A Blog for Scottish Football Monitor by Stuart Cosgrove
At the height of summer of discontent I was asked to contribute to a BBC radio show with Jim Traynor and Jim Spence. ‘Armageddon’ had just been pronounced and if the media were to be believed Scotland was about to freeze over in a new ice-age: only a cold darkness lay ahead.
To get the radio-show off to a healthy and pretentious start I began by saying that Scottish football was experiencing an “epistemological break”. It was an in-joke with Jim Spence, who I have known since we were both teenage ‘suedeheads.’ I was a mouthy young St Johnstone fan and Jim was an Arabian sand-dancer. But even in those distant days, we shared a mutual distrust of the ‘old firm’ and in our separate ways wanted a better future for our clubs. We both grew up to become products of the fanzine era, Jim as a writer for Dundee United’s ‘The Final Hurdle’ and me as a staff writer for the NME. Without ever having to say it, we had both engaged in a guerrilla-war against what Aberdeen’s Willie Miller once characterised as “West Coast Bias”.
The term ‘epistemological break’ was shamelessly borrowed from French Marxist philosophy. It means a fundamental change in the way we construct and receive knowledge and although I used it on air as a wind-up to test Spencey’s significantly less-reliable Dundee schooling, deep down I meant it.
Social Media has proved to be one of the greatest disruptions in the history of the football supporter – greater than the brake clubs of the 19th century, the football specials on the 1970s; or the fanzine movement of the post-punk era. The pace of change in the way we send, receive and interrogate information has been so dynamic that it has wrong-footed administrators, asset strippers and sports journalists, alike. No matter who you support we are living through media history.
2012 had just witnessed an unprecedented summer of sport. The Olympics provided a snapshot of how sudden and pervasive the shift to social media has become. Over 40% of UK adults claim to have posted comments on websites, blogs or social networking about the Olympics and in younger age-groups that figure tips conclusively to a majority – 61% of 16-24’s posted Olympic comments. Think about that figure for a moment. Well over half of the young people in the UK are now participants in social media and pass comment on sport. The genie is out of the bottle and it will never be forced back. That is the main reason that Armageddon never happened: we no longer live in an age where the media can guarantee our compliance.
On the first day of the 2012-13-season, Rangers were in the deep throes of administration and facing certain liquidation. With no accounts to meet the criteria for SPL membership, one among a body of rules which the old Rangers had themselves been an architect of, the new Rangers could not be granted entry without a wholesale abandonment of the rules. It was not to be.
St Johnstone launched their new season at Tynecastle so I travelled with misplaced hope. We were soundly beaten 2-0 and both Hearts goals were entirely merited. On the day, I did a quick if unscientific survey of two supporters’ buses – the Barossa Saints Club, a more traditional lads-bus and the ‘208 Ladies’ a predominantly female and family-friendly bus. On both buses, over 75% of fans had mobile phones with 3G internet access and the majority of them posted updates or pictures before, during or after the match. They mostly posted via micro-blogging sites such as Facebook or Twitter, many commenting on the game, their day-out and the surroundings. Most were speaking to friends or rival fans. Some were publishing pictures and updating forums or blogs. And when he second a decisive goal went in some were undoubtedly taking stick from Gort, Webby DFC and DeeForLife, the pseudonyms of prominent Dundee fans, who as the newly promoted ‘Club 12’ were suddenly and very temporarily above St Johnstone in the SPL.
By my rough calculations, well over half the St Johnstone support was web-connected. I have no reason to think the Hearts supporters were any different. This small experiment reflects an unprecedented shift in the balance of communication in Scottish football and in the truest sense it is an ‘epistemological break’ with past forms of spectatorship. Social media has been widely misrepresented by old-style radio ‘phone-ins’ and by journalism’s ancien regime. The presumption is that people who are connected to the web are at home, in dingy rooms where they foam at the mouth frustrated by loneliness and mental illness. The term ‘internet bampots’ (coined by Hugh Keevins) and ‘keyboard warriors’ (Gordon Strachan) speaks to a world that is fearful of the web, irked by alternative opinions, and the threat that the new media poses to the traditional exchange of knowledge.
It further assumes that opinion from social networks is naïve, ill-informed, or unreasonable. Whilst some of this may be true, mostly it is not. No one would dispute that there are small enclaves of truly despicable people using social networks and comment sites, but they are overwhelmingly outnumbered by the multitude of fans who simply want to talk about their team and share their dreams and memories.
Social media is porous. By that I mean it has cracks, lacunae and fissures. This inevitably means that information leaks out. It can be shared, released and in some cases becomes so energetic it becomes a virus. It is no longer possible to ‘keep secrets’, to withhold information and to allow indiscretions to pass unnoticed. Newspapers have been caught in a whirlwind of change where views can be instantly challenged, authority quickly questioned and pronouncements easily disproved. Many papers – almost all in decline – have been forced to close down their comments forums. Undoubtedly some of that is due to breaches of the rules, the cost of moderation, and the rise in awareness of hate crimes. But another significant factor is that ordinary fans were consistently challenging the opinions and ‘facts’ that newspapers published.
Talking down to fans no longer works and we now have evidence – Armageddon did not happen. The beast that was supposed to devour us all was a toothless fantasy. In the more abrasive language of the terraces – Armageddon shat-it and didn’t turn up.
In one respect the myth of Armageddon was an entirely predictable one. Tabloid newspapers make money from scaring people – health scares, prisoners on the run, fear of terrorism, anxiety about young people, and most recently ‘fear’ of Scottish independence is their stock in trade. Almost every major subject is raised as a spectre to be fearful of. Most newspapers were desperate to ‘save Rangers’ since they themselves feared the consequences of losing even more readership. It was easier to argue that a hideous financial catastrophe would befall Scottish football unless Rangers were fast-tracked back into the SPL. Newspapers found common cause with frightened administrators who could not imagine a world without Rangers, either.
So we were invited to endorse one of the greatest circumlocutions of all time – unless you save a club that has crashed leaving millions of pounds of debt, the game is financially doomed. You would struggle to encounter this bizarre logic in any other walk of life. Unless Rick Astley brings out a new album music will die. That is what they once argued and many still do. That is how desperately illogical the leadership in Scottish football had become.
Armageddon was a tissue of inaccuracies from the outset. It tried to script a disaster-movie of chaotic failure and financial disaster and at the very moment when senior administrators should have been fighting for the livelihood of the league, they were briefing against their own business.
