Tonight at Celtic Park the home crowd will once more hear the music of the Champions League.
I recall that Charles of Normandy once stated to The People that he didn’t want to leave his beloved basket of assets until the UEFA theme tune was being played at Ibrox.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qqd6T_A9LY
It was risibly transparent that Yorkshire man was playing to the dignified gallery.
However, it worked a treat.
They actually believed him.
Yes, The People thought that a golden age of European football was in front of them.
Sadly, there has been little Progrès on that front at Sevco.
Tonight the champions of Scotland will face the most expensively assembled attacking trio in world football.
Neymar et al are a formidable strike force.
For the avoidance of doubt, Paris Saint-Germain has the financial muscle of an oil rich state behind them.
Of course, it would be risible to suggest that such wealth does not confer a sporting advantage for PSG on the field of play.
Now, dear reader just imagine if such a monetary boon was extant for ten years.
During the EBT decade Rangers had a substantial financial advantage by not paying their players in the normal way.
However, in order to do this, they had to not only scam the taxman, but they also had to conceal the true nature of these contractual arrangements from the football authorities.
Planet Fitba is now being asked to ignore that a deceased club which was once in the top flight in Scotland fielded scores of ineligible players in hundreds of games over a ten year period.
The main advocate this course of inaction is the governing body of Scottish football the SFA!
This is despite the fact that these…ahem…” imperfectly registered” players were being paid in a way that the UK Supreme Court has ruled was seriously dodgy.
This scam allowed Rangers under Sir David Murray to have a substantial financial edge over their opponents.
All of this, we are asked to believe, is no biggie.
Journalists working the Scottish football beat are told that there is a need for “healing” and that we should all “move on”.
So far, only Celtic FC have stated publicly that this just isn’t on.
Sadly, Aberdeen and Hibernian have rowed in behind Mr Regan at the SFA.
Moreover, I find the silence emanating from Tynecastle to be especially disappointing.
I expected more of Ms Budge.
Of course, after the experience of the “Hampden Three” fear of the klan cannot be excised from any explanation as to this apparent cowardice.
To oppose the official narrative on the EBT decade is to become an enemy of self-serving nonsense.
I don’t know who is in the Frame for this, but the PR advice being given to the SFA isn’t very good at all.
The board of the SFPL has advocated an independent review, but the SFA and Regan are stonewalling on it.
The choice is now quite clear and it is this:
If there is no independent review into the issues around the death of Rangers (1872-2012) then Scottish football is nothing more than a WWF franchise.
That is what the Celtic FC stance is opposed to.
All of those who want Scottish football to survive should hope that the Parkhead club prevails.
When the Hoops won the European Cup in 1967 the opposition manager Helenio Herrera said that Jock Stein’s men from the West of Scotland had won “a victory for sport”.
If Celtic prevail over the SFA on this vital issue then they will win for everyone who wants the national game to be straight in Fair Caledonia.
In England, a large number of clubs including Arsenal and Chelsea who were winning trophies were embroiled in EBT’s but I am not aware of any FA investigation or for that matter any claims of a conspiracy from any other clubs in England.
In Scotland I’m only aware of Rangers using them extensively but other than Celtic using EBT’s to make a payment to Juninho, I’m not aware of any other Scottish clubs using EBT’s. Given Rangers were subsequently liquidated, the SFA must have more important things to spend their time and money on, even the conspiracy theorist must be getting bored with this and ready to get on with something more interesting in their lives or even just move onto their next conspiracy.
At the heart of this disputed interpretation of the facts – Rangers cheated – is the reluctance to say that the team currently playing at Ibrox is a new entity. Once that deception is put to bed, the argument for stripping the titles from the defunct organisation is a no-brainer. Who, apart from the liquidators, would take exception.
Last night at Parkhead we all saw what massive spending can create on field. PSG spent the equivalent of about half the Scottish NHS annual budget on a front-line who performed to expectations. Their movement was thrilling and they appeared unstoppable. Does anyone really believe that PSG gained no sporting advantage by splashing the cash?
So oldco Rangers fiddled their taxes and player registrations to gain sporting advantage. Mind you, that still did not mean they were invincible in any arena.
The oldco car crash is very possibly about to be repeated. Not just quite as catastrophic but nonetheless this newco ‘holding co.’ with its running of the club called rangers is in trouble.
Soft loans (>£10 m ) which can’t be exchanged for equity, cold shouldered by financial authority, no credit lines, structural repairs needing funded, an absent chairman who has not overinvested as he promised.
He has also been ordered by financial authorities to purchase all shares at 20p each, and has not done so. I could go on but you know this is all happening.
