Fans' Movement Required to End the Myth

With UEFA announcing a ban on Malaga competing in Europe next year due to monies owed to the tax authorities, and closer to home Hearts and their fans making every effort to pay HMRC to avoid a winding-up order, it is especially crass to say the least, that The Rangers are holding 140 year anniversary parties and crowing about being cash-rich and debt-free after dumping up to £140m in debts.

Even worse, they claim to be the same club as the legal entity placed in liquidation earlier this year.

With the acquiescence of the Scottish MSM and the complicit silence of the SFA, The Rangers has been allowed to promulgate the fiction that football "clubs" are separate from the "holding companies."

Like all the best lies, this has an element of plausibility.

Rangers FC plc WAS separate from its old holding company, MIH, and its final holding company The Rangers FC Group, both of which at one time owned the majority shareholding in Rangers Football Club plc.

But neither of those companies have been liquidated, Rangers FC plc itself  has been.

As I covered in my previous blog, there is no separate club and company. When clubs incorporate as Rangers FC did in 1899, they BECOME companies.

Rangers FC was founded in 1872, incorporated in 1899, and went into liquidation in 2012.

Scottish soccer fans would be wasting their time if they lobbied the SFA to show some leadership and declare The Rangers FC is a brand new club formed in 2012, with no connection to Rangers FC other than being the new owners of their real estate.

The only way to stop the Scottish media and football authorities allowing the "same club" myth from taking hold is by forcefully bringing the issue to the attention of UEFA, whom I suspect are not in possession of the full facts of the case.

There are two reasons why UEFA would have no option other than to declare The Rangers unambiguously a new club.

First of all, their own licensing regulations would prevent the myth being allowed to take hold.

UEFA define clubs as "legal entities responsible for a football team." Please note, not "responsible for a football 'club'." A "team." There is a significant difference.

UEFA do not recognise Charles Green 's definition of a club, ie, "the stadium, training ground, colours, badge and history."

Charles Green in effect has made "Ramgers " a brand, or a franchise, not a legal entity responsible for a football team.

Secondly, UEFA's Financial Fair Play regulations are dead in the water if the SFA is allowed to dupe UEFA into recognising The Rangers as the club formed in 1872.

How can UEFA ever make any club meet its financial obligations if these can be avoided simply by liquidating and selling the assets to a friendly businessman? Why would any club ever again WANT to meet its financial obligations if it can simply switch "holding company" and dump any amount of debt?

UEFA must be informed of the full facts of this case and pressed to insist the SFA move to promote Financial Fair Play in Scotland.

I believe only a grass-roots fans movement, similar to "Say no yo the newco" will be sufficient to end the myth that The Rangers is a club formed in 1872.

I am willing to use this blog to get such a movement up and running.

I have no pretensions to front or run such a campaign, others will be far better qualified and equipped than me to do so, but please, if you are a fan if any Scottish club and are willing to do anything to help get things moving, let me know.

I will do anything I can through this blog to start and promote a movement to end the myth that the club and company are separate and that The Rangers was founded in 1872.

Rangers died through apathy. Don't let their successor club win this propaganda war through apathy too.

What's In A Club?

There is a weeping, Rangers-shaped sore festering on the body of Scottish football today.

Like a gangrenous digit that should have been long since amputated, The Rangers Football Club has been allowed to infect the game with the stench of corruption and intimidation.

Refusing to take tickets for a Scottish Cup game at Tannadice because of perceived slights to their predecessor club, demanding apologies from clubs like Falkirk, Stirling Albion and Montrose whose fans refuse to recognise them as a club founded in 1872, The Rangers FC certainly looks and acts like Rangers FC.

It could all have been so different, if only the Scottish Football Association had applied its own rules when The Rangers Football Club applied to have the now-defunct Rangers FC’s membership transferred to it.

The SFA claimed at the time that The Rangers Football Club did not need the requisite three years’ worth of audited accounts, on the spurious excuse that it was seeking a transfer of Rangers’ membership, not a new membership.

It was an inconvenient truth that Rangers had not lodged audited accounts for the previous two years either. So inconvenient, it was ignored entirely.

The Rangers Football Club was allowed to join Division 3 when they should have been told to apply for the West of Scotland League.

Having given membership to a body which did not meet their own requirements for membership, the SFA have now allowed this new club to promulgate the myth that they are actually the dead club they replaced.

A fiction has been allowed to grow that in the case of Rangers FC, the “club,” and, “company,” are separate, and that only the company is in liquidation. The club, apparently, carries on, exactly as it did before.

In assessing the accuracy or otherwise of this claim, it is necessary to establish two thing:

1)      What, in law, is a, “club?”

2)      Given the requirement for holding a UEFA club license for our top-flight team, how do UEFA define a, “club?”

Information on the legal status of clubs in Scotland can be found here:

Clubs must be properly constituted.

They must have written constitutions which set out their purpose, how they will be run, how a committee is elected etc.

It must have a written record of a meeting at which it was decided to form a club, or a Memorandum of Articles of Association.

