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/
Araminta Moonbeam QC says:
Wednesday, May 15, 2013 at 23:58
Indeed, they were already well into administration.
So why would anyone other than the administrator be discussing things like breaching contracts, terminating staff or whatever.
What would be the point, unless they felt the administrator could be controlled or at least influenced.
“Tame administrator”?
If all this is total BS, it is a most tremendous effort on someone’s part. Good to have a hobby.
@chipm0nk
Come on, we all know about D & P. What was that quote? ‘The only time I ever saw CW panic was when he thought he wasn’t going to be able to appoint D & P’.
Was the wages document a plan for post TUPE?
chipm0nk says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 00:01
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My impression was this was CW discussing with IA who “we” should run the club.
I assumed that would need to be plans to cut costs once they manipulate the creation of a new club with the assets?
So…
If this is IA and CW discussing things then why would they need to deal with D&P?
Remember they had an agreement to buy the assets and presumably a plan to form a new club with those assets.
Wouldn’t they be planning at this point how to cut costs at the new club?
Don’t worry Chris Graham has told the masses what to think – ‘lets just wait and see what happens’. Yep, that’s the ticket. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
Araminta Moonbeam QC says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 00:04
And yet, HMRC let him appoint his own administrator.
Knowing full well they would reject the CVA and force liquidation.
“A liquidation provides the best opportunity to protect taxpayers, by allowing the potential investigation and pursuit of possible claims against those responsible for the company’s financial affairs in recent years. A CVA would restrict the scope of such action.”
Araminta Moonbeam QC says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 00:15
Don’t worry Chris Graham has told the masses what to think – ‘lets just wait and see what happens’. Yep, that’s the ticket. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
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Poor leaderless lambs, an entire social group totally leaderless, bumping around asking what to do and who to follow. It’s a pitiful sight and also scary because when they are cornered that is when they can be the most dangerous!
vforvernacular says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 00:08
So…
If this is IA and CW discussing things then why would they need to deal with D&P?
Remember they had an agreement to buy the assets and presumably a plan to form a new club with those assets.
=======================
So CW had an agreement to buy the assets from his own business, which D&P was liquidating.
Really, were the administrators aware of this. That the person shafting the creditors was also going to be the beneficial owner of the assets they lost out on. Based on the pre CVA rejection “deal”.
That sounds a bit off.
Araminta Moonbeam QC says:
Wednesday, May 15, 2013 at 23:33
QC, the guy Chris Akers, flagged up by CharlotteFakeovers, used to work as an intern for Satchi & Satchi. Their London address is 80 Charlotte Street.
Locations of Charlottes earlier posts for any UFO spotters out there.
Saturday, May 11, 2013 at 20:23
Saturday, May 11, 2013 at 21:29
Saturday, May 11, 2013 at 22:15
Sunday, May 12, 2013 at 03:07
Sunday, May 12, 2013 at 16:43
Sunday, May 12, 2013 at 21:23
Sunday, May 12, 2013 at 22:52
Monday, May 13, 2013 at 00:03
Monday, May 13, 2013 at 00:44
Monday, May 13, 2013 at 03:00
Monday, May 13, 2013 at 03:20
Monday, May 13, 2013 at 03:30
Monday, May 13, 2013 at 13:22
Monday, May 13, 2013 at 13:41
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Monday, May 13, 2013 at 17:59
Monday, May 13, 2013 at 18:29
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 12:45
Araminta Moonbeam QC says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 00:15
Don’t worry Chris Graham has told the masses what to think – ‘lets just wait and see what happens’. Yep, that’s the ticket. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
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Has Chris (Fury) Graham been offered the seat on the board previously promised to Mark (Grandmaster Suck) Dingwall.
That’s a bit disloyal.
Though to be fair Chris has been the “voice of the support” on TV recently, replacing Mark who seemed to fill that role for quite some time.
Meet the new boss etc.
mullach says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 00:26
Given those times – either Charlotte is a night owl or she/he is posting from somewhere over the atlantic, EST? (GMT-5)
Oh come on! This just isn’t funny. As soon as I say that I’ve been away for a couple of days and that I’m struggling to catch up, you guys hit the accelerator. I’m off to bed.
