Celtic Banter Archive July 04 2012

04 Jul 2012 20:48:38
Alex Thomson's latest blog.

At last! Finally a day which stands out in the long-running car-crash of Scottish football.

A day where a decision was reached.

A day when the voice of fans / customers was finally seen to have been heard and acted upon.

A day when integrity in sport came first and money came where it belongs in sport – second.

A day when this was done decisively – it appears by an ten to one majority.

A day in which all fans (and here Celtic and Rangers agree) can share the view that the right thing was done in a world where it looked as if the word had disappeared.

Scare stories

It began with the usual tabloid scare stories about how Scotland’s Premier League faces meltdown without ‘Gers.

It got worse with the Scottish Premier League chief executive Neil Doncaster saying there might not be a vote. The SPL might wait till the Football League vote next week on where “Rangers” should play.

Could the abject Mexican stand-off of football “management” really pass the buck for yet another week?

Yes – frankly. It looked credible.

But at Hampden Park by mid-afternoon it was dealt with. The old Rangers FC could not transfer its share in the SPL to the new company.

European glory a few years ago to this. Yet it’s what most “Rangers” fans now want – albeit for various reasons.

Those familiar with this blog will have seen them articulated in recent months.

So now the buck is not passed – the decision is made. The Football League chairmen now have to step up next week here.

“Rangers” fans do not want Division 1 in some new-fangled two-tier “Premier League” set-up wholly designed to shoe-horn “Rangers” back into Rangers in the SPL, like nothing happened.

But everything happened. Rangers blew up and detonated into “Rangers” via tax, police and football investigations which will run for months, years.

New model

This must mean one, clear thing and there’s no sign that the SFL, SPL and SFA have grasped it: the old model is gone.

No point worrying about the loss of revenue, the TV deal. The old Rangers cash cow is gone. It cannot be allowed back along the same failed lines.

So clearly a new business model needs urgently inventing and working on. One wants to see energy going into that – not lamenting past models and TV deals and lamely frightening folk about what the TV deal will be worth because…the folk aren’t buying.

The SPL bosses just slung the old “succulent lamb”‘ business plan in the bin.

The SFL next week may well take the bin and sling its contents to rot away into history.

Great day

An urgent review beyond that done by Henry McLeish needs to grasp the new reality and yes, opportunity with new outside thinking to meet a new challenge and a new chance.

In short – forget anyone still bellyaching about old money now gone – the spilled-milk lament.

Look instead to those thinking creatively about new chances and choices. Fewer clubs? Possibly. Survival of the fittest? For sure. Fairer cash distribution? We hope.

And hope is what’s been given a chance already, by a great day at Hampden when not a ball was kicked.

Jungle Bhoy.

04 Jul 2012 20:14:04
ED001, sorry to hear our 007 is not
well, please pass on the good wishes
of all the regulars on here....
So 001 what do you as an LFC fan,
make of all the shenaginans.
Are the SFA fit for purpose, and as
for Doncaster at SPL, he blatantly
lied about 6 teams going bust if newco
were rejected.
I now hope that fans of every team
in SPL make the SPL this season one
of the best campaigns ever.
Celtic should now take lead in any
negotiations with SKY/ESPN/BBC
and get new television deal fair to
EVERY Scottish club.
Integrity won today, let us keep it.
hail hail Timalloy {Ed001's Note - I have told him you all said you prefer it when I edit, that should speed him back!
The SPL was set up out of greed, it has never been a good idea, why on earth the English clubs took it as a model I will never know. The SFA and SFL are just toothless and have allowed the SPL to ride roughshod over them. The whole lot needs to be ripped apart and started again, with a proper structure, with major fan input. Not one person in power deserves to be there, from what I can see. It is no wonder Scottish football has fallen behind in recent years, the whole management structure only care about money.}

Curious, why would it be fair for Celtic to take the lead in tv negotiations for all Scottish clubs? Surely fair would be to have ALL Scottish clubs at the negotiating table to make sure everything is done fairly?

Cannonfodder

04 Jul 2012 20:16:06
Seems everyone just wants to talk about is Rangers. Celtic rumours ....Rangers. All Spl & SFL ..Rangers . Noticed
that if this had been any other team (apart from " tic"s ")
- nobody would give a s**t . Now watch the heads roll !