Clubs must hold at least an Annual General Meeting, and have a mechanism by which meetings can be called by members outside of this.

Finally, clubs must have adequate insurance to cover all of their activities.

If Charles Green’s “Rangers,” was founded in 1872, it should of course be an easy matter for Charles Green to produce records of the club’s agm’s going back to 1872.

He will be able to produce records of the club’s committee members going back to 1872.

He will be able to produce records of the club’s membership lists going back to 1872.

Of course, these will not be records pertaining to Rangers Football Club plc or Rangers Football Club Ltd, because the club and company of course are separate…

We all know Charles Green would be unable to do this, because such records do not exist.

Charles Green’s claim to have purchased Rangers FC (the club) though, rests on his having purchased the business and assets of Rangers Football Club plc.

He bought Ibrox Stadium, Murray Park, the Albion carpark, and the Rangers “brand.”

Clearly, Rangers FC (the club) as defined by Charles Green is NOT a club as defined in Scots law.

 

 

UEFA are very clear what a club is.

Article 12.1 of UEFA’s Club Licensing and Fair PlayRegulations states:

“A licence applicant may only be a football club, i.e. a legal entity fully responsible for a football team participating in national and international competitions…”

Under this definition, Charles Green’s, “club” cannot be a football club.

Charles Green’s, “club,” is not a legal entity. It is some real estate and a brand.

The Rangers Football Club Ltd (Charles Green’s “company”) on the other hand DOES fulfil the requirement for a UEFA license of being a, “legal entity fully responsible for a football team.”

Unfortunately, it is also a legal entity which is only some six months old.

The Rangers Football Club Ltd does not at this moment qualify for a UEFA club license, which is why it cannot at this moment compete in UEFA competition, or the SPL.

It does not qualify because it does not yet have the required three years of audited accounts.

When it does meet this requirement, The Rangers Football Club Ltd, as a legal entity fully responsible for a football team, will be able to apply for a UEFA Club License.

It will not though, be a legal entity founded in 1872, with a 140+ year history behind it.

Contrary to misleading reports emanating from STV journalists on twitter, UEFA have not, “confirmed,” that they regard The Rangers Football Club as a continuation of the club formed in 1872.

UEFA does not issues club licenses to the owners of “brands.” They issue club licenses to legal entities responsible for football teams.

Due to a mixture of avarice and cowardice, the SFA has allowed the fiction of the separate club and company to spread.

They have refused to either confirm or deny that they regard The Rangers Football Club as the same club as was formed in 1872.

For the record, none of our “clubs,” have actually been clubs for many years.

They started out as clubs in the late 19^th/early 20^th centuries, but as the game turned professional our clubs incorporated in order to facilitate the paying of players and protect members from becoming liable for debts incurred.

This means our clubs BECAME companies many years ago and ceased to be “clubs.”

Rangers Football Club was formed in 1872 and incorporated (became a company) in 1899. This year it entered liquidation.

The Rangers Football Club Ltd was formed in May 2012 as Sevco Scotland and purchased the business and assets of Rangers plc. It did not buy a single share in the legal entity that was Rangers Football Club.

With The Rangers Football Club bullying fellow Division 3 clubs who dare to state they are a newco, it is now time the SFA showed some leadership for once and put this argument to bed.

The Rangers Football Club cannot possibly be the club formed on Flesher’s Haugh in 1872 because the “club” and the “company” are one and the same, and the club formed in 1872 is now in liquidation.

Look On Rangers' Works Ye Mighty, and Despair.

I'm not really one for poetry but I'm reminded today of a poem my English class studied in high school.

It's called Ozymandias and remains to this day one of the few poems I can quote from fairly accurately, although I never did learn the whole thing by heart.

It's quite short, so here it is:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
 

 I'm sure there are many different analyses of the poem, but most agree it speaks of the impermanence of worldly power; the inevitability of the decline and fall of empires, no matter how mighty they appear.

What struck a chord with me was the idea advanced by our English teacher that nothing can last forever if it is not based on love.

On holiday in England a few years ago, my wife insisted we visit Lincoln Cathedral, or to give it its full name, The Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln.

She's a Dan Brown fan (God help us) and wanted to see the Chapter House, where scenes were filmed for The Da Vinci Code.

I like to think of myself as an amateur historian, so was happy enough to go along.

I was reminded of Ozymandias that day too, as a few hundred yards from the Cathedral stands Lincoln Castle, built on the orders of William the Conqueror, beginning in 1068.

These twin citadels of temporal and spiritual power have stood together for almost 1,000 years, but the castle is now no more than an empty shell, it's main tower now half of its original height and most of the internal buildings inside the walls 18th-19th century additions.

The Cathedral on the other hand, while not as tall as when it was the tallest building in the world in its heyday, is still used for its original purpose, and while a lot of work is required to ensure it stands for another 1,000 years, there is a sense of urgency and commitment to those efforts.