If this newco has to go into administration under Regan and Doncasters watch they will not survive. In 2012 there were all sorts of mutterings of ‘ end of Scottish football’ if Rangers 1872-2012 was liquidated, guess what , didn’t happen.
The game survived.
If an administration was to happen at this entity we will still survive.
Is the silence from Hearts in any way related to them being allowed to play at Murrayfield?
The corrupt and colluding SFA will defend a ban on any investigation with its dying breath.
I feel the real route to justice is via UEFA where Peter Lawwell now has his feet under the table and also European clubs.
PL has played the long game in waiting for the court trial results and getting himself out of the SFA into UEFA.
How do we get European reaction?
Write to UEFA?
Write to every club that Rangers played in Europe and hope that they provoke their national associations into action?
The question is, will any of the above have the appetite for a challenge against a dead club without any hope of reparation apart from truth and justice and who will contact them in writing?
They will if they keep saying they are the same club.
You’ve made me wonder if the aptly named SFA’s reticence isn’t so much to do with domestic implications as it is European possibilities? If the SFA could be shown to have been complicit – or even negligent – regarding the dead clubs transgressions could hey be held financially accountable for any claims made by continental clubs affected by the grand scale cheating?
Another great piece, Phil, on how the SFA initially turned a blind eye to the EBT scam being run by Rangers during the David Murray era and how now, to put the tin lid on things, they are attempting to push through the line that this was just some kind of bureaucratic oversight and not worth bothering about because ‘it’s only Celtic who are complaining.’
Well I’m not a Celtic supporter and this issue goes way beyond the usual Old Firm rivalry. I’m betting that, even if other clubs are unwilling to put their heads above the parapet, most ordinary football supporters and anyone else in Scotland who still believes in fair play and sporting integrity would rush to put their names to an online petition, which might force Stewart Regan and the pathetic SFA to do the right thing for once and sanction the necessary inquiry.
In my opinion, this doesn’t need to take years and cost a lot of money. Thanks to your valiant efforts and various court judgements, all of the relevant facts are now out in the public domain and, if the will is there, a definitive verdict could speedily be made and this issue nailed once and for all.
There’s only one problem. I don’t know anything about setting up and organising an online petition. But I’m certain that among your many readers, Phil, there is someone with the necessary IT smarts who is willing to step up to the plate and get the ball rolling.
So, let’s do this and show Regan and his SFA cronies how many people care deeply about this scandal. And while we’re at it, let’s try and get the twat sacked as well.
I am commenting one article late because I believe my disagreement on one of your statements in that article is the most important issue that we are up against.
You stated in the article that now everybody knows what is going on. That is far from the truth and is the fact that I have struggled to overcome now for over a year. Individual posters and flyers were always going to be pissing in the ocean but the fact that so few took up the baton is one of the greatest disappointments in my life. I had already approached on numerous occasions the UK press, speaking personally to the sports editors and even talking them through the likes of the offshoregame articles while they viewed them on their PC screens as I spoke. I had huge success – NOT. One paper’s head office instructed their Scotland sports journalist to cover it. We got an apology of a subcomment that relied heavily on sarcasm and belittling the online articles. I wrote, snailmail. to the press in Spain and Turkey hoping that the actions from UEFA against clubs in those countries would stir something in their conscience, hopefully revenge. I spoke directly to members of UEFA in particular in the Integrity department only to receive recognisably bureauctratic responses. I have had only the one success when the Sports Integrity Iniative wrote one article and published one of mine. It ended when that site’s sponsor put out the instruction the the subject should be dropped.
So apart from me patting my own back re what I have tried what does that all say?
We have no way of spreading the word. Your own site Phil and the likes of SFM and RTC are populated by the same small group of informed people but they, and I, are preaching to the converted. A fag packet calculation makes me believe that we have perhaps reached 2 – 5% more people and in the same time about the same number have given it up as a lost cause, deflated and defeated.
I do not come on here with an answer but more with hope that someone reading this can find one because I am at a loss. As far as I can see, of the few good sites that are out there, you alone have one tool that could be used to crowbar us into the mainstream. Your NUJ membership and the contacts that stem from that.
You must realise from the numbers that vote in the blog awards alone that the numbers that you reach are drastically insufficient and to move this forward we need a breakthrough that will exponentially increase the numbers who have the facts. Increase it to the point where the owners of the MSM see that their employees MUST cover the subject properly.
I would sacrifice a huge amount of the quality reporting on this subject by yourself and others for a handful of the stenographers to be forced to print the truth and on a regular basis.
I see many posting with comments that amount to “the truth will out” but I feel that it is in hope more than certainty.
Where do we go and what do we do. I am at a loss.