Lord Wobbly says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 00:4
Ok – for your benefit – I’ll summarise:-
“RIFC are fek’d”
“SFA are useless and ineffective”
“MSM are slow”
“someone is swindling the gers fans”
“invester fraud”
“Craig white is TGEF”
“posts on twitter may or may not be true”
see – caught up. 🙂
Tommy says:
Wednesday, May 15, 2013 at 23:46
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Auntie has picked it up.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22548473
OK. Excuse me. dense and all.
But if King is trying to buy £10m worth of RIFC shares. And if Easdales are keen to increase their shareholding… why is RIFC trading at 55p? Surely price should be heading northwards? I mean… when there is a finite quantity of something that is in demand… in a properly functioning market…price goes up no???
I mean that’s what you do, isn’t it? In a share exchange.
These shares are publicly traded, aren’t they?
What am i missing?
Back to school for me, I guess?
Or is it some of those special 1p ‘spiv’ shares that they are after?
Scepticism is healthy but people are combing Charlotte;s materials looking for minor flaws and going nuts when they find one. Take any document that has been released about the whole RFC/Spivco saga and hold it to the same standard. They are all riddled with spelling errors, factual mistakes, and logical flaws. All of them if held to a “why didn’t it say…” test would fail.
The real world is written by flawed mortals. Real documents contain errors.
The stuff released so far looks good to me.
We have no real reason to doubt Charlotte except for TSFM who found some flaws in the story of how the documents were maintained. TSFM will be right to raise a flag on this, but is someone who wants to remain anonymous really going to start telling people the full story of how he/she got this stuff? That’s how leaks start. If Charlotte appears to know anything, it is about the fragility of information security.
More from CF, RFC accounts.
It’s late and I’m not an accountant but one thing jumped out at me, that budget must have been before Div3 beckoned, they were planning for Europa league for the next three seasons – at a loss!
Or is it really late and I need to sleep?
mullach says:
Wednesday, May 15, 2013 at 23:06
I upload them to my Google Drive which is part of my Google account and then set to share. I then copy the URL that the document is opened under and post it here.
Dropbox is another place where files can be uploaded to and presumably linked to in same way.
and to add thats pages 14/15 with the UCL/UEL forecast.
BUT more importantly some real* info for Auldheid to get stuck right into!!
*I reserve the right to change my mind as to the validity of this at a later date as and when it suits me. It is only fair as in true whataboutery style, as flip flopping of opinion seems to work for Sevconians 🙂
Auldheid (@Auldheid) says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 02:06
Thanks Auldheid. Don’t know what a Google drive is unfortunately. The Scrib’d thing seems to have worked but the Word document I’ve uploaded lacks a bit of detail and it would be best complimented by the ‘Timeline’ Excel date sequence. Hopefully Scrib’d will maintain my anonymity but I had to pfaff about with it to obscure my profile.
I’ll try again tomorrow when I’m not in such a rush.
mullach says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 02:11
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Would converting the Excel spreadsheet to a PDF format and then post it work?
Re the LBF – I believe it is genuine. I suspect CW has read many legal letters over the years and would be well versed in the format and language required. If he got stuck he could always summon assistance from Mr Google QC.
But why no action to date? Well because CG and IA called his bluff about making a pay off and in any event Murray would have blocked it.
Good to hear King”””yyyyyy coming to the rescue. Where has he been all this time?
Charlotte Fakeovers @CharlotteFakes 4h
Accounts and Forecasts: as sent by Imran Ahmad on June 2012 to those now fighting for control of ‘their’ assets http://www.scribd.com/doc/141764900/Forecasts …
Early start, brain fuzzy – my first thought on the accounts how can the SFA provide a license on the basis that the club is financially viable – 2012/13 circa £6m loss and projected operatin expenditure of £35m?
If that Trading accounts document from CF is a fake, someone has FAR FAR too much time on their hands.
resin_lab_dog says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 01:15
OK. Excuse me. dense and all.
But if King is trying to buy £10m worth of RIFC shares. And if Easdales are keen to increase their shareholding… why is RIFC trading at 55p? Surely price should be heading northwards? I mean… when there is a finite quantity of something that is in demand… in a properly functioning market…price goes up no???
I mean that’s what you do, isn’t it? In a share exchange. These shares are publicly traded, aren’t they? What am i missing? Back to school for me, I guess? Or is it some of those special 1p ‘spiv’ shares that they are after?
=========================================================
I’ve been thinking about that too from another direction and thinking: ‘Why now, What’s driving the timing’ and I’m sure this is all about timing.
