When Malmo triumphed over the original Rangers in August 2011, it proved to be an existential event.
Indeed, I wrote that at the time.
This site has been a source of inconvenient facts for the Ibrox Herrenvolk since it first started in 2008.
Their default position was to attack the messenger if the message was not to their liking.
Sadly, this produced the desired effect on the Fitba Fourth Estate, who rapidly signed up to be part of the Stenography Corps.
In doing so, they stopped being journalists.
By being faithful to the facts, my reportage was usually vindicated in the round as it was a decade ago.
After Malmo, Craig Whyte’s forensically detailed spreadsheets no longer made sense.
Quite simply, the club need Champions League money to continue to operate.
The suave billionaire should have pressed the insolvency button then instead of waiting for the Big Tax Case bill to drop.
It was all about who was culpable for the original Rangers collapsing.
If it was down to the HMRC case, then Whyte could claim that he was blameless for the shitshow.
Instead, he blinked and, well, you know the rest.
Super Salary needed to get past the Swedes that night in Malmo in 2011.
In his one and only Champions League attempt as a manager, he failed.
His failure ensured that he would also be Sevco’s first-ever manager.
Super Salary’s contract made him too expensive to let go.
Which is something that probably bridled with Charlie and the boys.
Last night the stakes in Eindhoven were not nearly so stark for Sevco.
Even if they had been eliminated, they were still guaranteed Europe Group Stage football this season.
The summer after Malmo’s success, the Celtic fans partied, and the chaps in the Parkhead boardroom were bereft.
There was the palpable grief of losing a business partner.
In 2011 senior people at both Glasgow clubs were in detailed discussion about how they could sell the Old Firm as a product to the English Premier League (EPL).
What Malmo and then Maribor achieved at the start of season 2011-2012 was something that should not have been necessary.
Because of their relatively relaxed attitude to paying tax, the original Rangers should not have been allowed into UEFA competitions that year.
All of the relevant information is here.
If you are aware of those facts, then the reluctance of the Celtic board to do anything about the issues around Resolution 12 is entirely understandable from their corporate point of view.
They just couldn’t come clean to the fans about it.
Simply put, they needed Rangers, indeed any Rangers, to be in existence.
Today the Grey Brigade in Kerrydale Street will be quietly smiling that they no longer have to worry about the survival of their Old Firm partner in the medium term.
That will not change what really happened ten years ago when the CVA was rejected.
In the decade that has passed, the Fitba Fourth Estate has assumed “a brace for impact” position every time they’ve been asked about the liquidation of Rangers in 2012.
When it finally happened in June 2012, the hacks scrambled for hilariously Orwellian terms like “holding company vehicle” and “engine room subsidiary”.
They told their readers that Rangers had been “demoted” and “voted down the divisions”.
This was all part of Operation Soothe.
The Ibrox klanbase was a case study into how to subvert the Kübler-Ross process of grieving.
If Sevco can have three consecutive seasons of Champions League participation and a cultural change that sees them live within their means, then the club’s survival is assured.
That, just like my predictions in 2011, is fact-based.
Now, the financial gap between the ten-year-old club and Celtic is still there.
The Parkhead operation has a larger stadium and consequently can accommodate more season ticket holders.
Celtic also outperforms their city neighbours regarding commercial revenues and by quite some distance.
Adidas versus Castore is something of a mismatch.
However, after last night the financial gap is much narrower than it was before.
This season foreign journalists visiting both stadiums can hear Bella Ciao and The Billy Boys.
They might want to examine why that is, and it is a question worth asking.
As ever, the local media will obey the succulent rules on that one.
All of this way too contrived for a novel.
That is the challenge to the fiction writer to make sense of it all.
For the avoidance of doubt, the role of the journalist is to hold power to account, not invent feel-good fiction to reassure a fascist subculture.
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Edward W McCandless
Brian Quinn, claimed Celtic’s bank account was empty in 2003/4
The Achievements of Peter Lawwell.
Is down in History.
£30 Million in the Bank
Million’s recouped on Player Transfers
Million’s spent on recruitment on players.