It reminded me of that high school English class on Ozymandias because the castle was built to cow an Anglo-Danish population hostile to their new Norman rulers, whilst the cathedral was built on love.

What reminded me of Ozymandias yesterday was the liquidation of the former Rangers Football Club.

Lest anyone has already forgotten, Rangers FC was the behemoth of Scottish soccer.

Those four boys who had a dream could never have imagined just how successful the club they founded would become. The club that Struth built dominated the game for almost 40 years until the arrival at Celtic of Jock Stein.

It took Rangers 20 years to recover their previous dominance, but under Souness, Murray and Smith the club briefly again became the pre-eminent club in Scotland until the plans put in place by Fergus McCann came to fruition.

In a very real sense, the achievements of Stein's Celtic sowed the seeds of Rangers' destruction. Even when Murray was in his pomp, the shadow of oblivion was, unnoticed at the time, hanging over the club.

The deluded like to tell us that Rangers lives on under Charles Green.

They claim that the club was not liquidated, only the, "holding company."

Utter nonsense of course.

From November 1988, Rangers' "holding company" was MIH. Before that, its "holding company" was The Lawrence Group, owned by then majority shareholder Lawrence Marlborough.

After Murray sold Rangers for a shiny pound coin in May 2011, the "holding company" was The Rangers FC Group, owned by Craig Whyte.

Charles Green did not buy Rangers from Craig Whyte. He bought Ibrox Stadium, Murray Park and the Albion car park.

Of course he claims to have bought, "the history," too, but that's just ridiculous, and even he knows it.

Yesterday, Rangers Football Club had its life support machine turned off.

It's not dead yet, but under the palliative care of BDO, its shuffling off of its mortal coil will be eased along until the inevitable moment when it will breathe its last.

Rangers Football Club was founded by those four boys in 1872.

In 1899, it ceased to be a club in all but name when it became a company limited by shares.

Bill Struth, Allan Morton, Willie Thornton, Scot Symon, Jim Baxter, Brian Laudrup, Paul Gascoigne - none of these ever played for or were employed by Charles Green's Rangers.

Whenever Rangers fans tell you, as they inevitably will, of their 54 league titles and over 100 "major trophies," just think about Ozymandias' inscription - "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair."

Remember that nothing beside now does remain.

For The Rangers Football Club, round the colossal wreck of Ibrox Stadium, the lone and level sands really do stretch far away.

The club built on bigotry, triumphalism and supremacy is gone.

Like Lincoln Castle and Cathedral, Ibrox Stadium and Celtic Park remain together in Glasgow. You can see them both from the same spot on the Kingston Bridge.

Like Lincoln Cathedral, Celtic is not what it once was. In the not too distant past, Celtic was a colossus bestriding Europe, the finest team on the continent.

It has seen better days, but the club remains, the same company playing out of the same stadium on the same site since 1892.

Ibrox is fast becoming an empty shell. Like Europe in the aftermath of the fall of the Roman Empire in the west, the physical remains but the institution is gone and Visigoths sit in the imperial palace.

Why then has Rangers collapsed into liquidation while Celtic continues to thrive?

Many and varied complex analyses will be promulgated by the historians of the future, but while dodgy tax schemes, corruption and hubris will have their place, I think the answer is much more simple.

Celtic was formed by Irish immigrants to provide for the poor of Glasgow's east end. It was founded by Catholic clergy and laymen for the purest of Catholic motives - charity.

Celtic, like my high school English teacher might have said, is built on love.

Rangers was not.

Neil Lennon's Provocative Tracksuit

I laughed long and loud as I read a blog on Neil Lennon this morning, after clicking on a link on my twitter timeline.

Honestly, on so many levels this is hilarious stuff.

First of all, we've got a The Rangers fan calling himself "celticnewco," posting on a blog called "celticnewco." I mean, isn't it supposed to be Celtic fans that are obsessed with The Rangers?

Anyway, Mr Celticnewco goes to great lengths to insist that "I'm not a bigot, but..." as he rails about the collar on Neil Lennon's tracksuit top which looks like an Irish tri-colour!

 

 

The blog is saturated with vanguardbearloony memes that seek to present a veneer of reasonableness to whatever loopy complaint is being made today.

How about this one:

"I am old enough to remember as far back as 1980 when I attended the Old Firm Cup Final and saw thousands of Irish tricolours being waved by Celtic fans. I remember asking my faither why a Scottish club was waving this flag and he told me that this fascination with the Irish tricolour only started in 1969 when the provisional IRA took up arms against us, the British public."

Here we have the heart rending tale of a young boy absolutely bemused by those nasty Celtic fans waving their Irish flags, and a fine upstanding father no doubt stoically fighting back the tears of sorrow as he solemnly informs his son that all Celtic fans are IRA supporters.

 

The The Rangers supporters you see - they simply want everyone to be as proud to be British as they are, then we could all get along just fine.