Armageddon was a big inarticulate beast but it faced a mightier opponent – facts. One by one the clubs published their annual accounts. Although this was against the backdrop of a double-dip recession and fiercely difficult economic circumstances it was not all doom and gloom. The arrival of Club 12 (Dundee) meant higher crowds and the potential for increased income at Aberdeen, Dundee United and St Johnstone. To this day, this simple fact remains unfathomable to many people in the Glasgow-dominated media. The arrival of Ross County meant an exciting new top-tier local derby for Inverness Caley Thistle and a breath of fresh air for the SPL. St Johnstone insisted on the first ever SPL meeting outside Glasgow to reflect the new northern and eastern geo-politics of the Scottish game.
European football meant new income streams for Motherwell. Of course times were tight, football is never free from the ravages of the economy and some clubs predictably showed trading losses. But the underlying reasons were always idiosyncratic and inconsistent never consistent across the board. Inverness had an unprecedented spate of injuries and over-shot their budgets for healthcare and so published a loss £378,000.
Meanwhile Dundee United published healthy accounts having sold David Goodwillie to Blackburn. Celtic reached the Champion’s League group stages with all the new wealth it will bequeath. St Johnstone – led by the ultra-cautious Brown family – had already cut the cost of their squad, bidding farewell to the most expensive players Francisco Sandaza and Lee Croft. The club also benefited from compensation for their departed manager, Derek McInnes and player-coach, Jody Morris. Paradoxically, Bristol City had proven to be more important to the club’s income than Rangers. Again this was not part of the script and proved unfathomable (or more accurately irrelevant) to most in the Glasgow media.
Hearts failed to pay players on time due to serious restraints on squad costs and internal debt. They were duly punished for their repeated misdemeanours. Motherwell and St Mirren despite the economic challenges were navigating different concepts of fan ownership. By November most clubs – with the exception of Celtic – were showing increased SPL attendance on the previous season. Far from the scorched earth failure that we were told was inevitable what has emerged is a more complex eco-system of financial management, in which local dynamics and a more mature cost-efficient reality was being put in place.
It may well be that Armageddon was the last desperate caricature of a form of media that was already in terminal decline. Flash back to 1967 when Scottish football had a so-called ‘golden age’. There was European success, we tamed England at Wembley and names like Law and Baxter brightened dark nights. Back then access to knowledge was a very narrow funnel. Only a small cadre of privileged journalists had access to the managers and players, and so fans waited dutifully for the Daily Record to arrive at their door to tell them what was happening. That system of ‘elite access to knowledge’ was in its last decadent throes nearly thirty years later, when David Murray would dispense wisdom to his favoured journalists. We now know they drank fine wine and ate succulent lamb in Jersey and the most loyal attended Murray’s 50th birthday party at Gleneagles. One journalist was so proud of his invite he danced round the editorial office mocking those who had not been invited. This was the early height of the Rangers EBT era but it is now clear that difficult questions went unasked by either journalists or by football administrators.
Although it may not suit the narrative of this particular blog my first realisation that David Murray’s empire was living on leveraged debt was from a small cadre of Rangers fans. It was around the early years of the Rangers Supporter’s Trust (RST) and they were determined to shake more democracy from the Ibrox boardroom. Whilst real fans of the club argued from the outside, the press took Murray at his loquacious word. He was in many respects their benefactor, their visionary – their moonbeam.
By the 1990s onwards, football journalism had ritualised and festered around the inner sanctums at Ibrox. This was an era where relevance meant being invited to a ‘presser’ at Murray Park, having Ally’s mobile or playing golf with ‘Juke Box,’ ‘Durranty’ or ‘Smudger’. Many journalists, showing a compliant lack of self-awareness, would use these nicknames as if conveyed closeness, familiarity or friendship. It is desperately sad that careers have been built on such paltry notions of access and such demeaning obsequiousness.
Around this period I had become a freelance radio-presenter and was presenting Off the Ball with my friend Tam Cowan, a Motherwell fan. We both wanted to fashion a show which saw football not trough its familiar narratives, but through the lens of the ‘diddy’ teams, a term so demeaning that we tried to reclaim it. Refusing to peddle the inevitability of ‘old firm’ power we sensed that journalistic compliance at Ibrox was now so ingrained that it was ripe for satirising. This was the main reason that Off the Ball branded itself as ‘petty and ill-informed.’ It was a self-mocking antidote to those journalists that could ‘exclusively reveal’ breaking stories from ‘impeccable sources,’ which usually meant they had heard it on the golf-course, from Walter, a man who needed no surname.
Many fans are astonished when I tell them how the journalism of this era actually functioned. On Champions League nights, journalists from opposing papers gathered together to agree what to write. Circulation was in decline, money was tight, agency copy was on the increase and foreign trips were under-scrutiny. No one dared miss the ‘big story’. So sports journalists who commonly boasted about their toughness and who ‘feared no one’ were often so fearful of returning home having missed an angle, that they agreed by consensus to run with variations of the same story. Celtic fans may wish to recoil at the image – but journalists would go into a ‘huddle’ at the end of a press-conference to agree the favoured line.
So the summer of 2012 witnessed an ‘epistemological break’ in how knowledge and information was exchanged. But let me go further and taunt Jim Spence one more time. It was the summer we also witnessed an ‘amygdala-crisis’ exposing the way the media works in Scotland. Amygdala is the nuclei in the brain that manages our tolerance for risk and is the key that often unlocks creative thinking. Many people in relatively high places in the media – a creative industry – demonstrated that they could not conceive of change, nor could they imagine what football would look like if Rangers were not playing in the SPL. They not only resisted change but lacked the imagination to think beyond it. A common language began to emerge that tried to ward off risk and an almost a childlike fear of the dark. ‘Scottish football needs a strong Rangers,’ ‘But there will no competition’; ‘other clubs will suffer’; ‘Draw a line in the sand’; ‘It was one man – Craig Whyte’, ‘They’ve been punished enough’ and of course, the daddy of them all – ‘Armageddon.’
The biggest single barrier to change was the lingering and outmoded notion that Rangers subsidised Scottish football. As a supporter of a club that had spent seven economically stable years in a league that Rangers have never played in made me deeply suspicious and I was in the words of the we-forums ‘seething’ that St Johnstone were portrayed as somehow ‘dependent’ on a club that was already fatefully insolvent. Because so little is known about the experience of the fans of smaller clubs, they are often misrepresented. For seven years my friends and I, travelled home and away in the First Division, often narrowly missing out on promotion as rival clubs like Gretna, Dundee and Livingston all used money they did not have to ‘buy’ success. It remains an incontrovertible fact that St Johnstone FC has been among the most consistent victims of fiscal misdemeanour in Scottish football. That is the irreducible issue. Several clubs have very real reasons to loathe financial mismanagement, rogue-trading and those that gain unfair advantage on the back of unserviceable debt.
