In the light of the Rangers FC owned by Sevco Scotland Ltd having played its first match yesterday, I will have some comments re the post match views of the Chairman and the CEO.
As a contrast, I thought I would have a look at one of Mr Whyte’s earliest forays into the public arena.
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Those balmy early summer days of 2011 seem now so long ago. Do you recall when Craig Whyte appeared on the Scottish football scene, a veritable Ozymandias ( that’s for you mick 🙂 ).
He gave an interview to the Herald, described as his first as owner. I present some extracts from it below. Some might suggest that this ranks with the most succulent of succulent lamb pieces, but, to be fair, no one, apart from the Rangers Tax Case Blog, some Celtic message boards, Andy Muirhead at Scotzine, some Rangers message boards and the Board of Directors of Rangers Football Club PLC saw anything to doubt in Mr Whyte.
It almost seems astonishing that someone could appear as Mr Whyte did, and carry out a huge, but legal, confidence trick on almost all of Scotland. I suspect that some of the vehement reaction to him now comes from Rangers FC supporters annoyed at being duped by him.
The media however, with a very few honourable exceptions, seem to have got over any embarrassment, indeed trotting out the line that they knew the cut of his jib all along, but it was the lawyers who stopped them telling the world what they knew.
That could be true, but it did not tally with the adulation being conferred on Mr Whyte by the media. I do not mean to pick on Mr Fisher – there are many such articles I could have found – but the uncritical way in which concerns, and serious ones, by the very people who ere running the club he was buying are dismissed, and that dismissal accepted, with a wave of the hand.
Stewart Fisher’s edited piece is as follows, with some observations of mine inserted in bold.
Take it away Messrs Whyte and Fisher!
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CRAIG Whyte last night used his first interview as owner of Rangers to dismiss a statement from the club’s independent board questioning his ability to take the club forward as “complete and utter nonsense”.
Mr Whyte reacted calmly when the IBC criticism was presented to him…
Suffice to say he was received more warmly by the fans than the body of existing Ibrox directors including chairman Alastair Johnston and chief executive Martin Bain set up to examine any potential new owner — which spoke of “differing views on the future revenue generation and cash requirements of the club” and raised concerns about a “lack of clarity on how future cash requirements would be met, particularly any liability arising from the outstanding HMRC case”.
“Future revenue generation”, “cash requirements of the club” and “lack of clarity”. The Rangers Independent Board Committee got it spot on, didn’t they?
It is true to say there were “differing views” on these issues – Mr Whyte appeared not to care about them!
It is ironic, and astonishing now to look back, but the Big Tax Case is still not resolved and Rangers FC PLC has sunk into administration and imminent liquidation without that playing a part!
“I was surprised and disappointed by the statement,” Whyte said. “I’ve spoken to some of the directors today and they have told me that they were not in favour of that statement going out and we will be removing it from the website as soon as possible. The statement from the board is complete and utter nonsense and actually they know it’s nonsense.”
Mr Whyte was very convincing to many. The press generally seemed taken in by him. The Rangers support viewed him as the new hope, and as such they were disposed to believe. In the same way that audiences at a Doris Stokes’ séance are susceptible to accepting that the medium has contacted their deceased relative, on the basis of a vague “there’s a man in a suit whom I can see….” comment, the “saviour” was assured of a triumphant welcome, and anyone who spoke against him was a Celtic minded troublemaker, well, apart from Messrs Johnston, Bain, McClelland, McIntyre, Murray, King, Greig etc.
This interview gave an early example of Mr Whyte’s cavalier attitude to corporate governance. He stated that he would be removing the IBC statement from the website. He never did, on the basis, I assume, that he was advised that it was a requirement that it stayed there. Indeed it is still there to this day.
Whyte said he will delay all decisions on the future make up of the club’s board until the close season but it already seems likely that it will look very different by August. Donald Muir and Mike McGill have already resigned with immediate effect, Johnston has announced that he will do so on May 16, the day after the SPL season ends, while Paul Murray and Dave King actively participated in a rival bid to take control. Bain and finance director Donald McIntyre may come under threat as highly paid executives, with John McClelland and John Greig the other non-executive directors on the board. Whyte has already appointed his long-term business partner, Phil Betts, as a director on what will be a new, smaller board, while Andrew Ellis is also expected to join.
The more one learns about the ways of the media and PR the easier it is to see the signs. On the face of it, and indeed in the following quote, Mr Whyte says that the construction of the Board is to be addressed later. Did Mr Fisher speculate on the various people he mentioned which, as a well-informed reporter, he would have been well able to do? Or is it more likely that Mr Whyte marked his card for him regarding the various Board members?
We saw soon after that Mr Whyte’s indiscretion with his tongue led to Martin Bain quitting and a hugely embarrassing court action, which can be credited with starting to cause the Ibrox walls to crumble.
“Let’s win the league first and then we’ll think about things like that,” Whyte said. “But certain individuals have different agendas. People enjoy their position in the club and don’t necessarily like change.”
Ha ha ha!
He had a glass of bubbly on Friday night after amicably concluding a deal after some six months which sees him pay off the club’s debt in full, take Murray’s shareholding for the princely sum of £1, and commit to £25m to manager Ally McCoist over the next five years.
Ha ha ha! £25 million committed to Ally McCoist.
Was this the mythical £25 million warchest…
“It is a better start than I could ever have hoped for,” he said. “Me and my dad used to come to games years and years ago, we used to sit in the Copland Road stand, so it’s nice to be back and own the club. It was great to be sitting among the fans and getting involved in the atmosphere. But you can’t sing songs in the directors’ box.”
The mind boggles about what songs he might have wanted to sing in the directors’ box!
Such is the state of the club’s playing staff that the £25m may be frontloaded this summer, and Whyte last night gave Ally McCoist his blessing as manager and indicated that he would be sitting down with him to discuss transfer matters in the next few days. The early signs are that “four or five” new players would be coming in this summer.
“Frontloaded £25 million”! “Four or five new players”.
“I just plan to get under the covers of the business this week,” he said. “Ally is a Rangers man, he’s passionate about the club and I’m delighted that he’s manager next season and I’m sure he’ll do a great job. I’ve only had a very brief meeting with Ally and that was a few months ago now so I would expect to sit down with him in the next week or so to talk about the plans for next season.”