So what’s important timewise? ST Sales, the Lock coming off the Institutional Investor shares on 20 June and possibly Green and Ahmad being able to sell shares before the 12 months are up on December 20. Possibly there’s an argument they could sell them at the 6 month period if they are no longer with the club.
So that’s where the shares would come from as the one thing about RFC shares from the very beginning last December is that they have been traded in very very light volumes. There doesn’t seem to be enough to make any real difference to anyone’s shareholding.
Looking at the Leggo piece today which is the sanest I’ve sdeen from him in years and I have difficulty in believing he wrote it I would think that the next step is a call to boycott STs. In view of his previous 360 degree U-turns he has no cred left and John Brown has gone. Maybe Smith might have to break cover and address the fans but he tends to like deeper cover.
But Leggo suggests King is defo on his way and will buy £10 million shares but I don’t think that’s enough although I’m not so sure that Green has as many proxy shares as some have claimed. Perhaps all he has is Blue Pitch and his own and Ahmad’s – still a lot but possible to beat.
And what about the Bear vote – again moving quickly prevents them getting organised. The more I think about this ther more we’re back to last year and the battleground is the STs. If the fans don’t buy then share price plummets especially if they start marching on Hampden. That makes it cheaper to buy a controlling interest but might drag AIM into play to suspend trading so it all becomes a tightrope.
I saw late last night that Charlotte was making reference to the world’s greatest football administrator – now what could she possibly have in that regard. It’s like the dance of the seven veils 🙂
Oh and McCoist has identified a signing for every place and Mather is backing his plans – WTF is that all about and will McCoist believe it more to the point?
bogsdollox says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 02:41
Thanks for the advice DB. I only use my PC to view internet and its software is so out of date I don’t even have a decent Adobe.
I’ll try dropbox as Auldheid suggested.
Hopefully this will work. Its nothing explosive, just a summary of Charlotte’s offerings in two file formats.
The Word document gives a summary of her posts. I’ve cut the fat out in some places just for brevity but left in her salient detail.
The Excel document is just a chronological list of the stuff she provided. Thought it might be easier to digest this way. I’ve put in comments here and there relating to cell entries. It is very crude and only provided to make information more easily digested hopefully. I did it in two separate sittings so my approach may have altered between the first and second. Its rough.
As previously, I don’t imply that this information is verified, only that it is worth considering.
The timeline might assist those with a better knowledge to pitch in other events that occured in the same frame.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/08t2s9ulmjpcwtf/xbB_lGaLOq
Morning all,
The accounts and forecasts provided by Charlotte make for interesting reading– some very interesting headings and columns in the accounts– interesting numbers as well.
However I can’t help but think there is a whole degree of choreography about the idiocy of some of the documents or plans— not doubting Charlotte for a moment— but the weight of some of this stuff leads me to an inescapable conclusion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qf6Sv3A9zs
Briggsbhoy– I kept this short just for you! lol
Just had a chat with a TRFC fan at my work re the EGM. Load of nonsense apparently.
Greens name will be cleared, he will come back and TRFC will be the first club to win every league.
Ah well, we did try to warn them.
@CelticResearch
Ironic that the Scottish Football Monitor is having a busy night following it’s spurned bride Charlotte. Hanging on her every word in fact.
Well, they do ‘dig, dig, digging’, so I guess that was a wee dig at TSFM 😀
Should this site automatically swallow every bit of raw information as fact merely because it spells bad news for Ibrox? That’s getting back to SC’s ‘confirmatory bias’ thoughts. If everyone drops their critical faculties they could get caught with their trousers down, in a manner of speaking. So well done TSFM for keeping an open mind.
http://scotslawthoughts.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/mr-leggat-the-easdales-and-charles-green-thoughts-on-defamation-and-stock-market-abuse/
Brogan Rogan Trevino and Hogan says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 07:44
I’ve just noted something ‘very interesting’ BRTH.
The web has this embedded advertising thing that it pitches content at you, especially if you have shown interest in a topic. I had looked at doing some DIY a few weeks back and everytime I opened up Facebook I was getting a wee ad’ on the right hand side for Bradstone coping. I won’t mention the other ad’s that regularly sit there.
After viewing your ‘very interesting’ and amusing piece of video I noticed the next selection that was being offered. I can only muse that this is based upon your previous selection preferences.