Mr Celticnewco then follows that up with:

"That is why the Irish tricolour, although not sectarian in the slightest, is sectarian when waved by a Celtic supporter. They do not see the flag as that of an EU Nation with close ties with the UK. They see it as the flag of an outlawed sectarian organisation. Proof of which is shown below."
 

Just think about that - an inanimate object, when waved by a Celtic supporter, is sectarian.

 

According to Mr Celticnewco, Celtic fans - all of whose minds he can read - see the flag of the Republic of Ireland as the flag of an outlawed sectarian organisation. This, in some unexplained, possibly magical way, makes the flag sectarian.

 

Maybe they "tar it with a sickening sectarian brush," Mr Celticnewco?

 

After giving us a brief "history lesson," (stop laughing at the back!), Mr Celticnewco, no doubt typing while wearing the traditional history teacher's outfit of tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, corduroy trousers and matching brown brogues, then turns to the object of his righteous outrage - Neil Lennon's tracksuit top.

"Basically he's showing off these colours purely to appeal to the terrorist loving filth in the Celtic support and to try and provoke the rest of the country."
 

Er, no. He's just wearing a tracksuit while watching his team play, just like thousands of other soccer managers do every week. I very much doubt that anyone other than Mr Celticnewco and his friends are provoked by it in the slightest.

The next line is brilliant:

"It was pointed out to me, by a decent Celtic fan no less (yes they do exist), that with the lack of Rangers v Celtic matches this season that Lennon, who seems to be addicted to provocation, may be using this tracksuit to fill a void that he used to fill by gesturing and taunting the Rangers support in person."
 

It's incredible how so many of these vanguardbearloony types have a best friend who supports Celtic (sometimes it's a brother-in-law or cousin) and who constantly affirms the reasonableness of their anti-Celtic feelings. You see, even decent Celtic supporters are outraged by the behaviour of the club and its fans!

Mr Celticnewco then gives us his "proof" that Neil Lennon is out to provoke him by printing some photos of Neil Lennon wearing his provocative tracksuit top this season, juxtaposed with images of Neil Lennon, er, not wearing a tracksuit top in previous seasons...

But hang on a minute, I thought The Rangers fans don't watch Celtic matches?

Mr Celticnewco then calls for a letter and email campaign against Nike, Neil Lennon and Celtic to complain about this provocative tracksuit!

Of course, Mr Celticnewco, just like Ally McCoist, abhors violence of any kind and calls on The Rangers fans to handle this issue with, "maturity," finishing with, "Keep the threats and inTIMidation for those from the other side of the city."

I'm not sure what to make of his final sentence.

Is he saying that The Rangers fans, who have threatened QC's, club directors, opposition stadia, managers, journalists and bloggers, should leave that kind of thing to Celtic fans?

Or is he saying that Celtic fans should be threatened and intimidated?

He really needs to sharpen up on his grammar and syntax.

Mr Celticnewco's blog is typical of the wave of The Rangers bloggers infesting the internet these days.

Leggat, Graham, McMurdo et al are characterised by extreme paranoia, an overblown sense of their own, and The Rangers', importance, a complete lack of humour and an incredible ability to churn out half-truths, lies and distortions.

They love to present themselves as fine, upstanding citizens, full of righteous indignation over the way their new club has been treated by everyone in Scotland, all masterminded of course by Peter Lawwell.

While their ravings are highly entertaining, they are unquestionably feeding the perma-rage of the The Rangers fans, which is constantly simmering away at the best of times, but which has over the past year erupted into threats against persons and property on a depressingly regular basis.

Mr Celticnewco is representative of a breed of The Rangers fans who use the threat of violence to shut down debate and criticism around their new and old clubs.

It's not just fans stoking their anger, it's the new club as well.

From The Scottish Sun pulling the serialisation of Downfall, through credible threats to the lives of The Rangers' perceived, "enemies," to attempts to burn down Starks Park following McCoist's disingenuous outburst, The Rangers and their fans are in the process of ensuring that just like the now defunct club formed in 1872, they will never be treated like every other club in Scotland.

Fortunately, this is a dying beast.

The Britain they profess to love is no more (if it ever existed). It has left them behind.

The diverse nation that Britain has become in the 21st century bears not even the merest passing resemblance to the imperial Neverland they inhabit.

The summer of 2012 proves that Mr Celticnewco's, "rest of the country," are not the The Rangers fans without the busfare many people wrongly assumed they were.

Soccer clubs and their fans the length and breadth of Scotland reacted with revulsion to the antics of first Rangers, then The Rangers and their supporters.

They wanted, and want, no part of the cheating, the dishonesty, the misplaced sense of superiority, the entitlement and above all the aggression and violence that characterises these peepil.

Scotland too has left the The Rangers fans behind.

Five years ago, the now defunct Rangers FC was the only soccer club in Britain to "mark," the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union.

How ironic that they should enter liquidation in the same month that plans were put in place to hold a referendum on Scottish independence.

If only they didn't pose such a danger to civil society, The Rangers and the more deranged amongst their fan base would be more to be pitied than scorned.

