Many years ago, I read an article in some legal magazine or other which, to my mind, pointed out something that I had always presumed was obvious.
Namely, that unlike his English Counterpart, the Scottish solicitor is not just a drafter and processor of legal documents, he ( or she ) is a man of business who furnishes advice, and as often as not, will recommend a course of action – possibly involving many different steps or procedures- in any given situation.
Without going into an academic analysis of what this means, may I suggest that a simple definition is that the Scottish solicitor does not always simply do what they are told but will furnish the client with advice for, or against, a certain course of action.
The same applies to accountants and other professionals in my experience. When discussing any business situation, the client should always be aware of the pros and the cons. From there he or she makes a decision based on the advice given – which advice may be taken or rejected.
That is how things work.
If you think about what I have said above, then it follows that one of the principal things an adviser should do for any client, is to suggest a course of action that keeps the client out of court.
Court is a place of last resort. Litigation of any kind is expensive, brings uncertainty, is time consuming and acts as a barrier to unfettered and uninterrupted business planning, strategy and progress because no one can ever be sure of the outcome or the consequences of a court case.
In olden days, court meant choosing your champion to fight against your adversary’s champion. If your guy knocked the other guy of the horse and killed him outright with the lance then you won. It didn’t matter if your guy was also hit with your opponents lance and died a week later as a result – you were still the winner because the other guy died first.
Eventually, society did away with such courts and replaced them with courts of law and the men and women with wigs and gowns as opposed to the lance.
However, you can still win a court battle and suffer a fatal defeat as a consequence.
That is why a court of law should always be regarded as a place of last resort. No one should ever set out on a course of action which runs a high risk of ending up being disputed in court.
Sometimes, of course, a court action is inevitable. On other occasions, people adopt a course of action where the risk of things ending up in court is seen an as an acceptable risk.
This morning’s Daily Record ( and indeed yesterday’s edition ) is spouting David Murray’s mantra that HMRC knifed Rangers but adds there are no winners here. How very MSM. How very lacking in business understanding or searching for the truth.
So, let me explain something.
When you sit down with a firm of accountants who specialise in aggressive tax avoidance schemes such as an EBT scheme or a DOS scheme, one of the things that are spelt out to you is that the scheme you are about to embark upon may well be, indeed is likely to be, challenged in a court of law. Especially if you do not administer it to the letter.
Often as not, the client will be asked to sign up to a contract which specifies that the client will pay hefty fees to lawyers and accountants for setting up the scheme and that fee will include a contribution towards legal fees arising in the event of a legal challenge to the scheme.
That is stipulated at the very outset. You pay £x in advance because you know you are likely to be sued. You also get the benefit of advice which is designed to ensure that your scheme is absolutely watertight in terms of the law, but crucially, there is a rider which states that in the event that the court rules against you then the accountants or lawyers will not be held accountable as you are entering into the whole process knowing that there is a big risk of litigation – and you are told in writing that while you shouldn’t lose, you might lose.
This too is the way it works.
The business advisers will not want litigation, but from the outset they will cover their backs and make it plain to the client that if you sign on the dotted line for an aggressive tax avoidance scheme then you can expect HMRC to take you to court.
Accordingly, the protestations screaming out from the Daily Record this morning about how HMRC killed Rangers are balderdash and bunkum of the highest order.
HMRC did not knife Rangers, they did exactly what was expected of them in the circumstances and the people at MIH knew that the day they started off on any one of their tax avoidance schemes.
Taking the risk in the first place killed Rangers or Rangers PLC if you prefer.
However, the events of yesterday and the day before throw up some other matters worth considering and remembering.
The first is the woeful state of the Rangers accounts by 2005 when there had been yet another share issue underwritten by David Murray. Those accounts showed Rangers PLC to be in a shocking financial state, despite all the rhetoric and dressing from the Directors and the Accountants.
More or less immediately Murray chose to put the club up for sale as it was obvious that the financial traincrash could simply not continue.
However, despite years of searching no buyer could be found.
Further, it should also be remembered that Rangers PLC knew all about the small tax case long before Craig Whyte came along. Those liabilities stemmed from around 2001 but at no time during the Murray era at Ibrox did Sir David put aside the money to pay a bill which no one at Rangers disputed as being due at any time.
Whyte stressed the need for this to be paid long before he ever got the keys to the Marble Staircase, but it wasn’t and there can be only one of two reasons for that.
Either Sir David just didn’t pay the bill concerned ….. or he couldn’t!
The fact is that long before Craig Whyte appeared David Murray could have paid that bill or reached an agreement to pay that bill. However he didn’t and for a period of several years he simply decided he wanted out …. Needed out ….. at any cost!
There is no doubt that he gambled hard and fast with Rangers Football Club, and their finances and their supporters loyalties. He knew , or ought to have known, well in advance that a prolonged and regularly used aggressive tax avoidance scheme, legal or not, was bound to attract the adverse interest and attention of HMRC.
Sir David Murray has been lauded up and down the country for his so called business acumen and business knowledge. He was knighted for the same and received all sorts of unprecedented backing from banks and other institutions.
Does anyone reading this really believe that such a man did not have the foresight, or the advisers around him who had the foresight, to see and know that a large and prolonged dispute with the revenue authorities may well have an adverse effect on the viability and sellability of his business?
Such a suggestion is simply not credible.
Further when the HMRC interest came, Murray’s men, if not Murray himself, did their very best to try and hide the existence of the scheme, the documents surrounding the scheme, the details of the scheme and the intention of the scheme.
They hid all this away from HMRC, The SFA, The SPL and anyone else in authority, with the result that those authorities and bodies had no option but to run to the courts, set up tribunals and convene formal hearings.
When someone does not tell you the truth, starts hiding documents and obfuscating that is the way it works.
However, that is not all that yesterday brought.
The news that Collier Bristow have apparently agreed ( through their insurers no doubt ) to pay the liquidator of Rangers some £20M shows that taking into account the litigation risk, someone somewhere thought it worth making a payment to make a bad situation go away.
Imagine that? What bad situation could that be?
Would it be that somehow or other, creditors, officials and all sorts of other people were misled by a leading firm of solicitors in relation to the affairs of Rangers PLC? Could it really be the case that things were so bad financially at Ibrox, that the only way for even Whyte to be able to get the sale to go through at the princely sum of £1 plus the official bank debt was to have his people mislead funders and eventual creditors?
What does that say about David Murray’s stewardship and the absolute urgent need to get Lloyds TSB out of the picture? Was there really no one else or no other way to take on the debts of Rangers PLC? Apparently not — and that can only be because someone chose to gamble with the finances of the club and leave it in a precarious state.
I am told that when Lloyds took over that account they expressed amazement at how MIH and Rangers PLC were allowed to run up the debts they had with HBOS. Apparently there was incredulity at some of the figures and covenants.
So , when we read in the Record this morning that the HMRC Big Tax case inadvertently brought down Rangers it is very easy to overlook the debt due to the bank, how it arose, the sums due to the same bank through MIH, the extent of the sums due, the banks attitude and the possible attitude and course of action had Whyte not taken them away.
Remember that the same bank stepped straight into MIH and began selling off its assets, and that low and behold the same management team who engineered the EBT scheme have openly admitted that there is an unexplained shortfall in the employees’ pension scheme of over £20 Million.
Do you think the employees who have lost out on pension provision are the slightest concerned about whether the tax avoidance scheme funds and their use are legal or not ? – or do you think they might argue that the money used for these so called “discretionary payments” should have been used to fund a proper legally constituted pension scheme which the company and its directors undertook to pay into under contract?