Goldie Hawn, the illuminati and Rowan and Martin’s laugh in. Very eclectic and interesting. This internet will be the demise of us all in the end. Off to view my own video posts to see what kind of life I lead.
mullach says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 02:11
………………………….
When read in sequence…it does feel, smell and look like one of the players in this charade attempting to form opinions for an as yet unclear reason..
I advise caution..
Well done Alloa. A fine performance. On a wider note, good quality astro turf pitches has to be the way ahead for Scottish football, to provide a more entertaining spectacle and open up more revenue streams for clubs.
EGM
surely this can’t be called at the drop of a hat
there must surely be a period of notice from the request to the EGM taking place – no?
How is an EGM different from a normal board meeting? Is it open to all shareholders (if so, notice to attend and time for shareholders to make plans to get there must be given)
Is it a public meeting open to anyone who holds a share? If so, might be worth buying one just to attend!
Brogan Rogan Trevino and Hogan says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 07:44
indeed very interesting and I’d be interested to know how the hell do you remember that sketch ? Was this a recurring sketch in that show ?
bl00tered says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 08:07
If you look at what Cumbernauld Colts have done at Broadwood by now sharing the stadium it definitely is the way forward. The great thing about artificial pitches is that more game can be played over the winter. As a parent having to go out three times a week at present playing catch up to games lost over the winter I would welcome more facilities like this. For weeks my son hasn’t had a training session and this routine continue for the next few weeks.
(answering my own post here!)
Members’ power to require directors to call general meetings (sec303 – sec304)
The directors must call a general meeting if so requested by the holders of 10% of the voting shares (or 10% of the voting rights if no shares). If at least 12 months have elapsed since the last general meeting called under this section, the request may be made by 5%.
The request for the meeting must state the general nature of the business to be dealt with and may include the text of a resolution to be moved at the meeting (provided the resolution would not be ineffective (e.g. under the Act or because contrary to the company’s articles, etc., and provided it is not defamatory, frivolous or vexatious).
If the request is properly made, the directors must within 21 days call the meeting for a date not more than 28 days after the date of the notice calling the meeting. If the request included a proposed resolution, that must be included in the notice, which will then be part of the business that can be conducted at the meeting. (If it is a special resolution, the notice of the meeting must say so, in accordance with sec283, above.)
Notice of general meetings (sec307 – sec310)
The minimum full period of notice for all meetings is 14 days, even if a special resolution is to be proposed, except for the AGM of a PLC, which is 21 days. The company’s articles may require a longer period. Note that the ‘clear day rule’ is found in sec360.
A meeting can, however, be held on short notice, if so agreed by a majority of the members who hold at least 90% of the voting rights in a private company (or 95% in a PLC). The articles of a private company may specify any percentage between 90% and 95%.
Notice must be sent to every member, every director and anyone notified to the company as being entitled to a share on the death or bankruptcy of a member (subject to the articles).
Special notice (sec312)
Where a resolution requires special notice (on removal of a director (or removal of an auditor), 28 days’ special notice must be given by the person proposing the resolution to the company. These provisions are almost identical to those under the old law. The company must notify the director or auditor concerned, and must give the members notice of such resolution in the same manner and at the same time as giving notice of the meeting. If that is not practicable, it must give at least 14 days’ notice in a newspaper or in such other manner as is specified in the articles.
These provisions work well enough in the context of members giving notice of a proposal to remove a director at the forthcoming AGM of a public company, where the actual or approximate date of the meeting is known well in advance. To cover the more typical situation of a private company where there is a sudden and urgent proposal to remove a director (perhaps by the majority directors or shareholders), sec312(4) will be used. This provides:
If, after notice of the intention to move such a resolution has been given to the company, a meeting is called for a date 28 days or less after the notice been given, the notice is deemed to have been properly given, though not given within the time required. This obscurely worded sub-section, which ahs been carried over from the old Act, means that if, say, the majority director/shareholders want to remove a director from office, they can serve the special notice on the company, and then call the meeting on whatever period of notice is needed. (Full notice would be 14 days, but it could be held on short notice with the required majority consent, above.) The notice of the meeting will contain notice of the proposed resolution to remove the director, and then the 28 days’ special notice is ‘deemed’ to have been given under this sub-section.