 

Actors Call For Zombie Boycott

The television and film industry was sensationally thrown into chaos yesterday when the actors’ union Equity, announced a boycott of all productions with any connections to the subject of zombies.

The first major casualties of this industrial action will be Season 3 of AMC’s blockbuster The Walking Dead, and the new Brad Pitt movie World War Z, which are set to be pulled from screens under pressure from the actors’ union.
 

A spokesperson for Equity told The Govan Enquirer last night:
 

“It is to our eternal shame that we have supported productions in the zombie genre in the past. We mistakenly believed them to be harmless, if tasteless, fun in the tradition of vampire and werewolf horror stories and for that we apologize profusely.
 

After meeting with representatives of the Rangers Supporters Trust over the past week, we now accept that the entire zombie genre has a sinister sectarian subtext and such productions are little more than propaganda glorifying the Provisional IRA, the Real IRA, the Official IRA, the Continuity IRA, Peter Lawwell, Opus Dei and the Vatican.
 

We can therefore no longer support zombie productions of any kind and we call on the entertainment industry to isolate and cast out into the showbiz wilderness anyone who writes, acts in, or otherwise is involved in any and all zombie productions.
 

All of our members who have appeared in zombie productions, at any time in their careers, have had their Equity cards revoked. We had thought them to be serious artists, but we were wrong. They are tarred with a sickening sectarian brush and are no longer welcome.”
 

Dark Mingwall of the RST said:
 

“We welcome the news that Equity has withdrawn its support for zombie movies. Everyone now knows that these are productions made by, and for, hate-filled, Rangers-hating, sectarian bigots.
 

The vanguardbears have produced a list of the names and addresses of everyone involved with every zombie movie, tvseries, novel and comic strip ever made, and are prepared to take direct action against any of them, alive or dead, who do not publicly apologise for their vile anti-Protestant, anti-British, anti-Rangers bigotry.
 

We now move on, to concentrate on our campaign to stop the break-up of the British Empire by the hate-filled Jacobites of the SNP.”
 

Equity refused to comment on rumours that threats have been received by actors who have recently appeared in zombie movies and TV shows.

Don't Dare Call The Rangers "Zombies."

I had hoped to write a blog about Celtic's UEFA Champions League match with Benfica today, but work commitments meant I didn't even get to watch it.

I can say I'm encouraged by what was by all accounts a good performance and a point from a match where I personally feared the worst, but that's about it.

No matter, I soon found some material to write about after reading with a sense of incredulity that the SFA has served a notice of complaint against Celtic for a banner displayed at the pre-season friendly against Norwich City on July 24.

Yes, almost two months ago.

The first question that springs to mind is - why now?

Why not in the days and weeks after the match?

It's not as if there wasn't any manufactured outrage over the banner at the time.

Have a look at this piece of nonsense from @cyberted72, who has clearly been drinking the koolaid.

It appears though that the SFA are indulging the The Rangers fans in their squeals of outrage over the banner.

The charges against Celtic amount to allowing fans to enter the ground with an, "offensive," banner, and not removing said banner from said fans once it was displayed.

Before I go on - remind me. Did the SFA ever charge Rangers over this banner:

 

 

 



I may be wrong, but I don't think they did.

In light of that, it really does beggar belief that the SFA consider the zombie banner to be offensive.

It depicts the death of Rangers and the re-animation of its corpse as The Rangers.

The depiction of The Rangers as zombies is perfectly apt. It is exactly what the tribute act is - a re-animated corpse.

In recent years, zombies have gone mainstream.

The Walking Dead has achieved the highest ever viewing figures for a series on a basic cable channel in the US.

Brad Pitt will shortly be appearing in World War Z which is expected to be a smash hit at the box office.

Zombies are now an established part of popular culture.

Anyone seeing the banner would be fully aware of the point being made and that the banner does not actually advocate shooting anyone.

Only the most anally-retentive, looking-to-be-offended cretin could think otherwise.

There is something deeper going on here though.

What we are seeing is the bowing down to the demands of the most spoiled, indulged, humorless fans in world soccer.

For starters, fans of The Rangers are reduced to making loud complaints about every little thing that winds them up because they lack the wit to make an adequate response.

So their tactic (and a very successful one it is too) in these situations is to loudly denounce whatever is thrown in their direction as, "sectarian." The great no-no in Scotland today.

For decades, Rangers fans were called, "Huns," by fans of every other club in Scotland.

You can't call them that now. The very word is banned from most message boards because it is, apparently, a derogatory word for Protestants.

That's what they are doing now - try to mock The Rangers in any way, and you are being anti-Protestant, therefore sectarian.

"Zombie," will soon be declared officially sectarian because the courts, the SFA etc will shortly agree that it is a derogatory reference to Protestants.

The The Rangers fans simply can't take being the butt of a joke.

As a collective, they have never attained the level of maturity demonstrated by pre-adolescent schoolchildren in coping with the normal type of banter you encounter between rival soccer fans the world over.

