Today Celtic are finally back in action.
It has been a challenging interregnum.
However, it has been a relatively happy time for the Stenography Corps as there have been no pesky football matches to upset their predetermined narrative.
Today was no different.
Despite crumbling on the pitch after their midwinter break down suddenly all was hopeful again at Sevco.
As I have often remarked the happiest time of the year for the Ibrox klanbase is when there are no matches to be played.
The last time there was a successful team playing at Ibrox silverware was won through cheating.
They scammed HMRC and payment details were withheld from the football authorities.
In order to conceal these dodgy deals players were improperly registered for a decade.
It was industrial-scale cheating.
The first iteration of this was the Discounted Options Scheme.
This was used to play several players including Ronald De Boer.
The monies due to HMRC came to be known as the Wee Tax Case.
It was these overdue payables to a taxing authority that should have prevented Rangers (1872-2012) from playing in UEFA competitions in season 2011-2012.
After the DOS experiment, the Ibrox club moved to the Employee Benefit Trust scam.
Of course, that created the Big Tax Case.
For the avoidance of doubt, Mr Neil McCann was an EBT recipient while he was a Rangers player.
Mr De Boer had his second contract paid in that fashion as well.
Yesterday it was all very chummy on the BBC with both of these players.
IF you want to listen to a highly redacted walk down memory lane, you can listen in to it here.
Of course, no one mentioned that the club they had both played for had been liquidated eight years ago.
The role of journalism is to hold power to account.
Kenny Macintyre was all giddy as he gushed about the glory years at Ibrox.
Throughout that period Celtic was under a financial impediment as they paid all taxes dues to HMRC.
The scams being operated at Ibrox gave them the ability to pay vastly higher wages.
Both De Boer and McCann were paid by means that were considered by HMRC to be improper.
Hector took the case all the way to the UK Supreme Court and won.
What the original Rangers did was cheating.
However, such talk is verboten at Pacific Quay.
Today the Ibrox klanbase can sometimes be heard whimpering about the fact that Celtic have a substantially bigger football budget than Sevco.
The poor dears.
This site has now been around for a dozen years.
It was this month in 2008 when I first started this blogging lark.
In that time, I have seen Rangers die, and since 2012 this site has recorded the first rough draft of Sevco.
A constant theme has been the complicit stance of the mainstream to anything that emanates from the Blue Room.
It has been an unplanned journey for your humble correspondent.
I think that it is important that a named member of the NUJ should bear witness and hold power to account on matters Ibrox.
The unquestioning chumminess on the BBC yesterday reminded me that my work is not yet over on Planet Fitba.
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I really don’t see the point in “exposing ” and ” criticising ” BBC Scotland for their attitude towards EBT’s and their recipients…when the Directors of our Club steadfastly refuse to address the same problem.
It is painfully obvious that the Club was complicit in ” agreements ” with other parties to keep things under wraps…and if that’s the way they intend to go…then as far as I’m concerned…we don’t have a leg to stand on.
The BBC and anyone else can write and say what they want on this subject, because our Club has no credibility here.
Let’s be fair, it’s easy to forget things like a liquidation event in 2012. However, what is difficult to understand is that the same people remember an event that took place in 1690 and celebrate it every other week at Ibrox!
With complete disregard for the rules and without a care about sporting integrity (in the spirit of Scottish football were honesty is a word not yet discovered) I have, without consultation with anyone, not even Phil, decided to strip Jermaine Defoe of his player of the month Pre season Cup award.
Instead.
The award now goes to Ryan Cant for his big girly slap of the French lad. I blame the schools (or at least the netball sessions)
Lots of speculation that BBC Tartan (just) might be controlled by masons. Hmmmn it is, after all, perfectly clear that a football license transferred from the (dead) football club Rangers- in- Liquidation to the newly formed football club The Rangers (Sevco 2012) AND for a transfer to take place you need 2 (TWO) clubs. Like, one to the other. It’s arithmetic. Not journalism. This is BEYOND DISPUTE. The same club guff is a risible nonsense -the law of the land is very clear on this. As were the courts. “But Timmy the advertising standards people said……..” Oh the banter years. Company law interpreted by advertising people who are paid to make you believe in things you do not want to buy or indeed believe in. But Timmy……
The SFA is a joke on the myth of the same club, as is the SPFL. But we need a Rangers. They say. I never have and never will -not either of the 2 clubs (to date). But still they lie. Money. Its about. The Money. But Timmy the SFA…..
The BBC is the worst offender in the use of the deeply offensive “Old F*rm” a term which of course died in 2012. Their journalists use that so often, that it’s use must stir schoolboy memories of being handed their first scud magazine. Or something like that. Plus, they know that we find it offensive. Old F*rm. New Lies. Timmy.
It’s time for Nicola to require all those holding senior office in Scotland eg in the BBC, SFA, SPFL, Boards of scottish football clubs etc to declare any masonic membership or connection #cleanupscotland In these COVID times how does one socially distance oneself from a goat ? Tethered or not. Can a bared old man nipple spread the virus ? yuk. Keep ya shirt on Timmy.
Though of course it might be easier to have those who are in senior positions and are not masons, to identify themselves. Be easier in terms of numbers, one would imagine.
And one final thing – the BBC weather forecasts are utter mince. Believe the opposite. Take an umbrella if a sunny day is forecast.
So. Scrap the license fee. Sack the EBT tax cheats. Make the BBC earn its living. Employ people who know about the weather for goodness sake.
PS well done to Jermaine Defoe for player of the month, Pre-season cup. Outstanding hollow quotes. Again. And. He’s another year older.
I got my first ” inkling ” of BBC Scotland bias and Anti-Celtic behaviour …when …in 1957…Peter Thomson ( Head of BBC Sport in Scotland ) ordered the destruction of any tapes relating to our 7-1 victory over the Huns.