Social media has allowed these smaller incremental versions of history to be told when the established media had no interest in telling them. Blogs can dig deeper than the back pages ever can and fans are now more likely to meet on Facebook than on a supporter’s bus. Many players now bypass the press completely and tweet directly with fans. Rio Ferdinand’s recent attack on racism in English football has been conducted entirely via social media, over the heads of the press. In the Rangers Tax Case context, restricted documents are regularly shared online, where they can be analysed and torn apart. Those with specialist skills such as insolvency, tax expertise or accountancy can lend their skills to a web forum and can therefore dispute official versions of events.
Not all social media is good. Open-access has meant a disproportionate rise in victim culture. The ‘easily-offended’ prowl every corner of the web desperate to find a morsel that will upset them but that is a small price to pay for greater transparency and even the most ardent bore is no excuse for limiting the free exchange of information.
We have witnessed a summer of seismic change. A discredited era that largely relied on ‘elite access to knowledge’ has all but passed away and information, however complex or seemingly unpalatable, can no longer be withheld from fans. The days of being ‘dooped’ are over.
It has been a privilege to participate in the summer of discontent and I yearn for even greater change to come. Bring it on.
Stuart Cosgrove
Stuart Cosgrove is a St Johnstone fan. He was previously Media Editor of the NME and is now Director of Creative Diversity at Channel 4, where he recently managed coverage of the Paralympics, London 2012. At the weekend he presents the BBC Scotland football show ‘Off the Ball’ with Tam Cowan. He writes here in a personal capacity.
ordinaryfan says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 12:34
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Burley, in common with all other commentators on Scottish football, wants Sevco elevated to the top flight pronto, with a minimum of administrative delay.
All such commentators are hopelessly conflicted because of course their future income depends on a strong Sevco. Each of their articles, radio shows or podcasts should be prefaced with a health warning therefore, and not to do so is to treat the public as imbeciles.
Do what I do – restrict your attention to the MSM to actual radio or television broadcast of the matches, and do not watch or listen to comment-based programmes. It only encourages them.
TheBlackKnight TBK says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 12:09
Completely agree with the irony …but:
If this is indeed the company simply set up for the share issue, I expect much spin to be spewed in order for them to sell. Yogi and boo-boo et al will buy.
But I am sure Wattie and Dave’s future venture set up WILL include the word “club” so the final metamorphosed creature will (in the bear’s eyes) be Ranger’s Football Club ( or something very similar).
corsicacharity says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 12:26
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I think we basically agree with each other in repect to how we view him as a person.
I believe part of the problem is when we compare Journalism with Opinion. He may well be a journalist by trade but this piece in The Daily Record falls clearly under the banner of “Opinion”, his mug shot sits there along with Tam Cowan and Joan Burnie who we can all agree, do not suffer the same level of ridicule for offering opinion. So maybe the reason I am not as offended as others is that I see him simply as another “Just Joan”.
As you and others have pointed out, he does misquote, he deliberately misleads and adds a lot of personal name calling that would not be out of place in a school playground but… and I believe this is a big but, he does make some good points that if not currently being debated, should be.
And the reason we don’t debate is down to the crap he writes to pad out the article, we get caught up in the sheer ignorance displayed by some of his comments that leads us to forget the little nuggets that are worth analysing.
For as long as I can remember we have been claiming he is the puppet master of David Murray, well today he just confirmed his true job specification and at the same time, named one of his paymasters.
Loathe him or detest him (see what I did there?), I am always keen to see the next instalment of his comedy fest.
This bit about the new registration………
Bill Miller always talked about a unification once the toxic stuff was gone….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/apr/20/bill-miller-bid-rangers
In order to preserve the club’s history, records, championships and assets, I will put the “heart” of the club into an “incubator” company while Duff & Phelps works to make the “sick patient” healthy through a CVA process that effectively works to “radiate” the toxicity of past administrations’ sins out of the patient while the “healthy heart” is preserved and moves forward. Once the CVA process has been completed and the patient is on the mend, the administrators will return Rangers Football Club plc to me for a nominal sum.
The healthy heart and the healthy patient (The Rangers Football Club plc) will then be reunited through merger.
In this scenario, the club can continue with all of its business assets, including its history, protected from the present illness.
Thus a new corporate entity will own the club’s assets during the incubation period including all of its history.
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Now given that it seemed nonsense at the time, is this possible now? I don’t think so but could it be to reunite Sevco with something called RFC or as close as they can get to it?
Stranger things have been able to be done………….
http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football
Scotland on Sunday poll
Monday, 19 November 2012
Is Scottish football missing Rangers in the SPL?
Yes
1108 (23%)
No
3636 (77%
Craig Burley……. now there’s a true sage……..expert in all that is mediocrity! His opinions are laughable, as one only has to review the colossal lack wisdom often practised by some leaders from within the ranks of the so-called bigger clubs, in order to understand that Burley’s comments are just about as stupid as comments could be. Could it be that the ‘minnows’ actually love football and not money?
However, after his somewhat lacklustre brilliance in the football firmament, Burley now appears most willing to draw any available seat into the table to await a morsel of Jabba’s lamb. Someone should point out that that particular empire is standing on a fast-melting iceberg and oblivion beckons all those aboard. Good riddance when it happens, say I!
Posted Today, 10:57 AM
POPULAR
SPL in £100m tax “dodge”
Some extracts from the accounts of The Scottish Premier League Limited:
Income – £231million
Corporation tax paid – £nil
Last week Starbucks, Amazon and Google were roasted live by the Public Accounts Committee for their “immoral” tax avoidance schemes which enable these companies to trade in the UK but pay virtually no corporation tax. The PAC’s view was that these companies were “at it” and HMRC should investigate and clamp down hard.
Which brings us to the SPL. Since 1999 the SPL has declared income of £231,563,000. The amounts then paid out of this income to SPL clubs have only been disclosed in the accounts since 2010, but a reasonable estimate of such amounts based on my analysis of the accounts is £188,076,000. That’s £188million received by the SPL clubs and not one penny paid in corporation tax by the SPL.
How can that be so?
The normal situation for a company is: it makes a profit, it pays corporation tax on that profit, then anything that is left can be paid as a dividend to the shareholders. Anyone that owns shares in a company (say, BT) will know that when you receive a dividend, you also receive a voucher that shows tax has already been paid on that dividend.
The SPL does not treat these payments to the clubs (who are its shareholders) as dividends. Instead, they treat these payments as expenses and claim tax relief on these payments. So the SPL’s accounts end up showing a loss every year and no corporation tax to pay.
Based on the corporation tax rates throughout the period, the corporation tax that would otherwise have been due on £188million would have been in excess of £55million. If the SPL was subsequently found to have wrongly “dodged” corporation tax, you can add interest and penalties to that and the final bill would be more than £100million.