The SFA has spent so long pandering to the club in blue who play out of Ibrox that even beyond the grave, the Zombie Rangers are the great Untouchables of Scottish soccer.

The Rangers, The Titles, and The Don.

Last Monday, Charles Green issued a lengthy statement on rangers.co.uk,  the website  he purchased from Duff & Phelps along with the rest of the now defunct Rangers FC's assets. You can read it here

I wanted to pass comment on some little gems contained within it relating to the, "it's the same club," fiction.

First of all, there's this:

"Neither the SPL, nor its Commission, has any legal power or authority over the Club because it is not in the SPL.

"For that reason it has no legal basis on which to appoint its Commission. The Club ceased to be subject to the SPL’s rules when it was ejected from its league."
 

Rather missing the point. The SPL is investigating the behaviour of Rangers FC during the period from 2000 - 2011, when it was a member.

The SPL is fully entitled to appoint a commission, whether Rangers has been ejected or not.

Green also indulges in his customary blurring of the distinction between Rangers FC and The Rangers FC. His club was not ejected from the SPL because it was never a member in the first place.

Next up:

"Since the decision was taken by HMRC on June 14 to reject administrators’ proposals for a Company Voluntary Arrangement, the fate of Rangers FC lay firmly and clearly in the ability of the consortium I led to form a new company and corporate entity that would ensure that Rangers had a future as a football club."
 

Actually, Rangers FC is still in administration and awaiting liquidation. Charles Green buying Ibrox, Murray Park and a car park lease doesn't get the club off the hook.

Here comes my favorite line from the entire statement though:

"To make it crystal clear, the new owners purchased all the business and assets of Rangers, including titles and trophies."
 

I wish Charles would explain this: IF (and that's a big "if") Sevco Scotland are the new owners of Rangers FC, the club formed in 1872, why on earth would they have to "buy" Rangers' titles?

Surely by virtue of being, "the new operators of Rangers FC," they would have no need to "buy" the titles?

Major faux pas from Charles there, I'd say.

The funniest part of the statement for me, is saved for last, as Green indulges in some classic rabble-rousing:

"As far as I am concerned, Rangers Football Club has won a world record 54 league titles, and, whatever the decision of the SPL Commission, these titles cannot and will not be taken away from us and our Manager Ally McCoist is in total agreement.”
 

I agree with the first part. Rangers Football Club has won a world record 54 league titles (or rather, 53 and a half titles, as the first was shared with Dumbarton).

Then Charles goes awry. Those titles can be taken away, although not from The Rangers FC, who don't have any titles to take away.

If the record books are to be amended to take titles won between 2000 and 2011 away from Rangers Football Club's record, it will have no effect on the trophy haul of Green's The Rangers FC.

But the real side-splitter here is that "Ally McCoist is in total agreement."

So that's that then. If the SPL want to strip titles from Rangers, they'll have to hang around like supplicants waiting to beg a favor from Don Vito Corleone on the day of his daughter's wedding.

Trouble is, Ally has already warned everyone he'll never accept the titles being stripped. End of story.

But is there hope yet? Maybe no Sevconian can refuse a favor on their team's first ever winning away day?

A Famine Memorial in Glasgow - But is it a Catholic Famine, or a Protestant Famine?

I read an interesting article in Scottish Review today on the proposal for Glasgow City Council to build a memorial in the city to all those who died during the Irish Famine, or An Gorta Mor.

You can read it for yourself here.

Interesting because the writer, Alasdair McKillop, seems to have totally missed the point of erecting such a memorial.

In a statement you can read in full here, Glasgow City Council stressed of the plan that:

"It follows a motion from Councillor Feargal Dalton, a member for the Partick West ward, who secured the agreement of fellow elected members that the famine has had a significant cultural, economic and social impact on the modern day character of Glasgow. Seconded by Bailie James Scanlon, a member for Southside Central, the motion also recognised the efforts made by Glaswegians to provide relief and sanctuary to those affected at the time."
 

Leaving aside a rather curious reference to the Orange Order (is it really a force for good in Scottish society?), McKillop rightly points out the positive contribution made by both Catholic and Protestant Irish since the era of the Famine.

But why is this reason to call into question the appropriateness of a Famine Memorial?

Well McKillop would have us know that Irish people, both Catholic and Protestant, emigrated to Scotland both before and after the Famine, and that all of them deserve a memorial too.

Does this mean then, that there should NOT be a memorial in Glasgow to the victims of the Irish Famine?

McKillop gets to the crux of his argument with this paragraph:

"The other issue that might be raised at this early stage is the relationship between the memorial and Irish Protestant movement to Scotland. During the 19th century, Protestants accounted for between a quarter and a third of all the Irish immigrants who arrived in this country. During the famine, however, Protestant migration would have been relatively less significant because the heavily Protestant eastern parts of Ulster escaped the worst of the crisis. On the other hand, there is evidence of considerable Irish Protestant poverty in the east-end of Glasgow in the years following the famine."
 

