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/
Lloyds banking group under a bit of scrutiny for allegedly telling staff to commit fraud. It involved ppi claims. This took place at a processing centre ran by no other than Deloittes. Off topic but shows you the small world that we live in.
Reilly1926 says:
June 11, 2013 at 4:25 pm
—–
Done!
On the mibbes aye mibbes naw SFA investigation:
‘Regan said that findings from the Ibrox club’s own inquiry into the matter had been passed to the Scottish FA. That information has been reviewed and senior figures at Hampden are considering their next course of action’.
What ‘findings’ have the SFA been shown – is it the complete PM report; is it a Rangers version of the PM report; is it the statement to AIM; is it even in written form or just a nod, whisper and handshake.
And who are the ‘senior figures’ at Hampden – If they can’t be named because of fears for their safety then just say that as that would be a reasonable precaution but if that is the case will this be the first matter to be looked at under their new anti-sectarian stance.
And ‘considering their next course of action’ – are they hiring-in more mirror and smoke generators. They obviously haven’t been reading Charlotte Fakes if they don’t know the only course of action left open to them and btw I don’t mean falling on your swords as only honourable people take that course.
Testing No 780 >>>> 1 2 …..1 2
test (apologies to all)
If ever proof was needed in the collusion of our clubs in the whole Sevco scam, then the re-election of Scunner Campbell is it. It seems like the survival and propsperity of Sevco is more important by far to them than their own clubs and fans, and they are all OK with the scams, cheatiing, fraud and conspiracy that has gone on.
As a result I have today cut my last financial tie to the club I have supported all my life, Hibs, by cancelling Hibernian TV. I refuse to support the fraud that is Scottish Football (aka the Sevco support system). And I told them so. Sad, but I feel much cleaner now.
fara1968 says:
June 11, 2013 at 5:02 pm
Lloyds banking group under a bit of scrutiny for allegedly telling staff to commit fraud. It involved ppi claims. This took place at a processing centre ran by no other than Deloittes. Off topic but shows you the small world that we live in.
—————————————————–
I had my car (a mid-range model, well into its MOTs) repaired recently. Fantastic service, when I went to collect it they said they’d overquoted, so they charged me less than I was expecting. Also, while the car was in they did all the tyres, topped up everything, cleaned it inside and out, then called me the next day to check that there was nothing I was unhappy about.
Changed days – it used to be that garages were a byword for ripping you off, and banks were a byword for probity! Quite the reverse now it seems.
Reilly1926 says:
June 11, 2013 at 4:25 pm
—–
Done!
The re-election of CO whilst not entirely unpredictable, must send a strong signal to those who consume Scottish football through whatever medium. To a large majority it will signal that all is well and on course. To a growing minority it will signal that we are on an alarming and catastrophic course.
I read an account of a series of South Korean air crashes. The air accident investigators couldn’t figure out why such a technologically advanced and well resourced air service should be experiencing major catastrophes when other less well resourced airlines faired much better. The conclusion was that there was an absence of questioning of authority. In one incident, the co-pilot realised that the aircraft was bound for disaster but his deference to the Captain made him unwilling or unable to assert his opinion. The Captain, devoid of contrary indicators, set course for oblivion for himself and his passengers.
We appear to be in a similar position here. Deference has shackled so many that a catastrophe is unaviodable. Each tier of deference rests meekly believing that one day, they will graduate to the upper echelons and enjoy the unstinting loyalty of their subordinates. Captain of a sinking ship, what an august position to hold. Just think of the prestige. Seems ludicrous buts that’s where we are right now.
Some cultures are less prone to deference than others. I think in the air crash case, statisticians found that Australians for instance are less likely to accept as given that an authority figure’s opinion will always be right. They have been raised culturally to question such assertions. This leads to a society that is not so easy to govern but which does tend to get the big decisions right I suspect.
So we are in a society riddled with deference. You are not just dealing with a set of circumstances here, you are addressing a whole way of being. Like many aspects within society (and football), some attitudes take generations to change. However because change is slow is not a reason for not trying. Just don’t anticipate immediate results. If TSFM is going to succeed it needs to be in for the long haul. Success won’t be achieved by any one group of people. It may be achieved most effectively by contributors who have not yet found the site. By people who in years to come will read through the archives and learn the lessons and apply them.