Fortunately, he wasn’t entirely successful… but the fact he tried…tells you all you need to know about this WASP organisation.
Not much has changed…but that’s Scotland for you.
Phil , do you read the Craig Murray blog ?
If it wasn’t for bloggers like you Phil, the real truth would continue to be buried in the same sands as the gullibillies nappers. Keep at them. HH
They should be referred to as THE rangers but never are by any of the media not just the bbc
What a load of crap you delusional idiots are talking 54 titles WATP
Your club has only been around since 2012. Have you taken to stealing, as well as cheating?
Rangers (IL) 1872-2012. The Rangers formed 2012. You’re welcome
I get the pitch your throwing out there…however, they should NOT be known as THE RANGERS….
Give them there full title…
THE RANGERS INTERNATIONAL FC….formerly SEVCO…..but most definetly NOT RFC…WHO DIED 2012….
HH
Just read Katic’s nonsense, nonsense that the Scottish media regurgitate without questioning anything.
2 OF games last season, one win each but Celtic having the better head to head stat.
What planet is Katic on?
When’s Tavernier going to turn up with his annual let’s do the treble this season shout?
If Rangers played Hearts every week then relegation would be on the cards given their late season performances against the Jambos.
We have had all the nonsense about Celtic being handed the league title, can’t wait for the Scottish Cup to be played to a finish, hopefully bringing a quadruple treble home to the East End.
That will really wind up the blue side, bring it on.
Just remember the time yous Tim’s were just about bust, no money no nothing and the Pope stepped in and helped yous lot from dying so dont give us all your shit you’s have had it easy up untill now, watch out ladys the time is coming.
Celtic were on life support but were kept alive and look 100 times stronger now. Rangers biggest enemy is themselves, they would risk bankruptcy to prevent Celtic winning another title.
Oh dear the grammar, spelling and punctuation are shocking. Must be the schools.
There were 3 Celtic v Sevco matches last season, not 2. The League Cup Final was the third. The score was 2-1 in Celtic’s favour.
I think it is only fair to say that the actual players who received EBT contract offers cannot be blamed for accepting them. They are not lawyers or accountants; they will have received advice that the contracts were legal & proceeded on that basis. David Murray et al are the crooks not the individual players.
I am not a lawyer or accountant but when I was offered an EBT as a bonus by my employer some years ago. I took expert advice and was advised to contact HMRC for tax guidance which I did. As a consequence I paid the full tax amount due. It is not without the realms of a footballers intelligence to do the same.
Yeah, me too. When the company I work for was sold, they wound-up the long-standing EBT scheme, and paid bonuses to the staff. I paid my normal tax on the EBT bonus, but also had to pay the employer’s contribution – an effective tax rate of 55%. I didn’t mind that, as it was free money anyway, but if someone had offered me a way round the tax deduction, it would have failed the smell test. These players, and their agents, knew exactly what they were doing.
The players must have emigrated to Mars around a decade ago to still be unaware of what they were taking part in. To the best of my knowledge not one has offered to put it right.
I listened yesterday and found it so sickeningly reminiscent in a pro ‘Rainjurzz’ mode that I couldn’t listen to it all… discussions about nighttime trampolining japes with other wealthy EBT recipients was too much.
It’s easy to pretend nowadays (once you’ve made your choices) that you rejected Manchester Utd – the reigning EPL champions and previous seasons European Cup winners – to go to the ‘famous’ Gers because it was the right choice…..
….but we all know that was because one club was paying over-the-odds wages using an illegal tax avoidance scheme in their desperation to emulate Celtics european achievement.
The only good memories they have are of a dead club and it’s revisionist history … while desperately pretending it’s the same club that plays in Govan in 2020. All media reporting conforms to the same lies under the principle of ‘persistent false reality fatigue’ whereby it is hoped that by adhering to the false narrative and lies long enough… then it will become accepted as historical fact. Mr Traynors blue media filter seems to have been swapped for a DUP Orange one to support the current feelgood gushings.
Getting to ‘10’ will finish them. Every record they love to hold dear being surpassed and taken to new levels. Another couple of successful seasons and we can even pass their mythical ‘55’ titles and ‘114 (gifted) trophies ….
….and all just in time to put the sprinklers on their fictitious 150 years anniversary celebrations.
HWGTIAR
Phil, I just want to say thank you. Your tenacity gives us all strength. Continue to light up the darkness where ever you may find it.
It would be interesting to understand who the Decision makers /management heirarchy are that allow clowns like McIntyre to pollute our national airwaves with this garbage
I have never been able to read of anyone establishIng who is calling the shots with the programming and participants
There is clearly someone in that building who is determined to sustain the Myths and who cannot be crossed or it’s goodbye…. a la Stewart and Spence
The BBC in general are with odd exceptions in the UK very balanced . There has been and still is clearly a malignant influence residing over there in BBC Scotland sports that is the antipathy of everything that is good about the BBC
Well done .. keep at them!
Balanced? Not when it comes to Scottish independence, or Johnson’s tories.
De Boer rejected Manchester United to join Rangers,
because, as a kid, he had a poster of Derek Johnston on his bedroom wall.
Absolutely nothing to do with tax free money!
Not at all. 🙂
😂😂
It must have been a big feckin’ wall…
Phil, the liquidation of rangers is taking an inordinate amount of time. How long do these processes go on, on average? I get the impression that people think this will just magically disappear. Keep playing the long game. HH
Thank you Phil for your work.
Cheers Phil F@@@@@@ LIVID when I had read that headline re Katic. In a way I cant wait for Gerrard to go as Scottish media plus national radio stations such as talk sport & others all over him and that lot no credit whatsoever as to what Celtic have achieved????? As you say football starts now onwards to 10 HH