I suspect neither gentleman had the remotest inkling that, just over a year later, Mr McCoist would be sending out a team in the Ramsdens Cup, first round, or that Mr Whyte would be long gone, and sunning himself somewhere in Europe, the Caribbean, South or Central America.
In May 2011, no one would have believed that The Rangers FC would kick off season 2012-2013 in a ground bounded by a hedge…
Whyte went a little way towards outlining his plans. “We can achieve a lot, we can expand the commercial activities and do a lot with the brand. It all comes back to doing well on the field. Plus I’m a passionate Rangers supporter and that’s a big part of it as well.”
“Expanding commercial activities”. “The brand.” I am sure I have read exactly the same speech from Charles Green. Ah, the Circle of Life…
Whyte last night paid tribute to his predecessor. “What David achieved shouldn’t be underestimated,” he said. “He was involved at a unique period in the early 1990s when it was possible to buy the best players in England and get them up to Scotland. Unfortunately, that’s more difficult to do nowadays.
Funny. When he was last quoted talking about Sir David, it was less complimentary. Although read with hindsight, it does seem a damning with faint praise.
“Aye” says Mr Whyte, “Sir David had it in the early 90’s but that is long ago.”
“As for Walter, he’s a legendary manager and as Ally has said he’s going to be a hard act to follow.”
You cannot disagree with Mr McCoist there, can you!
Posted from the TARDIS by Paul McConville
Random Thoughts Re Scots Law by Paul McConville 
Memories, memories. The funny thing now is that I suspect there’s case that Charlie Green and his investors are a great deal more real and cleaner than the great Mr Whyte but a lot of the Bears are now very reluctant to believe anyone…
(I’ll leave others to determine whether that’s funny-peculiar or funny-ha-ha…)
Thanks Paul. A good example of rehearsed PR sound bites that with hindsight (always such a wonderful thing) looks rather silly. The 25 million is a real hoot, But then it was nonsense (and to be honest, I’m sure he knew it was nonsense). On the plus side, I am pleased that RFC actually got to play yesterday, and that they even managed to win. I hope the fans enjoyed it. Like I always say, the fans deserve better.
With “Rangers” in the SFL3 Green’s agenda is to use what he can to deflect from the enormous problems they face… Fans split like never before and green needs short term cash just to survive. Well to survive long enough to get the club on the market and to walk with his wedge.
His policy has been to blame Whyte (rightly so), Doncaster has had it, Reagan including the cheering at the song yesterday, not to mention every club in the SPL who are all doomed because “Rangers” are not around… I am hearing this regularly amongst my “rangers” pals also…. Had a bit of a heated debate with an old pal on Saturday whose main agenda was to discuss lawell’s visit to London , because that has really effected their club…!!!!
It is a worrying theme. This guy is just in the door and has set the “Paranoia” meter to the red, he is playing to the hard core and with his Bigotry comments yesterday it seems he is getting au-fait with their history fast or being advised by those who are not around for football reasons.
I hope “Rangers” get back on track not because the SPL will implode without them but because they have the potential to come back a much cleaner club than before which will only be good for Scottish football. Their footballing fans have not been well represented by those purporting to be holding the reins and that’s the biggest tragedy in all of this.
Contrary to what Green says about financial doom and gloom in the SPL I think you will find the cold hard facts suggest that there is more interest in attending matches and all the bonuses that will bring to clubs (back to basics, sponsorship and tv money are variable but you get punters on seats and keep them there and you win a watch). Men like Green with personal agendas tend to avoid facts and word things in vague broad terms which can be interpretted in many ways… According to him he has delivered all he has promised, where was the clarity within a week, do they not have a temp license, did he deliver a CVA, has he held onto player registrations, did he turn around the transfer embargo… jeez where do i stop..!!
I would echo Chriske’s comments about the fans and the game yesterday. But it’s a lot easier to be detached and objective when it isn’t your club that’s tottering on the edge of the abyss as I full well remember before Fergus arrived at Parkhead.
However, back to Whyte. I have always believed that he was installed to carry the can for the Big Tax case and no doubt would have been well-rewarded for it. All he had to do was be the front-man and go down with the good ship Rangers and all its debts and all in a totally legit way.
But nothing will ever convince me otherwise than that the game plan went wrong when Captain Whyte went ‘native’. I think it all went to the head of that wee boy who used to sit in the Copland Stand and he forgot why he was there. All the adulation and the fawning of journalists vying to be leader of the rat-pack and be granted favoured access and exclusives.
And to be fair to football journalists there is a reason why they do what they do and that is they usually start out at least liking football and some have actually played it a bit. I am not talking about your highly-paid celeb TV presenters but your print media types with some downstream TV & radio guys as well. I am not being sexist by the gener useage I employ but just emphasizing the ‘all boys together’ aspect although, just as it used to be not that long ago for Catholics, there is often a token female presence and some are very good at their job and better than a lot of their male colleagues.
However, back to the cadre of leading football journos – I do not refer to them as sports journos because the new sports are largely passing them and print media by and are becoming a more and more internet and participant fan base.
A few football journos have done a stint as news journos which requires a whole different mind and skill set. So when a football story suddenly becomes one where complex business skills are required to even begin to understand it let alone get to the truth and then write it in a way that the readers can understand then that is a major task. There is also a major factor in that there are many more nuances involved in non-football stories and much more likelihood of getting something wrong and being sued and when commercial interests and big money is involved the writs arrive in a flurry which adds to the pressure on the writer.
But often the likes of the CW story remains with the football writers on the basis that they have to build a relationship with the new boss and the more critical and usually jaundiced eye of an investigative news reporter doesn’t get near the action.
I am not making excuses for anyone here but trying to paint the culture that applies all the way up the media chain. Execs want their invites to the top two clubs and don’t want the equilibrium disturbed and they really would miss the luxury executive hospitality pies 🙂
But what they would miss more is problems with advertisers as there is quite a powerful coterie of sponsors and advertisers around Rangers and Celtic that could be perceived to react against a media outlet attacking either team and by implication the sponsor.
Believe me it’s much easier to feed the fans ‘pap’ in the shape of one of the gazillion made-up transfer stories that everyone involved knows is generated for a variety of reasons, which have nothing to do with the player actually moving to the club named. You don’t get sued for these kind of stories and you don’t ruffle feathers and you can dash it off before lunch and head for a pint and a pie.
