In the aftermath of the ruling by the UK Supreme Court, the response of ordinary fans who paid into matches for over a decade was entirely understandable, and it was this:
Strip the titles.
However, the stenographers tried to provide some moral guidance to their readers on this issue.
Oh dear…
I believe that in doing so, they merely proved that the consumption of succulent lamb has been at a very high-Level recently.
Ironically the message they were told to convey was “there is no appetite”…
Au contraire!
Indeed, there is a real hunger for justice among the many tribes of Planet Fitba.
Genuine fans saw their teams go hungry through the EBT years.
Now they intend to eat their fill.
It has been an unedifying sight over the past couple of days to see bought and paid for hacks cheatsplaining to their dwindling readerships.
Yes, there are one or two notable exceptions.
However, most of them are obeying their high-Level orders.
When you clear away the obfuscation and the shoal of red herrings the message from the stenographers shamefully is clear:
The titles that were won by scamming the tax man in order to provide an unfair advantage over other teams must be allowed in the record books.
In short, the cheats must be allowed to keep what they won by cheating.
Therefore the cheating was successful as the titles remain with the cheats.
That is the message from the local media, and that is what they want their readers to agree with.
I’ll just leave that here…
Three strands to the Cheat Must Pay campaign. First, pressure on clubs and SFA to act in Scottish context; second, press teams affected in Uefa context to act; thirdly, press for independent adjudication and if all is lost, crowdfund a court case. All together now. We can do it.
PS Boycott the cheatsplainers not your teams.
A boycott of Celtic players for Scotland is unfair on the players, boycott against Rangers is also unfair and not a positive action.
A complete and widespread boycott of all things SFA is essential! National Games, merchandise, including attending all Scottish Cup ties by all?
The SFA, they are the target, call the cowards out!!
We can either choose to use the “grievance procedure”, similar to how businesses operate, in that an aggrieved employee can take his/her grievance to their immediate superior. If the immediate superior cannot/will not resolve the matter to the employee’s satisfaction, the grievance moves up the “chain of command”.
In football terms, celtic are the “employee” raising the grievance with their immediate superiors, namely the SPFL and the SFA. If the governing bodies cannot resolve this grievance, then they must move email it on to Nyon, where UEFA would be asked to intervene. This course of action will take time, money, and effort to resolve this to the satisfaction of the rest of Scottish football, so why don’t we just ask the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) to rule on this matter? I’m wondering if the likes of the Resolution 12 guys can contact CAS directly, or will they only act when approached by a member of a professional sporting body (in this case, celtic)? The quicker we get those tainted trinkets and baubles dealt with, the quicker our game can move on – without Laurel and Hardy, of course!!
Celtic should withdraw their players from availability for the national team until the
football authorities agree to Celtic’s request for a fresh review in light of the unanimous
verdict from the Supreme Court.
The most effective boycott strategy would be one the targets sevco, SFA and spfl sponsors’s products. Toxicity will turn their minds to the needful.
As a STH at celtic for over 20 years would I now not be entitled to request my money back for the EBT years. I will be writing to celtic about this matter and I ask everyone else that paid for a ST during those years to do the same. Either Celtic it the SPFL should be returning every paying customers money for a rigged game they are happy to ignore.
Only way they will act is when fans stop buying tickets for the league and Scottish cup rounds. If still no action then the game in Scotland is a burst baw! One team can cheat, lie and still overspend according to FFP rules and still no action will be taken by their brothers in the SFA and SPFL. I would urge the Celtic Board to push at every possibility of leaving the corrupt and spineless Scottish league and look at English or European leagues.
I can’t think of any arbitrary governing body of any sport that has or would turn a blind eye to something like this, even Juventus got titles taken from them by the Italian FA!!!!!!!
If the feeling of the SFA/SPFL is not to hand out justice then I can only see two courses of action
The supporters of clubs who wish for action could independently of their club agree not to travel to away matches to clubs who wish no action
The second action would be for clubs to decide not to enter SFA competitions. If clubs and supporters decide to hit football establishment in the pocket they will squeal and eventually
(hopefully ) however reluctantly come to their sense
It’s not just about titles though. Teams like Hearts and others over spent trying to compete with the cheating team and almost went under.
This is something that must be addressed, Teams have struggled with debt spending on players while Rangers( IL) brought in better and better players. All those clubs who played by the rules suffered severely and must be compensated either from the Newco ( they are the same club after all ) or the SFA who knew cheating was going on. Campbell Ogalvie was part of the cover up while he strutted around the corridors of power so they can’t possible claim they didn’t know.
The disease is cheating the cure is boycotting away games it is that simple.
Don’t forget the backdrop to this.
Level 5 is feeding Pedro all the WATP nonsense and before the reverse during the week the fans were lapping it up.
Can you imagine the fun visiting teams will have with the WATP slogan facing them up in the away dressing rooms. I guarantee that it will be removed within weeks as the visitors line up to suitably amend the message.