I always knew Green’s promises would end in tears:
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/rangers-shareholders-try-overthrow-chairman-1892074
A source close to the gathering crisis said tonight: “Blue Pitch and the Easdales had already decided these changes were necessary but they have been outraged by what they see as a blatant disregard for basic protocol. As a result, they have formalised their demands and will force an EGM if that’s what it takes.
“These people will not take no for an answer. The Easdales were promised a seat on the board by Charles Green when they invested in the flotation in December and they want what they paid for.
“The same applies to Blue Pitch, who backed Green from day one. They are unhappy with the direction the business is moving in and this is an aggressive move to protect their investments.”
“The battle for the heart and soul of Rangers is set to rage through another summer of discontent…..” – various MSM scribblers
Erm, the heart is currently in cold storage at the BDO morgue where it and the rest of the corpse is being subject to an intense autopsy
As for the soul, well without a heart there is no soul.
Only once these truths are accepted by all can we move on.
54p to 0p
mullach says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 07:56
“I won’t mention the other ad’s that regularly sit there”
Mullach I bet we have “match” on those other ads 🙂
Not The Huddle Malcontent says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 08:09
‘EGM
surely this can’t be called at the drop of a hat’
———–
From the Herald online report.
‘….The shareholders have begun the process of calling an extraordinary general meeting to force the exit of both men…
Motions for the EGM are to include the appointment of two new directors, James Easdale and Chris Morgan…’
———
I have just donated my £10. I have had sooooo much enjoyment the last 12 – 18months lurking on this and RTC’s site as well as Paul McC and PMGB’s sites that £10 is a bargain – thankyou TSFM and fellow bampots!! Looking forward to more revelations, I dare say a few books will be written in the coming years trying to explain the dastardly goings on at Ibrokes – the gift that keeps giving.
I don’t know if I ever mentioned this before but away back in the early days last May possibly very early June – Green gave a throwaway quote which basically said he had first discussed Rangers with some investors in either 2010 or 2011. He couched it as just a conversation with no indication it went beyond that.
I’ve been stymied in looking for the quote which was published and the laptop it’s on is no more and of course that particular file doesn’t seem to have been backed-up which makes me wonder now if I ever saved it as I’m usually careful about backing-up. I didn’t give it much thought at the time but with the charlotte fakes material it might now be significant although, from memory, it didn’t identify the investors but I think there was a month and year mrntioned.
I wonder if anyone else has a lead on it? Might be nothing but might actually be part of the jigsaw.
EGM TIMESCALE
from Record
A legal letter was served on the club at around 3pm on Wednesday which demanded Murray’s removal. It also called for businessman Chris Morgan of the mysterious Blue Pitch Holdings and James Easdale to be given seats on a new-look board.
The club now have 21 days to agree to implement the changes or face yet more public turmoil, with the proposals going to a shareholders’ vote at an EGM next month.
Between them Blue Pitch and the Easdales – who have struck a deal to snap up shares belonging to both former chief executive Charles Green and shamed commercial director Imran Ahmad – control around 29 per cent of the club.
We know the provenance of Charlottes stuff is still in question presently so I would like to absent myself from proceedings until those with a better knowledge have had a chance to look over her stuff. However, having read the majority of her contributions latterly, there is one scenario in my mind that I am curious to evoke.
Why did CG double cross CW? IF CW himself was fronting for Project Charlotte, did Imran Ahmad just make a poor choice in CG? Did CG not appreciate there was a biggger backdrop and only seen Whyte and thought he was small beer? I’d have thought this was a very risky stategy for CG since he was after all being employed to do a job. So much orchestration in this affair its never clear who is calling the tune or even what the tune is.
briggsbhoy says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 08:32
No comment.
If CF is on the level then we are entering critical phase.
CF’s documents seem to suggest that the spivs think Sevco can be run as a viable business, which is patently ridiculous given the way money has been burned over the last year.
Four possibilities come to mind:
1. This EGM is the start of their plan to get out now.
2. The decision makers at Ibrox right now are actually that stupid.
3. There is another “nuclear” fact waiting in the wings that would explain why people who are usually so good at squeezing every penny out of a business before killing it would act this way.
4. CF is at it.
mullach says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 08:49
ROFL
ecobhoy says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 08:42
0 0 Rate This
I don’t know if I ever mentioned this before but away back in the early days last May possibly very early June – Green gave a throwaway quote which basically said he had first discussed Rangers with some investors in either 2010 or 2011. He couched it as just a conversation with no indication it went beyond that.
