making a bit of money. Sure, they could survive without Rangers, but the prospect of an extra few quid – and it is, literally, a few quid – is what turns their heads.

    I’d contacted my club, Clyde, asking them to raise this with the SFA, but they didn’t respond. They are a small club, and wouldn’t want to rock the boat, especially with the impending move to EK coming up and the opportunities for regulations and permissions to scupper it. BTW I’m assuming that’s why they aren’t interested in raising this – either that or they just don’t see it as their fight, which grates me even more.

    It’s as simple as this – us, the fans, are on our own. It was the fans that scuppered the parachute into the SPL, and the same for the parachute into the first division. The Clubs really couldn’t care less, and just want the whole thing to die down so that we can get back to the way things were. When that Rangers announcer gave it the ‘Crumbs from his master’s table’ post St Johnstone scoring a consolation goal in a 4-1 defeat at Ibrox, he wasn’t kidding. He knew the situation, and he’s been proved right by cowardly chairmen, and simpering boards. The opportunity is there for a club to establish themselves as challengers to Celtic. All it would take would be a well run operation, living within it’s means, engaging with the local community. Alloa Athletic are the model for this, they just so happen to live in a town where the demographics mean that it would never really be possible for them to challenge (at least more than a one off anyway), but would clubs such as Aberdeen, Hibs etc. rise to that? Or will they tread water until the new Rangers finally pop up in the SPL, and get back to accepting the slightly soiled blue pound?

    Bit of a rant, I know, but the whole thing just does my head in.


  48. pnefc @pnefcPNE are delighted to announced the signing of 25-year-old winger Chris Humphrey from Motherwell.

    Alex O’Henley ‏@OHenleyAlex 6m

    Barnsley have also confirmed an interest in @MotherwellFC’s out of contract striker Michael Higdon.

    At this rate McCall will be the only one left at Motherwell.


  49. allyjambo says:
    Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 12:25

    Sadly, I think he’s refering to the farce that was TRFC getting thumped in front of a highly partisan full house made up almost entirely of Dundee United fans. How’d that one work out for you, Craig?


  50. ecobhoy says:
    Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 12:22
    —————————————

    Given your experience in the field of law (at least I assume you have experience based on the responses you make to posters on here) what is your opinion on the conduct of the counsel for the SPL.

    Was he incompetent or,

    Was he working to an agenda and if so did he achieve his goal/fulfil his remit.


  51. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17116759

    Derry City are refused entry to Europa League by Uefa

    Derry City have been refused entry into next season’s Europa League competition by Uefa.
    The European football governing body has taken the decision because the club went into liquidation just over two years ago.
    That led to a European ban for three years and this is the final year of the Candystripes’ suspension.
    Derry would have been guaranteed at least 110,000 Euros for participation in the competition.
    The re-formed club, with support from the FAI, asked for the rule to be relaxed but Uefa refused to relent.
    On paper, Derry’s third-place finish in last year’s Airtricity League Premier Division should have earned them a Europa League spot.
    Derry City chairman Philip O’Doherty received the bad news in a phone call shortly before lunchtime on Tuesday.
    “Because the new club has only been in existence for two years – not three years – we had to apply for a derogation of the rule,” said the Derry chairman.
    Play media

    “We paid a lot of football debts that were nothing to do with us, but from the previous club but apparently we’re not going to be accepted.
    “I’ve just spoken to the manager (Declan Devine). He’s absolutely gutted as are the rest of the board.”
    The club does have the option of launching an appeal to the European Court of Arbitration but O’Doherty said that this “hugely expensive option is unlikely”.
    “We’re going to have a look at that when we get the statement but it would be unlikely that we would be successful.
    “We did a very, very good application and the questions we were asked, they were answered positively.
    “The amount of money we have spent taking care of previous responsibilities, I would have thought would have been enough to basically bend the rules.
    “The players will be gutted as well, not getting the chance to play on a larger stage and with the success they had a few years ago and obviously the recent success of Shamrock Rovers.
    “It’s a big, big disappointment for everyone involved.”


  52. Not The Huddle Malcontent says:
    Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 12:50
    fara1968 says:
    Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 12:40
    0 0 Rate This
    So newco/sevco have told the ASA that they have the transferred SFA membership of diedco which is exactly the same “full” membership. I thought sevco got a temporary membership? Was it called associate membership? Or was that just with the SFL? I hope the ASA haven’t been misled. Not that sevco or any footballing authorities in Scotland would ever dream of doing such a thing.
    Ye, look a squirrel n’that
    ___

    Not only did they not legitimately `transfer` anything – what they tried to fob off as a NEW `conditional` membership was conditioned on CW not being involved AT ALL.

    And – requiring financial accreditations on fit and proper persons of their Directors

    Now all three caught on tape with CW
    Two of which have `left` in somewhat not fit and proper circumstances
    And the third takes muck raking videos in a restaurant etc etc…………..