There is also a kind of collective amnesia which operates across the media and militates against the time it takes to do an expose which requires digging, financial expertise and close legalling.
This doesn’t happen in a few hours and could take weeks but certainly days at a minimum. This becomes an ‘investment’ decision for a newspaper especially in recent years as staff numbers are cut and the more experienced staff are made redundant with a consequent rise in ‘interns’. I have no problem in a management decision over what and where scarce resources should be tasked for greatest readership satisfaction.
But this is a different phenomenon. It’s when a story starts to worry more senior management who can’t come right out and axe it just in case a rival picks it up and runs with it. No, what happens is that people on the news desk start to say I think I’ve seen this story/line before.
Journalists recognise the signs and it is a waste of time asking where they saw it because like chinese whispers it is impossible to actually track the source of the previous sighting. Keen twitchers could push for evidence of the siting of a usually exotic bird but even they would eventually give up. They would later be rewarded with a story guaranteed to be front page or to get a good show and ruffled feathers would be smoothed.
So don’t blame the ‘hack’ for everything, especially if they are a news reporter, as a lot goes on in the background. And there are also honourable exceptions amongst the footballing key clatterers who have a brain and actually see that on-field action is only a very small part of the overall football ‘action’.
Perhaps what has happened at Ibrox is a timely reminder to the rest to get up to speed with a changing game otherwise there will be no one left reading their ‘pap’ which often reeks of bias to boot.
Mr Ecojon some very good points and insight into the psyche of those feeding pap or kak to the hoardes. I would like to see more risks taken by the so called football journos but i guess it’s easier to skip the real story, the threats in football and to cover the safer material as you mention speculative player moves, which as we all know 95% are generally crud…
@JimBhoy
Very few football journos will take the risk you mention because the paper proprietors won’t allow it. In any case the sports guys pass on the juicy bits to the news guys to wield the hatchet and do the dirty while the sports guy commiserates with his unwitting ‘victim’ and sells him on the idea of a soft-soap piece to put the record ‘straight’. It really is a joke and the paying punter hasn’t a clue about the charade going on.
Is there a difference between Journalists, Correspondents and Reporters.
Most of what I see published is simply “reporting”, with virtually no comment or analysis, no searching questions, no “show me the evidence”, no independent verification or cross checking. That’s the level of the typical Scottish news reporters, writing in our papers, or on our radios and TVs, the latter being merely readers of a their prepared script.
(Strange how some of these same media called for the resignation of a minister when it snowed and there was some traffic hold ups.)
@redetin
To be honest there are a variety of terms used to describe the people who supply ‘copy’ to media organisations and as the terminology can mean slightly different things to different organisations it really isn’t that important.
I have often thought that the only people who are interested in the byline on a story are 1) The writer’s mum and dad 2) Football fans to reinforce their inherent conviction that certain football writers are either pro or anti their club. Just in case there is any confusion I would add that despite 2) and its often bruited ? marks over parentage or the lack of it that football writers also are covered in 1).
However, I am interested in your comment about ‘comment’. My take is different from you in that I believe the over-use of comment by jounalists – usually not qualified to a required level to actually comment – has destroyed the impartiality and importance of informed comment.
I am all with you on the lack of analysis, searching questions, no “show me the evidence”, no independent verification or cross checking. It doesn’t just infect Scottish journalism but is UK-wide.
Why does it happen? A variety of factors such as it’s cheaper, can be done by cheaper and less staff, it’s quicker. Comment used to come from newspaper specialists who worked their way up from a news reporter into a speciality where they usually had a personal interest. Sometimes they were placed in a speciality because of the organisational needs of the paper. They provided the ‘comment’ in part based on the ground-work of the basic news reporter but had a much wider overview and understood the Politics and politics involved. They also usually had a wider and often exclusive range of contacts in the field of their speciality so they could look more deeply into an issue and they often had more time to produce their piece.
So many so-called specialists today are just on the merry-go-round it appears where the title’s main raison d’etre is to secure a wage increase and a rise up the very slippery totem pole.
I think you are a bit hard on TV presenters many of who aren’t journalists and are there just to read the autocue and ‘hold’ the viewers. Strangely enough, in Scotland there is quite a large corps of excellent, real hard-news presenters there especially among the females. Of course it can be hard to spot this side to them when just reading the autocue but I have no doubt their undoubted expertise is used in the news ‘production’ area to spot a lot of ‘problems’ not perhaps appreciated by less-experienced staff.
The biggest killer for jounalism as a profession is the ecomomics of the industry where cost factors mean that more and more pages are filled with free PR copy designed to promote specific interests which the readers is often unaware of. I weep for a style journalism which seems wedded to this course.
Especially, when one looks outwards to the International scene where journalists are imprisoned, tortured, injured, killed and even murdered for various reasons by various regimes and interest groups with the sole aim of preventing the TRUTH being revealed.
ecojon,
what I mean by comment is that in a face to face a journalist should be able to test the veracity of the person interviewed and should be able to transmit to the reader or listener how trustworthy the source is likely to be, not how good the lamb tasted, or that “such-and-such is an honourable man”, as an example of what we have heard. As you say we should be looking for the TRUTH, which will often require more than one source to verify, and there can be many sides to a story. The media here seem content to give individuals a platform for publicity and feeding duff gen to a gullible audience.
Hi Ej & redetin
A few lines from the great Oscar:
Jack: That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple.
Algernon: The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
the media is not 3 dimentional thats why the country has had enoght of it
The ”journalsits” of the Red Top Rags now have a challenge on their hands and those who are fool enough to but these chip-wrappers will be the victims of it namely, how do they keep Sev-cogers in the headlines week in week out as their dreary season in the Third Division crawls on throughout winter and beyond! How do they keep their nuckledragging supporters and buyers of their rags believing that they (sev-cogers) are still just as important and as good as their main rivals Celtic. One way is to keep prodding Green and McCoist for quotes about bigotry and finance and titles not being stripped etc, etc,. As well as how Celtic and the SPL are failing and missing the great Cheating club of yore. This kind of drivel will be plastered on these Red Top Rags for the next four years to keep faith with the lowest common denominator ”reader” and supporter of old rangers. What a prospect indeed. If anything should make people who aspire knowledge and facts about the world and football in particular, see sense and give up pretending that they are reading facts by buying these chip-wrapping rags then this should do it. They (the Record and the Sun especially) are the dodo birds of the communication age.