Million’s Spent on previous debts prier to his appointment..
Million’s Spent on upgrading Paradise
17. League Titles
12 Trophies In A Row.
Treble 1
Double Treble
Treble Treble
Quadruple Treble
Countless Cup wins.
I’m absolutely delighted 22 years of non stop Glory…
The One Since 1888.
Many Saturday nights I remember
Wanting To jump in The canal after watching poor Celtic side of 1940’s / 50’s
Hail Hail Bhoys World Wide..
In my book he helped to keep SEVCO alive…
Res 12 will be forever a stain on his memory ….along with the 5 Way Agreement he claims he has never seen.
I hope he never comes back to us in any shape or form.
A great result for Sevco and Scottish football, where have the 5 stars ⭐️ gone?
They should be worried.
The economy is falling off an inflationary cliff.
The season ticket books won’t be renewed next season
Sky subscriptions will be cancelled
Football is not immune to the economic depression that the world faces
We should all be worried
A message for all the Sevco lurkers who come on your site Phil….
IF YE CANNY BE GOOD….BE LUCKY.
After living in The Netherlands for 32 years and reularly visiting my family in Balloch and Helensburg ,I just spent a week at home and my sister has the daily record delivered.I looked at it the 1st day I was there and noticed almost 100% of the pages were adorned with the colours red White and Blue.Take a look and see what I mean.Even the graph of the Celtic v Hearts possesion at the last game was done with a blue graph.
I never picked it up again.same old same old.
The establishment will allways support them and thats fine.I dont have to buy that rag or any other nowadays.
Here is where I get my info from, along with other Celtic fan sites.
It,s just the way it is …….
Looking at the daily record circulation figures it’ll be gone in 12-24 months
Not a mention of the nasty Liquidation word on any of the mainstream news or sky sports news channels as they are back in UCL after a long absence. Kind of expected from the succulent types though.
As expected the media in Scotland have gone into full Sevco mode after they got into the champions league .
What they won’t say is a lot of the money for getting in will be spoken for
I’m sure Honest Dave will be first in the queue .
Plus a few other creditors
Also rumours they owe HMRC money too
And we have the matter of how much Big Mike took of them .
As ever the media will have their orders to make make out things are all rosy at ibrox
The ibrox faithful will lap it up
It is reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984
Whereby the rangers fans blindly accept what they are told
And no alternative aka the Truth is ever mentioned
In their last two qualifiers, Sevco were very much at risk of going out after poor results in both first legs. I didn’t check, but the bookies must surely have had them second favourites to go through on both occasions. Then …. a defender handles the ball in his own box. A goal keeper throws the ball into his own net. Then same goal keeper gifts another outrageous goal. Three incredible acts of folly and hey presto, Sevco end up qualifying for champions league riches out of absolutely nowhere. Luck of the devil springs to mind.
I called out a Sevconian claiming that they were the world’s most successful club. He claimed the 55 titles proved it.
I didn’t argue about history etc just told him that Egypt’s Al Ahly and some team from Northern Ireland had won more league titles. As his whole argument was based on ‘55’ he at least had the good grace to concede that they were ‘still’ the world’s third most successful club.
A small victory, but mine own.
Financial fair play anyone? Anyone everyone…….?
Anyone willing to look into Sevco UEFA?
Anyone………?
FFP has been replaced.
I have written about this.
Peter Lawell, you will not be forgotten or forgiven…certainly with my group of family and friends.
Now is the ideal time to come clean about Continuity FC , it was a desperate act to save Charles Green’s failing business plan . The future of football at Ibrox was failing, any football, and so the lie was born . Now the new Pioneers have written their own chapter of history they could cut away that shameful past of tax cheating and apartheid era employment and admit the truth . They won’t of course because living a lie of “nearly the World’s most successful club ” is more comforting to the supremacist mindset even if it does carry so much shameful history.
The Media are using the same tactics about Sevco again,only now it’s by unionist to call Scotland a region or the North.
Never thought I would see Pioneer associated with Swally, what colour of pin does he have?
Last night was a big win for the “bad guys”. No other way to look at it. It happens sometimes.