Charlotte’s expose has given us much to digest. We need to build an alternative reality from her information and the information that was held previously. For if these sorry events are not to repeat themselves further, then we owe it to a younger generation of sports fans and members of society to say it like it is. When we say it, we are going to be deprived of the wider acknowledgement that we all crave when we achieve a remarkable feat. It was thus ever the case for pioneers. When you are first to discover, no-one else can understand why you think what you have found is so important.
Another recollection was a question put to an eminent phycisist many years ago. He was asked by a journalist “I believe only you and one other scientist fully understand Einstein’s theory of relativity?” The eminent gentleman looked at him, paused briefly, then replied “who is this other person?”
StevieBC says:
June 11, 2013 at 3:37 pm
Well, if there was ever any doubt about how little the SFA regarded their customers – and their customers’ opinions – then the re-election of Ogilvie is confirmation.
Disgusted.
Not surprised – but still disgusted.
———————–
It’s not the SFA who Re-elect the president it’s the clubs. The blame lies at their door for this decision.
Test (sorry)
john clarke says: June 11, 2013 at 4:47 pm
————————————-
I still think that the SFA will take the easy option of accepting that Craig Whyte has no connection with Sevco Scotland. (full stop)
Anything that happened beforehand in the Green and Whyte world of “deal or no deal” doesn’t directly affect the current position of TRFC. The fact the Green and Ahmad have departed the scene of the crime (alledgedly) will also reassure the authorities.
The SFA may acknowledge the Spivs earlier wheeling and dealing, but will reserve their position should something calamitous be revealed in court.
Took a while, but I’m over my operator malfunctions hopefully. Bit of carry on getting here (I hope), and all I have to say, is the same as everyone else. How the f00k has that complete pr1ck been re-elected, and why has my club allowed it to happen, was sick in my own mouth then just thinking about it.
The disappearing posts seem to be linked to the new register function, which has been put on ice for the moment.
pilgrim1888 says:
June 11, 2013 at 5:23 pm
—-
“It’s not the SFA who Re-elect the president it’s the clubs. The blame lies at their door for this decision…”
——
Very possibly there were no challengers-either because no one would be daft enough to go for the job or because no one is brave enough to take on the hostility of the powerful clique that undoubtedly exercises the real power.
easyJambo says:
June 11, 2013 at 4:28 pm
=============================
They are “considering” an investigation.
Absolutely appalling administration once again.
Of course their should be an investigation into whether or not the person who they totally banned from Scottish football, and who laughed at their fine saying he would never pay it, was involved in buying into a new Scottish football club. And whether Charles Green lied to them to get a licence for that team to play. Just to establish how many rules and regulations have been broken.
Considering an investigation, he must be having a laugh.
There will be no investigation, no further action, the SFA want to move on, and so it seems do the clubs, and to hell with what their customers think – see last two pars of Regan’s quote. Those with shares may wish to take a leaf out of the Greenpeace playbook and raise merry hell at the Club AGMs.
“”We said at the outset there were a number of questions the club had to answer,” said the chief executive. “That remains the case.
“We also said we needed to see the report being carried out by Pinsent Masons. I can confirm we have now seen that report.
“A formal brief will go to the Scottish FA on that particular subject towards the end of this month. We will decide what steps we’ll take if any.
“I think it is hugely important for Scottish football that we don’t have yet another summer of acrimony, bitterness, falling out and unhappiness amongst supporters and club staff alike.
“We’ve got to move forward and do whatever we can, collectively, to get the game right in Scotland.”
Another great blog from the inimitable Mr BroganRogan etc, (apologies if already posted) worth reading http://broganrogantrevinoandhogan.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/the-sfa-and-o-j-simpson-never-the-twain-shall-meet/
TSFM says:
June 11, 2013 at 10:24 am
To do that, click on the login link, and then hen you are taken to the login page, click register, add your name and email address, and you are done.
**********************************
What a palaver to get in here: I suspect TSFM was only wanting to get Charlotte in by the advice offered above.