@Che-bhoy
Well said – I love your phrase abour the gruesome twosome Sun & Record being the: ‘dodo birds of the communication age’.
I really fear for the level that future Green comments will reach and the potential violence that could be created. I would like to think that someone somewhere would have a serious word in his ear but I ain’t holding my breath.
Sadly, long after Green’s gone – and it doesn’t matter in a sense whether his SevGers goes bust or not – Celtic & Rangers fans will be left with an increased level of animosity towards each other.
I had high hopes that the decent silent majority of the Ibrox support would use the time moving through the lower leagues to create a club ethos not solely driven by hatred but one of pride in honestly won footballing achievements.
My hope for that is already receding because of Green who I am certain doesn’t realise the fire he is playing with. The blame lies on the shoulders of those closest to him at Ibrox who appear to have his ear and, although he doesn’t yet realise it, will before long have his soul. They would have his money as well but he doesn’t have any 🙂
And this is a guy who only a few weeks ago was bleating about having to move from safe house to safe house to avoid the wrath of a section of the Ibrox support.
Hi Ej
You wrote:
“I had high hopes that the decent silent majority of the Ibrox support would use the time moving through the lower leagues to create a club ethos not solely driven by hatred but one of pride in honestly won footballing achievements.”
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast:”
(Alexander Pope) I kid you not!
@che bhoy hi che welcome to the debate just to make you feel at home and part of the online family a though a would spin a video with your name in it
fantastic post paul to think its only 14 month ago he took over ,a dug throw some old you tube vids of him he was well avoiding the media but heres him on rangers tv
as ave copyed and paste the rfc version a thought it only fit that we include the celtic version of event as a wouldent want any1 thinking my posts were bias
the internet is just a mass of things on whyte theres that much it would take you days to go throw it but 1 of my fav is this cartoon kindly but together for us to giggle at
there does seem to be similaritys between green and whyte mostly related to the warchest a wonder how long it will be before were laughing at green videos is any one thinking the closen take will be the demoltion lads tearing down ibrokes ????
Hi Paul
You wrote:
“It almost seems astonishing that someone could appear as Mr Whyte did, and carry out a huge, but legal, confidence trick on almost all of Scotland.”
Brings to mind:
This is the story of the King’s new clothes:
Now there was once a king who was absolutely insane about new clothes and one day, two swindlers came to sell him what they said was a magic suit of clothes. Now, they held up this particular garment and they said, “Your Majesty, this is a magic suit.” Well, the truth of the matter is, there was no suit there at all. But the swindlers were very smart, and they said, “Your Majesty, to a wise man this is a beautiful raiment but to a fool it is absolutely invisible.” Naturally, the King not wanting to appear a fool, said:
“Isn’t it grand! Isn’t it fine! Look at the cut, the style, the line!
The suit of clothes is all together
But all together it’s all together
The most remarkable suit of clothes that I have ever seen.
These eyes of mine at once determined
The sleeves are velvet, the cape is ermine
The hose are blue and the doublet is a lovely shade of green.
Somebody send for the Queen.”
Now Saturday came and the streets were just lined with thousands, and thousands, and thousands of people, and they all were cheering as the artillery came by, the infantry marched by, the cavalry galloped by. And everybody was cheering like mad, except one little boy. You see, he hadn’t heard about the magic suit and didn’t know what he was supposed to see. Well, as the King came by the little boy looked and, horrified, said:
“Look at the King! Look at the the King! Look at the King, the King, the King!
The King is in the all together
But all together the all together
He’s all together as naked as the day that he was born.
The King is in the all together
But all together the all together
It’s all together the very least the King has ever worn.”
Now that is funny I had forgotten the tale – just proves that the old stories are still the best 🙂
Mr Ernesider sir, you are not the first to make this comparison mate… Generally spot on though.
I hear Green wants to keep Ally for 25 years (that is years and not day/weeks).. So i think we can guess where Green’s new found passion for the Ibrox club comes from WRT his ill-informed ‘Bigot’ remarks and probably just as comparable to the constant suggestion from Ibrox that they will flourish to the detriment of all other clubs (esp those in the SPL who acted thru malice, zeal and bigotry) in NOT voting them a license transfer. It was nothing to do with their general arrogance and the cherry on top of the pie (Mick) when they went to court to question the rules (after breaking many rules for years).
No comments from the SPL/SFA leads on Ally’s weekend comments (his punishment rant), Greens ‘Bigotry comments’ nor Green and co cheering the anti-Doncaster song.. Not gonna mention the 2 or 3 choice songs I heard having watched the first half of the game, I suppose with such a large support the police could not isolate the perpretrators, maybe they were all hiding behind the hedge..
Just a small note, as I said i watched the first half and spotted on 2 occasions a police officer filming the game.. Anyone else notice that? At first i thought it was for crowd control but they were actually filming the play… WTF!
Just wondered has any paper run the pic of Green clapping his hands to the SevGers chant: “If you hate Stewart Regan clap your hands,”
@ecojon – no pic, but first para of Ewen Murray in the grauniad… http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jul/29/rangers-brechin-return-ramsdens-cup
Hans Christian Andersen ?????
Yes Mick. The one and only. And my favourite reference when people rush to applaud or agree with something or somebody they dont understand, because they are afraid they will look stupid if they don’t.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/football/spl/rangers/2012/07/30/rangers-chief-charles-green-sparks-fresh-storm-as-he-accuses-spl-clubs-of-bigotry-86908-23914560/
Michael maybe he is deef!!! He thought it was the billy boys? 😉
Read it Mick
As a pub friend of mine once said:
“Same shite different day”
@Ernesider
Or different day same shite 🙂
A truly unbroken cicrle of hate and bigotry in Green I see something oft displayed by converts to any religion.
Greens comments yesterday:
“We’re also now paying European debts and there is still a potential cloud hanging over the club from the SPL over EBT issues.”
— Any idea what he means by European debts? I assume he means barred from European competition for not having 3 yrs audited books? His company is a month old, even adding the oldco piece he still cannot suffice the UEFA accounts requirement.