There is still substantial debt due to Lloyds by MIH and part of that debt is the amount by which David Murray and MIH underwrote and guaranteed that last share issue of Rangers PLC in 2004/2005. The principal sum due under that guarantee ( excluding interest and charges ) was greater than the principal sum claimed by HMRC in the big tax case.
Go figure.
However, this saga is far from over especially with regard to “contractually due” severance payments which look as if they will come back to the FTT in the event of the parties concerned not reaching agreement on the tax allegedly due.
Now, this is interesting because apparently there are a number of documents in existence which show that certain players received a payment of £x at the end of their contract as part of a severance deal.
At the time these were made, my recollection is that under normal severance agreement legislation the first £30,000 would be tax free but after that any sums were taxable.
The FTT has never been asked to rule on these payments, and has never heard any evidence about the legality or otherwise of paying these sums gross of tax into an offshore trust. All of that may yet be to come.
However, the most interesting part of this for me is that further court action may be taken in relation to these matters failing agreement between HMRC… and whom?
Rangers PLC ( the employer ) is in Liquidation so perhaps HMRC might claim some of the money from the Liquidator who has just received the £20M from Collier Bristow – then again it could well be that Ticketus have something to say about that.
In his last statement about MIH, David Murray openly proclaimed that the company was all but finished and revealed the pension shortfall and so on – so I doubt if any agreement of any meaning will be reached there.
That then leaves those who supposedly benefited from the contractually due severance payments – namely the players.
Maybe, in the absence of a now defunct employer, they will be asked to cough up the tax.
No doubt they will all go and consult their lawyers and accountants – the men and woman of business – who will give them their best advice – but you can bet your bottom dollar that any such advice will include a paragraph or ten which starts something along the lines of “ However, here is the potential risk in the event of you deciding to …………. “
That is the way it works……. And always has done.
Allyjambo says:
August 6, 2014 at 3:18 pm
=====================
Thanks Ally – more room for conjecture there then.
As Wottpi says , it’s all about consistency – and hopefully consistently high standards.
I always assumed that The Rangers got a big advantage from having grade 1 refs in div 3 and div 2 because tiring semi-pros were subject to unfamiliar refing standards in the latter stages.
But the fundamental question was why did The Rangers get a different grade of ref ?
Anyone who can’t see this leaves officialdom open to accusation of institutional bias must be willfully blind.
mcfc says:
August 6, 2014 at 1:31 pm
“… but refing also deserves thoughtful consideration that mistakes do happen…”
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Whilst I’d agree that referee performance should not be off topic for the blog I think like you say, commentary has to be considered and tempered. Human beings have all sorts of in-built bias and these will be present in referees the same as anyone else. A referee might almost unintentionally allow a natural bias toward a certain team occur but in a subsequent match control his reactions far more closely as a result. What is of interest is partiality; where a referee allows his professionalism to slip and gives in easily to some kind of ambient bias.
I think focusing in on individual decisions will not reveal refereeing partiality. Picking on individual instances, however apparently blatant and unwarranted, might easily lead to ill considered comments. The only way to monitor this effectively is over a longer time period using some kind of well thought out statistical analysis. This blog community would certainly be useful in evolving a statistical method. An effective method would need to be capable of filtering out all the natural bias like crowd effect and big team versus wee team. Once you filter out all the background effects you can identify the possibility of partiality. If you score a success on that front you can then maybe address the background bias; where certain referees seem to be more prone to background bias than others. It would probably assist the referees themselves if an accentuated propensity for natural bias were identified in them. They could then learn to switch off from the crowd reaction a bit and try to block out the influence of irate management teams.
Anything short of a well thought out analytical approach could easily lead to a custard pie fight at every supposed unjust decision. I’m not saying bad decisions don’t happen but you will gain no credibility if you slag off a ref in one game then he is seen to give a decision to your team in a subsequent game. It is just too complex a perception for us ourselves to extricate ourselves from our own natural bias.
The odd particularly controversial decision might be discussed in a limited manner to good effect but I think it needs to be kept low key to be effective.
I’d like to build that statistical model but I’m not sure if I can commit the time or conjure sufficient skill. I’ll certainly give it some thought and perhaps chip in with further suggestions.
lmao as I read yesterdays DR. From Keith ‘HMRC then rejected a company voluntary arrangement forcing the clubs owners to be liquidated’. Well that is a new slant on things.
mcfc says:
August 6, 2014 at 3:58 pm
3 0 Rate This
I assume one of the reasons for higher grade refs being assigned to T’Rangers was because they would be used to the pressures put upon them when officiating in front of 40k fans at Ibrox.
That to me seems logical as opposed to giving those home games to a lower grade ref who is used to a few hundred fans turning out to lower league games.
On that basis, then given the level of support at Tynecastle and Easter Road I would expect Hearts and Hibs to be given similar treatment.
So the question is – is there enough Grade one refs to go around? 🙂
City Investors don’t like giving money to fellow spivs for nothing! Next, sell to existing shareholders. Could be very interesting
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/28678687
You make it sound better! 🙂
Merc,
To paraphrase the poet and philosopher, Ronan Keating, “I say it best, when I say nothing at all “!
ThomTheTim
Aye that plan of getting rich through regular CL participation worked out well last time….
Potential investors must have read that Bleacher report and cost of playing in CL.
http://m.bleacherreport.com/articles/2152534-how-uefa-prize-money-is-destroying-smaller-national-leagues
There is no profit in football especially Scottish football. It’s a tread water self supporting industry if properly run.
ThomTheThim says:
August 6, 2014 at 4:33 pm
http://bbc.in/V1yNhK
Kind of backs up much of what PMGB has written. Maybe doesn’t match every word, but the outcome seems similar – they are in the brown stuff 😯
This announcement on AIM seems to suggest they are now chasing a smaller issue to raise 5m euros.
Rangers International Football Club plc
(“Rangers” the “Club” or the “Company”)
Possible Equity Issue
Further to the announcement of 25 April 2014, the Board of Rangers announces
that the Company is considering a possible equity issue in which all existing
shareholders would be eligible to participate. Support is being sought from
institutional investors to underwrite the possible equity issue. Discussions
are ongoing and there can be no certainty of the outcome of these discussions.
In line with the exemption to the European Union Prospectus Directive the
possible equity issue would be for not more than an aggregate EUR5m and would
avoid the costs of preparing a prospectus.
The Company does not currently have shareholder authority to issue shares on a
non pre-emptive basis and authority from shareholders to do so, which would
allow placements of shares with institutional investors, will be sought at the
Company’s AGM later this year, in line with the Company’s stated strategy.
Further announcements will be made in due course.
For further information please contact:
Rangers International Football Club plc
Graham Wallace Tel: 0141 580 8647
Daniel Stewart & Company plc Tel: 020 7776 6550
Paul Shackleton / David Coffman
Newgate Threadneedle Tel: 020 7148 6143
Roddy Watt / John Coles
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
END
mcfc says:
August 6, 2014 at 3:58 pm
‘.But the fundamental question was why did The Rangers get a different grade of ref .’
wottpi says:
August 6, 2014 at 4:27 pm
‘..one of the reasons for higher grade refs being assigned to T’Rangers was because they would be used to the pressures put upon them when officiating in front of 40k fans at Ibrox.
—–
Two observations to make:
It would have been appropriate for the SFA to explain the line of reasoning that wottpi follows.
But what would that have said about their confidence in the readiness and capacitity of referees to referee fairly, uninfluenced by crowd size?