And I’m sure the forensic manner in which many contributors examine materials will have led them to believe the same, that is TSFM is most certainly Scottish, with a slick turn of phrase for the ladies. ‘Hen’ indeed! 😉
(btw, this is yet another test)
s regan saying that they are considering an investigation which will be scrutinised by his bosses at the sfa…erm who might that be…campbell ogilvie – FFS,!!!
did celtic vote for campbell’s re-election?
just as well i stopped giving celtic money last season when they did not raise any objections regarding everything and anything the sevco franchise were getting away with.
more of the same.
i won’t be back tis season mr lawwell and i won’t be doing the bookies/coupons and i won’t be subscribing to sky
Is Rescunner a word ?
Ah, Mr Ogilvie re-elected. That’ll steady the ship.
I think the event should be marked by the design of a special uniform for the Great Administrator, perhaps modelled on 1918 Austro-Hungarian court attire, or maybe the get-up worn by Roman big-shots just before the arrival of the Visigoths.
Is there any way we can find out how the clubs voted in the North Korean election today at Hampden? If AFC voted in favour, I’m definitely out. I gave my season book to neighbours son half way through last season as I was disgusted the way the SFA puppets were treating the RFCIL with kid gloves.
WTF happened to transparency in the SFA as stated by Regan when he was first appointed?
Testing, (apologies)
I may be mistaken but I believe some posters had asked if the SFA were in receipt of any money from the Scottish government, well it seems they are in a roundabout sort of way. In 2011 they received £5 million through a cashback scheme whereby the money recovered from criminal activity is redistributed by the Scottish government. I’ve posted a couple of the links below.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2011/03/16134101
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Justice/public-safety/17141/cashback/funding
Charlotte Fakeovers @CharlotteFakes 34s
Duff and Phelps 6 June 2012 Part 1/12
Gonna be a 12 part series!
john clarke says:
June 11, 2013 at 5:38 pm
2 1 Rate This
pilgrim1888 says:
June 11, 2013 at 5:23 pm
—-
“It’s not the SFA who Re-elect the president it’s the clubs. The blame lies at their door for this decision…”
——
Very possibly there were no challengers-either because no one would be daft enough to go for the job or because no one is brave enough to take on the hostility of the powerful clique that undoubtedly exercises the real power.
——————–
I could find no evidence of any other candidates, according to CO himself nominations had to be in by February. And I quote,
“You have to put your nomination forward in February and then, at the end of the day, it is a democractic society. If the clubs do not want me, then fine. I hae no problem about standing aside. Someone else can take it on”
Obviously no one else felt capable of take “it” on.
Charlotte Fakeovers @CharlotteFakes 2m
Duff and Phelps 6 June 2012 Part 12/12
Concludes with a live recording of Craig having a Pee – Sorry.
Oh the dignity!!!!!!!!
Yippee ….. WP login again …..
was concerned that TSFM had been hacked when changed WithOut Notiice ….. ! R U listening ?
Dear SFA …. were todays decisions and reports passed and authorised by the RIFC board …. ?
must shoot ….. Charlotte calling …. !
I wrote to my club 2 weeks ago, regarding today’s election for president. I said that I expected transparency regarding how my club voted. I also indicated that if they voted for Ogilvie, then they could kiss me, and (much more importantly, of course) my money, sweet goodbye.
But then I’m just a schmuck who pays the bills. So I expect that I will never find out how my club cast its vote. Which is fine, because then they will never see another penny from me. Very sad, after 55 years, but there has to be a sticking point in any relationship. Today’s coronation of Ogilvie is my sticking point.
All clubs are complicit in this fraud. I knew this the moment Sevco were allowed to play Brechin. It is now time for all fans of all clubs to walk away and let Footbal’ s death in this country be acknowledged. I am now no longer a Celtic fan because Celtic together with every other cllub has betrayed and abandoned football as a sport.
Anyone who supports any Scottis club emotionalky or financially is now either willingky or unwittingly supporting cheating, fraud , theft and corruption. Boycotts are no use. We simply should invest our money time passion and commitment elsewh.ere. The clubs are owned and run by people without ethics – every last one if them – without exception
Just had a very brief look at the draft accounts, as I was particularly interested in the expenses (excluding salaries).
The figure is £15.6m
A question which has been asked for quite a long time, how much has that been cut since then.
______________________________________________
3rd attempt to reply Gaz… fell foul of the new registrations and lost it to the ether.