That is one hell of a lot of schools, hospitals, nurses and teachers. The hypocrisy of the SPL moralising over Rangers’ tax situation is breathtaking.
On receipt of the £188million, the clubs themselves have paid virtually no corporation tax, perhaps none at all. Most clubs either make losses, or have previously made losses that they can use against current profits, so they themselves generally have no corporation tax to pay.
All it would take would be for HMRC to revisit the SPL’s tax treatment (sound familiar?), change their view on the application of tax law (sound familiar?) and decide that tax should have been paid after all (sound familiar?). There but for the grace of HMRC go the SPL.
Of course, we would then have the hollow excuses from the SPL: “took professional advice”, “acted within the law at the time”, “HMRC changed the goalposts”, all of which again sounds pretty damn familiar.
There would be a delicious irony if such a fate befell the SPL, upon whose financial collapse HMRC sought to recover such tax from the clubs who were willing participants in the structure. As Pyramus might say: “Now die, die, die, die, die”.
This mess is best summed up by the PAC chairman, Margaret Hodge when referring to the serial tax “dodging” companies: “We are not accusing you of being illegal, we are accusing you of being immoral”. Perhaps she should call Mr Doncaster to appear before the committee for a roasting.
Traynor is heading down the p*sh-stained corridors of internet delusion populated by Leggo and his ilk. His latest is bitter and vile and laughable in equal measure. The SPL is obviously a joke in his eyes having the temerity to attract fans to a competitive league when he had personally ordered it deid without T’Gers – this cannot be – so hence his garbage.
The Daily Record is dying – with every pile of horse manure that they publish by Jabba – it dies more quickly. Surely even the editors of this rag must see the writing on the wall. He should be fired and the Record should attempt a re-positioning from f*ckwit delusional to somewhere approaching realistic comment. In truth, though, I think it too late.
I would expect the DR to vanish entirely within 3-5 years – it is already leaking money at an alarming rate and has no credible viable future at all. It may sutvive as re-badged Mirror: assuming that those pumping cash in to keep that rag afloat don’t themselves give up the ghost.
Part of me will grieve the demise of the Record – but in truth all of the stuff I used to enjoy about it has vanished over the last twenty years.
Gratuitous Alienation of its own readers thereby rendering them , like me, ex-readers – seems to me be at the core of its problems I fear. It is an institution beyond saving!
liveinhop on Monday, November 19, 2012 at 13:14
*******
I assume that that is from a Sevco forum?
I know it is a difficult concept for them but do they really not know the difference between income, expenditure and profit?
liveinhop says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 13:14
“The hypocrisy of the SPL moralising over Rangers’ tax situation is breathtaking.”
==========================================================================
Can you point me to one quote or article that confirms your position. I do not recall any club or member or official of the SPL “moralising” over Rangers FC tax issues
Yes rangers media sorry should have said
liveinhop says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 13:14
Any chance of a link to where you got this from.
Cheers.
liveinhop says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 13:14
(SPL tax dodge post from RM)
——
Answered in a follow-up post on RM by one of the Bears …
“SPL dish out the money as “expenses” and break even or make a loss therefore no corporation tax due.
Recipient club then has “unearned income” on their books which IS taxable but only taxable if they make a profit which most don’t so no
tax payable.”
exiledcelt says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 13:07
The CVA was not agreed. The incubator plan was reliant on agreement of the CVA
corsicacharity says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 13:27
1 0 Rate This
liveinhop on Monday, November 19, 2012 at 13:14
*******
I assume that that is from a Sevco forum?
I know it is a difficult concept for them but do they really not know the difference between income, expenditure and profit?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
apologies, I thought this was a statement of fact rather than ‘ProperGander’ lifted from RM 🙂
cmontheshire says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 13:08
Grrrr…. do not get me started (again!) on that Craig Burley article – I’ve read a lot of stuff in the press that’s made me smack my head in disbelief, but his was the only article to ever make me feel genuinely angry.
His whole point seemed to be that clubs shouldn’t be having a say on The Rangers because they didn’t have money and didn’t matter because of that.
The reason these clubs don’t have money is because they are a tightly run ship, run by people who have their local community and their fellow fans at heart. I’m fairly sure most of them could be in the SPL, were they to implement dodgy tax schemes, have friends who are head of banks throwing money at them like confetti, or if they embraced the sectarian pound. The reason they are small and relatively poor is because they chose not to do that. They are honest. If anything, they should be EXACTLY the sort of people asked to pass judgement on Rangers.
Incidentally, nice to see mention of Clyde’s statements from the summer. As a Clyde fan, it did make me very proud to see the response of the club. On a side note, We are supporter owned. Now what should be being asked of Sevco fans is – the assets of your club were, apparently, up for sale for 5.5 million in the summer – the team, the stadium, the car park, the training ground… basically, everything you need to run a professional football team. If you cared about there being a Rangers (Any Rangers!) as much as you claim, why didn’t you put your hands in your pockets and stump up, instead of waiting for someone else to do it? With the fanbase that you have it wouldn’t have cost that much per person. You could have been fan owned, you could have made sure that your team would never again be used as, at best, a plaything by a succession of ‘businessmen’.
Fast forward 5 months or so, and you’re now being asked to stump up 20 million (4 times what the buying the whole thing would have cost!) for a small percentage of ownership. Charlie must think you lot button up the back.
http://forum.rangersmedia.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=242225
All it would take would be for HMRC to revisit the SPL’s tax treatment (sound familiar?), change their view on the application of tax law (sound familiar?) and decide that tax should have been paid after all (sound familiar?). There but for the grace of HMRC go the SPL.
======================
If the author of this is trying to imply that it is similar to what happened to Rangers they would be wrong.
HMRC didn’t change their view on the tax position, Rangers got caught abusing the system. Making contractual payments through an EBT was never OK. Rangers tried to conceal the fact they were doing it, including lying to the footballing authorities. They got caught.
So it’s an attack on other people’s tax position based on a false premise.
Jabba article:
This bit stood out to me –
‘Incidentally, it is widely believed the final verdict on Rangers’ EBT case will be revealed before this week is out…’
Hardly a week has went by since the turn of the year, that speculation hasn’t circulated regarding the EBT case. We know the result is with those directly involved and that MIH have been holding up the publication of it. With Jabba being in tight with MIH, can we see this prediction as significant? Is the wait finally over?
Traynor is heading down the p*sh-stained corridors of internet delusion populated by Leggo and his ilk. His latest is bitter and vile and laughable in equal measure. The SPL is obviously a joke in his eyes having the temerity to attract fans to a competitive league when he had personally ordered it deid without T’Gers – this cannot be – so hence his garbage.