I’ve been stymied in looking for the quote which was published and the laptop it’s on is no more and of course that particular file doesn’t seem to have been backed-up which makes me wonder now if I ever saved it as I’m usually careful about backing-up. I didn’t give it much thought at the time but with the charlotte fakes material it might now be significant although, from memory, it didn’t identify the investors but I think there was a month and year mrntioned.
I wonder if anyone else has a lead on it? Might be nothing but might actually be part of the jigsaw.
————————————-
You might want to check back on the interviews he gave to STV recently. I seem to recall that in one of them he mentioned something about being involved/interested a lot earlier than was first mooted.
Could be my memory playing tricks though. Apologies if so.
Brogan Rogan Trevino and Hogan says:
Wednesday, May 15, 2013 at 20:23
By the way the letter from Sevco which bears the Skyline Village at the top appears to have solicitors address at the bottom.
It looks as if it has been written on solicitors continuation paper.
Very VERY odd indeed.
________________________________________________________________________
There’s nothing remotely odd about a company having a solicitors address as it’s registered office. In fact it’s mundanely normal.
Could be mistaken, but didn’t D&P say that Charles Green’s bid had been there at the beginning of the Admin process although it had not been reported in the press?
The LBC from CF (too many acronyms!) suggests that Green didn’t get involved until the end of April following an invitation from Imran Ahmad. That’s certainly how I recall it: he just seemed to appear from nowhere.
briggsbhoy says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 08:21
——————————————
stay tuned! 🙂
If Charles Green was brought on board by Craig Whyte, any reference to “us” – e.g.
…really makes perfect sense – even if he, personally, did not become involved until April.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/football/the-owner-in-waiting-green-says-his-piece.17860544
Reading this stuff in hindsight is just hilarious!
areyouaccusingmeofmendacity says:
Wednesday, May 15, 2013 at 13:37
Sorry to be soooo… late with this but what a wonderful new word. Verbotin….had to look it up!!!
I like and will use TYVM..
More than a fan, on 16 May 2013 – 01:02 AM, said:
Charles Green? Funny how after he resigns the media get all of this info…… If it’s not Charles Green then it is someone close to him.
And we all know how Green likes to talk to the media. He was never out of the papers when he was here.
I know you are a tit but even you should be able to see that the only person that all the leaks, board disunity and falling share price has benefited is the SA tax evader King. Such is the effectiveness of the disinformation campaign that many fans are now wiling to turn back the clock and have a ships captain and custodian ruling the roost. We have learned nothing and deserve everything we get. Someone gets it on sevco media
CharlotteFakes stuff, if genuine, is pretty mindblowing. On the face of it, despite the justifiable reservations of some, the whole thing is too complicated, multi-layered and detailed to be a scam. Just like the Bible 🙂
If TSFM is worried about the provenance of the information, then I think it is politic that the note of caution should be added, and I hope we all trust TSFM’s bona fides and judgement.
I can’t help wondering whether the wee stramash over this has been caused by Charlotte’s reaction as opposed to TSFM’s cautionary note. If I were Charlotte’s PR guy, I would be happy to ride the publicty wave that broke over that. Of course if I were Charlotte’s PR guy, I would have gone to Alex Thomson or Mark Daly with this in the first instance. I wonder why she didn’t?
I am also deeply interested in motives here. Of course Charlotte’s stuff, if legit, vindicates those of us who have argued for truth and justice over this whole sorry chapter of Scottish football> Howver maybe those of our number who are well-versed in these matters could swivel their focus on other possible motives?
Charlotte is now doing her tease on Twitter and TSFM is at arms-length if the brown stuff hits. Otherwise, iif Charlotte’s stuff proves to be legit, then TSFM will hopefully admit his error – and the rest of us can admire Charlotte’s bravery in getting the truth out there.
Apologies to TSFM, but I hope that Charlotte is really fighting the good fight and you are wrong. In the meantime, your caution is noted.
zerotolerance1903 says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 09:21
There’s nothing remotely odd about a company having a solicitors address as its registered office. In fact it’s mundanely normal.
———————————————-
Might be wrong but I think the thrust here is that even if this is the solicitor’s address, why is there no reference to the solicitors anywhere on the document either in the footer with the registered address or in the header ? This is what gives the impression that this is a patched-up document from different source materials. As I say, might be wrong.