“I had meetings last week with some UEFA officials who say this is unprecedented in Europe.”
— Does he mean here the level of cheating (by RANGERS) is unprecedented in European competition? Can’t disagree with that.
Vague statements can work both ways CG at the end of the day no-one EXCEPT those supporting the ibrox club will need to do anything to harm and inevitably kill the club. You are well on your way to doing a very fine job of that yourself.
@JimBhouy
Is it not the Rapide Vienna debts for Jelavic?
green and sally are trying to get in to trouble to get out of going to away games lol ,everything they say is lies ,the sfa and spl should hammer both of them ,if green had had sucsess at the meetings he would not be clapping his hands at f them ,its the body movements of a desprate man ,the real truth is the sfa granted a temp. llicence and are not wanting to expell them but the laws the law and this might be a week were it all caves in
@ ecojon erinside and jimbhoy ,a think its going to be game over uefa dont tolirate financial doping that could be a massive blow to green not all investments work out lol
div3 and sfl must be regreting not expelling them the truely scotlands shame and as deluded as ever
Ecojon, I read it first as you did but I reckon he would have said ‘footballing debts’ to include all the UK teams they owe also. I had it in the back of my head there may also be a club in the Americas they owe. See pasted below. IF they have to pay football debt which i doubt, they would be looking at close to £3.5m (plus interest), can’t see them paying that… hence my suggestion it’s European football revenue they have been denied.. 🙂
Domestically, Rangers owe: Hearts (£800,000), Dunfermline Athletic (£83,370), Dundee United (£65,981), Celtic (£40,337) and Inverness Caledonian Thistle (£39,805).
English clubs are also owed more than £700,000. This breaks down as: Manchester City (£328,248), Chelsea (£238,345) and Arsenal (£136,560).
European clubs are also owed more than £1.6m, including Rapid Vienna (£1,011,763), St Etienne (£252,212), Palermo (£205,513) and Orebro (£150,000).
However you may be right if you read what the dillusional one slavers here..
Sounds like he is expection wealth off the radar (now he has the ranger rank and file) liking him.. 🙂 What you read next takes him to a new level esp where he talks about being debt free… Anyone owed money by Rangers must read this and boak..!!
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/football/sfl/2012/07/30/rangers-will-be-stronger-than-celtic-financially-at-the-end-of-the-season-claims-ibrox-chief-charles-green-86908-23914568/
a good reflection on yesterdays match (cheats never win)
Something very important missed in Green’s outpouring of sh*te is the Uefa connection. Surely Scottish journos will want to track this down and if Green is telling the truth, which will be a first, then the Uefa official/s must be disciplined.
Relevant quote is: “Asked to expand on what he meant by bigotry, Green turned to pressure placed on SPL clubs by their own fans not to allow the new club into the top flight.
“We’ve got a position whereby Rangers were thrown out of the league and these clubs are still appealing with fans to buy season tickets,” he said.
“What’s happened with Rangers, as an outsider looking in, although I am now an insider, is absolutely incredible where it seems to me the whole of Scotland have wanted to kick this giant club while it was down.
“I think justice has been done. The club were fined 10 points, it received an £190,000 fine, it was then put out the SPL, it was then put down to the Third Division, it has had to pay all the Scottish club debts, which wouldn’t normally happen for a newco to be obliged to pay oldco’s debts.
“We’re also now paying European debts and there is still potential cloud hanging over the club from the SPL over EBT issues.
“I had meetings last week with some Uefa officials who say this is unprecedented in Europe.”
that unprecedented in europe means exspultion but the orcs will think it means div3 was unfair lol thats a great point ecojon also he said he underestimated the whole deal lol
He really is optimistic that he is gonna raise £20m… They will never get near that….They couldn’t raise £2m with an undivided support with SPL revenue and European football. I would like Green to be asked when he is gonna settle his UK/European footballing debt. Simple enough question, what is the payment schedule and are there any dependencies on these payments (ie, who get the jelavic money). When is he gonna pay the SFA fine, the one he and Ally mentions frequently..
@JimBhoy
Surely the 2 x £1 million payments for jelavic belong to oldco and therefore the creditors of it?
if you listen to green hes a mug and a liar heres his views from yesterday
couple of green jokes (am a yorkshire man)
CG takes his cat to the vet.
CG: “Ayup, lad, I need to talk to thee about me cat.”
Vet: “Is it a tom?”
CG: “Nay, I’ve browt it with us.”
CG`s dog dies and as it was a favourite pet he decides to have a gold statue made by a jeweller to remember the dog by..
CG: “Can tha mek us a gold statue of yon dog?”
Jeweller: “Do you want it 18 carat?”
CG: “No I want it chewin’ a bone yer daft bugger!”
I have to laugh at Green – he’s like one of these soft toys that you pull a string and a random phrase is generated and come out.
The jibe at Celtic is a real joke and as I have said previously I would be surprised if a club established in 1887 didn’t have a few name changes along the way – which I don’t believe it has btw but I can’t even be bothered checking as it means nothing. But SevGers is only a few weeks old and it could be argued with good reason that it still doesn’t exist but has already gone through three name changes viz: oldco, sevco something or other, and sevco scotland, and presumably next week Rangers something ot other and god knows how many in the weeks ahead. What a plonker.
Interestingly it’s easy to see where Murray is getting his bigotry from because the SevcoGers fan site has been making this arcane argument for some time now mixed in with their usual diet of bile – mick send some pies over and see if that’ll cure the acid in their stomachs. This is the site where a helluva lot of very recently registered posters think Mr Green is wonderful. God knows what the people staffing the call centre makes of all the rather strange references to colours and historical skirmishes long past. Certainly they will learn nothing of football or a wider world.
Why haven’t the journos asked Green how many company directorships he has had in his short lifetime and how many companies he has chaired and what befell these companies.
back to the topic remember this whyte knight lol
@ecojon – far be it from me to say so, but maybe a couple of errors here…
One, you say “surely Scottish journos will want to track this down”. As they say where I live these days, you’re having a laugh..