04 Jul 2012 19:31:07
how embarassing are the scottish media? for the best part of a week, they've been peddling the myth that somehow, EVERY team in scotland will suffer if newco aren't given a wee helping hand in retaining spl, or div1 status.

sky have already stated that they will honour their contract, so why isn't this being mentioned?
they keep banging on about sky pulling out, but even if they did go back on their word, someone else would step in....it's not as if we're going to have a complete tv blackout simply because ra berrs aren't involved. tv money will still be there, and like recent years, as the deals have dwindled in size, teams will cut their cloth accordingly....so why would that be such a disaster now?

they also say that £16m will go out of the game...where exactly, how does this break down? how are stenhousemuir and east stirling affected by this?

why don't they mention that if they are allowed back in the top flight then teams will still lose money because they don't pay their way? be it transfer fees, cup dues, gate receits etc?

why has no-one asked green where his 20 man, billlionaire consortium are?
why has no-one asked green why is he struggling to raise £4m to simply keep newco afloat for 1 month?
why has no-one asked green why is he trying to raise credit on future season ticket sales, exactly like a certain mr whyte? and being laugfhed out of every bank in the country except for some two-bob outfit that operates out of rented buildings in london?


all these, and many many more questions to come

alas, dinner calls!


taco

04 Jul 2012 18:52:24
Tomo tweeting:-

"Senior Hampden source telling me clearly Charles Green's presentation on Rangers Newco entering SPL bombed. It only increased opposition."

"Am told SPL chairman were expecting nothing less than utter humility and abject contrtion"

"And I am told they got neither and were far from happy. McCoist and Green blew it - but did Ibrox a great service there by."

K-Dot.

I suspect every thing is going to Charlie's Plan.

04 Jul 2012 18:37:57
Bring it on bomber brown watch the hoops rack up the leagues nothing but a bigot.Henke7

04 Jul 2012 18:13:11
Well done hoops,honour to support this club,rally behind our club. deebhoy

Bang on mate.lets get the season books bought and bring the thunder to EVERY game,home and away..............green jhedi

Except kilmarnock

04 Jul 2012 16:48:53
hi bhoys and ghirls ,
just loging on to complain at the lack of transfer activity from celtic ! 4 weeks til the start of the new season and nothing ...i think its shocking and the celtic board better get their finger out because we are no way ready for the champions league qf , i am celtic thru and thru and am very saddened at the fact there will be no old firm games next season ,hence why we dont look like bringing anyone of quality in !!lawell will have a lot to answer for if we havent enough cover at the back and a big striker which has been lacking for three years now!!

chalky bhoy!

Theres not enough space in the papers for any celtic news, with the deluge of sevco refusers and armageddon bullsh1t from the succulent lamb gobblers. All is well tonight.
Yorkiebhoy.

Window is open til end of august , whats your hurry shamrock

04 Jul 2012 16:40:00
Ed - I've finally come to a view on Celtic's decision not to go public on how they were going to vote today.

I believe that this decision was the correct one.

If Celtic had announced the intention to vote no, this would simply have given ammunition to the likes of Jabba, Keevins and Jackson to play the "hatred" and "bigotry" card.

This could then have resulted in division amongst the No vote by fans of all clubs.

Keeping our powder dry gave no ammunition that could have been used to gain support for a Yes vote.

Well done Celtic.

K-Dot.

04 Jul 2012 16:24:11
DAILY RECORD ARGUMENT - if rangers go to division 3 then 16 scottish clubs will disappear.
1. if they claim these clubs will disappear and no longer exist, why do they still refer to the newco as rangers?

04 Jul 2012 16:07:01
10 Vote No to Newco
1 Vote Yes to Newco - RFC (IL)
1 Abstention - Kilmarnock

K-Dot.

04 Jul 2012 15:26:05
Nial McGinn has signed for Aberdeen./ Good luck to him.

TerribleBeauty

04 Jul 2012 14:30:42
I guess Green is going to stand his helicopter down.

Jabba will be disappointed.

K-Dot.

04 Jul 2012 14:19:20
My god. It looks like Celtic are gonna sign another dozen players to add to the 30 ish they have already !

03 Jul 2012 21:54:55
hey ed.whats your thought on traynors article in the daily ranger today.this guy has been greeting for weeks now and toeing the party line trying to create a mentality that football will end in this country if his beloved rangers are put into division 3.im not sure what to make of this article.i was pretty certain that justice was gonne be done and rangers start where they should but im not to sure now.do you think this is gonna make any difference to the vote tomorrow? {Ed001's Note - he is just saying what will stir up the most people to read it. The best thing to do with people like him is ignore them. The more you talk about them, the more money they make.}

Hugh keevens said years ago if i print a headline that makes people of both sides of the OF talk for days about...ive done my job= making money

lenny {Ed001's Note - it is commonplace, Jeremy Clarkson has made an entire career out of being offensive. Traynor is just another in the same mould, 99% of the time the Rangers fans are moaning about him as well.}

02 Jul 2012 20:00:34
ED007, Green Jhedi, Shaun have any
of you better informed guys got any
reason why the promised Alex Thomson
expose of a certain SFA official never
took place tonight. Are lawyers invloved?
Timalloy

Tim, as always, these things get run through lawyers first before they are aired, maybe there was something contentious in the expose that just couldn't be included, that would mean re-editing and re-scripting the program, which obviously takes time

i personally haven't heard anything from my sources regarding this, but the feeling is that it's just a matter of ironing a few things out....should be aired within the next week


taco

04 Jul 2012 11:53:20
Alright guys, just got this from the BBC website,
How the hell can they delay the vote when the season starts in 3 weeks?