On a wider point in this overall drama seems that the scribblers in the MSM are using the term “club” in their comics today. Do we actually know if they are referring to RIFC PLC (i.e. the bit that owns all the shares) or TRFC Ltd (i.e. the footballing part and in the new parallel universe we inhabit otherwise known as “the club”)? These are completely different entities, so were the Easdales told they would get a seat on the PLC or the “club” board or both or neither?
Also who benefits from this info being released in the public domain? My take is that the info being put out now has been, at least perhaps partially, uncovered during the internal investigation and is now being released as a last desperate measure by the decent element (i.e. Murray) to try and scupper the spivs. I say ‘try’ because in the short term, the spivs will win. Longer term it puts down a marker to the next spiv-in-waiting, who must be due on screen any month now.
Haven’t had time to track back through all of the last day or so’s posts but the nuclear aspect to the letter before claim is surely that it was sent prior to the share issue and AIM listing, it clearly undermines the offer, yet the share issue went ahead anyway with no mention of the potential claim. If true this is the stuff of criminal prosecutions. Otherwise it is just confirming, more formally, what we already knew or suspected.
I know some posters have nitpicked on aspects of the letter and suggested caution as to CFs motives. Personally, I don’t see anything untoward with the letter and if it is faked then kudos to it’s creator as it would be extremely difficult to create something that consistent.
Yes there are issues with the choice of language at times, but nothing that is that unusual for such a letter. The thing that strikes me is that the whole thing actually fits very neatly with what had been uncovered and/or surmised by various major contributors on here and RTC.
IMHO the document is genuine. The motives of CF are not clear but so what, the same could be said of many.
verselijkfc says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 10:04
Might be wrong but I think the thrust here is that even if this is the solicitor’s address, why is there no reference to the solicitors anywhere on the document either in the footer with the registered address or in the header ? This is what gives the impression that this is a patched-up document from different source materials. As I say, might be wrong.
______________________________________________________________________
Why would there be a reference to the solicitor? A registered office is an official address for the company (a service that the company would normally pay for) and it is not unusual for an “off the shelf company” like Sevco to use it’s registered office as its correspondence address. To all intents and purposes that address IS the company address and it is irrelevant that this is also the address of the solicitor.
http://www.companyregistrations.co.uk/brass-company-name-plates.aspx
Assuming CF’s revelation’s are genuine, and available in a format acceptable as evidence in a court of law, then surely we are seeing damning evidence of Gratuitous Alienation or Phoenixing, or, more likely, both. If so, surely BDO must act on it with vigour, and without fear (of) or favour (to) the establishment to ensure:
a) as much as possible is recovered for the creditors, and
b) the bad guys are brought to justice before they can get away with any more swag than they already have.
verselijkfc says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 10:04
Also who benefits from this info being released in the public domain? My take is that the info being put out now has been, at least perhaps partially, uncovered during the internal investigation and is now being released as a last desperate measure by the decent element (i.e. Murray) to try and scupper the spivs. I say ‘try’ because in the short term, the spivs will win. Longer term it puts down a marker to the next spiv-in-waiting, who must be due on screen any month now.
_______________________________________________________________________
Not convinced anyone particularly benefits from this information being disclosed in this way.
The obvious benficiary is Whyte but IMHO he benefits more from playing this hand out of the public eye. No faction in the Club – that wants to take control – benefits at all, as it creates real uncertainty over what they want to control.
Another possible motive is that Whyte appears to be vindictive enough to bring everyone down with him if he’s not going to win.
Of course, it is also possible that CF is a genuine “whistleblower” given that the information suggests that the public has been defrauded.
Question for the legal minds:
Does the production of this material make any of it inadmissible as evidence in any later court action?
Given the recent nature of the CF revelations, three scenarios for their origin come to mind.
A leak from the C4 news team after the AT story hit the legal wall.
Someone from inside deloitte/pinsent/qc’s office.
Someone leaking from Duff and Phelps post Carlyle merger.
All three have motivation IMHO. pure conspicay theory speculation on my part tho.
Conspiracy theories – here is one for you CF – Channel Four.
I’m here all week 🙂
zerotolerance 1903
Thanks for your response – just thinking out loud
———
Not convinced anyone particularly benefits from this information being disclosed in this way.