From my (non accountancy) read that £15.6m includes £8.4m amortisation of player registrations.
Unless the players were bought for cash in the same tax year, this element would be a P&L loss, but would not affect the cashflow, so would have a limited (if any) impact on the solvency of the opco.
Sales is vanity, profit is sanity, but cash is reality, as the maxim goes. Very profitable companies go out of business every day through an inability to pay bills when due, while loss making cash rich ventures might lurch on for decades.
My contention is that this £8.4m will not be part of the cash running costs of newco. Player regsitrations (unlike plyer wages) is a very easy element for clubs to control from a cash point of view: Spending oney they haven’t got on big names signing may not have been something the oldco could get its head around, but id newco hasn’t made any multi million pound signings, its unlikely they will need to amortise the cost of these transfer fees over the duration of the contract in the accounts.
On the assumption that the rest of the money in the £15.6m is essential out of pocket cash items, this means that the non salary/salary expense costs associated with keeping the lights on at the debt dome will only be about £7.2m if nothing else drastic has changed.
You have to add in all of the salary costs to this figure – playing and non playing – to arrive the operating costs of TRFC. These were about £30m in 2011 but will have dropped considerably. Press figures suggest playing/playing staff salaries totalling about 8-10m. (call it £9m)
in 2011 there were 200 non playing employees in addition to playing staff. Pulling a number out of thin air, £4-6m, with another £1-2m for senior exec/staff, making £5-8m total.
I reckon annual running costs of £22-27m total for the slimmed down set up.
So they will have – I reckon – a cash burn rate of £2m a month to keep the lights on, of which £600k a month is gone before anyone has been paid or a ball has been kicked.
Feel free to dissent!
Here’s hoping.
So the SFA heid yins are deciding what to do about the sevco links to CW
Looks like another good night out may be required
The fact that CO has been re elected leaves me in no doubt as to where this whole shameless and utterly disgraceful episode is going ,although at least we all know where we stand .
It’s time to either bend over or walk away .
Funny I thought the death of Ragers would have seen me watching the game I love with a less paranoid outlook to games ,I never thought for a minute that a dead Ragers would force me to give up the game I love completely but there you go ,you live and learn as they say .
jonnyod says:
June 11, 2013 at 6:49 pm
1 0 Rate This
So the SFA heid yins are deciding what to do about the sevco links to CW
Looks like another good night out may be required
————
All Craig needs to do is to carry out an investigation into himself and then hand over the findings to the SFA. Green and the others can do the same. Everyone is in the clear.
jonnyod says:
June 11, 2013 at 6:58 pm
So what do we do now?
I am sorry but IMO CF is not the big story here today ,IMO it is the re election of CO to the top of the Scottish footballs governing body .
I believe this is now a watershed moment for the real football fans of this country as it tells us that the clubs (yes our clubs ) are perfectly happy with what has gone on in our game in this whole debacle .
I t looks to me as if the suits have just called us in this game of football poker and they are hoping we are bluffing ,won’t be long before they and we find out
Quoth Mr. Stewart Regan:
““I think it is hugely important for Scottish football that we don’t have yet another summer of acrimony, bitterness, falling out and unhappiness amongst supporters and club staff alike.”
And why do you and your cabal think that was Mr. Regan? Because, you along with the rest of the SFA, SPL, SFL, Scottish Media, various ‘authorities” and most shamefully the clubs (with honorable exceptions), all colluded to complete the shafting of Scottish Football and all non-Sevco fans by conspiring to commit the most massive fraud and swindle in British, if not World sport.
I would happily accept another summer of rancour and bitterness if it meant the removal of you and all the other lickspittles, the closing down of the illegal, bigoted and supremacist Sevco franchise, the disgrace and sacking of several business, media, political and judicial figures and the repayment of several hundred shafted creditors, not least the hard-pressed taxpayer.
But according to you Mr Regan, much better to let WATP win and keep bending the knee to them. My contempt knows no bounds.
paradisebhoy says:
June 11, 2013 at 6:04 pm
“Is Rescunner a word ?”