So there you have it. The Famine is too Catholic. Not enough Protestants were affected by it (apparently), so a Famine Memorial would exclude in some way the Irish Protestant immigrant experience.

Alasdair McKillop suggests there is a need, "to consider a memorial with a broader, more inclusive approach to the history of Irish immigration."

In saying this, he completely misses the point.

The proposed memorial will not be a monument to Irish immigration to Glasgow. It will be a memorial to the victims of the Famine.

Must they be denied a memorial because the vast majority (apparently) were Catholic?

McKillop closes with this:

"Some of those who have been most vocal in supporting the creation of the proposed memorial have noted that Glasgow lags behind cities such as Boston, Liverpool, New York, Sydney and Toronto when it comes to commemorating the Irish famine. Will they show the same enthusiasm for using the memorial to acknowledge the Irish Protestant experience in Scotland, and, in so doing, bring us yet another step closer to the countries and continents mentioned above?"
 

I just wonder how cities such as Boston, Liverpool, New York, Sydney and Toronto managed to build their Famine Memorials without upsetting their Protestant populations?

Let's not confuse two related, but separate issues.

If a monument was to be built to commemorate Irish immigration to Glasgow, then of course it would be only right to make it plain that these immigrants were from both the Catholic and Protestant tradition. If there is a demand for it, I'd be all for it being built.

The proposed Famine memorial though will commemorate the people who died in the greatest humanitarian disaster of the 19th Century.

Whether the majority of the victims were Catholic or Protestant is supremely unimportant.

Scottish Press Bowing Down to Threats of Violence

Scottish soccer history stretches back almost 150 years beginning with the formation of Queen’s Park FC in 1867.

At the time Queen Victoria was celebrating her 30^th year on the throne, the Reconstruction era following the Civil War was in its second year, and Bismarck would wait another four years to see his plans for the unification of Germany come to fruition.

Considering such a long span of time (in sporting terms at least) any attempt to trace that history would inevitably focus on a number of momentous turning-points which has brought the game in Scotland to the present moment.

If soccer in Scotland should continue for another 150 years though, surely none of them would match for sheer scale and drama the demise of the nation’s most successful club, Rangers FC, earlier this year.

None of the previous turning-points – such as the appointment of Bill Struth as Rangers manager in 1920; the return to Celtic of Jock Stein in 1965; Aberdeen’s appointment of Alex Ferguson in 1978; the arrival of Graeme Souness at Rangers in 1986 which revolutionised (and not for the better) the Scottish game – can come close to matching the change in Scottish soccer wrought by the death of one half of the “Old Firm,” the duopoly which lorded it over Scottish soccer for 120 years or more.

You would think then that the story of Rangers’ downfall would be something the Scottish media would cover as thoroughly and as widely as possible.

You would be wrong to think that.

Journalist Phil Mac Giolla Bhain, who brought the full extent of Rangers’ financial plight to the attention of the mainstream media, has written a book on the subject.

Downfall: How Rangers FC Self Destructed is at the time of writing at number 44 on the Amazon UK bestseller list, despite not yet having been released.

Last weekend, The Scottish Sun newspaper announced that it was to run a serialization of the book, and ran a story on Mac Giolla Bhain, outlining the stories he had broken regarding the Rangers crisis and the threats he received from Rangers fans for his trouble.

The news of the intended serialisation of the book sparked a furious response from Rangers supporters, who threatened to boycott the newspaper if the serialisation went ahead.

It also led to pressure from The Rangers FC, who threatened to ban Scottish Sun journalists from Ibrox Stadium if the serialization was not stopped.

The story was quickly taken down from The Scottish Sun’s website and the planned serialization cancelled.

Remarkably, the greatest story ever told in Scottish soccer will not be told in Scotland’s biggest selling tabloid newspaper.

The Scottish Sun has bowed to the mob and self-censored, amidst allegations that physical threats were made to the journalist who interviewed Mac Giolla Bhain for the original story.

Former Rangers FC owner Sir David Murray, expended huge amounts of time and energy on cultivating the support and favour of the Scottish soccer press pack.

So successful was Murray in this endeavour that a new phrase has entered the Scottish soccer lexicon – “succulent lamb journalism.”

The phrase originates from a now infamous article written by Daily Record Sports Editor James Traynor in 1998, following Celtic’s title triumph which prevented Rangers winning a tenth league title in a row.

It contained the following, rather cringeworthy excerpt:

If the past 10 years have taught Murray, who is one of Britain's wealthiest individuals, anything it is how to win and he believes Rangers will continue to grow and prosper.

"I look upon these last 10 years as having been a great era, but it is over and Rangers are about to head on into a new era," he said over a glass of the finest red.

He was about to take in another mouthful of the most succulent lamb – anyone who knows Murray shouldn't be surprised to learn he is a full-blooded, unashamed red meat eater – when he put down his knife and fork.

It was like a statement of intent and looking directly across the table to make sure I hadn't yet succumbed to the wine, he said:

"Bring on the next 10 years, there's more to come for Rangers.”