Allyjambo says:
August 6, 2014 at 4:56 pm
I suppose 5M Euros, has a better ring to it than £3.96M . As the poet and Philosopher Joe South put it:
“Oh the games people play now
Every night and every day now
Never meaning what they say now
Never saying what they mean”
Allyjambo,
(“Rangers” the “Club” or the “Company”) are they asking, telling or is it a quiz!. Do other football club do this when notifying the stock market.
(“Manchester United” the “Club” or the “Company),
(“Celtic” the “Club” or the “Company”)?
John Clark says:
August 6, 2014 at 5:00 pm
From memory, didn’t Green insist on Grade 1 referees to protect his very expensive players? But the idea that if this is continued in the Championship for matches involving TRFC, then it should be the same for Hearts and Hibs – and everyone else if fairness is a consideration in Scottish football – is extremely valid. (The reference to fairness in Scottish football is, of course, tongue in cheek)
John Clark says:
August 6, 2014 at 5:00 pm
I’m not sure if that was their reasoning I was just making an assumption.
However I think it would have been a reasonable position to take being that we seem to forget Refs are human and ideally should have the required training and experience to officiate in front of large crowds as it does bring with it a whole range of issues.
scapaflow says:
August 6, 2014 at 5:07 pm
I suppose 5m Euros is as close as they are going to get to a reference to Europe for quite some time 😉 though I suspect it’s the figure that the European Directive gives, and you know those Europeans, euros this, euros that…
Now, with the original plan to raise £8m – £10m going out the window, who in their right mind is going to invest a further £3.9m as that will almost certainly be much too little to see them through to a very speculative further share issue.
MercDoc says:
August 6, 2014 at 5:07 pm
But according to the ‘same club’ claimants, surely it’s just the company. Why would the club be trying to raise money as it has no bank account and apparently doesn’t spend any money or go into debt? Must be very difficult always having to face up to something like that…
This move to sell to existing shareholders plays right into major shareholders hands. Instead of having some of the pie, why not have all of it. I’m sure this was recently discussed at length on this blog.
It has been said that the Grade1 ref, plus Fourth Official, was for the benefit of televised games.
Possibly to give the impression to viewers that they were watching top grade football
However, if this also applied to non televised games, then another criteria must have been used. I don ‘t think the 40k crowds is an issue, as it also applied to away games, I front of much smaller crowds.
The question remains, will the two Edinburgh clubs receive the same status?
Allyjambo says:
August 6, 2014 at 5:26 pm
‘has no bank account and apparently doesn’t spend any money or go into debt?’
That sounds like a description of me in my younger days circa 16-21. 😕
So £4 million it is.
As discussed the other day and continually pointed out by Phil Mac it seemed a big ask to have new investors for the City, who have seen their pals burned already, throw more money down the toilet.
Therefore it looks like it is down to the existing shareholders and the next question is who fancies ponying up this time?
If Phil is right with regard to onerous contracts then is there not a danger that some folk will be interested to see if they can gain position to ensure they have greater control over how the business is run and as such it will make no difference what Somers, Wallace and Nash have to sa, being they will most likely walk away if that were to occur.
As has been pointed out for a while, Laxeys appear to have a track record of making sure they get what the want out of their deals. They also seem to blow with the wind so we could yet see MP getting thrown into the mix.
All fun and games but my guess is that the bandwagon still has a bit to run yet before we see the lights getting turned off.
Castofthousands says:
August 6, 2014 at 4:00 pm
I’d like to build that statistical model but I’m not sure if I can commit the time or conjure sufficient skill. I’ll certainly give it some thought and perhaps chip in with further suggestions.
==================================
I think this is a great idea but will be difficult to do, and a vast amount of work, because it requires extensive subjective judgements and we are all biased one way or another. There are not really enough data points in a season to be statistically valid. Since we are being subjective, I think it would be better to look at key discussions that change matches and try to be fair minded about them – perhaps against a scoring system of some kind. For example, Hibs goal scorer sent off with 11 mins to go in knock-out competition when Hibs appear more likely to score away from home. The ref knew all of this and so knew it was a pivotal decision – now was it utterly fair, a bit harsh, very harsh, deserved after persistent offences, etc etc. Analysis of pivotal decisions (yellow card, red card, penalties, close-range free kicks, disallowed goals) would be illuminating – after all there’s no point being biased unless it is a pivotal decision. Also – did the ref have a good line of sight, was he close, ditto the lineos. With this information in mind do a ref’s dodgier pivotal decisions lean mainly in one direction or do they balance out over a season. Do a club’s pivotal decisions lean mainly in one direction or do they balance out over a season.
Of course if the SFA wanted to eradicate a lot of speculation (as if they care) they could deal with many issues at source ie be more careful choosing refs of adequate calibre and no obvious allegiance to either team or culture. Again a simple scoring system could clarify most cases: ST held, team supported, town of origin/residence, organisation membership, susceptibility to crowd pressure etc. If no suitable Scot can be found then maybe draft in foreign refs who are used to big matches – I’m sure the EPL or EFL could spare a few now and again. All is possible if the will exists.
If RIFC is so short of cash that they need to “avoid the costs of preparing a prospectus” says a lot about their current state.
Not sure if relevant but the Sons of Struth point out that the electronic advert boards were absent from last nights match. Is this the start of the removal of an onerous contract or the lease/hire not getting paid ? The Sons of Struth continue to ask important questions of the current board and still seem to be focus for the season ticket strike.
hector says:
August 6, 2014 at 6:09 pm
The Sons of Struth continue to ask important questions of the current board and still seem to be focus for the season ticket strike.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Like the aforementioned advertising board any questions are likely to be blanked 🙂
easyJambo says:
August 6, 2014 at 6:07 pm
Maybe Prospectus Preparation is one of the onerous contracts. Remember the IPO seemed to cost a bit in admin charges!!
No Prospectus ?
Graham & Philip – I do hope you will acknowledge my contribution if you use any of my material for the mini-share-option pitch – http://www.tsfm.net/the-way-it-works/comment-page-6/#comment-25642
How will the absence of a prospectus go down with Deloittes? Will it affect access to the season ticket money? I understood that they had to show there was enough money available to see the club through until next June. Would the season ticket money be part of that availability? There must be a point where this money can rightfully be used.
Hello, Hello, Is there anyone there ?
Should not the greatest football administrator ever be pulling on his tights and cape to rescue the reputation of Scottish football before it collapses into farce on the global stage.
When was the last time that the best league in a country lost its odds-on favourite club to the knacker’s yard before Christmas?
Or does CO follow Dennis Thatcher’s maxim that it is better to be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and prove it beyond all doubt.
btw PMG’s “Then she spat out her coffee” paints a forlorn picture of Mr Wallace trudging from one humiliation to the next in the City – God loves a trier. http://www.philmacgiollabhain.ie/then-she-spat-out-her-coffee/#more-4923
John Clark says:
August 6, 2014 at 12:09 am
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Cluster One says:
August 5, 2014 at 7:31 pm
THANKS 😉
Just a wee queery about last nights game. I noticed that on Alba last night they gave the man of the match to a Hibs player but I did not hear it announced in the stadium. I thought that the sponsor would have their name announced along with the recipient as part of the deal. Can any Hibee at the game confirm this happened or indeed any other player got the motm?
tomtom says:
August 6, 2014 at 11:52 am
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Could we not have a separate thread, similar to the OC/NC one, to debate the shortcomings of the referees?
——————-
THE CHAMPIONSHIP NEEDS STRONG AMERICAN REFEREES
mcfc says:
August 6, 2014 at 6:57 pm
4 1 Rate This
Hello, Hello, Is there anyone there ?