Reiver
I think one of the reasons Regan doesn’t want a review is: UEFA… as we all know old Rangers cheated thier taxes from 1998 – 2011, that means they should not have been in any European competitions, especially the side contracts years. Can you imagine the clusterf..k with that one. And if they are the same club as they loved to state they are; I think it’s fair to say some other clubs that they played would might want some form of compensation… also, 2008 Fiorintina missed out on penalties in the semi final to Rangers they might be a bit miffed…. just me havering.
“A Free And Independent Press In Scotland?……..”
How can the Scottish Media (MSSM, Websites, Radio, TV etc.) promote the view of Stewart Regan, SFA Chairman that it’s only Celtic who want a review of the SFA handling of the Rangers Football Club in Liquidation PLC 2012 when the Board of the SPFL representing 42 Senior Clubs asked the SFA for this review?
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/rangers-ebt-row-sfa-snub-11130822
How can the Scottish Media (MSSM, Websites, Radio, TV etc.) promote the SFA without challenge? How can they print “Newco” v Benfica friendlies when there’s only one game in town tonight? Corrupt and complicit, that’s why they don’t want a review.
The continuation of this “Oldco” in liquidation exasperates me. Can the Sottish Media tell us the “Oldco” who were docked 10 points for entering Administration?
There is/was no “Oldco.” The so called “old Company” that has never been named also never went into Administration. They were never docked 10 points. Rangers Football Club were docked 10 points for entering Administration in 2012.
Administration 14th Feb 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-17026172
The same “Football Club”, the one that entered Administration and were docked 10 points were then Liquidated by Lord Hodge.
Liquidation 31st October 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-20141946
This Liquidated Football Club had illegally/unregistered players for nearly 11 years with no penalties. Yet look what happened to Albion Rovers.
“Albion Rovers have been thrown out of the Scottish Challenge Cup and fined £2,000 for fielding an unregistered player in their win over Spartans.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41038340
However we are told to “Move On”, or “Don’t rake over old coals” by our governing Body and a complicit Scottish Media. Not a chance! You will all “hang together” or “hang individually” as the saying goes.
ttp://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18413384
http://itsanewclub.blogspot.co.uk/
http://mattleslie74.weebly.com/blog/produce-the-certificate
Communications Regulator
http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio/
The directors of the other clubs have made a fool out of Peter Lawwell.He has thought for ages everyone was behind him but of 108 clubs asked only Celtic want to take it further.
He’s now out on his own while everyone else carries on regardless.
Its time he accepts he has been beaten before he makes an even bigger fool of himself.
Unfortunately. For every person on here who says boycot their is 100 looking to take their ticket.
Sad reflection of reality.
I fear that there are so many complicit with and implicated in the corruption of Scottish football for so long that getting rid of the obvious big names will not be enough to restore it to a sport of integrity – genunely focussed on the growth and prospetity of all 42 professional clubs.
Or to put it another way. If the big names are sacrificed – many are in no doubt that things will not change fundamentally – so don’t go sticking your head over the sporting intergrity parapet just yet.
How else can the positions of Milne, Budge and Petrie be explained – they are pigs – content in their own shit.
I wish PL good luck – but I don’t see any resemblance to Eliott Ness.
The ‘Green Pound’ (plaudits to the originator of this phrase) its power in our pocket, bhoys and ghirls, use it, money talks-Murray cheats, time for a bhoycot.
I agree with some of the comments above that the Celtic fans, in appreciation of the Club’s stance, should stand up and be counted and to organize themselves to execute a total bhoycott of all away grounds of the Clubs who are too spineless to stand up to our corrupt football authorities Hit them where it hurts the most, in their greedy pockets.
Ask yourselves this simple question:
Would Celtic Fc have taken the SFA on and gone public with the correspondence if they had their Legal Team look over evey inch of this debacle and been told it was a waste of time?
I don’t think so.
It is my opinion Lawwell and Co have played the long game here and waited for the courts to publish their decisions first before making their move.
There are more than titles at stake here ,there is the small matter of the millions of pounds Celtic have been denied a chance to earn in Europe.
And, most importantly, there is sporting integrity. After all, we watch football for the sport of it not the money spent.
We’ll be out on our own in our battle with the cheats and liars. The SFA need no reminding that the Celtic supporters ended the dodgy regime that existed within our own club, it took time but they were outed. I was wondering how those fans who are in the Tartan Army feel about this situation. One other thing that maybe someone could answer is, why have the Scottish government kept quiet all these years as the tax paying electorate were systematically ripped off and are still being cheated?
Because it was dealt with by hmrc in the courts.
Hi Reg. What I meant is why have the SG not intervened on a scandal that has created numerous problems for many people? after all they were quick to push the OBFA through.