    Some `conditional` SFA membership`

    ASA have not diligently researched resulting in a foolish letter that their peers will review for sure


  53. Cf posted a tweet that suggests the dox were taken down due to copyright infringement not confidentiality… It would be interesting trying to copyright something whilst ensuring its confidentiality is not compromised… I would like to copyright something but I can’t show you what is is as its confidential hmmm.m

    Reminds me of a certain cult


  54. jonnyod says:
    Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 07:05
    ====================================
    Are you daring to suggest that referees will favour Rangers?
    I have never ever ever seen that happen in all my years watching soccerball.

    Can anyone tell me where specsavers is in Aberdeen?


  55. Do you know you could write off an idiot like Leggat, spouting his blowhard, inane pieces that are more than a good bit short in the picnic box department, but when so many Rangers fans harbour the notions of being harshly treated in spite of the facts, then it becomes a depressing point from the which the new club begins its journey up the leagues, with such a misplaced sense of injustice.

    To be fair to Leggat, let’s the ball rolling let’s hand the new club the £2m prize money for its previous incarnate, but all’s fair in love and football – hand over the £9m VAT & PAYE not paid to HMRC coffers during the same year the money is claimed from. But why stop there – why not hand over all the payments the previous club reneged on, in all its technicolour glory – leaving aside the current £90m+ under dispute. Pay your debts if you’re the same club – every single penny without fear or favour. Pay all your creditors.

    Lets leave aside the morally repugnant issue of millionaire footballers and other staff avoiding tax, or the associated issue of leagues & cups won during a highly questionable period of improperly registered players. Not just some missed date on a players registration form that gets the team thrown out of cup. Or small facts about not publishing accounts so the full horror of a club breaking not just tax law, but so many articles of membership of the SFA, Lets leave them aside, because sure as hell the SFA did. Let’s ignore the fact the club was liquidated, attempted to TUPE players over to the new club despite a legal process that says otherwise. Let’s ignore the fact that the same SFA engineered a 3rd division start for a new club, above other legitimately placed teams awaiting their chance. Let’s ignore all these injustices, pay all your debts, and you can be the same club, same history.

    See, when you ignore all the rules and plain simple facts, it’s easy.
    The SFA like TRFC, and RFC before them can do it no problem. It’s all the rest of us that have the problem.


  56. areyouaccusingmeofmendacity says:

    I think you are correct here, I was thinking about that cup tie recently….it was IMO a catalyst for Sevco. In the full glare of the football public they were shown up to be a pathetic shadow of ‘Rangers’ on the park as the home fans mocked in unison the very notion that they can even call themselves ‘rangers’………..’you’re no rangers anymore’, rang loud and proud from three sides of the ground as mccoist’s over paid under achievers were routed all over the park and……… no one follow followed. No doubt this was the event that exposed Sevco as a sham. The humiliation was the nadir for chuck and the main players in the new blue room and probably made the forces of ‘loyalty’ up their game in terms of confronting their ‘enemies’.

    Once again we find ourselves waiting for the FTT, so far HMRC are the only ones to have done the right thing, after all they killed RFC by rejecting the cva, and I hope they will dance on their grave by sealing, officially their place in history, what we all know….. as cheats then, cheats now………..cheats forever!


  57. With regards to the ASA decision, I am one of the original 78 who complained. In receiving the letter on Saturday morning, I have since penned a reply telling them I believe the sources they used in determining the outcome were not balanced. I agreed that the Newco/club would state that they are the same club, and asked the question, “Who asked you to seek the ECAs Opinion? Did this emerge from talking to the newclubs media person, the same one who quoted the scenario that was played out to help LNS in his inquiry, with an old and new operator of this mystic non entity of RFC.
    I told them that the ECA are not the governing body and can only offer an opinion, but they should have asked about the status of their membership with the ECA now than what it was 12 months ago.
    I also explained that to clear up the confusion they need to ask the Governing body UEFA for clarity, a body who maintain in their rules that the Company is the club and vice versa. It would have also been a good idea to ask the English FA interpretation of liquidation of a club/company as they have had recent dealings with Portsmouth and more recently Coventry over these matters.
    They could have also asked the opinions of one of the many sports lawyers around, the likes of Gregory Loannidas.
    i will have more ammunition when I appeal the decision.


  58. Think I’ve said this before, but it would be a great shame for Biggart Bailie/spivs if these docs ended up on a Philippines server… i think the wait for a court date to gain an injunction here is running at about 5 years…. A few torrent sites are enjoying the rather slow legal system and a privately owned internet gateway service this side of the world…

    That said, I wouldn’t encourage anyone to open up a hosting account with someone like http://www.zoom.ph and host documents there as that would be illegal.

    Of course, the ASA have come to the rescue with their ‘look, a squirrel’ moment, so we’ll end up discussing that instead….

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