Should not the greatest football administrator ever be pulling on his tights and cape to rescue the reputation of Scottish football before it collapses into farce on the global stage.
When was the last time that the best league in a country lost its odds-on favourite club to the knacker’s yard before Christmas?
Or does CO follow Dennis Thatcher’s maxim that it is better to be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and prove it beyond all doubt.
btw PMG’s “Then she spat out her coffee” paints a forlorn picture of Mr Wallace trudging from one humiliation to the next in the City – God loves a trier. http://www.philmacgiollabhain.ie/then-she-spat-out-her-coffee/#more-4923
———
Very interesting that piece. Especially filling in the blanks about the reasons for the 120-day review.
Still find the phrase ‘fund austerity’ a kind of contradiction in terms. But I suppose it costs to pay people off, if that’s the thinking.
I often wonder why a club like Celtic doesn’t offer a one-off ‘online’ match ticket.
They have exclusive rights to tonights match, so there must be quite few like myself who’d pay £5 to stream the match. Same goes for the other clubs. If they have their stream available anyway, is it really difficult to arrange an automated match ticket that covers the build up and afters?
Just an OT marketing thought.
Phil’s latest blog is well worth a look. It gives context to some of the things that people on here have commented on.
The IPO was a surprise to me. I couldn’t believe that City professionals would “invest” in that shambles. Notably the fans didn’t “invest” in great numbers, proves they are not that stupid.
Two years on GW is in the City trying to sell a much diminished project to people who have seen the previous investment bomb and probably careers ended. I almost sympathise with him, but not quite.
They are left to issue about £4m worth of shares and these must be to existing shareholders.
A £4m issue is tiny and most companies would not consider it because the costs of advisers and middlemen is much higher proportionately for £4m than for £400m.
They are talking of underwriting the issue, the underwriters will take hefty fees for that, if they do it at all.
So, even allowing for the issue being fully taken up they will be lucky to get £3m, that will only allow the crisis to continue but not let them build anything.
I suppose that I am pessimistic about their prospects.
I won’t bore the the non-Celtic fans with my woes tonight. Mind you, I was extremely interested to hear on Radio Scotland how well Celtic would have played tonight if only Rangers were in the same league as them. Isn’t that akin to saying the banks would be totally thriving if only Fred the Shred could get his old job back?!!!!
upthehoops says:
August 6, 2014 at 9:40 pm
8 3 Rate This
I won’t bore the the non-Celtic fans with my woes tonight. Mind you, I was extremely interested to hear on Radio Scotland how well Celtic would have played tonight if only Rangers were in the same league as them. Isn’t that akin to saying the banks would be totally thriving if only Fred the Shred could get his old job back?!!!!
————————-
Aye Tom English and Paddy Bonner saying how much Celtic and their fans are missing the challenge from The Rangers 😳
Bill1903 says:
August 6, 2014 at 10:03 pm
1 0 Rate This
upthehoops says:
August 6, 2014 at 9:40 pm
8 3 Rate This
I won’t bore the the non-Celtic fans with my woes tonight. Mind you, I was extremely interested to hear on Radio Scotland how well Celtic would have played tonight if only Rangers were in the same league as them. Isn’t that akin to saying the banks would be totally thriving if only Fred the Shred could get his old job back?!!!!
————————-
Aye Tom English and Paddy Bonner saying how much Celtic and their fans are missing the challenge from The Rangers
———-
Well, that’s £1.5m of CL spin-off cash not being distributed throughout the game this year. Real pity.
Mon the Dons and the Saintees!
Spiers
It is a bitter night for the club’s supporters, who have had it pretty good in Europe in recent times. But what else is this defeat?
A disaster? A crucial pointer to life about to unfold under Ronny Deila? A sign of a switched-off, mismanaging club board?
Emphatically, it is none of these things. Not in the here and now. There is plenty hot air around Celtic these days but this Legia Warsaw setback tells us almost nothing of any significance.
Far more acute for Celtic are these days and weeks ahead. Fraser Forster, surely, will leave the club. So might Virgil van Dijk and Adam Matthews. The immediate issue is what kind of new team Deila can create.
Celtic losing out on a potential Champions League place is certainly a financial blow – we can come back to that. But, in terms of Deila’s substance as the club’s manager, these early days tell us little.
This is the question: will Deila be a good or bad Celtic manager? That is among the two or three essential issues that Celtic supporters and the media wish to know. Right now, early August 2014, is no time to be groping for an answer.
Was Neil Lennon a good Celtic manager? Most would say, yes, he was, especially given his European record at the club. Yet Lennon, in his early days in charge, might well have been written off.
I was with Celtic in Braga back in July, 2010, when Lennon’s misery was compounded in that dire Champions League qualifying round second-leg.
A few weeks later, when Celtic capitulated 0-4 against Utrecht in Holland to miss out on the Europa League, things hardly looked rosy for Lennon in these early weeks in charge.
Yet any reliable judgement made about him then – just as with Deila now – would have been absurd. Months and years of telling evidence lay ahead.
Here’s another question: is Celtic a football club being run poorly, or being mismanaged? Okay, let’s look at a five-year cycle of evidence for an answer.
Celtic have played in the Champions League group-stage in each of the last two seasons. In five of the past six seasons the club has enjoyed European competition until Christmas or beyond. Three of these seasons were in the Champions League, two in the Europa League.
This is pretty decent. This looks to me like a football club that has got it right. A club that has taken its supporters on quite a few jaunts around the Continent.
Losing out on a potential £17m-plus Champions League bounty is certainly painful for Celtic. The club has thrived in recent seasons on such feasts. In fact, it’s worth looking again at the Celtic finances.
If we are to believe the bare stats, Celtic are flush with money. In their last full-year accounts they boasted pre-tax profits of £10m, on turnover of £76m, and a net cash in bank for the year of a tidy £3.7m.
On top of lucrative Champions League monies raked in over the past two seasons, a further £17m was collected in the sales of Gary Hooper, Victor Wanyama and Kelvin Wilson.
Whatever way you view this, the running of Celtic has looked exemplary. The more so when you consider the catastrophe to have engulfed Rangers, and financial decisions at Ibrox which led to the dissolution of the old club.
It’s hard to have it both ways with Celtic – yet many want to. The club is lauded – rightly – for its financial success story. Yet almost in the same breath CEO Peter Lawwell is harangued for being miserly and tight-fisted.
It seems odd that the Celtic board is both lauded and rebuked in the same sentence. Whatever the case about the team needing fresh and bold investment – and that means hard outlay – the last five years of strong stewardship cannot be disputed.
Over the next few days Celtic supporters will be highlighting an overly-cautious investment policy. Certainly, last summer, in such players as Amido Balde and Derk Boerrigter, it didn’t look right. The club spread its little jam too thin.
But the greater evidence, of rude financial health and regular European football, has been a godsend to Celtic fans. The journey has been pretty enjoyable.
Like everyone else, I’m keen to know if Deila is going to be a Tony Mowbray or a Gordon Strachan (or even a Paul Le Guen). Right now, like everyone else, I haven’t got a clue.
What I do know is that, to the toll of Artmedia, Braga and others, the name of Legia Warsaw can now be added. A sore one, triggering a minor crisis.
From what I have witnessed tonight, the top league might be a lot closer than first thought! It might even rival the fabled Championship!