———
Working on the basis that no-one without an interest suddenly wakes up one morning with access to this type of info, there will always be a beneficiary (PR-101 if you like). It may not look at first glance like there is a clear beneficiary but you need to take the short, medium and long view as to why release, and why release it now. It’s usually about money but it can also be about f#$k you, you’re going down for this. Not for a second saying that my take is correct (it’s just my take, nothing more, nothing less) but I have had the misfortune worked for a successful spiv-company in the past and also blown the whistle once things became apparent to naive little me. Also, the dates on the letter and Skylines Village don’t match up (recent change, at least officially) – I find it odd that whoever created this letter used that address at the top but the registered address at the bottom?
Rabo Karabekian says:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 09:57
CharlotteFakes stuff, if genuine, is pretty mindblowing. On the face of it, despite the justifiable reservations of some, the whole thing is too complicated, multi-layered and detailed to be a scam.
—————————————————————–
looks increasingly likely that the original intention was to ensure MIH and HBOS walked away paid up in full (or in MIH’s case without further losses)
that was the original scam
Whyte was brought in for that with the promise that post scam – he could have the club to do with as he pleases as his own reward for getting MIH and HBOS off the RFC hook
then scam 2 was born when Whyte was in charge
Line his and his companies/associates pockets – scam HMRC and other creditors/clubs/fans and put the club into liquidation
it is what Whyte does and he appears to had a nice wee dip at it all
then, as the iceberg got closer and closer, scam 3 was born – driven largely by ticketus need to recover the money lost Green/Zeus and sundry other connected Spivs wanted to get control of the club again – knowing that a share floatation of the debt free club should just about recover the lost money then moving the club onto “rangers minded” groups for another payment – or even sale/leaseback of assets to generate a nice little pension for another 140 years
but, it was at the 3rd scam where it all fell apart. Spivs look out for themselves and CG et al decided they didn’t need Craig, and it was easier (and actually, correct legally, if not morally) that they bumped him – this left more for green/zeus/ticketus – but they didn’t recognise the nature of the spiv they were dealing with and he had the goods to ensure NO ONE benefitted if he didn’t get his cut.
just a hunch…..but a plan that was derailed by the spivs own greed
Also bear in mind one major player isn’t being mentioned (two if you include SDM please lord please). TU are obviously forcing CW’s hand. Someone asked earlier what the difference was between Green and Whyte. About minus 20+million and a recent court order if memory serves. CW wanted the silent pay off intending to keep it to himself. Probably still does but a/Malcolm Murray wouldn’t play ball and b/the timescales are no longer his hence the sudden urgency and recent revelations.
Going all the way back there is almost a perception in certain factions that the original 18m bank debt was written off, just like the wee tax case. Oh no it wasn’t!
Chris McLaughlin @BBCchrismclaug 12m
#Rangers confirm to stock exchange that they have received request for EGM #BBCSport
Retweeted by Alasdair Lamont
AIM Announcement re EGM
http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail.html?announcementId=11584364
Cracking posts re John Daly on RM
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Good luck to Daly he has the tools to do a job for us no doubt
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He can take his tools elsewhere.
We don’t need a f—ing plumber
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No we certainly don’t — we saw enough of plumbers last season. More often than not they were running circles around our full-time professionals.
I say we give that last Bear a medal 🙂
Finally, someone on FF is getting to the really important stuff….about time….
“That’s how I feel today when I see pictures of Green, Ahmad, Stockbridge etc wearing our tie. We should have a three year period where nobody wears it to we rid ourselves of these moneygrabbers.”
🙂
Sorry if a repost. Stock Exchange announcement of not much excitement.
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Thu, 16th May 2013 10:32
RNS Number : 8830E
Rangers Int. Football Club PLC
16 May 2013
Rangers International Football Club plc
(“Rangers”, the “Company” or the “Club”)
Comment re Press Speculation
The Board of Rangers has noted the recent press speculation regarding a requisition for a General Meeting. The Board confirms that it has received such correspondence and is seeking to establish the validity of this requisition. Further announcements will be made as appropriate.
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New Press Release
16 May 2013
Rangers International Football Club plc
(“Rangers”, the “Company” or the “Club”)
Comment re Press Speculation
The Board of Rangers has noted the recent press speculation regarding a requisition for a General Meeting. The Board confirms that it has received such correspondence and is seeking to establish the validity of this requisition. Further announcements will be made as appropriate.
http://tinyurl.com/bwmgslt