The Daily Record is dying – with every pile of horse manure that they publish by Jabba – it dies more quickly. Surely even the editors of this rag must see the writing on the wall. He should be fired and the Record should attempt a re-positioning from f*ckwit delusional to somewhere approaching realistic comment. In truth, though, I think it too late.
I would expect the DR to vanish entirely within 3-5 years – it is already leaking money at an alarming rate and has no credible viable future at all. It may sutvive as re-badged Mirror: assuming that those pumping cash in to keep that rag afloat don’t themselves give up the ghost.
Part of me will grieve the demise of the Record – but in truth all of the stuff I used to enjoy about it has vanished over the last twenty years.
Gratuitous Alienation of its own readers thereby rendering them , like me, ex-readers – seems to me be at the core of its problems I fear. It is an institution beyond saving
iceman63 says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 13:38
It is an institution beyond saving.
=================================
A Scottish institution beyond saving, sound familiar!
liveinhop says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 13:14
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If I had a quid for every bit of nonsense I have heard or read about the relationship between income and corporation tax, I would have enough to underwrite the share bear offer.
The point missed by the author is of course that if the payments by the SPL to clubs are accepted as expenses, then those monies are taxable in the clubs’ hands, whereas if they were paid out as dividends, they would be received tax free by the clubs.
And before anyone starts mentioning the probability that most SPL clubs have trading losses brought forward to shelter these payments, let’s not forget that one of the main assets Green bought for Sevco were the historic trading losses of RFC(IL), accrued during the dual contract years, amounting to some £25M worth at the last count but probably significantly more by now.
Thanks TBK – for some reason that thing always has worried me!
The good ole Daily Record – what a mess they have gotten themselves into ever since the old RFC began their involvement with Media House and Jack Irvine – but it is bizzarre to actualy witness it all with your own eyes – and Jim Traynor, the DR’s executive sports director never fails to amaze with the Leggat themed rhetoric – albeit slightly more articulate than what the old pee-stained booze bag usually has to say – but only just.
A fine example set from the head-honcho himself to his minions in the DR offices – and he’s been getting away with it for yonks – but Traynor has been quite ott ever since his favourite team departed from existence – and the poor man cannot, even now, bring himself to critisise Minty and all the rest who made RFC a museum exhibit and the laughing stock of British football for the last few months of their lives.
The line from Jack is still Whyte – the GEF did it, is the message Jack want’s the peepil to think – and he’s pretty much achieved that – but it’s convincing nobody else – and that is what I find astonishing – the sheer stupidity in thinking they are taken seriously as they peddle PR propaganda, so blatant that it just leaves you laughing and shaking your head.
I wonder what fine culinary offerings are bestowed on Jim from Charlie and Sevco – but i’m sure even a pie supper would find a loving home in Jim’s substantial stomach – and a pie supper is exactly what Jim get’s these days when in Govan…probably…but come on – the man is a complete sell-out. A journo?? No. Jim is a PR administrator – his rag is a PR mouthpiece and you can bet something nasty is in the pipeline for Sevco if past form is anything to go by.
We know your agenda, Jim. We all know who sets your agenda and we all know your opinion is completely irrelevant – do you?
I suspect the disabling of reply comments in Jim’s article shows Jim would rather not have this pointed out to him – What’s up Jim? Why so angry today?? Was it the bumper attendance at Pittodrie? Is there something awful in the works for Sevco?? Perhaps Jim just ran out of rennies…
slimshady61 says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 13:47
0 0 i Rate This
liveinhop says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 13:14
——————————————-
If I had a quid for every bit of nonsense I have heard or read about the relationship between income and corporation tax, I would have enough to underwrite the share bear offer.
==========================
£23!
That’s a lot of poppy.
tommythehat says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 12:01
Ahh, fine start to the day – nothing like an off-shift lazy day – Yes neepheid, thanks for that – and i accept the role of the SPL board, It’s always nice to be put right! But i’d much rather that than be blinkered, so correction appreciated.
==========================
A noble attitude, Mr Hat. I post as a lifelong Celtic supporter, brought up, as many were in those long ago days, with the firm belief that “everyone’s agin us”, and that most clubs in Scotland were a sort of “mini Rangers”, with just a few exceptions. Many younger than me may not recognise that mindset, but it really did exist back then.
The events of last summer were negative in many respects, but positive in this- I learned that most people in Scottish football, outside the West of Scotland bubble, are honest, principled and committed supporters of the game, and aren’t interested in the whole “old firm” thing, except as it adversely affects them.
Apart from Clyde, I suggest you look at the statements made by Annan and Stranraer around that time, consider the words and deeds of Turnbull Hutton and Raith Rovers. These are the people who saved Scottish football from real Armageddon by their words and actions last summer.
I would like to see something built on that, a united front of people who really have the good of the game in Scotland as their aim, and who want to work together to clear out the stinking midden that the SFA, SPL and SFL authorities represent. Their corruption, and their contempt for the people who actually support the game in Scotland and who pay their wages, make them unfit to continue. Change is needed now.
neepheid says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 13:56
Well said Mr Heid, and yes, I’m old enough to remember that mindset and pleased to see the clubs rebel against the establishment, well apart from KFC.
Neepheid – agree with you 100% – one of the plus points for me was going to all of the SFL clubs and reading their websites to get the reasons behind their votes – either for or against – and the articulate way they were able to show the reasoning behind their vote. None of them were due to MSM pressure nor looking for the way that would make them money.
As a poster said at the time – you don’t become a chairman of Stranraer or Stenhousemuir or anyone else in the SFL to make money or get attention in the media. These folks more often than not are helping repaint the dressing rooms in the summer, cutting the grass and selling programs – most of these are local business men who knwo if they tick off their fans of the local club, their butchers shop may well lose business too,
I think the thinking of them as somehow lesser than the likes of a CG is not only showing ignorance but also extremely insulting. When CG has gone with his Xmas hamper money off to BVI, these so called small insignificant men will be left to handle the mess left by ND and SR…….AGAIN!
liveinhop says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 13:14
SPL in £100m tax “dodge”
Some extracts from the accounts of The Scottish Premier League Limited:
Income – £231million
Corporation tax paid – £nil
Perhaps she should call Mr Doncaster to appear before the committee for a roasting.
===================================================================
Guys…before this gets too far out of hand, it may be pertinent to consider the tax status of the SPL.
Without being able to do the appropriate research just now, the SPL as a “body corporate” may not be liable to Corporation Tax on its profits, or “surpluses of Income overEexpenditure”. This may well be the case if they are indeed set up as a “not for profit” organisation. (I mean that seriously folks!)
If this is the case, they will have no liability whatsoever.