SPL expected to delay Gers vote
By Chris McLaughlin
Senior football reporter, BBC Scotland

Scottish Premier League chairmen are expected to delay an anticipated vote on where Rangers should play their football next season.

The clubs are meeting at Hampden on Wednesday to discuss whether the newco should be in the top flight.

Eight SPL clubs have gone public with their opposition, with Rangers requiring an 8-4 majority.

SPL chief executive Neil Doncaster told BBC Scotland that he expected the meeting to be "keenly contested".

And on his way into the meeting, Doncaster told reporters: "There may be a decision, there may not be.

"There was a good meeting yesterday with the Scottish Football League, in which the possibility of Rangers going into the second tier of Scottish football was discussed.

"And ultimately, if that option remains in play, that may be a reason to defer the vote today."

Rangers entered administration in February owing up to £134m to unsecured creditors. The club will eventually be liquidated and has been replaced by a new company.

But the vote comes amid warnings about the future of Scottish football should Rangers drop to Division Three.

Doncaster said three options were available regarding where Rangers should play next season.

"The three viable options are effectively: bringing "newco" Rangers back into the SPL with a range of appropriate sanctions; putting Rangers into the second tier of Scottish football or Rangers going into the bottom of the pyramid into Division Three," he added.

"The third option, I was keen to stress yesterday, would inflict massive damage on the whole of the game in Scotland; and effectively punish 41 innocent clubs for the misdeeds of one."

Regarding the possibility of Rangers heading down to the First Division next season, Doncaster said: "There's lots of things that need to happen before that might take place.

"The SFL clubs will be meeting again next Thursday and will be voting on that. It remains to be seen how that plays out. But there's a resolution on the table today for our clubs to consider the idea of Rangers coming back into the SPL with appropriate sanctions.

"That will certainly be keenly debated, given people have different views and we'll see what happens."

On being accused of presiding over "a dead parrot" by Raith Rovers chairman Turnbull Hutton, Doncaster said: "Headlines unfortunately go with the territory.

"I'm far more interested in making sure Scottish football comes up with the right solution for dealing with a very big problem that faces the whole game."

Can u believe this sh*t? The longer this goes on the more likely they'll be kept in the spl!!
Division 1 is still not punishment for the crimes they committed!!
There has got to be something we can do, as the best supported club in the country to stop this corruption, without hurting our own club in the process?
Any Thoughts guys?

Byars

Calm down Byars we won't be in the SPL the SFA wont agree to the transfer of membership.
Another reason is that the the SPL could be on it's last legs.
It will be interesting to see how the SFL vote next week. They have two choices,an overwhelming and resounding
NO! vote,or refuse to vote at all.
Either or will force the SPL or the SFA into action...eventually.
I think we'll end up in Div1 or Div2 dependant on the reconstruction plans if the SPL are smashed By the SFA and SFL.
Scottish football is in a bad way,Yes RFC may well have tipped it over the edge,but the associations are hardly innocent. There's an end game approaching somewhere,and i think it will be "BYE - BYE" SPL. Ironically the weaker organisation could potentially hold the most powerful sway in the final analysis.
P.O.B.

04 Jul 2012 09:05:32
Typical brown leading the �no surrender � language what clown every time he opens his mouth they lose another vote
..col

I can't understand why he is being given this platform.

Doesn't help Newco one bit.

K-Dot.

03 Jul 2012 22:36:17
It all makes the clearest possible sense. Running one football club whilst having a financial interest in another is about the clearest potential conflict of interest possible in the business of sport.

Yet Channel 4 News can now reveal such possible potential conflicts are a commonplace within the game, involving key individuals, and it is allowed within the rules of the governing bodies as presently written.

Not only that. In one case this perceived conflict involves none other than the current president of the Scottish Football Association, Campbell Ogilvie, already described as �heavily conflicted� by his own chief executive and currently offering to stand aside if his presence in the job is a problem.

Offering � but not doing so.

Channel 4 News has a Companies House list of Rangers shareholders for 2008 and 2010. They prove, for instance, that the current Airdrie chairman and president of the Scottish Football League, James William Ballantyne, had 568 Rangers shares in 2008 when chairman of Airdrie.