———–
It is now. How about this definition :
Rescunner – verb
1. To heap grief upon grief.
2. To reintroduce an unwanted malevolence.
3. To discomfort to a ridiculous extreme.
From auld Scots ‘scunner’ – Feel disgust or strong dislike
(Latin : Rescunneri – to attempt to drive a square peg into a round hole, Norse : Reskunog – to revisit a ridiculous conclusion, High German : Reskviguiltyascharged – To continually argue against all logic.)
A largely obsolescent word reserved for occasions of extreme frustration as an alternative to invoking multiple expletives.
Synonyms : Compromised, corrupt, unethical, unprincipled, sordid, infamous.
Listening to the latest recordings, you’ve got to admit that Whyte talks a good game.
* Does anyone know who the third person is? Scottish accent, someone from the club?
martybhoy says:
June 11, 2013 at 7:18 pm
“Don’t get me started on Celtic and their complicit silence…..Ashamed of my club and their indirect support for all of this fiasco.”
Sadly, I think the support has been direct.
DuffAndPhelps6June2012Part07
Character assassination recording 🙂
jean7brodie
It is up to every supporter to make their choice .
I had hopes things would have been different , justice would have been done Ragers fans would have faced up to what their club had done and built their new club on better foundations ,took the consequences and got behind the new club with their heads held high
How wrong was I ,what has emerged from the death of Ragers is nothing to be proud of and the way the SFA / MSM and the rest have gone about it has left me disillusioned with everything connected to our game .
I firmly believe that some time in the future this whole debacle will be shown to be the worst episode ever in the running of our game ,in fact the way it is going it will probably be the focus of a documentary about why our game died .
What the suits are asking us to now fund is no longer a SPORT .
resin_lab_dogH says:
June 11, 2013 at 6:38 pm
I see what you are saying, amortisation of players is really just writing off their “value” as an asset over the length of their contract. So whilst it is an expense to the business it isn’t really a “cash” expense. Given that a lot of people just left then their value as an asset would all have been lost at that time.
However they have players, and those players registrations are assets, and as their contract nears it’s end their value as an asset drops. So albeit it is a new club they will have to allow amortisation in their accounts. Though I do take your point that it’s not a “cash” expense.
iceman63 says:
June 11, 2013 at 6:36 pm
23 2 Rate This
All clubs are complicit in this fraud. I knew this the moment Sevco were allowed to play Brechin. It is now time for all fans of all clubs to walk away and let Footbal’ s death in this country be acknowledged. I am now no longer a Celtic fan because Celtic together with every other cllub has betrayed and abandoned football as a sport.
Anyone who supports any Scottis club emotionalky or financially is now either willingky or unwittingly supporting cheating, fraud , theft and corruption. Boycotts are no use. We simply should invest our money time passion and commitment elsewh.ere. The clubs are owned and run by people without ethics – every last one if them – without exception
=========================
well sai that [ice]man.
i’ve said “over and over”
i will not be back to celtic park and i will not be buying anymore merchandise.
no more sky or espn
no more fixed odds, roll-up, or perms at any bookies either
i realised last year that celtic are in on it
next step is to sell ma shares – if i can find them
Good Evening,
Here is a wee something I posted earlier today on my own blog.
http://wp.me/p1G95H-WS
The SFA, O.J. Simpson— and never the Twain shall meet!
Hope at least Stranraer FC kept the faith!
Is there a single person on here who expects to hear anything from Celtic regarding their position on the election of Ogilvie? Which says it all, really. I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed.
Part 7. Stunning that four months into the administration the administrators discover whose wages they are still paying. What were they actually doing?
CO re-elected hardly a surprise.
I believe the plan is for the SPL to expand and leave the SFA to muck up the semi-professional and youth football.
Sideline the brothers at the SFA , through an expanded SPL , although longer term decline is inevitable with the SFA run as a 17th century org populated by a core of bigots.
On iPhone the entering of comments is really slow on the new site
moderation test (apologies)
scottc says:
June 11, 2013 at 7:57 pm
1 0 Rate This
Part 7. Stunning that four months into the administration the administrators discover whose wages they are still paying. What were they actually doing?
———-
Stunning indeed scottc. The Duff man seems a bit clueless. But what a recording. Smith on £1.7m? Jings. McCoist gets a withering critique. Whyte has the facts at his fingertips. Sharp and analytical. “None of the old board should be anywhere near the club”. Hard to disagree with that. The Catholic comment sounded more a broadside on the club.