I would however still love to see Doncaster being roasted by some committee, but I doubt if it will be on these grounds.
TheBlackKnight TBK says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 12:09
26 1 Rate This
I’m sure everyone is deliberately overlooking the real corker here…….
“RANGERS FOOTBALL PLC”
Registered: 16th November 2012
Company Number: 437060
SIC Activity code: NONE
It is not ,,,,,
Rangers Football “CLUB” Plc or RFC 2012 PLC (in liquidation)
Registration Date: 27/05/1899
Registration Number: SC004276
SIC Activity code: 93120 – Activities of sport clubs
http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/dcbba4b60d8d07e66342c782e300266b/compdetails
—————-
TBK, the link you supplied above leads to a company page of something called ‘Rangers Crest (NW) Ltd’. That’s a new player in this game to me. Have I landed on the wrong page?
@bbcjimspence: SPL clubs agree to pursue move to two divisions of twelve clubs with split into 3 leagues of 8 teams after first round of 22 matches.
SPL clubs agree to pursue move to two divisions of twelve clubs with split into 3 leagues of 8 teams after first round of 22 matches.
i guess sevco will be involved in the 24 teams “invited” will they ?
i won’t be back if this is the case
essexbeancounter says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 14:30
liveinhop says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 13:14
SPL in £100m tax “dodge”
Some extracts from the accounts of The Scottish Premier League Limited:
Income – £231million
Corporation tax paid – £nil
Perhaps she should call Mr Doncaster to appear before the committee for a roasting.
===================================================================
Guys…before this gets too far out of hand, it may be pertinent to consider the tax status of the SPL.
Without being able to do the appropriate research just now, the SPL as a “body corporate” may not be liable to Corporation Tax on its profits, or “surpluses of Income overEexpenditure”. This may well be the case if they are indeed set up as a “not for profit” organisation. (I mean that seriously folks!)
If this is the case, they will have no liability whatsoever.
I would however still love to see Doncaster being roasted by some committee, but I doubt if it will be on these grounds.
**********
If I remember correctly, the SPL is a company limited by shares (those shares being held by the members which in turn are, of course, corporate bodies themselves*). That would indicate that it is NOT a not-for-profit body and should therefore be liable for tax if any was due.
Incidentally, just being a not-for-profit does not confer tax-free status as there is no such thing (corporeally-speaking) as a not-for-profit. As I am sure you know, there are legal forms for not-for-profits such as community interest companies, co-operatives, companies limited by guarantee and registered charities, but legally no such as thing as a “not-for-profit”.
* = another wee clue here as to why RFC is dead and gone.
Whats the betting Green comes out against the SPL proposL and declares he could only accept it if fans show their support in the fund raising ?
Does anyone know when this new league will start? Is it Next season? If it is then this will be mine and my sons last season books.
Count us out.
Maybe what’s needed is a demo of what the fans feel about this as once again they have been totally ignored. Perhaps a round of games where the fans don’t enter the ground until after the kick-off. Makes the point and doesn’t hurt the club, but gives the clubs the implied threat of being ignored.
Don’t know if anyone else has seen it (I’ve seen it circulating on twitter too) but I’ve been sent a picture of a front page of FTTT judgement concerning RFC and HMRC. I’m sure RTC or someone else could confirm but I thought that the case was between MIH and HMRC and therefore what is being circulated (which came to me via a rangers fan) would be fake.
Failing newspapers will not give up the ghost.
They are the propaganda machines of the rich to enable bulk feeding of the masses.
Running at a loss will be set off against the value of disinformation.
Hence their hatred of the Internet Bampot and his quest for Truth and Justice.
jimlarkin says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 14:48
5 0 Rate This
SPL clubs agree to pursue move to two divisions of twelve clubs with split into 3 leagues of 8 teams after first round of 22 matches.
i guess sevco will be involved in the 24 teams “invited” will they ?
i won’t be back if this is the case
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Same here, any further corruption will be the final straw for me, as someone who lives in London, I put myself out quite a bit to follow a Scottish team and snub Clubs like Arsenal who are around the corner from me. I will not bother supporting a fixed Scottish league if this scam goes ahead.
FTT – not published – fact
corsicacharity
discussing it on CM just now, llooks a fake to me,
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A8EdglBCcAAmtz3.jpg:large
2 leagues of 12 count me and the other 3 seasdn ticket holders in my house out
okay quick poll thumbs up if you will walk away from scottish fooitball if there are 2 leagues of 12 to include sevco.Thumbs down if you will carry on supporting scottish football no matter what
Ahem
12+10+10 = 10= 42
Top 24 in SPL
Even if pretendgers are promoted. They wont be around the SPL. It will never happen anyway till the 11-1 is sorted. Just my take on it.
+ not =
ianagain says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 13:07
15 1 i
Rate This
http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football
Scotland on Sunday poll
—————————————————–
I wonder how many of the 23% were TRFC supporters? 🙂
nowoldandgrumpy says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 14:37
@bbcjimspence: SPL clubs agree to pursue move to two divisions of twelve clubs with split into 3 leagues of 8 teams after first round of 22 matches.
________________________________________________________________________
Thats all very well but
a)will the pyramid system from SFL to SPL still hold
b) is it a closed shop or
c)is it a combination of entry by invitation only then use the pyramid once you have set up the 2 divisons as decided by the new SPL membership.?
If b) and c) then Sevco can be invited in and placed in the top league if thats what the SPL want to do..
If the a) pyramid still applies right from the start and including any transition then even by winning Div 3 this season they still don’t make the top 24 out of the current 42. So they would still have to have a season in the third tier in 2014/15.
ianagain says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 15:23
1 0 Rate This
Ahem
12+10+10 = 10= 42
Top 24 in SPL
Even if pretendgers are promoted. They wont be around the SPL. It will never happen anyway till the 11-1 is sorted. Just my take on it.
———-
Unless they argue that Div 3 winners automatically retain promotion into ANY new Div 2? That would put Green FC one promotion away from top league.
re the fake/ not fake document doing the rounds…….
few things to consider….. The reference numbers/ date of release/ The Judge determining and most interesting of all …. it relates to VAT
1. the BTC did not relate to VAT, however I do recall (corsica?) posters discussing the possibility that RFC were in trouble with VAT payments under Whytes tenure.
2. Are the reference numbers the same as we were previously told?
3. Has the Panel changed from those we already know were determining the case?
neepheid says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 13:56
———————————————————————————————————————————-You’re more than welcome and thanks again – I will read those you suggest and ditto re the views of many other clubs and their fans – I too have had a complete turn-about in my opinions of many others and I recently read an article from an English sports writer – explaining why Scotland ought to feel proud of itself following last summers lunacy – i forget exactly who and where but it struck home that our football system, although regarded as weak, is nonetheless, better regarded as a community with self respect and pride.