Two, not sure what crime you’d discipline the UEFA officals for. The sentence stands or falls on what the “this” refers to. The way he said it, an absolute pedant (I could volunteer) would argue that the “this” refers most logically to the fact that he had meetings with some UEFA officials and, yes, I could buy that there were aspects of that that were unprecendented…
Alternatives for what the “this” referred to could include the scale of punishment (struggling to see that as unprecedented), the scale of the crimes (maybe), the fact there’s still a cloud hanging over them (nope, although I guess you could make a case for the spectacular slowness of the Scottish football authorities being unprecedented) or indeed perhaps even that fact that, according to Green, justice has been done (by no means a universal event, but surely not unprecedented).
What Green has done here is in fact to drop in the word “unprecedented” to make us think that he’s making the point that Rangers’ punishment is over the top, although in fact he never quite says that, and indeed starts by saying “justice has been done”. The point of including the un-named UEFA official in the sentence is to give the implied complaint some apparent official support. But neither the complaint nor the support are ever actually stated.
There’s a chance that Green is smarter than people (me very much included) have been giving him credit for – certainly, his words demand careful analysis.
@ADM
You are totally correct about weighing his words – he is well illustrating the devious operator who appears to make stupid, untrue or contradictory statement but later you spot what part of the tapestry they belong in. I was going to say jigsaw but that tends to be more fixed in nature whereas a tapestry is a work in motion which can be unpicked and rewoven to suit changing circumstances or history.
@ADM
Oh I meant to say that we have, of course, no confirmation that any meeting with Uefa took place – I just don’t believe that they would meet with someone who didn’t even represent a registered football club.
As to the call for action I was hoping that it might cause a passing journo to salivate and actually think there might be a story there as indeed I believe there is. ‘Green Lied’ might more easily be the headline rather than ‘UEFA Official Disciplined’ and it certainly has more of a tabloid ring 🙂
@ecojon
Suspect some might argue that “Green Lied” as a headline is right up there with “Bear defaecated in the woods” (no pun intended), but you’re right, you would have thought that some journalist might go for it.
On the UEFA point, incidentally, not sure I see anything wrong with a UEFA official meeting with the lead representative of a group of investors looking to put a lot of money into a major club in one of the member countries solely on the basis of an exchange of information.
@ADM
I hear what you say but when UEFA were told that the identity of the investors they were meeting couldn’t be revealed on the basis that they might be physically attacked by supporters of the club they were investing in, then I think eyebrows might have been raised and any sane UEFA official would immediately have ruled this is a matter for the SFA which is what the SFL has now done on the bigotry claims.
Good Afternoon.
I met Craig Whyte for dinner in London many many years ago. We were in the company of another two gentlemen, one of whom is sadly no longer with us, and the owner of the establishment we were dining in.
When I heard he was “buying” Rangers let’s just say I was dubious.
When I saw well known newspapers describing him as the owners of amongst other things The Braehead Shopping Centre I was incredulous– as I simply knew that to be totally and utterly untrue.
When he paid the £1 and paid off the bank there was amazement, and when he stated, as in the interview above, that he would fund the club to the tune of £25M up front there was puzzlement.
When he stated he was confodent of a victory or successive deals with HMRC there was astonishment– as given that I deal with HMRC quite a lot I wondered if they were using different rules for my clients than they were using with Mr Whyte!
However, when it all unravelled that he did not own Braehead, had various different companies that just sounded similar to well known and very successful companies, had funded the whole thing with ticketus funds from advance season ticket sales, had not paid tax on an ongoing basis and so on— there was a sigh of relief as I had started to wonder if I was loosing my marbles because I genyinely believed and knew that none of this could in fact be true– unless there was indeed a parallel universe out there somewhere.
What I am left with is the sense of utter bewilderment as to how the press could so easily go down the gullible tunnel and carry on all the ay through.
This extended into the darlkest and murkiest depths of that tunnel where any kind of light was so faint as to be virtually extinguished.
I have often quoted Rodddy Forsyth– and I don’t really mean to pick on him— but as a well known and oft respected journalist and broadcaster ( and later as a Rangers PLC Creditor ) he did go into print with some of the most astonishing inaccuracies, not least of which was the statement in February that Rangers PLC would enter a brief period of Administration after which they would come out much the stronger and resume business “as normal”.
Since that date, the debts of Rangers PLC have not gotten any larger (other than interest) and the financial climate which Rangers PLC found themselves in has not changed one iota.
What did prove to be the case was that there was no deal with HMRC which would save Rangers from Administration or Liquidation- the truth being that HMRC stuck to their well published public policy and ultimately stated that they could not accept any CVA as it hampered their ability to pursue any enquiry into why the company failed and the individuals who brought it to failure– and there were no megamillion pound offers for the club, and no Rangers minded people willing to take the risk of backing the FTT argument presented on behalf of Rangers PLC with cash and offering to pay anything other than the merest fraction of the money due to creditors.
All of this has resulted in anything but business being resumed as normal.
To be fair, James Traynor has said for some time that he feared Liquidation was more likely– then Dave King said it was inevitable– and finally HMRC announced it was a reality.
And all of this from the same facts and figures which Whyte was aware of and privvy too when he marched into Ibrox with his £1.
But then he needn’t have really wondered about these debts– after all he was a Billionaire with assets strewn across the world and contacts with all sorts of financial institutions. No doubt he could have solved all the difficulties of Rangers PLC from the loose change that he had just lying around up at Castle Grant— where he appears to spend absolutely no time whatsoever for some reason!!!!
Now- I wonder why?
@Brogan Rogan Trevino and Hogan
Only one thing I would take issue with:
You say: ‘had funded the whole thing with ticketus funds’ I thought it was with used bus tickets 🙂
Hi BRTH
You wrote:
“Castle Grant— where he appears to spend absolutely no time whatsoever for some reason!!!!
Now- I wonder why?”
The fate of a certain Mr Darnley and a house called Kirk O’Field come to mind.
if ever there was a lovable character its craigy bhoy (agent whytey)
Hi Paul
Have to say how much I enjoyed today’s piece of writing
Having read it three times the ‘schadenfreude’ is just oozing out of me.
VACANCIES AT IBROX FOR CREATIVE ACCOUNTS SPECIALISTS
Ma heid’s birrling!
Latest Green outpourings:
Green said: “If you look at the balance sheets at the end of next season you should see the strength of the two companies. (Celtic and SevGers)
“We are in the Third Division and Celtic are in the SPL and what I’d like you to do is promise me at the end of this season, when all the games are played, examine the balance sheets of the clubs and tell me which one is the strongest?