Murray controlled the Scottish press pack with promises of access and exclusives in return for favourable press – a task to which Scottish soccer journalists applied themselves with gusto.

It appears that old habits die hard and the Scottish soccer press are now doing the bidding of Rangers’ Division 3 successor club.

Succulent lamb journalism has for long prevented negative stories concerning Rangers being published and allowed them and their huge fan-base to sleep-walk into oblivion.

So what did The Scottish Sun have to say about its decision to pull the book serialization?

Surely they did not decide against the serialization of the book because it would have been unpopular with Rangers supporters?

In an editorial Monday it said:

“We pride ourselves on having the finest journalists in the country who are totally and unequivocally impartial.

But Phil Mac Giolla Bhain is not one of our journalists and his blog undermines the entire industry.

THAT is why we have decided not to carry the serialisation of the book.

NOT because of the social media backlash.

NOT because of the internet bullies.

But because the author — previously unbeknown to us — is tarred with a sickening sectarian brush.”

This is an astonishing statement, and one that appears to have since been taken down from The Scottish Sun’s website – just as the original article on Mac Giolla Bhain has disappeared.

The Scottish Sun has decided not to serialize the book not because of the content of the book, but because of an opinion they have formed of the author of the book, based on a satirical article on his blog.

The “offending” blog can be found here.

To provide some context, it was published on April 20, as Bill Miller launched an ill-fated takeover of Rangers FC.

Miller’s bid involved creating an, “incubator,” company to buy the business and assets of Rangers FC (exactly as Sevco Scotland did a few months later), while Rangers FC continued to be administered by Duff & Phelps, to be reunited with its assets at an unspecified, later date once it’s, “toxicity,” had been dealt with.

This was Miller’s convoluted (and some might say fantastical) way of assuring Rangers fans that their club could live on after he bought the business and assets.

Charles Green has come up with a much simpler solution – he tells them that “the club” and “the company” are separate and only the company is to be liquidated.

Total fiction of course, but the Rangers support has bought it.

Mac Giolla Bhain’s Incubator blog then was a satirical take on the spin surrounding Miller’s proposed takeover.

It named no living person and its target was not a religious, ethnic or racial group. Rather it was a parody on the kind of behaviour displayed by Rangers fans on their various adventures through, Barcelona, Pamplona, Manchester and Romania.

Certain Rangers supporters though have taken offence and decided this blog is evidence of Mac Giolla Bhain being an anti-Protestant bigot.

The Scottish Sun appears be in agreement, although it has been suggested that that was merely a convenient excuse to drop the serialization and keep the Rangers masses onside.

Regular reader’s of his blog will be fully aware that Mac Giolla Bhain is in fact a confirmed atheist and has blogged extensively on the abuse scandals in the Catholic Church in Ireland, condemning the response of the Church hierarchy.

This is hardly the stuff of which anti-Protestant bigots are made.

In reality, it is merely further evidence that Rangers supporters have a chronic inability to either laugh at themselves, or accept criticism.

Of course there are many, many Rangers supporters who are capable of both, but the culture surrounding Rangers militates against it on a collective level.

It is in the nature of the soccer fan to take the greatest of pleasure from the travails of their rivals.

It is in the nature of the soccer fan to poke fun at their rivals.

It is in the nature of the soccer fan to make up derogatory names for their rivals.

A pattern has developed in recent years whereby Rangers fans have attempted to silence any criticism of themselves or their club by painting it as “sectarian” or “bigoted.”

For decades, Rangers and their fans have been known to fans of other Scottish clubs as “Huns;” A derogatory reference to the culture of violence and aggression which is perceived to surround their support.

Rangers supporters very successfully campaigned to have this word redefined as a derogatory reference to Protestants, despite the fact that large numbers of those fans are presumably Protestant themselves (if they hold to any faith at all).

Similarly in recent months, in an allusion to Sevco Scotland’s re-animation of Rangers FC’s corpse, Scottish soccer fans have taken to referring to The Rangers FC as “Zombies.”

Fans of The Rangers FC affected outrage at the beginning of the season over a banner displayed by Celtic fans of a Zombie emerging from a grave being shot. This was claimed to be a sectarian reference to shooting Protestants.

It is this context that The Scottish Sun decided to pull the serialisation of Phil Mac Giolla Bhain’s book not because they did not believe in the authenticity of the book, but because in their words, the author is, “tarred with a sickening sectarian brush.”

In reality, there is one reason and one reason alone why The Scottish Sun decided to pull the serialization – cold, hard cash.

As Roy Greenslade, media commentator and Professor of Journalism at City University London, suggests, with newspaper sales in Scotland dropping alarmingly, The Scottish Sun cannot afford for fans of the now defunct Rangers FC to boycott the paper on a large scale.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it and the continuing ability of “Rangers” and their supporters to silence criticism is a major worry to all those who wish to see a level playing field in Scottish soccer and transparency in its governance.

History tells us that a “Rangers” free from proper scrutiny from an impartial press will bring no good to the game.