Yes, esp with folk like Turnbull Hutton – it’s more than encouraging and shows that lot up for what they all really are – and not one of them even dared take him to task – because he calls it as he sees it and if that calibre of person was at the top of our game – I would be the SFA’s biggest supporter, as it stands, I have zero respect, confidence and trust in the SFA.
For Raith Rovers and their chairman, I have nothing but admiration and pride to have such people in our football community – Clyde and others too – and mostly from the SFL community it has to be said.
Corporate monsters are sadly required to interact with the world of corporate monsterdom but if the right balance can be acheived, we as a football country can only move forward – but Turnbull Hutton and his likes have to be at the heart of it – but until such time, we must – at least – make it very abundantly clear to the SFA directors we do not accept Campbell Ogilvie’s continuing presence and nor do we have any measure of faith in him, and by extension, the management, for not removing him from his post – in complete contradiction to the overwhelming public sentiment – and also in complete contradiction to common sense.
Transparency and coherency are terms lost on the SFA. It’s always been the same since I remember and Regan is just taking advantage of the same – but because he’s having his strings pulled – as was Jim Farry and various others of past infamy over at Hampden.
Regan isn’t in it for Sevco – he’s just somehow managed to become caught-up in scam and get himself hoodwinked by the like of Campbell Ogilvie and Jack Irvine – and is now so compromised, Charlie is toying with them at will – that’s the proverbial straw and they have to be taken apart and the old stinking institution cleaned out. It will be for the absolute betterment of our sport, we have to change with the times – but we are being left behind at a staggering rate and it’s because we have wee blazer wearing men with a narrow minded agenda in charge of our game.
They have been destroying Scottish football for years, any honours won our teams in Europe was achieved without any relevance to the SFA and it tells a story when the paralells with such club success is the complete opposite of the SFA’s directly administered national side.
How they survived to this point is all thanks to the Glasgow sports media – for over a century – but things have changed quickly – too quickly for the SFA who have resorted to simply hiding these days.
Putting the Sevco complications to one side…
I like the 2 leagues of 12 proposal as long as there is a proper pyramid structure underneath which I assume would be something for the SFA & SFL to organise.
re the incubator query.
If Jim dies and Bob gets his heart who walks out of the theatre?
As for the SPL rebadging, where is the need? There was one particularly toxic element and that has spontaneously combusted (note not been removed, or extinguished, or relegated, or ostracised or even told to remove thyself via a medium reproductive multiplication, it went up in smoke entirely of its own accord). Its not entirely fair to assume the entire entity was toxic, although that’s not to say it wasn’t without its faults either
As for the top 24 – there’s a simple win win with the fans there, you ‘invite’ the top 24 next summer on footballing merit. State that now and you have the majority of fans onside from the word go.
Apologies,
“…majority of SPL fans onside…”
It will be interesting if Green comes out in favour of this as Sally has said he prefers the SFL version.
mcmurdo being ebuliant
19 November 2012
Business Is Booming
By Bill McMurdo | CRO Contributor
It is my understanding that institutional investor interest for the Rangers IPO has far exceeded club expectations.
Rangers score again!
In fact, Rangers are anticipating that the share issue will be over-subscribed, a positive thing in today’s gloomy economy.
I also understand that SFL executives are calm about Charles Green’s comments regarding the possibility of Rangers playing in the EPL, regarding it as over-exuberant sales talk from the Rangers CEO.
Apparently, Rangers are presently having to take action on two fronts – the circulating of fake documents designed to destabilise the club over the impending share issue and a genuine leak from within Ibrox.
Charles Green is determined that nothing will derail the process of moving the club forward and building a warchest of substantial funds for the future.
My information is that he and his consortium are working like Trojans toward this end.
If Rangers Football Club benefit from all this activity, it can only be a good thing for those of a bluenose persuasion.
Bill is a regular contributor to the CRO. He can be found on Twitter at @WilliamMcMurdo and via email at: bmcmurdo@thecoplandroad.org
stuoid, stupid, stupid seconians!!
The CM screen shot of the front page of the FTT decision looks like a fake.
No decision published online on 6th November.
[2012] UKFTT 481 (TC) relates to GFT Retail UK Ltd.
TC02137 relates to THE SOURCE PARTNERSHIP
The future of football in Scotland is about integrating with all our communities and all our clubs being equal.
So changes at the top of the various bodies running our game are needed and this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Starting with the SPL. It should be closed down as having no purpose.
It is a relic from a time of utmost greed in our game and has done nothing for us the fans or our communities or more tellingly its members. True It has created some well paid jobs but these are all SPL management jobs and the SPL staff overhead is a duplicate cost that is neither necessary nor justifiable.
The current Scottish Premier League teams would rejoin the Scottish Football Leagues possibly into 3 leagues of 14 with two new clubs (real clubs not colts XI’s) and a pyramid entry system.
The deal is one vote per member with no special clubs and shared revenue pro-rata depending on some fair pre-agreed criteria between the divisions where top league teams get a slightly larger share than bottom league.
(Mr Longmuir’s recent proposals encapsulating an unbalanced middle league would not be adopted. And he’d be given a chance (with his team) to talk about his involvement in the rule bending concerning the dead club.
At the SFA we’d have a parallel inquisition. Campbell, Stewart, others and some members of their boards would be given a chance to state their cases.
And no secrets – it would all be in the public domain and set against the rule book.
An interim administration would serve until we had a new management team in place and Turnbull would be a good interim chairman.
lol,
And eh, where is the famed but elusive prospectus?
Is it as fantastic as the schoolboy standard PP thing we saw last week?
My 50K is straining at the seams to be released.
BBC and ITV are missing a trick here.
“I’m a spiv, get me out of here! ” “The eX ((another)Rangers Saviour) Factor”
This is brilliant entertainment
First of all, the FTT document is clearly a fake; the reference numbers relate to an entirely different case.
Secondly not sure why toys are being thrown out of the pram at reconstruction. If this went ahead as envisaged, even if it were initiated next season Sevco would not be in SPL 1 or 2. They would be in the top of the two remaining SFL leagues.
Thereafter, if they won that league in 2013/14, they would only be promoted to SPL 2 for the following season. So there would be no quick way back for them to SPL, though in 2014/15 they might, just might, make it into the middle of the three leagues of 8 at the split.
In fact this reconstruction could count against them as in that case they would need to finish in the top 4 of the middle league to be promoted to SPL 1.
That is far from guaranteed after 3 years slogging around the minor leagues – so I say chapeaux to the SPL guys.