“Then let’s see who has got the strongest balance sheet.
“We’ve not got the debt that any of these clubs have and on the last day of the season I would really enjoy some clever financial analyst looking at the balance sheets and debt-to-equity ratio of every club in Scotland.”
Green revealed he will jet to London today to start the process of bringing £20-30million investment into the club by floating them on the stock exchange.
He said: “We said we would raise between £20million and £30m but the reason we couldn’t put the season tickets on sale was the same reason we couldn’t go out and raise further money until we knew we had a football club that was going to be allowed to ply its trade.”
I would think that SevGers might need to deal with unfinished small-cap market business before moving on to the AIM. I wonder if Whyte ever paid the fine to small-caps – could be another wedge of cash newco MkIII will need to cough-up.
Well the rape & pillage looks set to begin and I trust that no Rangers fan is deluded into parting with cash on the basis that the fans will own the club. That will never happen unless they are being left with a hollowed-out shell of a company that cannot survive.
The investors will want their cash/loans back plus the bonus for the founder investors. Their would be very little left out of the £30million but then I ain’t an accountant let alone a creative one 🙂
The speed with which he is moving and the risks he is taking with the bigotry card shows the enormous financial pressure he is under. But in spite of it all the disdain he shows for ordinary businesspeople and punters – who pay their taxes even in these difficult times – is absolutely breathtaking. Debt free indeed – how many people have been laid off by businesses plundered and ruined by the oldco.
Have some humility for the innocents that were broken to provide your legal, but hardly moral, debt-free position, ya eedjit!
@ecojon hes a nasty walter mitty lol all the orcs will be saying in 5 year well win the big cup with all the money well save in div3
@Brogan Rogan Trevino and Hogan fantastic long post what a buzz dining with craigy bhoy a bet he left you the bill ,it seems to me that craig new they were at it when selling for a pound he beat them at there own game ,out of all the characters that have come out of this soap opera the main one you would watch agian was craig when he does his porriage for bumping the tax man he could get a slot on the bbc show The Real Hustle
@mick
wonder if Craigy had a pie with his champagne 🙂
@brth – fascinating stuff. Still suspect that the biggest single difference between Celtic and Rangers over this period is that Celtic got Fergus McCann and Dermot Desmond, while Rangers got David Murray and (god help us all) Craig Whyte. Celtic Shop should be selling t-shirts saying “There but for the grace of Fergus…”
@ADM
St Fergus if you don’t mind 🙂
lets have a we look at the story so far for those that are just back from holidaying in the moon and dont know what were talking about
@ every1 a must listen to tommy seals a deal with greens mate on the board
http://inyourfacejournalism.blogspot.co.uk/#!/2012/07/meet-sevco-director-imran-ahmed.html
flotation a market october lol
@ every1 a must listen to
http://inyourfacejournalism.blogspot.co.uk/#!/2012/07/meet-sevco-director-imran-ahmed.html
Michael, nice one, thoroughly enjoyed that. I am surprised Tommy kept him on for 20 minutes, he sounds like one of the boys from chewing the fat.
So by my calculations based on the numbers Khan gave they have spent >£12m yet he earlier claimed it was up to £10m…They owe football teams in the UK/Europe (with interest) closer to £4m, not £3m as he stated. Isn’t he an accountant..!!!! Does he like pies?
tommys great he has his own thread at kds ,listen did he say cg bought club on may 11th ???its great stuff tommys well great
I believe he did… and he owns 60% was it?
Hi Mick,
At 6 minutes he says he’s paid £5.5million ‘as consideration’. Doesn’t sound like they’ve handed over the money.
Consideration must be sufficient but need not be adequate:
There is no requirement that the consideration must be market value, providing something of value is given eg £1 given in exchange for a house would be valid. The courts are not concerned with whether the parties have made a good or bad bargain.
I was sitting talking with my husband about the farce that is the oldco/newco are they/are they not allowed to play in Scottish football – as you do. Unfortunately, it has become a daily conversation recently. I read Paul blog last night about naming rights and the fact that a newco can wear the same colours and badge, and I was still mulling it over this morning when it occurred to me, hold on a second here – there are two clubs in existence: one in administration and a new club. Both call themselves Rangers (+/- \’The\’), both play at Ibrox, both wear the same colour of strips, both wear the same badge, both claim to have existed since 1873, and both hold licenses with the SFA, albeit one temporarily and conditionally. In essence they both are claiming to be the same club. It seems to me that we have seen the emergence of a split personality, with one difference: the behaviour of both clubs and both sets of fans is exactly the same, which make me believe that one is actually an impostor and doing a stand up job of it as it is difficult to tell them apart. Behaviour aside, I asked my husband how this was in any way legal or even possible within the rules of the competition (no sniggering at the back, we all know in practice that the rules are made specifically for both of these clubs, but theoretically, let\’s pretend for a moment that they aren\’t). I simply cannot see how this at all possible. Neither myself nor my husband are legal minds so neither of us had an answer and I\’m hoping someone here could shed some light on the matter.
club and fans with a split personality from my experience.
@hevghirl heres a we song for you and your husband to dance to (hi temple)
@Hevghirl – afraid not. There is a way through this knot. The SFA rules effectively draw a distinction between the club and the company within which the club sits. There are certainly two companies (indeed, at one point I seem to recall one was going to sue the other) but – from the SFA’s point of view – there’s only one club. So the conditional membership “Rangers” got at the weekend is the same membership that was held by Rangers (which would, incidentally, support the assertion I saw someone make that it was in fact an ordinary membership transferred conditionally rather than a conditional membership). So there has never been more than one SFA member club called Rangers (or variant). Recognise this is all a bit “through the looking glass” but does appear to be the way the SFA is thinking.