Was there any other candidate for the job Campbell Ogilvie got, or was he “elected unopposed.
If there was no other candidate I take it there was no vote, as none would be needed.
Don’t worry follks.
CO is diligently working at bringing down the system from within.
Won’t be long now.
from CQN…
Has anyone stopped to think why nobody stood against RCO today?
The vote on the 42 Team Structure is about to take place – if it gets the go-ahead then the RCO position becomes an irrelevance – a mere SFA administrative figurehead.
When the new set-up comes to power – PL and the likes will be calling the shots!
Celtic are not responsible for running Scottish football, any attempt to do so will have inevitable consequences for the safety of the clubs supporters. Petulant moaning at the CFC board flies in the face of all experience as to how this would be portrayed , crickey a young Portuguese lad was asked yesterday why he was not going to Palace by the msm and you want CFC to do what precisely.
I suspect the CFC board are too busy quaffing champagne and sticking to carefully thought out business plans and made the correct decision to let the SFA continue to humiliate themselves
neepheid says:
June 11, 2013 at 7:48 pm
————————————
Not me, I am extremely disappointed and although I would never ask or encourage anyone else to do anything negative towards their club, I am also thinking of calling it quits in respect to funding. That will not only save me on the shirts (3 per season now), Sky package and other assorted merchandising costs, the money saved on flights, hire cars and other travel will save me an absolute fortune.
I always thought I would rather be poor and enjoy everything about my club, now I am seriously thinking that it is not worth it anymore. I will always be a fan, maybe just not a supporter. I was just always of the belief that you cannot truly say you are a fan unless you are contributing as a supporter, and maybe that will lead to me being less of a fan. The fact they are eroding my passion for the team and sport is the most disappointing factor of all.
Fear not good people: I, Gym Trainer, Iraqi Information Minister of blessed memory am here.
Actually, just carry on 🙂
test
EKBhoy says:
June 11, 2013 at 8:16 pm
I would have more sympathy for your point of view, if it were not for the fact that Messers Lawwell and Riley sit on the professional game board of the SFA, and, the board of the SPL.
Either, they went along with everything that has happened, in which case their conduct is every bit as despicable as all the other tawdry actors in this farce.
Or
They didn’t like what they saw, sat there and did nothing. Which also makes their conduct every bit as despicable as the other actors.
You can excuse this behaviour if you want, sorry, I expect far, far, higher standards from Celtic.
Absolutely no season tickets being purchased for any team this coming season will not support the pandering to cheats fc and a corrupt organisation any longer 🙁
Part 11 from 6.30 Whyte speculates that either Jackson or Traynor had been promised a PR job at Ibrox by the Blue Knights. Rather prophetic.
neepheid says:
June 11, 2013 at 7:48 pm
‘..who expects to hear anything from Celtic regarding their position on the election of Ogilvie? ‘
—–
Oh, come on! What would you expect to hear?
a) yes, we wholeheartedly cast our vote in favour
b) we strongly opposed it, but were a minority of one
c) we abstained
d)) there was no vote because no other candidate had been nominated
e) the meeting agreed that it was impermissible for reference to be made to anonymous allegations of impropriety in the absence of solid evidence
It is unrealistic to expect a club to speak and behave as we tend to do on this blog.
We here can quite merrily and happily make bold assertions (none bolder than I when it comes to the bit) about corrupt office-bearers and secret cabals. We do so anonymously, free from any kind of in-your-face challenge to ‘prove’ anything or getting our heads kicked in.
Quite a different thing for a club representative to stand up in open forum and declare that someone present in the room is corrupt, conflicted, biased or whatever, without the strongest evidence immediately to hand!
Most of us believe your man to be unworthy of office for a number of reasons.
But not one of us would be prepared to say, in cold blood, in public and before a roomful of spectators that anyone is a liar, cheat, and abuser of office.
If we were to get carried away with our emotions we might, lose the plot, lose our audience and end up looking foolish , having to apologise for an unwarranted outburst and/or be had up for slander/defamation- UNLESS we could give concrete evidence for our assertion.