I think you’ve already decided what others should do and there’s little to zero point in me trying to explain
“All those years”, as you put it, the Scottish Government had precisely no responsibility for the collection of tax whatsoever. Their taxation responsibilities are still minimal. The dog that didn’t bark here is the UK Government. You know, the one that flies the damned Butcher’s Apron that Sevco are so keen on.
Cheers.
For the same reason that a judicial review will fail. The Scottish Establishment is a rotten, masonic cabal. They will do nothing about the ‘Establishment’ ‘club’.
I would be very keen to hear the views on this shambles from hibs and Aberdeen supporters clubs the actions of directors and chairmen dont speak for the views of the real fans ,fans who were done out of the chance of finals and euro spots not to mention the finances the clubs lost due to the blatant cheating …Turnbull Hutton wouldn’t be turning down the chance of an enquiry
No doubt Celtic must prevail! This situation reminds me of what the late James E Handley (Bro. Clare) called “The Great Flag Flutter” in his excellent history “The Celtic Story” (Stanley Paul and Company, 5 Sep 1960). There was a move by the Scottish Football authorities after disturbances at the 1952 New Year match at Celtic Park to, among other things, ban Celtic from flying the Irish flag on (first team) match days. There was much huffing and puffing and many threats of serious punishment but Celtic and (the eventual Sir) Robert Kelly and his fellow directors stood firm. Eventually a compromise was reached but it was actually a climb down by the SFA. No ban ever took place and the flag still flies now.
Celtic must stand firm again and all decent football fans must stand with them. The integrity of Scottish football is at stake. It must be defended and re-established.
Hibernian were one of the most vocal “clubs” against the flying of the tricolour. The shame faced turncoats that they are.
Jim Farry tried the same stunt when Celtic took up residence at Hampden whilst Celtic Park was renovated. However, our company secretary reminded him that was Queens Parks call, not his and that we would resist.
Resist and prevail we did,
Think about that though……..
The CEO of the SFA had nothing better to do but espouse anti Irish rhetoric about a national flag.
The tradegy was he was the trophy head on the plate over the Cadette affair, meanwhile his minions who carried out his instructions stayed in place to imperfectly register their Blue heroes at a later stage.
The problem in Scotland is that most of the board members of the other clubs all harbour secret desires to sit atop the marble staircase. They also don’t want bullets and bombs in the post from their brethren.
Dont be fooled the Hibernians are that in name only. Their not called the Stickys for nothing. Riminds me when I was on Holiday in Cyprus and got talking to a Hibs fan whilst watching a World Cup Game . We weren’t talking anything but football when out of the Blue so to speak he said ” I may be a Hibs fan but am no a Pape ” . Priceless.
By the 1950’s you didn’t get in the front door at Hibernian unless you were a member of the craft.
Have to take exception to this line Phil:
Asked to ignore that one club in the top flight of Scotland.
Rangers are dead so they are no longer in the top flight of anything.
However, I do agree that the dead club should be stripped of titles won by fielding ineligible players, and thus Sevco should be banned from using them. Sevco bought titles, and this alone should be addressed by the SFA. No entity should be able to buy titles or honours won by someone or something else.
I should maybe buy a golden globe from Shaun Connery and pretend I am a great actor.
The whole concept doesn’t make sense.
Keep up the good work.
the only way forward is to force the SFA hand by boycotting everything except home games at parkhead, whilst keeping open a channel to real journalists who will print the reality/truth(only in england or europe i fear), and bring this thing to a fair solution. It is the fact that WE know they cheated, THEY know they cheated and every other club and fan with 2 brain cells know they cheated, yet they they think we will swallow being made 3rd class citizens again. perhaps once but certainly no more. We will force them to move from the 1690,s to the 21 st century.
The question that Regan cannot/will not answer is why a club has been allowed to field improperly registered players in both the Scottish Cup and the league without the standard sanction of reversal of result and expulsion from the cup competition.
Should he be able to explain this in an honest and transparent way there would be no need for an independent inquiry . Of course any such explanation would have to include the reason why over the last decade several clubs who made a registration error were given the standard sanction. Albion Rovers being the most recent.
I think it’s now time that Celtic fans organised themselves. Until the last week or so, many would have been unaware about just his corrupt our game is. Celtic fans should now organise targeted and selected boycotts of certain away grounds, until this mess is cleaned up. Let them know what it’s like to lose the Green Pound. Otherwise, we add insult to our own injury.
Great piece. Well said. The game is up if clubs and fans allow this issue to be dropped.
if the statement from the board at easter road wasn’t so sad, i’d piss myself laughing.
petrie, milne and regan should all gtf out of sottish football.