King has, on more than one occasion, said that European football this season was a must.
Being removed at the first hurdle must have those providing the soft loans in bits and making plans to forget where they have put their cheque books.
Even now their fans can’t see, or fail to admit, what’s staring them in the face.
How can you claim to be the same team with all the honours of Rangers (IL) yet at the same time deny that the £90m plus of debt has hee haw to do with the club currently playing out of Ibrox?
How about HMRC confirming same club claim then requesting a payment plan for the monies denied to them by SDM’S illegal schemes?
Visiting clubs should make a stand about this WATP rubbish. Get changed on the coach – do it openly and ostentatiously. Refuse to use their away dressing room.
Sir David said they only acted on advice given I always thought ignorance was no defence in court , I feel both SFA and SPFL must
have same advisors ! So to plead ignorance again is a damming enditemen in their ability to govern as such to a man they should step down while a independent inquiry should be conducted to see if there were any collusion involved and criminal charges brought
Jim McC
Yoi forgot to mention, as has been stressed at every turn “Rangers won the first tier tribunal” ruling thay they had done nothing wrong…..so really people are just out to get them. Don’t forgot any explanation needs appended with “it has no impact on the current club”. Never happened really!
Ever season book holder of every other club should seek a refund’s from the SFA as they tried to cover up the cheating. William Nimmo Smith should hand his head in shame and hang up his wig. His title should go the same way as Murray’s Knighthood. Imagine one of the richest men in Scotland dodging the HMRC then having the Brass neck to accept a Knighthood. Shame on William Nimmo Smith and Shame on David Murray.
Let’s all stick together get all fans from all clubs on board and start an organised protest all the way to hampden let’s rattle the f@ck;rs
Couldn’t agree more. Let’s start by every registered fan of every club not happy with this situation emailing their club demanding action, then emailing the SFA & SPL under the freedom of information act , requesting how this ruling has no impact on the tainted trophies. I am not suitably qualified to use the correct legal terminology in these proposed emails but feel there are those on here who could draft a suitable statement.
Celtic and all the other cheated teams need to work together to force the issue. Can’t let Level 5 dictate events or everything will be brushed under the carpet.
Phil I emailed channel 4 for a follow up report on the tax avoidance/evasion to the public purse by oldco.i couldn’t remember the reporters name ,any chance you can contact him and give him a push in the right direction.This needs to kept in the publics mind .cheers
Well said Phil.
I expect that sort of high level pish in the Rectum and the Scottish Sun, but not The Scotsman.
It’s very easy to over egg the pudding, or indeed pour too much mint sauce over the succulent lamb, and get a bit emotional and take the whole shameful scenario out of context, but the fact is that laws of the land and rules of the game were broken and condign action must follow from the SFA and SPFL.
We hear perfectly fair comparisons to other sports, in particular the cases of Lance Armstrong and Ben Johnson, but the fo0tballing authorities need only look in-house at past actions.
With regards tax, what about the way Livingston were treated by the SPFL over their tax affairs just a couple of years ago? With regards to improperly registered players, what about the way the SFA handled Spartans’ omission from the Scottish Cup a few years ago?
So why, when it comes to Rangers, is the strategy something along the lines of, move along, these are not the droids you’re looking for?
There is no plausible argument for what the stenographers are saying about there being no appetite for title stripping. For me it’s like asking is it enough to haul a drunk driver before a court and the Judge to say we know you did it, you know you did it so that’s punishment enough and we will take no further action? I think not and I believe any person of reasonable mind would think not.
The governance of Scottish Football needs an independent enquiry pronto because the top brass at the SFA and SPFL need to go. As for our press – every self-respecting football fan should stop buying a newspaper, it really is that simple.
In the meantime we can all look forward to the next court case in this saga, when BDO take on Duff & Phelps over the selling of the assets. I believe they are chasing around £30m and I believe they will win.
Hearts are currently building a new stand at a cost of £9 on land they own when Sevco purchased Ibrox Stadium, Muray Park, The Car park (and the land on which they sit) for just £1.5m. Does anyone think the stuffed creditors are not aware of this? However, this case could not be pursued until the Big Tax Case was finally resolved.
There is still a long way to go before justice is finally done but the stripping of titles and the removal of at least one star from the crest is a bloody good start.
Keep at it Phil. It was nice to see Alex Thomson give you some well-deserved recognition on Twitter as well.
Oh and one other thing. We need to be fair to the English press who year on year rubbish our game and tell us that Scottish football is irrelevant. They tell us that our football league is worthless. The SPFL and the whole of Scottish media’s response to this whole affair is proving the English fans and media were indeed correct in their assumptions. Ie You can even cheat all you like to win in scotland and it still counts. Scottish football is indeed Third world country association.
Maybe the 5 stars on the jersey could be replaced with an arcing “Cheat to Win”? Its way more honest and the SFA clearly have no problem with it….
They won’t be allowed to sweep it under the carpet, if it takes crowd funding to mount legal challenges it will be done. No justice no peace.