Now, it cannot be imagined that many club chairmen do not harbour some serious doubts about the President of their organisation ( even if only in relation to his apparent incompetence in letting the organisation get itself into a fankle).
But they will say, Give us some confirmed, concrete evidence and then we can act.
And such evidence is not yet to hand.( I’m not saying it is not there, of course. I personally think it is. Just not yet been strung together in a way that could lead to ‘prosecution’ and conviction. We might ‘know they done it’ -but let’s get the proofs and arguments marshalled in an unchallengeable way)
So what can they do- be seen to act on the basis of anonymous bloggers’ posts? That’s not going to happen.
And , of course, there is NO more onus on Peter Lawwell than on any other club CEO to put his head in the lion’s mouth and denounce the President of the Board on which he sits- unless you give him some legally acceptable evidence to work with.
scapaflow14 says:
June 11, 2013 at 8:38 pm
Either, they went along with everything that has happened, in which case their conduct is every bit as despicable as all the other tawdry actors in this farce.
Or
They didn’t like what they saw, sat there and did nothing. Which also makes their conduct every bit as despicable as the other actors.
=================================
You are obviously perfectly entitled to your opinion, however in mine to describe Peter Lawwell and Eric Riley as every bit as bad as Whyte, Green, Ahmad, Greir, Withey et al is simply nonsense.
Their job, legally is to look after the interests of the shareholders of the PLC they run. This is not a notional thing, it is a legal requirement. It is not to police Scottish football, much as people on here seem to think it is.
I am happy the way Celtic are being run, both as a business and as a football club and I will continue to support them. Other people clearly feel differently and their feelings are strong.
To each their own.
EKBhoy says:
June 11, 2013 at 8:16 pm
I suspect the CFC board are too busy quaffing champagne and sticking to carefully thought out business plans and made the correct decision to let the SFA continue to humiliate themselves
++++++++++++++++
I hope they choke on their champagne, having contributed a bit to their bubbly fund over the years. They really have gone down the wrong road on this one, and humiliate themselves and every Celtic fan by their connivance and complicity. There is a lot more to life than money, and I would just love to tell them where to stick their carefully thought out business plans, except I don’t want to trouble the mods on this fine forum. I would prefer to watch Celtic play proudly in the junior leagues, than go along with this farce.
Gaz says:
June 11, 2013 at 7:34 pm
3
0
Rate This
resin_lab_dogH says:
June 11, 2013 at 6:38 pm
I see what you are saying, amortisation of players is really just writing off their “value” as an asset over the length of their contract. So whilst it is an expense to the business it isn’t really a “cash” expense. Given that a lot of people just left then their value as an asset would all have been lost at that time.
However they have players, and those players registrations are assets, and as their contract nears it’s end their value as an asset drops. So albeit it is a new club they will have to allow amortisation in their accounts. Though I do take your point that it’s not a “cash” expense.
__________________________________________
Exactly…. these players will have a value, and it will be listed in the P&L as such.
In cash terms, the cost of the players registrations has already left the company. But in P&L terms, it can still be showing: If they had paid £100,000 cash for a player, they have gained a £100,000 playing asset. At the time, this aquisition will reflect as a negative net cash flow, but a 0 sum gain/loss on the Profit and loss. Paying cash for this player impacts on their ability to pay their bills at the time of acquistion, and makes it more likely that they could run our of cash then, but has no affect on their profitability. It has reduced their liquidity (and made them more likely to be liquidated then)
Once the contract is up (- or a part of it is amortised), they no longer have that £100,000 playing asset.
They lose £100,000 from the P&L. But the loss of this playing asset has not cost them any cash. £0 impact on the cashflow at the time the asset is amortised. It has not made it any more likely that they will go out of business through being unable to pay their bills.The impact on their liquidity is zero.
This excludes the scenario where they sell a player. Selling a player will have a broadly neutral impact on the P&L, if the players sell on value is accurately reflected in the accounts, otherwise a profit or loss is realised in the P&L based upon the difference between their accounts valuation of the playing asset and the cash value they realise for him.
However, in the cash flow, selling a player will always realise a cashflow positive, making it easier for the club to pay its bills when they fall due – even iof they realise a loss by doing so. It Increases their liquidity and making it less likely that they will need to be liquidated. So selling a player -even at a loss on paper, always makes it more likely that a club has the cash to pay its bills and stay in business.