Now, nobody is pretending these shares are worth very much money at all in the vast sea of Rangers shares. People will be interested in the principle of all this, though, not the money.

Let us consider some other high-profile figures � like Mr Ogilvie. He remains president of the Scottish FA, despite that �heavily conflicted� comment from his chief exec. In 2008 a Companies House report showed Mr Ogilvie held 3,505 Rangers shares whilst in senior management at Hearts. That year he became chief executive at Hearts and suddenly transferred his 3,505 Rangers shares to his wife Karolina, who already held 400 � thus giving her 3,905 shares.



And so to the one-time sectarian crooner Donald Findlay. Infamous for leading sectarian singing at an Ibrox function in 1999, he may have been forced out of Rangers over that unfortunate musical issue but he has not left Rangers in so many other ways. By 2010 Companies House records will tell you he held 9,900 Rangers shares whilst Chairman of Cowdenbeath FC.

No doubt there are other examples.

And so to the rulebook. Well, the Scottish Football Association rules state that:

�Except with the prior written consent of the Board, no Member, Associate Member or Official, may at one time either directly or indirectly:-

21.1.1 hold or seek to acquire beneficial ownership of or deal in the shares or securities of another club; or

21.1.2 be a member or shareholder of, or lender in any capacity to, more than one club��

Along the corridor at Hampden Park, the Scottish Football Association handbook says pretty much the same things. And in the rules there is the rider that owning less than a 3 per cent total share value is OK.

We are talking about way less than 1 � let alone 3 � per cent in these cases.



The rules also state that having family members owning shares means they are treated as associates. That is, you�re all one in the eyes of the SFA and the SFL rulebook. Transferring shares from, say, Campbell Ogilvie to his wife would make no difference at all in law. Presumably Mr Ogilvie knew all this � he�s widely seen as an expert in football regulation.

So it�s a curious tale. What binds these people to their shares, since it cannot be the financial value? Emotion? It is far from clear. And what makes them hang on to them year after year, when doing so clearly suggests a potential conflict of interest to many, regardless of whether or not any rules have been broken?

Jim Ballantyne said everything had been declared to the boards, and in any case the share numbers are absolutely miniscule. He said:

�I see no problem here at all� and �I cleared everything with the boards� and �You are talking about the tiny fragment of one percent of ownership and this involves absolutely no influence whatsoever�.

We say that may well be true, but would it not be sensible to divest all shares in any other club when running a different one, let alone the SFL itself, just in order to avoid any perceived conflict of interest?

�No � not at all. It�s never been raised at any board meeting,� said Mr Ballantyne.

�Well, I�m raising it now� I said.

�Well, you�re not in football,� he replied. I cannot seriously think that the president of the Scottish Football League believes only football directors can take a view on this � not the fans, not the public and not journalists. But that is what he told Channel 4 News.

And so to Donald Findlay. His case is perhaps the most curious of the lot. There is the perceived conflict of interest in running Cowdenbeath whilst owning almost 10,000 Rangers shares.

We asked Mr Findlay about the shares issue. We received the message back that he is not interested in answering, and a Cowdenbeath messenger said Mr Findlay says: �You can do what you want.� So the world must wait to know whether or not Mr Findlay regards his Rangers as a conflict of interest. If he does, he certainly does not want to talk to us about it.

At the end of the day, what you have here is another spotlight into the cosy, cronyish old world of Scottish Football, which has predictably lumbered into the 21st century only to come close to real collapse through lack of proper oversight and governance.

Many would simply say any sport which allows anyone a financial stake at all in one club whilst running another is a sport badly in need of urgent overhaul.

From these men today, no consideration or comment on the fans, the public, how this might look. Just the usual insouciance when faced with the concept that whether rules are actually broken or not, this hardly conveys a healthy impression of Scottish football.

Follow @alextomo on Twitter

So in conclusion there's nothing legally or morally wrong here Alex? Anyone surely is entitled to purchase share in any company. Equally as minority shareholders we are all at the mercy of the financial markets,as far as shareholding is concerned with no input whatsoever to their value.
More damp squib than explosive device journalistic license from Mr "No Quote" Thomson.
I can't see what CFC fans see in this guy.
Surely they must be losing faith when yet another overhyped promise of interesting revelations ends in a finale with less sparkle and even smoke than a Catherine wheel in a swimming pool.
Interesting though that he uses the same phrase "Unfortunate musical issue" that i was recently castigated for by various residents on here in reference to Donald Findlay.
Surely in the interests of fairness one of the following should transpire.
Either Mr Thomson is "exposed" as a secret bigot with underlying issues,or an apology is forthcoming from those who vigorously condemned my use of the same phrase. I won't hold my breath too long waiting on either,but you never know,go on then surprise me.
P.O.B.