They are ticking all of my boxes in that they want to change something that is clearly broken, they appear to be appeasing the Jabba’s of this world (who will doubtless be fooled) but in fact they are sticking a far bigger hazard in the way of Sevco’s progress than would otherwise be the case with either the status quo or a reorganisation along Sevco-friendly lines..
How could any decent MSM journalist oppose moves to innovate and renew?? The response to this proposal will reveal what most of us already know……”the love that dare not speak its name”
slimshady61, I think it’s the words “invited to join” that are giving folk the willies.
Slimshady
You have forgotten about the invitation part that would all TRFC to bypass all of those problem areas.
slimshady61 says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 16:05
I was convinced the PP thingy was a fake due to its amateurism. I was wrong.
slimshady61 says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 16:05
Slim, my toys will be betting thrown out of the pram IF the new league set up is by invitation and The Rangers are leap frogged into even the lower tier. I need them to earn their place as any other club would have to. It s that simple.
“My information is that he and his consortium are working like Trojans toward this end.”
Yes and their wooden horse sits outside SPL headquarters.
I think the SPL clubs all know that any “invitation” will be on a footballing merit basis and no other – if their clubs are to survive at all. Mass walking away will happen should any other proposal be suggested. they tried it last year and it failed. they cannot afford to breach the trust of their fans again
How TRFC will be shoe-horned into the new SPL set-up.
The SPL currently have regulations that require 6,000 seats under cover. How many clubs outwith the current top 12 have that many seats?
By my calculations we have Dunfermline, Raith, Falkirk, Livingston, Hamilton, Partick, Airdrie, Morton (almost) from SFL Div 1 & 2, then you are down to Queen’s Park and TRFC from Div 3.
It’s possible that they may drop it to around 4,000 for SPL 2, but the same teams plus a couple from Ayr, QOTS, Elgin or Peterhead could get invites.
vivitron says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 15:43
3 6 Rate This
Putting the Sevco complications to one side…
I like the 2 leagues of 12 proposal as long as there is a proper pyramid structure underneath which I assume would be something for the SFA & SFL to organise.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………….
I am not against League reconstruction, but I am against it happening right now. The desperation to fast-track reconstruction is clearly to favour one Club, a Club that has existed for all of 5 minutes, a Club that has already corrupted the League when it conspired and bullied to STEAL the spare league place left by RFC.
Let’s clear up the current mess created by RFC and their co-conspirators running the SFA/SFL/SPL.and rid ourselves of the devious liars running our game before we create another national embarrassment.
slimshady61 says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 16:05
As per my earlier post your prediction only applies if any reconstruction is set up based on sporting merit.
If entry is by invitation as per the bbc website and the placings in the new SPL divisions sorted prior to promotion and relegation taking place then Sevco could be placed in the top tier from day one.
Do that and the new SPL would be off to a very bad start indeed, but there is not reason to believe the powers that be have learnt their lesson yet, so don’t be surprised if that were to happen.
However details are limited at present. At least the SFL proposals looked at the whole of the senior side of Scottish Football. Spencey’s tweet and the bbc website says nothing about the remaining 18 teams and what they are supposed to do.
agropelican says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 16:33
3 0 Rate This
“My information is that he and his consortium are working like Trojans toward this end.”
we also know what a Trojan condom holds!!
Like quite a few on here I’m very much in favour in change as it is desperately needed.
What irks me is the fact that this is being done for one reason and one reason only .
They are desperate for Charlie Greens Barmy army to get back to the top league as soon as possible.
easyJambo says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 16:35
How TRFC will be shoe-horned into the new SPL set-up.
======
100% spot on- I see you understand the workings of the minds in charge of OUR game. This reconstruction proposal is about one thing and one thing only- getting TRFC into the top flight quickly. If this proposed structure reflected only league placings, I would applaud it. But in fact, current rules will be used or bent, or new rules created, to let TRFC leapfrog directly into the SPL. To believe otherwise is simply naive. Please, please, never underestimate the cynicism and corruption of those in charge of the Scottish game. They managed, against all principles of justice, to get Sevco an SFA membership by hook or by crook, standing on their heads if necessary. They will get TRFC into the SPL by exactly the same process. This reconstruction is a fraud. Unless assurances are given that league positions are the ONLY basis for SPL entry, then oppose this in any way you can.
slimshady61 says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 16:05
Slim, I agree with your analysis of the SPL scheme, but, it doesn’t matter. In a clear demonstration that the big clubs have learnt absolutely nothing from this summers shambles, The SPL have let it be known that the SFL proposal is not even up for discussion by the SPL. This is a clear, deliberate, snub to the SFL, and, is hardly likely to engender a feeling of cooperation.
The reality is that I would bet all the money in my pocket, against all the money in your pocket, that any properly conducted survey of fan attitudes would show that fans overwhelmingly trust the diddy clubs to have the best interests of Scottish Football at heart, over the big boys any day of the week. This is a situation entirely of the SPL clubs own making.
Step one in any reconstruction has got to be the reconstruction of the Football Authorities themselves. That means amongst other things, the liquidation of the SPL and the SFL, and bringing the management of the leagues under one roof.
I very much doubt it will happen, as too many of the big boys see the current structure, however unfit for purpose it might be, as serving their own parochial interests.
‘Twould make you weep.
neepheid: Exactly. No matter what the proposals, 12, 14, 16, 124 teams, whatever, there is one guarantee, that it will be structured in some way to assist a single Club. For that reason I oppose any kind of reconstruction right now. Anyone who trusts the current corrupt leaders SPL/SFA/SFL to do ANYTHING that affects the League system, is setting themselves up for huge disappointment.
Regardless of the proposals, I’m walking away if it happens.
How soon before we hear ……..
“Given that the reconstruction plans are designed as the way ahead for Scottish football, it would be only right that the vestiges of the past be left behind.”
For example, the term ‘SPL’.
Another example, Nimmo Smith.
If SPL no longer exists then it cannot adjudicate on matters concerning SPL
paulsatim says:
Monday, November 19, 2012 at 15:53
Charles Green is determined that nothing will derail the process of moving the club forward and building a warchest of substantial funds for the future.
—————————————————————————-
World Wildlife Fund update
– The ‘quantum’: a small population of these creatures was established earlier in the year, but it since seems to have since joined the list of endangered species. It may even now be extinct, as it has not been spotted for some time.
– Closely related to the ‘quantum’, the ‘warchest’ was once believed to be in rude health in an urban location in the West of Scotland. More recently, however, its habitat has proved to be unsustainable, allowing only a brief, occasional, and very much diminished flourish. While many locals believe in its existence, it may, like the Loch Ness Monster, prove to be mythical, existing only in the fevered imaginations of those who want to believe, or who have an interest (financial or otherwise) in convincing others of its existence.