Back to the original point: Worry not about TRFC profitability, but about their liquidity in working out whether they are solvent. In that sense, my view is that the £15.6m figure is a bum steer because it includes an £8.4m non cash element which is so far within their direct control as to be almost discretionary.
Wages and fixed outgoings is where the danger lies for them. This is where they could find themselves needing cash without a stash.
Sales is vanity, profit is sanity, cash is reality.
I reckon they are probably in enough difficulty on the basis of ‘cash burn’, whether they are making money or losing money hand over fist.
What would happen I wonder if we all packaged up the merchandise we have accumulated over the years and sent it back to our respective clubs with the message “I am sorry but I can no longer support my club under the present cicumstances so I am returning these items to you. You may sell them on and donate the money to Sevco”
john clarke says @8.52, Gaz says @ 8.53…Eminently sensible gentlemen ,in my opinion.
Gaz says:
June 11, 2013 at 8:53 pm
Actually agree with much of what you say, but, my issue lies in the fact that Mr Lawwell sits on the SFA’s professional game board, if that’s not having a role in, and, responsibility for “Policing Scottish Football”, then pray what does? Ditto for Mr Riley at the SPL Board.
Sorry, but you cannot have your cake and eat it, however, hard you might try.
scapaflow14
What do you want them to do?
” we object strongly to Rangers cheating!”
” we want CO to resign …. as he cheated the sfa”
” we want the titles back as Rangers cheated ? ”
” we want financial compensation …..
where do you start? This will be turned neatly on it’s head to:
Paranoid Celts try to kill Rangers
Cue stabbings and violence and the SFA given perfect cover to protect Rangers from a power hungry rival
CFC board too clever for these knuckle clenchers and our own support it seems
DuffAndPhelps6June2012Part08
A few of the lads chewing the fat round the table… (Whyte, Mr A and Mr B)
Mr A What about Alistair is he still there?
Whyte: I’ve never heard from Alistair. Have you heard from him?
Mr A: No
Whyte: He’s a Lunatic…
Mr B: He IS a Lunatic! I don’t know what makes him tick …didn’t he used to… didn’t he get Bill Miller?…he had some sort of involvement in getting Bill Miller and then he went to the media and said oh Bill Miller’s a lunatic and gave all this negative press. And I was thinking why don’t you just stay out of it…
(Someone yawns)
Whyte: I don’t know what he was trying to achieve at all.
Mr A: It was funny when we were up with you that day..
Whyte: (laughs) He was trying to get twenty grand on the day we went into administration (laughs)
He is totally out of his depth of the whole thing …Totally
————————————–
What Alistair can they mean? …surely not….Mr. J
EKBhoy says:
June 11, 2013 at 9:01 pm
Your argument seems to be that they cannot properly carry out their duties on the SFA and SPl boards for fear of the consequences outside. If they really believe that they can’t properly carry out their responsibilities on the SFA and SPL boards, then they should resign.
Can’t stop laughing @corsica1968 20m
2/2 So RFC kept all expenses and costs PLUS 90% of profit minus £80k to ACMilan Glorie. FACT! WOW just WOW! #charitytheft
Expand
Can’t stop laughing Can’t stop laughing @corsica1968 22m
1/2 Ms Gourlay to Paul Clark 27/2/12: “RCF agrees…on basis that Foundation receives 10% of the net profit from the event.”
john clarke says:
June 11, 2013 at 8:52 pm
1 0 Rate This
neepheid says:
June 11, 2013 at 7:48 pm
‘..who expects to hear anything from Celtic regarding their position on the election of Ogilvie? ‘
—–
Oh, come on! What would you expect to hear?
a) yes, we wholeheartedly cast our vote in favour
b) we strongly opposed it, but were a minority of one
c) we abstained
d)) there was no vote because no other candidate had been nominated
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Yes, one of those four answers would be a start, and their reasons behind the way they voted would also be helpful. I have been a paying customer of the club for over half a century. I do not think it is unreasonable for me to ask to know where they stand on this issue, which is important to me, although apparently not to you. Sometimes silence speaks louder than words, so I will draw my own conclusions if silence is what I get.