Part listened to the commentary tonight between doing some work about the house ,finished what I was doing just as the match had ended ,what I then was subject to was the much awaited Armageddon ,well according to the commentator,boy did he give it to Celtic and how the Celtic fans have nothing to look forward to in the next 12 months ,seriously,their season is now over and they will do walking away ,I never got this guys name but he sure knows how to frighten even Frankenstien ,scary stuff,well I have packed the radio away and called Sky to cancel my subscription,blackened out the window’s and dimmed the lights,I will go to the supermarket and get in 12 months supplies and batton down the hatches ,I think you all should do the same ,see you in 12 months..
For those wondering just how Rangers might fund themselves in the short to mid-term, it’s worth a look at what former finance director Brian Stockbridge is up to now.
His latest venture, International Financial Strategic Associates has some interesting board members, notably Sanjeev Verma, non-executive director of Just Cashflow PLC, essentially a Wonga for distressed business.
But what is also interesting is Verma is the contact for the shares in Rangers held by Margarita Funds Holding Trust, shares which Alexander Easdale holds the voting rights to and which are held in trust for the unnamed offshore holder by Beaufort Nominees Ltd, part of Beaufort Securities where Verma is also a managing director.
http://internationalfsa.com/the-team/
Another team player in the new Stockbridge venture is Daniel Confino, formerly of Close Brothers Asset Finance. He’s currently building a business to provide legal access for high volume, low value claims.
George Boot is another to join the Stockbridge team, though he omits to mention he is also finance director of Just Loans PLC, which is the parent company of Just Cash Flow PLC only on its website he uses his middle name Robert. https://www.just-loans.com/investor
So, Rangers are now looking to raise £4m from existing shareholders after a bid to raise more in the City fell on deaf ears. It would be surprising to see major shareholders like Blue Pitch and Margarita putting their own money up to increase their stake, but you never know.
In the meantime, convincing Deloitte they have enough cash to see out the season may come at a hefty price, and if anything like Wonga rates, not a price they can afford. One has to wonder what could possibly be used as security?
Sure Stockbridge will put in a good word. He surely owes Rangers that much, given how generous the club was to him.
Celtic walk a tightrope between selling their good players, and bringing in others that will hopefully keep the transfer policy going while remaining competitive. It isnt a surprise to me that they dont get it right some years. To claim Rangers are required, in their current, familiar guise of a loss making entity, to provide Celtic with necessary competition is nonsense. Are they better than Dundee Utd or Aberdeen ( to name just 2) ? i wouldnt have thought so!
sumproduct says:
August 6, 2014 at 10:48 pm
1 0 Rate This
For those wondering just how Rangers might fund themselves in the short to mid-term, it’s worth a look at what former finance director Brian Stockbridge is up to now.
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Nice bit of sluething. Verma is new name. How do you trace him to Blue Pitch? I see he’s been in some financial fraud committee or something. The mind boggles.
Ironic if they turn to Stockbridge for a loan. Probably end up paying massive interest to borrow their own money (that Stockbridge rewarded himself) back again.
@Danish Pastry
Verma is the go-to man for Blue Pitch, according to this stock market filing http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail.html?announcementId=11716980
And here he is again for Margarita http://www.investegate.co.uk/rangers-int-f-c–plc/rns/holding-in-company/201309201746395830O/
Just read Phil’s post…. Frankly as a pay at source tax payer I blame business law/the stock markets and HMRC for letting companies operate in the way they do…
Penny fekin shares for some and others at various other prices, isn’t that not expressing a bias that in the long run can influence many other business decisions including those that could cost the tax payer…Voting rights…
HMRC allowing avoidance of tax? Put legislation in play that says this is your tax liabilities anything else you want to do run past us first..
The above rules will NOT change for one simple reason, those who can influence them are heavily working them to their own means.. The rich get richer…
I saw a documentary maybe 2 years ago showing who in government had offshore interests for their various other job interests… The self same guys who pass law to take child benefit off some, force unfit people to work and to pay extra for their kids moving out of the house and thus having that extra box room… Ok tenuous footie link an old coach told me he was getting charged more for bedroom tax..
Tonight’s result isn’t really surprising after the first leg, but it’s hardly the end of the world. It’s got sweet FA to do with Rangers and is absolutely no indicator of how Celtic will fair in domestic competition this season.
It makes the manager look like a bit of a muppets for insisting Celtic deserved to skip so many qualifying rounds, but you always risk that when you say something that is meant only to pander. Strachan and Lennon had similar setbacks and still went on to enjoy great success.
The CL isn’t everything and barring the odd improbable run, the money flowing into the game in most other European countries while our administrators do their best to prevent it happening here suggests early exits might become more common in the near future. The prospect of no European football for Scottish teams by the end of August is not pleasant, but it could be a perfect opportunity to examine the domestic game. We could see what can be done to make it more competitive, how we can continue to get more fans interested and look at what we can do to make our league an incubator for excellent players.
ptd1978 says:
August 7, 2014 at 1:36 am
‘. The prospect of no European football for Scottish teams by the end of August is not pleasant..but it could be a perfect opportunity to examine the domestic game’
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‘Could be’.
But for as long as we have certain people at the head of the administration of Scottish Football who are ‘conflicted’, there is no prospect whatsoever of any kind of objective ‘examination’ of the domestic game.
The unbelievable measures taken by our Football Authorities to protect a fundamentally rotten, cheating, now legally dead football club, are proof of that.
And the lack of any kind of truthful reporting of the lying, deceitful acts of the majority shareholder of a now (thanks to him) dead club are further evidence that any kind of ‘examination’ of the domestic game would, quite frankly, be as skewed and distorted as the inarticulate mumblings of a Chick.
The domestic game has been so buggered by that rotten knight and by his think- alikes in the SFA that it is doubtful that, apart from all the other pressures, it can survive.
There is no point in sport, unless there is genuine integrity.And ,as we have so clearly seen, the SFA lacks any kind of integrity.
Celtic take an embarrassing exit from the Champions League, it’s going to cost them £17m.
TRFC announce plans to raise £4m from existing shareholders.
Surely that’s an indication that TRFC are doing better than Celtic? What a good news day yesterday was for the bears.
I should be a member of the SMSM because I find it easy to create a good news story for those who support the team playing at Ibrox.
In reality, I doubt Celtic will attempt to make last night’s result in any way a positive. I shall be very surprised, though, if the TRFC plans (and they are still just plans) to raise £4m (reduced from £8m+) are not bummed up in an announcement from the board and backed up by some positive spin from the SMSM. There will be some, probably many (though not those attached to SoS or similar), TRFC supporters who will somehow imagine this £4m will be used to strengthen the squad.
Celtic’s problems, at the moment at least, are all to do with results and football. TRFC have a 100% competitive record so far. I know who’s problems I’d prefer to have. In fact, I wish I had Celtic’s problems, I really do.
Long time lurker from RTC days – first time poster. Two things struck me re last night’s result. Have Celtic fans become so obsessed with Rangers/Sevco issues that they have failed to see (or merely ignored) the issues at Parkhead? In the interests of full disclosure, I have been guilty of this myself since 2012.
Secondly, it is rare I find myself agreeing with Chick Young but he made a very valid point last night re the signing policy over recent years and the fact we’ve ignored most of the Scottish talent who have left for England. I know these thoughts have been echoed here many times. Having grown up in the 80’s I well remember the times when an away point gained at Tannadice or Pittodrie (even Fir Park!) was seen as a good result. I remember feeling an identity with the mainly homegrown players who represented my club and cheering on Scottish teams in Europe.
If the Celtic business model is now one that accepts peaks and troughs rather than consistent Champions League qualification, why should we even bother investing in unproven foreign players in the hope that we’ll unearth one who can be sold for £6m+?
I gave up my ST 3 years ago cos I was fed-up watching dross in a morgue every other Saturday. I went to my first game in ’84 and missed no more than half a dozen games every year, home and away(inc. Europe) from 92 – 2008.