You very nearly got it right with the ‘split personality’ but you must add the paranoid delusions of world domination and then you can describe oldo and newco down to a T because they both have the same symptoms cos they have the same disease 🙂
@hevghirl its all an illution to make you think sevco are rangers tecnically there is two clubs but 1 is soon to be liquidated that 1 is the old or glasgow rangers (liquidation means the compant house number is ripped up )compant house is were you register your company .green has bought the name rangers and has created a new company house number for sevco this means its a new company but with a similiar name at this point in time there is 2 companys shortly 1 will die and the other will be in div3 (sevco)its a total mess as its a pheonix company and as crooked as last ,as you are well aware its all slimy slithering handshakes that made it all possible ,also a company called bdo the liquidator might pull the plug on it as it is all a con ,we will just have to wait and see ,hope that was of help to yous
Or could we see 2 clubs called Rangers go into administration in the same year? Definite if/when the £20-30m investment comes in as £2-3m and the divided fan loyalties mean 10000 season tickets max and playing to crowds of 20k every other week.5 months sal til the yearend close to £10m plus their football debt (£3-4m)…. The investors are gonna want to see some comeback soon.
@hevghirl what you seen at brichan was a cloned version of the old club ,a good way of understanding it is its a cloned club from a dead club .
@jimbhoy do you think charlie green will use d&ps lol as prefered admin now that would be comedy gold
I doubt he could prove no previous association / collusion..
@mick
well they’ve been there since before the start so why change things now?
I’m sure the best training facilities in Britain, was that what Mr Green described Murray Park and Ibrox both bought for circa £1.5M will be revalued at the Accounts time. So yes he is correct he certainly will have a very healthy looking set of accounts. D&P have let down the creditors it’s time for BDO (understood they were to be appointed on 31st July, damn it I forgot to check what year) to stand up and be counted. For the amount of things that are being swept under the carpet, Scotland must have aquired a new Munro.
@gobsmacked its now being said bdo will be here early september( info via below)
http://inyourfacejournalism.blogspot.co.uk/#!/2012/07/meet-sevco-director-imran-ahmed.html
@Mick, thanks. BDO will only appear if the money is left to pay their bill as Liquidators. An Accountancy Age article a few months back put that at an estimated €6M. Only way for BDO to get their fees will be to reverse the property sale but they are only worth fifty…… forget that ……..I meant to say one Million pounds. So Mr Green overpaid, honest.
Put aside the debate of sanctions for dual contracts, and whether the rules are implemented ‘without fear or favour’. The main objective should be to establish the legality of the use of the name ‘Rangers’. The suggestion is that only a creditor may raise a court action to prevent the continued use of that name. I have still to be convinced that is the only option available to raise a court order to prohibit the name.
In the event that a court prevents the use of their historical name; the end game would be swift.
A liquidated High Street store could be prevented from returning to trade under the same name by a rival store looking to cash in at their rivals expense. It’s not impossible that same principle could apply to a football league. Within a few weeks of the RFC administration; there was a brazen attempt by Kilmarnock FC to build the Rugby Park brand as “the people’s club”, they obviously foresaw the opportunity to attract a certain type to Rugby Park in the event of a nuclear event elsewhere, their stripy scarves are the same after all, it would be a shame to see them gathering stour.
Unfortunately the stoury scarves were back oot yesterday at Brechin.
More seriously, if that we are genuine in condemnation of the shenanigans to keep them afloat; the torpedoes should be armed via a court order to obliterate the RFC name as a brand.
Surely the issue of a ‘prohibited name’ is not so difficult a nut to crack.
To date, there has been no desire to play hardball, there must be a legal mind out there wiling to step up to the plate?
By the way, I am not suggesting that (ahem) Kilmarnock FC would raise any objections to the continued use of the RFC name.
Keep on keepin’ on
@Raymilland
Point of Paul’s previous post “What’s in a name …” was precisely that the prohibited name rules don’t apply in this case. They apply solely where the company is being set up again by the same directors it had pre-liquidation (or within 12 months pre-liquidation).
@ADM
I take on board that presently Sevco are entitled go by the RFC name, as yet BDO’s engine is idling, there is a distinct possibility that they may yet challenge the valuation of the purchased assets. Paul did refer to the possibility that such action could be taken to reduce the sale of assets which would enable a court challenge to prevent the use of the name “Rangers”.
It may be wishful thinking on my part; I would hope that such court action would result in castration of Frankenstein’s monster. The monster in this case is not to be pitied.
In my view that the demise of RFC would ultimately bring joy to the townsfolk of Scotland.
@ecojon
Thanks for the insight into the media culture. It sounds to me that you knew what was really going on with the oldco. I am genuinely surprised by CGs latest comments. After the match yesterday, surely the best response was to smile and wave at the fans and go home and say absolutely nothing. No comment necessary today. After all, the REAL challenge for the coming season is primarily a football one (as long as they can keep the ship afloat) to get out of Div 3. Surely, the least said, the better.
@Chriske
Greene doesn’t give a shit about Rangers history all he cares about is what money his investors can make out of the club as that will determine the commission he makes. The mouth music proves he desperately needs to sell STs. If he had done as you suggest then I would have though he had received a big cash injection.
But his mouthpiece Jardine is on RFC today stating: “Normally in pre-season you want to get around six games under your belt before you start competitive matches.
“We’ve not been able to do that because of the problems with the SFA so you could see the boys were a bit rusty.”
If they had agreed to the conditions at the start instead of trying to outblink the SFA then they could have had their pre-season matches. But they have to blame the SFA instead of accepting their own culpability. Everything that happens to them is someone else’s fault – a child’s mindset.
I’m not a company specialist but I would have thought that as Mr Green is taking rangers into liquidation and resurrecting it again immediately as rangers following liquidation of oldco and continuing to play at Ibrox, employing the same staff, strips, etc. then it could be deemed a pheonix company.
From: https://payontime.co.uk/phoenix-companies-and-insolvent-trading-businesses
The Insolvency Act 1986 gives the liquidator a number of powers to stop those who are abusing the system. These include allowing a liquidator to take recovery action where the failed company has entered into a sale at a lower than market value at a time when the company was unable to pay its debts. In addition, the Act makes it an offence for a director of a company which has gone into insolvent liquidation to be a director of a company with the same or a similar name, or concerned in its management, without leave of the court within 5 years after the winding up. A director who contravenes the Act may be made liable for the debts of the original company after he/she became director.
Does it follow that if Mr Green the director of oldco takes them into liquidation and resurrects newco as a pheonix company he is liable for the debts of the oldco, and that this would include debts owed to creditors, liquidation costs and even if the big tax case goes against oldco the costs associated with the settling of the EBT’s to HMRC? If BDO need visibility of £6M before commencing with the liquidation then Ibrox and Murray Park must offer them that visability…