Forgive me if I’m wrong. Would it not be in the SPFL’s interests to strip the titles. Declare them none a void and then put in a clam to the liquidaers for all the prize money Rangers 1872 received from those seasons.
Is that not enough reason to be seen as protecting all SPFL clubs interests?
Until justice is served, the Scottish motto will no longer be “Nemo me impune lacessit” but instead “Vos decipiat me impune lacessit”
We mustn’t let up!
They are all hoping we just bluster a bit, wait a while and forget about it!
The old tried and tested Scottish (football governance and media) tactic of time and inaction…
I can picture them up high at Hampden. Crouched under a table, fingers in ears like a surly 3 year old saying ,
” I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you.”
Maybe we need to shout louder!
The football authorities in Scotland are craven , limited people with contempt for the fans. A complete clear out is required . As for the succulent lamb grazers. Don’t they know we are laughing at them.
All we’re doing is talking..We must have action..Dons fans were told to remove there banner on Wednesday nite at Arbroath by Stewards..It’ll stall and these Cheating Bas–rds will walk Scott free..Hence the reason I’ll never be back..I did tell you months ago Liewell wasnt up for this..Is He proving me correct
No one has mentioned the European teams that Rangers cheated out of money when they were knocked out of European games Rangers played in during those years .rangers stopped them from going forward which means they lost money by not going forward in their group so the sfa and all others should be ashamed for not taking more action against them they are supposed to represent Scottish football yet by taking no further action they are saying to not only Scottish football but to other teams in Europe it’s ok to cheat if your rangers
Cry “Justice” and walk out on 47th minute – every match until justice is served.
47th minute for £47,000,000of tax cheating.
What happened to UEFA Financial Fair Play Juventus breached the financial rules and they were stripped of titles. If it can happen in Italy why not here? ??
I did my small part in writing a short note to the office of Fiorentina who were denied a European final on penalties by a team of tax cheats. Make no mistake it will take some complaints by European clubs to their FA’s and UEFA to get these honors stripped and if they still claim to be the same club severe sanctions going forward.
Well put, Phil. Ordinary, decent people will not allow things to remain as they are. We will not go away. The hacks are a complete joke. I never buy the Daily Ranger although did so on Wed. Struggled to get a copy as my local shop had sold out. Normally have a pile of them left. Similarly, next shop I tried only had two copies remaining and all well before noon. Seems others had done likewise. Those who publish said rag must’ve been scratching their heads trying to work out why, when they normally only shift around 140,000 copies…..on Wed….had sold out ! Idiots ! HH
They’re all shite bags its gonna have to goto the CAS to decide
“Cheatsplaining to their dwindling readerships” is a superb way of putting it!
I love all this nonsense about “no appetite for title-stripping” and decided to take a view from my good friend Mr Greedy (if I may…):
https://theclumpany.wordpress.com/2017/07/05/mr-greedys-title-stripping-appetite/
I also had a sneak peak at the SFA’s potential list of reasons for taking no action against Rangers (IL):
https://theclumpany.wordpress.com/2017/07/05/why-the-sfa-cant-take-action-against-rangers-il/
Keep up the good work!
Totally agree, the rubbish being printed about the tax case ruling has been orchestrated.
phrasing across them all has been very much the brand message of there is no appetite and EBTs are legal (aye if applied correctly) none seem to do facts very well.
Rangers cheated not just Scottish Football but normal tax payers as well.
it is everything that is wrong with society today.
it used to be cheats never prosper now its cheat all you like the media will cover your arse.
No team during the EBT years want the title in their hands. They are tainted titles now but they do want to show they were cheated out of it by a Club obsessed with culture and hubris that they are the people.
they are the people, the people who stood by and let their club die,
who spout bile and racism and believe they have done no wrong.
That not paying tax to the queen and armed forces and the butchers apron they so love is ok.
in short they are the shame and laughing stock of Scottish football.
The records need to show that Cheats do not prosper,
That is clear in this world and this sport what matters is hard work, dedication and skill.
The rules are simple…
Live within our means.
Pay your taxes
Don’t try to be something you are not.
Never take Tax advice from a Pornstar
They will not get away with it!… fans are mobilising!… the movement is gathering pace, lets fight this together komrades!…..
Quoting someone else who said Not guilty Whyte banned for life by the SFA, guilty SDM not even a slap on the wrist nor a word of criticism from the Scottish football authorities.
Absolutely shameful. The press and the Governing Bodies doing nothing, what a surprise that is. Why are none of the other clubs making statements, are they afraid of a backlash, have they an affinity with the Ibrokes clubs, do they agree with cheating. Or all of these. Sick of it all. Scottish football is an Absolute Joke in Planet football. All caused by Ranjurs, ably assisted by the usual suspects.
If justice isn’t handed out then the game is even more bust than what we thought. If SPFL and DAD don’t do the decent thing then fans if all other clubs must force the issue otherwise there is no point in continuing the current charade.