There’s 2 things that would get me back (probably just one but the second would be a bonus!). A commitment from the board that we will rear our own with any investment only in Scottish talent. Foreign signings will be strictly limited and only sanctioned when we truly believe we’ve uncovered a gem that’s been ignored by everyone else. Let’s see what happens when we build a team of young Scots. Who knows? In 5 years, they could be good enough to get beyond the last 16 of the Champions League. This would then benefit the national team and make the league much more competitive.
The second thing would be the introduction of safe standing but I’d happily sit down to watch a team of homegrown players playing the Celtic way.
Finally, the next comment will no doubt offend most on here but it’s how I personally feel so here goes.
What would happen if we all just accepted that what has gone on over the last few years, i.e. all the cheating/financial doping/Sevco shenanigans will never be resolved? Let’s move on.
You say you want justice done for what has happened?
Justice for me would be a Celtic team of young Scottish players getting to the semi-finals of the Champions League or Aberdeen doing the same in the Europa League or Scotland qualifying for the knock-out stage of a WC. Justice would be seeing English Prem teams full of Scottish players again who all served their apprenticeship in Scotland and went down south for big money.
Too many people want to put all their energy into negativity and an impossible search for justice. If we only put half that energy into positive things then who knows what we could achieve.
On a bit more of a positive note.
Big crowd tonight in Aberdeen and there should be another one on Sunday for the Dons opening game v Dundee United.
It will mean the last 5 games at Pittodrie will have 15k+ crowds. It’s been 30 years since this last happened.*
*Chic Young can use this stat tonight if he wants 😆
Looks like the Vanguard Bears are going to draw out their smoking gun expose of the goings on during the formation of the new Rangers . A redacted section of an early draft of the 5 way agreement is the first instalment of the ” double dealing in all its ,devious ,dastardly detail”. http://www.vanguardbears.co.uk/ . Reading the above you would almost think Jim Traynor was back on the scene. 😆
At risk of drawing the wrath of the green vote this morning, there is no question that the absence of proper competition on the field has affected Celtic. Their “just do enough” policy has been found wanting when they lost their key barometer of doing enough relative to what, or who :wink:. What the various boards and commentators should have been confirming was that a continuation of the status quo was never an option. As soon as chick and Tom start the “if only we hadn’t demoted them” speech (party line 😉 ) the retort from Gordon, Spencey et al should be a dismissive “well, with the facts to hand at the time we had to and they had no-one to blame but themselves – now moving on to a more deserving story, deila’s start, Aberdeen’s crowds, Utd’s no debt status, Hearts dignity, yes even RFC*’s start against ex premiership comp and so on and so on. It doesn’t strike me as a particularly difficult job, yet the pain in English’s voice as he tries to choose his words is palpable.
EDIT: and no, that doesn’t corroborate that they were demoted so don’t start!
Marcybhoy,
Welcome to the blog.
Maybe some of the content in your post is more appropriate to a Celtic forum. My own advice to Celtic fans – and indeed to fans of any club who have suffered the kind of setback suffered by Celtic yesterday – is to take a step back before reacting.
The home-grown versus foreign talent argument is one that might apply across the board though, and the policies adopted by the clubs over the last thirty years has no doubt impacted on the national teams’ performances in that time. Therefore you provide much food for thought.
As far as “moving on” is concerned, there are two things that spring to mind.
Firstly, few of us are saints with the ability to forgive and forget when every constituency of the Rangers/TRFC are either in denial that any offence was committed, or that gravity of the offence less than that where a player dives for a penalty. It is impossible to move on unless someone at TRFC recognises that a serious offence has been committed against all of the other clubs.
Secondly, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING has been put in place to either prevent a repetition of the egregious abuse of the tax system and SPL player registration employed by RFC. If anything the new rules of the SPFL appear to be geared towards preventing the loss of a team of TRFC’s size to the leagues – as opposed to the preservation of a legal level playing field and the integrity of sporting competition in out game.
There may be a generational thing which will dilute the ill-will of course. I harbour no ill-will towards Germans for instance. My mother not so much since she still can’t forgive the for trying to kill her for six years 🙂 Similarly at my age I still resent very much the employment policies of RFC (an anachronism for the last twenty years of its existence). To my kids, it affects them not a jot.
Time is a great healer; there is no denying that. Justice however is just as effective, and more swift. I don’t think that we have the time – so we need to have justice.
My own position, which may differ from some of our other posters here, is this. To ‘move on’ I would be satisfied if the current TRFC board and management (yes you Ally) delivered a simple, humble acknowledgement of the seriousness of the offences committed by Rangers as well as an expression of remorse. Basically, if they admitted they had cheated and expressed regret for the sporting opportunities which has been denied to other clubs, and the revenue opportunities denied to the country as a consequence.
No title stripping necessary, just tell the truth.
Ally Empathises
I’m surprised Ally hasn’t taken the opportunity to bang the Old Firm drum in the MSM by saying he empathises with Celtic because he knows what it feels likes to get bumped out of the CL, cost your club millions, de-rail their plans and force them into administration and liquidation. Oh hang on – that last bit hasn’t happened – has it 🙂
Well, the hapless Mark Walker of The Times is at it again, this morning. He has our heroes “resurrected in 2012 after being liquidated”. Clearly hasn’t looked up resurrection in the dictionary. He previously had them “emerging” from liquidation. I’ve tried writing to his employers, but their readers’ feedback channel is one way only, I fear. Elsewhere in the piece, he puts season ticket sales at 21,000, which I suspect is from source. Don’t know if this is quoted elsewhere.
While I’m here, €5m is just a figure plucked from the air. It represents more than 20% of their current market capitalisation. Nobody would be that daft. Would they?
Smugas says:
August 7, 2014 at 10:05 am
__________________________________________________
Can’t disagree with the competition argument, but we shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that the simple act of bringing RFC into the premiership would provide that competition.
The MSM and others just don’t appear to see the plain facts. The current TRFC are less equipped to compete at the top of the league than Aberdeen, Dundee United or Motherwell. And that inability has nothing to do with anything or anybody other than themselves. The reason that the current Rangers cannot compete is that they have no money or credit to build and maintain the playing and facilities infrastructure they have saddled themselves with. Had RFC survived, they would have even less resources to maintain that infrastructure on account of the debts they would be paying down for decades hence.
In other words, if there is a lack of competition in Scottish football, it is because Rangers went bust. Inevitably, there will be an equilibrium effect, and without the financial doping of the 80s, 90s, 00s and 10’s; Scottish football will find its true level.
Marcybhoy has touched on where new thinking with regard to recruitment may be better suited to that new reality.
The game in Scotland can get better, but only without the delusions that accompany cheap credit. Good coaching and the provision of opportunity to local talent is not just a pipedream – it is the ONLY way forward if the game is to be saved from the fate of the League of Ireland.
The lack of competition argument is spurious imo – and like most of the other things gone wrong with our game is down to the hubris of one megalomaniac and a craven institutional refusal to deal with him.
@TSFM – Agreed, the Celtic minded comments would have been better placed on a Celtic forum. However I needed the context to frame my argument. I also agree that the way to end all this would be contrition and an official apology.
I was there soaking wet, when John Brown karate kicked our current assistant manager in the box at Hampden in ’92 and Waddell didn’t give a penalty. Was about 8 rows from the front when Cadete’s goal at Ibrox was disallowed. And that was in the pre EBT days! Believe me, nobody wants an apology more than me.
I’ve just accepted that the apology will NEVER be forthcoming as it is not in their DNA to do so. Thus, I feel my energy is better spent writing letters to Peter Lawell telling him how things can be improved. I don’t expect a reply but like my post earlier, it’s a form of therapy and I feel better for it.
Didn’t expect anything but thumbs down for my post either. I used to think of myself as quite militant but as I approach the big 40 I’ve mellowed. I’m tired of focusing my energy on negativity.
I enjoy this site most when it talks about positive stuff but then again, if everyone took my hippie style approach the bad guys would get away with murder all the time instead of just some of the time.
Keep up the good work
TSFM
Agreed to which I would only add two points. The denial of a breach of rules and the dismissing of its impact to “taking a dive” is almost understandable from a perp. Its like a 7yo laddie standing next to the broken window saying it wasn’t me, and can I have my ball back. Its is not understandable from a supposedly neutral media.
Secondly I agree with your view that new SPFL rules seem to favour both questionably aggressive tax avoidance and registration rules infarctions if it means the big teams survive. I would also add to that list that I fail to see any particularly effective methods of avoiding ‘a club’ going down the liquidation route to success which even as I write it looks, sounds, and most certainly is ridiculous.
@Marcybhoy 9.18
Sounds to me that you feel you “deserve better”.
Being a “supporter” of any team usually involves being “faithful through and through”; accepting both the highs and the lows. It’s normally unconditional.
Ceasing to support your team because the quality has dropped or the management are following a strategy you’re not entirely happy with seems a bit spoiled to me.
Unless, of course, the strategy is to cheat in order to win. Then you can withdraw your support with your integrity intact until the baddies go to jail 😉
@Silent Partner. I never stopped supporting my team. I stopped going because I was bored and would rather spend the time with my kids. I don’t believe I’m entitled to anything either. My favourite times supporting Celtic were when we were rubbish. I didn’t enjoy gubbing teams 5-0 every week in MON’s era although I thoroughly enjoyed title winning parties. That said, the regular Larsson and 5-0 double payouts were nice.
Nothing would please me more than to watch a homegrown Celtic team where winning was never guaranteed. I’d even accept losing the league if it meant better competition. It’s not a quality issue, quite the opposite in fact. Quality can’t be bought anymore so we need to rear and develop quality. That takes time.
Finally, if the Celtic support had been faithful through and through in the early nineties, we would most likely be still owned by the Kelly’s and White’s or dead.
Marcybhoy says:
August 7, 2014 at 9:18 am
6 9 Rate This
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As has been said, probably Celtic forum piece, but I am in total agreement with you regarding coaching, scouting and signing home-grown talent — whether it be CFC or whoever. I believe I saw at least 9 Poles in the Legia starting line-up, CFC had 3 Scots. Hmmm …
Anyway, that’s for the fitba bletherboards.
Don’t think sweeping the great lie and the cheating under the carpet is an option. Too many supporters are aware of what happened. It won’t be soon forgotten.
Seeking justice or some kind of setting the record straight is not a negative, not in my eyes at least.
Cheers.
mcfc says:
August 6, 2014 at 5:58 pm
“I think this is a great idea but will be difficult to do, and a vast amount of work, because it requires extensive subjective judgements and we are all biased one way or another.”
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It would be a monumental task requiring the compilation of a huge data table before any analysis could be undertaken.
Timing of goals, bookings, red cards, penalties. Score at the time of any such decisions. League position and therefore relative importance of any particular game outcome. Attendance to monitor crowd effect. Home or away and referee involved.
Since this needs to be done over a decent length of time the only viable source of information would be newspaper back editions. The Mitchell Library has such a newspaper archive on microfiche. Just assembling the data table would take hundreds of hours of work I suspect. Then it would have to be analysed to spot the natural trends. Then the trends model would have to be interrogated to identify incidents that were significantly unusual.
Committing to such a project is something that could not be done lightly. Although the data table could certainly be assembled, the analytical skill required to make sense of it would truly be the job for a qualified statistician, which I am not though I do have some skills in this department. Therefore all the analysis would need to be carefully logged so that it could be scrutinised by those with the requisite expertise if it ever deserved authentication.
This is probably a years full time effort. A fascinating project but one at the end of which might fail to prove any particular conspiracy theory. Only an obsessive could commit to such an undertaking. 😉
I don’t think there is a problem with comments on Celtic or any other team in the forum as long as it’s not about the the pros and cons of team selection and who’s the better left back etc. and focuses on the repercussions for Scottish fitba and, more importantly, the ongoing battle to challenge the agenda driven doomsayers.
I liked the Ratner comment and, after all, poor Gerald merely shot out a one liner at a shareholders” meeting whereas our MSM, SFA and SPFL have been dissing their product for 2 or 3 years now. Unbelievable; and still they can’t kill it off!
Anyway, as Bill 1903 pointed out, another big crowd at Pittodrie tonight and even though we are clearly up against a team from a higher level we live in hope and we’ll be all right whatever the result. Apologies for the cliche but this armageddon stuff is fine with me.
I believe you used to be able to pin down which Glasgow team any given punter supported by asking what school they went to? It’s easier now; just ask them if Scottish fitba is deid.
Have just read the much-heralded VB expose on the 5-way agreement which was supposed to be based on ‘potentially explosive’ documents. The document they use was published by CF over a year ago and discussed widely at the time and since.
Apparently the VB intend to prove over the next few weeks how Rangers were done down by the usual suspects. I therefore have reservations that an ‘open mind’ approach is being used by them – no laughing at the back 🙂
No revelation as to whether the 5-way Agreement was ever signed or not – so I assume the VB don’t have a signed copy but only the two drafts the whole internet has had for well over a year courtesy of CF.
However they seem to be unaware or have decided to ignore the sordid secret deal done between the SPL and Sevco Scotland Ltd which formed a side-letter to the 5-way Agreement and was a get out of jail card for Rangers as it bestowed immunity from disciplinary action before LNS even commenced his tribunal proceedings.
I dealt with the issue in depth almost a year ago at: http://scotslawthoughts.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/rangers-given-no-title-stripping-guarantee-in-secret-spl-deal-by-ecojon/
I was hoping when VB ‘trailed’ their intentions that it might prove to be a tentative, albeit very delayed, step to strip bare what those in charge at Ibrox were up to with the SFA/SPL. However it seems we are either on the Revisionist Road or just more of the same failure to face facts and accept the truth.
The secret deal between Rangers and the SPL – done with the approval and knowledge of the SFL and SFA – has been removed from Scribd with the explanation: ‘This content was removed at the request of Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP.’
Of course we all know that FFW go way back with CW and CG and Rangers – right back to Sevco 5088 Ltd.
The document however is still available on TSFM at: ‘It Takes Two to Tangle’ page 5 easyJambo says: June 22, 2014 at 9:53 am
Me first.
Welcome back big man.
Marcybhoy says:
August 7, 2014 at 9:18 am
“What would happen if we all just accepted that what has gone on over the last few years, i.e. all the cheating/financial doping/Sevco shenanigans will never be resolved? Let’s move on.”
———————-
It’s nice to have a fresh perspective and I think it requires a spectrum of opinion to arrive at a consensus. Rangers travails have alerted us to a changing football environment. For those not engaged in online forums the superficial symptoms of what is happening in Scottish Football might I suspect leave them feeling a bit bewildered. I think the on-line discussions will provide for a ‘softer landing’ where people are able to accept new realities because they have some insight as to how they came about.
I think a lot of the frustrations of Rangers fans arise from their willful ignorance of information that has been widely circulated. They have recently repented this self deception and are trying to take control but time will tell if they have left it too late. Why the media should have aided the self delusion is a question for the psychologists out there.
So there is a new reality. It has come about due to a fundamental change in the structure of the game’s finances. This has been accentuated by the collapse of Rangers, the reverberations of which are filtering out still. On top of the financial issues there has been created much disaffection concerning football’s governance.
I suspect this forum would be quite happy to move on to new territory: It is natural that a person would become jaded by the same topics continuously being revisited. However I think these topics are continuing to evolve. It has already been demonstrated how financial imprudence can impact on the whole of the sport, not just one club/company. Until punters feel reassured that the tremors they are experiencing are not the herald of another earthquake then I think it is not unwise that people remain alert.
When these jitters subside I think people will move in your direction but that is not the area of the spectrum where consensus resides at the moment.
@Ernie. I am putting myself in Aberdeen fan’s shoes just now. Is Scottish fitba deid? Far from it. We’ve just beaten a decent Dutch side and still have a slim chance of causing an upset against a Spanish side with pedigree from the days when the Dons were kings of Europe. This against the backdrop of the healthiest crowds seen in Aberdeen since the 80’s.
But now the reality. You will most likely lose tonight. Out of Europe before the league’s even began. You may have another good cup run. Might even win one. But you will still finish 20+ pts behind Celtic and the crowds will slowly dwindle as the season progresses. You won’t have many players in the national team either and you will probably not raise more than £2m from net xfer activity. Anyway, it would just pay back Stewart Milne if you did.
How do you feel when you compare this to the good ol’ days?
I don’t believe it’s deid but it’s slowly coming out of a very long coma and has only just begun to blink. Talking and physical movement may soon follow, but it will be years before we’re out of our beds able to walk doon the corridor to take a pee without any assistance.
PS I really hope I’m wrong about tonight. Would really love you to pull it off just cant see it ahppening.
hector says:
August 7, 2014 at 9:48 am
Nice of the VB to provide us with what we’ve already seen many months ago. Nice too that they managed to show us an example of the disgusting mind-set of those who drew up the 5 way agreement – Sevco straight into the SFL First Division! Whatever else they might say about those first two pages, it shows just how desperate the football authorities were to get Sevco as high up the pecking order as possible. The only onerous clauses resulted in the watered down (to one month) transfer embargo, and the payment of ‘football debts’, a requirement also handed out to Hearts before they could continue to participate in the SPFL. Hopefully they will be able to blast the 5 Way Agreement asunder, and have it set aside with a new decision made that sticks to the rules regarding eligibility and we see a club that fulfilled all the criteria for entry into the SFL take TRFC’s place.
However badly the 5 Way Agreement was put together, it was put together with one purpose only, to circumvent the rules to facilitate Sevco’s entry into the SFL in as high a division as possible. Everyone with no Sevco sympathies wishes it had never been introduced and the rules regarding entry had been strictly adhered to.
Should the VB put so much pressure on those involved in the 5 Way Agreement that they feel they have to defend themselves, they might well find the authorities making the link between a club and company crystal clear before showing exactly how they did the best deal possible for Sevco. With their new club on the brink of an insolvency event, is it really such a good time to be picking a fight with the people who may well have to decide on the future participation of a club in blue playing out of Ibrox?
Things just get worse for the bears. An announcement on AIM from RIFC making it clear they can’t raise much needed money, an article from the BBC that, in conjunction with the AIM announcement, makes it clear there was much basis to PMGB’s recent writings, and now ecobhoy returns to TSFM.
Welcome back ecobhoy, smashing return post 😉
hector says:
August 7, 2014 at 9:48 am
“Looks like the Vanguard Bears are going to draw out their smoking gun expose of the goings on during the formation of the new Rangers”
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I have refrained from jumping to conclusions on what these revelations might be but the tone of commentary and snippet of the 5 way agreement for me points in a certain direction. They are surely going to major on an early draft of the document that contained proposals for Rangers to accept title stripping. Is this forum in a time warp? Why does it take so long for information we have perused to permeate into the wider world? The HMRC stuff published by the Record yesterday had been broadcast live by Charlotte 18 months ago.
Going out on a limb on the presumption that this is what VB are touting at, I can see a cause for ire from their perspective but like most things this draft document can be read two ways.
They will portray it as an unjust punishment that has been shown for the wicked thing it is by LNS commission.
Equally it might illustrate that everyone in the upper echelons of football recognised that Rangers had been caught with their hand in the till and natural justice required a proportionate punishment. That LNS did not reach a similar conclusion was a jaw dropper.
Perhaps this belated revisionism is based on the idea that ‘he who laughs last laughs longest’ and by entering the debate at such a late stage VB hope that the storm will have blown itself out. I rather suspect their efforts may be counter-productive and will throw more scrutiny on LNS than on the 5 way.
I could do with Ecobhoy being in play so that I don’t muck up my LNS analysis. Oh, there he is!
I hear that the troll last night has been bigging his heroic efforts up elsewhere on t’internet, advising others (two who have already joined up) how to “breach our defences” 🙂
Of course it is impossible to stop anyone trolling, however my view is that they will get easily discouraged once they reveal themselves and are booted out.
People who indulge in that kind of frivolous and dishonest behaviour don’t tend to have the relentless determination gene – nor the sense to see that their argument is diminished by their behaviour – if indeed their purpose is to put forward any argument in the first place.
The mods’ view is that we should be reactive rather than too proactive in our access policies. We should give everyone the benefit of the doubt, be as inclusive as possible and deal with situations when they arise.
In a way our openness and honesty is the weak spot in our defence against trolls. I’m not ashamed or embarrassed by that, and in fact I see it as a great strength of this community.
However it does underline the need for moderation. In normal circumstances, last night’s situation would have been dealt with more swiftly, but holidays and work commitments have seen us undermanned in the trenches. If anyone would like to volunteer to do some shifts, or just help us keep an eye on things, please get in touch. tsfm@tsfm.net
Marcybhoy
How Should AFC feel relative to the good old days?
Relative to where they’ve been since, its a helluva start? As I have said over and over CFC will ignore this point in a wave of complacency at their peril (as will Real Sociedad tonight incidentally, although I don’t think they will). But the odds will remain heavily stacked against them, of that there is no doubt.
I think the MSM have it almost right today, but for the wrong reasons.
Celtic are suffering from a lack of tough domestic competition. Where the MSM’s usual lack of accuracy kicks back in is that this has little to do with Sevco or Rangers.
Before dying Rangers had the same problem. Both teams had arranged affairs to guarantee themselves top two finishes by drawing the teeth from other Scottish teams. If either team had a genuine challenge more than 4 times a year, Celtic could have been regulars in the latter stages of the tournament and Rangets might have survived because their reliance on CL money would have been less fanciful.
As it was the 4 games a year they did have we’re not usually great preparation for the CL anyway. Egged on by lunatic crowds and a rabid media willing to forgive, if not encourage any over the top behaviour in the name if selling the spectacle, it frequently turned into hack-fest with the level of play well below what both teams were capable of.
As a result it turned into the exact opposite of an advert for the Scottish game. I don’t know any non OF fans who miss it other than one mate who works in the media and wants it back for work reasons.
@Marcybhoy
“@Silent Partner. I never stopped supporting my team. I stopped going because I was bored and …”
When a supporter of any club stops attending and hence contributing financially to their club, they become an armchair fan. This is not intended as pedantry. Criticising the strategy of your club has far more impact if it’s done from the inside.
Requiring commitments from the board in order to “get me back”, as you said in your original post, has a familiar ring to it.
That said, time with our kids is certainly important too 😀